The Sites by Joe Design Process

Posted on Wednesday, June 27th

What makes a site by Joe so special? It’s the thought and preperation that goes into each individual site’s design.

What usually happens

Usually, when you begin discussions about your impending site, with a web designer, they’ll ask you what pages you want on the site and what colors you like. That’s awfully nice of them to. It shows that they care enough to please you, but just enough so that you will pay them and hopefully not complain too much during the processes. That’s the normal business procedure.

What should happen

While it is nice to make the site attractive to the client, it’s more important to create something that all of your visitors find appealing and easy to interact with the information on the site. That’s the real point isn’t it?

How can we plot a course to a successful website? By catering to our visitors, and of course, the search engines.

For our visitors, the information should be logically arranged so that it’s easy to get to what they want fast. There shouldn’t be any surprises and illusions. For search engines, our pages should be marked-up cleanly and without errors for easy “spidering”. Content that is inaccessible to either party should have fall-back plain text equivalent so nothing is missed.

How a better, more thoughtful design can be made

If the focus is on the information, from the beginning, it’s not too hard to come up with something that works well. Understanding which information on your website is most important is part of the initial interview process.

The Interview

Sometimes this is an email conversation, sometimes on the phone, and when possible in person. Good conversation and good laughs are usually had with the focus on understanding the prospective client’s wants and needs with the project. After the initial interview is over, a full written proposal is presented, covering each section of the website and cost involved.

The Design Process

The design process has three steps involved: research, wireframing and styling.

Research

Identifying what the site needs to be to be competitive in its own market, understanding the potential visitor and the type of experience they are expecting and discovering any type of niche the site could possibly fill to increase the chances of it being successful.

Wireframing

Once the information needs of the site are understood, its time to organize that information in a nested format and lay it out on a 2D surface in a natural way that is quickly understood. The layout needs to be unique to the information it displays while not straying too far from the anticipated web experience of the visitor.

Styling

Once the information layout is complete its time to look into the spirit of the branding of the client and making a visually unique style for the site. Typography is applied to match the tone of the information and the visual style needed. Graphics are created to complete the intended look of the pages.

The end result of this process is one well-made graphic file and not a web page. In order to make this graphic file into a real page that works, the markup process begins.

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Keep it Clean, Simple & Elegant

The web is confusing enough already.
Designing thoughtful websites that deliver information quickly and easily while providing a pleasant web experience to all visitors. That's the Sites by Joe way.

View the Website Portfolio

The proof IS in the pudding. Beautiful, hand-crafted websites that are lovingly created from scratch. See for yourself some of the custom websites that I've designed and developed for my clients in Southern New Jersey and many points around the globe. View the website portfolio.

Want to work with Sites by Joe?

I'm passionate about the web. I love creating websites and it shows in the results. I'd enjoy hearing about your project and discussing ways we can bring your ideas to fruition.

This dedication to service and results brings many new referrals and inquiries. At the same time I try to only focus on a couple projects at a time. That said, it would be wise to get in touch ahead of time to start the dialog for your new website. Work with me