Where do I start?

I had a call today with someone who was trying to redo their internal company web page for their department and the question came up at the end of our discussion “Where do I start?”

Well, actually it is quite easy. You start the same way you start a research paper. What is your objective?

The purpose of your web page or website should be defined before you begin. What are you trying to accomplish? Are you trying to share some information? Are you trying to sell something? Everything after that should tie back to the objective. If it does not, then either you have gone astray on your course or your objective needs to be revised or rewritten.

Too many times I have seen people start out their rebuild with the redesign. Yes you should keep your website fresh and hip with the times but if it doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t matter how good it looks. They bogged down in the details, the colors, the with wireframes, and waste precious project time on that so in the end everything has to be rushed to hit the deadline. After this point, you can work on your organization (menu/navigation) then your content and finally your look and feel design.