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Design

Greg Kitchin
Greg Kitchin
31,522 Points
Posted by Greg Kitchin
Greg Kitchin
31,522 Points

Asked to build a website, what to ask when designing?

Just been asked to design a website for a small business, and I've got my first meeting with the client on Sunday. I'm off work for two weeks so should be able to knock up at least something, and know a little HTML and CSS through following the courses here, and I'm curious over what questions I should be asking when designing the page. Any thoughts?

I've asked him to write me a basic 'about' page, so I've got some content ready, and I'll sketch out some ideas from there, but are there standard questions to ask for this sort of thing?

4 Answers

Nicholas Read
Nicholas Read
2,958 Points
Nicholas Read
Nicholas Read
2,958 Points

Agree with Michael. Make sure you're not taking on something that's beyond your skill set at this moment in time. For your reference, here's a generic list of questions you can pick and choose from when speaking to a client. (Not my list but can't remember the source, sorry)

General Questions

  • What excites you about this project?
  • Tell me briefly about your company
  • What makes your product better than those of competitors?
  • Describe your goal for this project in less than 10 seconds?
  • What products and services are required to achieve these goals?
  • What is the fewest number of steps required to achieve these goals?
  • What are your primary online business objectives with the site redesign?
  • What are your secondary objectives? (Increase sales, reduce customer service calls, etc)
  • How will you measure the success of the solution?

Target Audience

  • Describe your typical customer
  • What emotions do customers feel when using your product?
  • How does your typical customer interact with the website?
  • What is your target market?
  • How will people find out about your company?
  • How do you plan to get repeat visitors?
  • What is the primary “action” the user should take when coming to your site? (purchase, become a member, search for information, etc.)
  • Use a few adjectives to describe how the user should perceive the new site. (Ex: prestigious, friendly, corporate, fun, forward-thinking, innovative, cutting edge, etc.) Is this different than current image perception?

Project Features

  • Do you feel your current site promotes a favourable user experience? Why? Why not?
  • What specific areas of your current site do you feel are successful? Why are they successful?
  • What shortcomings exist with the current site?
  • Have you conducted usability tests on your current site? If so, how long ago?
  • How important is it to maintain your current look and feel, logo, and branding?
  • List any URLs of sites you find compelling. What specifically do you like about these sites?
  • What is your target platform and browser (if you know)?
  • Will you have database functionality (dynamic content generation, search capabilities, personalisation/log-in, etc.)? Do you already have a database in place?
  • Will you have a need for secured transactions (e-commerce)? Do you already offer transactions online?
  • Will you require other specific programming needs (personalisation, search capability)?

Administrative Details

  • What is your budget for this project?
  • Who are the decision makers for this project and what is the turnaround time?
  • What staff will be involved and what are their roles?
  • What is your deadline?
  • Can this project be divided into phases in order to accommodate budget and timing constraints?
  • Who is in charge of the content and how much time will be dedicated to it?
  • Will this site use existing content from the current site?
Michael Collins
Michael Collins
433 Points
Michael Collins
Michael Collins
433 Points

Make sure you understand the scope of the project. Sounds like you are ready to take on a "Brochure" site. That's a read only site with nice images and text that presents a professional looking store front to the public.

Will your client want anything other than that? Are there any functional interactive components they want? If you aren't ready to dive into interactive web applications with JavaScript/jQuery, PHP and MySQL, then you want to start setting expectations about what you can do for them from the very beginning.

Clients often have a difficult time articulating what they want. I'll give clients a homework assignment and ask them to find 3 or 4 sites that they look. I ask them to provide URLs so I can look at the site too and I ask them to tell me what it about the site they like. I also ask them to come up with a couple of examples of sites they don't like and to describe those and provide URLs as well.

Grant Novey
Grant Novey
10,352 Points
Grant Novey
Grant Novey
10,352 Points

For me, I start with understanding the goals of the website, defining the business priorities, defining the target audience(s), etc. Ask questions that chip away at understanding the above.

Also, be upfront with your client and define roles and responsibilities. For example, are you responsible for writing content or will the client do that?

Greg Kitchin
Greg Kitchin
31,522 Points
Greg Kitchin
Greg Kitchin
31,522 Points

Thanks for the advise everyone. The client has just phoned in ill, so that little projects postponed, but that's not going to put me off learning this stuff.