How Web Design should be done – Ask Professionals

Small Business Owners often build their own websites only to realize it is a wasted effort. This article reveals how Web Design should be done. It is important to read this article and get acquainted with the complexities that you will ultimately have to deal with once you’ve decided to build or make or buy a new website.

Aleph Website shows us how the process looks, and which tools you will need to get the job done.

H2) The Aleph Website Workflow of Web Design 

Website Creation can be an intimidating taking. Even professionals struggle to see through certain projects as each business has its own intricacies. 

Wix, Squarespace, Shopify and others promote their platforms and promise you that the process will be painless. They, however, don’t tell you that along the way you will stray as you don’t understand Web Design and you cannot simply – on your own – build a great website that is optimized and fully functional on all devices and screens. 

To learn more about Website Creation Best Practices: The Aleph Workflow of Website Creation

Therefore, study carefully the following steps of Web Design as it is crucial to understand:

1. Discovery

The first stage is about identifying the reasons why you need a website. Here you try to understand what your customers need from you and help them get it on your website. You cannot just build a website as you’d like it to be. 

You need to take into account your End Users.

2. Plan

You have outlined the purpose and mini-objective of your website. Now it is time to identify the pages, and development tools/features that your website needs.

For example, a restaurant must define what technology it needs to be present on their website; i.e. is it order online with order form, or you’re delivering over GrubHub and you just need an informational website.

At this stage, you need to write down all the tools, plugins, features, extensions you need to make sure your website does what you need it to do.

3. Design

Only now we talk Web Design. You see, preparations are necessary, however, most small business owners completely neglect that and jump right into design – with their brilliant ideas that they have not cross-checked with anyone else.

Design is divided into 4 steps:

1. Mood Board – outlining branding colors, fonts, icons, illustrations
2. Wireframes – designing low fidelity schemes for each page
3. Mock Ups – adding raw files, crude elements to the wireframes
4. Building each page to completion.

So again, Design done properly means going through all these phases with your team and ensuring that the quality of your design is top-notch.

4. Development

Developers must be onboard through the process of Design. They give the blessings for the design as they have to implement it in code and if it cannot be implemented they should be present to tell you that.

So, if you’re working on your own – with no developer and no designer, this stage simply cannot be done properly. You’re at the mercy of the website builder you’re using. Eventually, you’ll experience bugs and you won’t be able to fix it.

5. SEO

SEO is Search Engine Optimization. By now, everyone knows what it is. 10 years ago, small business owners shirked marketers and called them fraud for even bringing up this topic. Today, everyone is hiring SEO Specialists, as it is not possible for the Entrepreneur to appear anywhere organically otherwise.

6. Quality Assurance

Finally, everything is done. It is time now to check if the website is working properly. Here are the rudimental basics of QA:

1. Check Responsiveness on Desktop, Mobile and Tablet
2. Check Responsiveness on Desktop different Screen Sizes
3. Check Compatibility with Browsers (mainly Chrome, Edge, Mozilla, Firefox and Safari)
4. Check COmpatibility with Operative Systems (Macintosh, Windows, Linux)
5. Check every button 
6. Check every link
7. Check every page
8. Check Page title and Meta Tag for each page

There are many more steps here depending on how far you would like to check your website.

Tools needed for Web Design

1. Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator helps you develop vector elements. These elements are not raster, so they can be stretched and re-designed while maintaining the quality.

2. Adobe Photoshop

If you have raw images, that’s something you need to brush up and make sure its crisp for your website. For that, you’d use Photoshop.

3. Figma

To create the Web Design, use Figma. It is similar to Adobe Sketch and Adobe Illustrator, except it is online and allows you to collaborate with more artists.

4. WordPress

WordPress CMS is super user-friendly and permits you to manipulate content easily and upload whatever you like. Not just that, but it has many free plugins for optimization that you’ll need to make sure your images are not too big!