Before buying anything as you do research to know at least the most important facts; before you pay. Similarly if you have just started thinking to have a web site and you don’t have any clues about where to start from, read Esther Schindler’s article Becoming Clueful: What You Should Know Before You Redo Your Web Site. It goes in details about

1. Understand what you want
2. It costs more and takes longer than you think
3. A Web site has several pieces. Don’t cut corners.
4. Balance glitz and guts
5. If you build it, they won’t necessarily come
6. Avoid bit decay: the site needs maintenance
7. Treat the Web team as professionals

Then you must read Daniel Will-Harris’s Taking the plunge: What to consider before building, or rebuilding a site to understand

1. Why do you need to build or rebuild a web site?
2. What kind of site do you need: Content, Commerce or Interaction?
3. Who will visit your site, and what will they get out of it?

and at the end before you decide who is going to create your web site, answer Dr. Greg Chapman’s Seven Marketing Questions You Should Ask Before You Get a Teenager to Build Your Web site.

Ready to outsource your website design work? Here is what Seth Godin suggest that you should know before you talk to your designers. “How to live happily with a great designer” couple of my favorite are -

1. If you want average (mediocre) work, ask for it. Be really clear up front that you want something beyond reproach, that’s in the middle of the road, that will cause no controversy and will echo your competition. It’ll save everyone a lot of time.
2. You can’t tell me you’ll know it when you see it. First, you won’t. Second, it wastes too much time…
3. Get very stressed about user interface and product design. And your packaging.
4. Be clear about dates and costs. Not what you hope for, but what you can live with!

You might come across professionals, project managers, and web consultants who are totally clueless about these points, simply they did not understand web. But still when you are working with their organisation; one of them will be responsible for creating your web site.

Therefore before giving away your web site for development to any of the organization make sure they understand web.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 2nd, 2006 at 11:36 am and is filed under Web design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.