One of the best things you can do when planning a site is to get the client involved. Forcing them to confront, and iterate, their expectations can save you time (and money) down the road. The best way to do that is to listen to them. The following is designed not to be a hard-and-fast checklist, but a tool to stimulate thought, and, from that, to stimulate conversation.

You can either give it to the client to fill out in advance of a meeting or simply use it as a guide while you talk to them. It is best for small- to medium-sized projects.

Website Planning Checklist:

1. What is the primary goal of your web site? (generate sales, give information, etc.)
2. Who is your target audience or demographic?
3. What do you think your audience will be trying to achieve or receive from your site?
4. Please list the names of five other sites that you like. Why are they attractive to you?
5. What is the deadline for a new site? Why?
6. Who are your competitors?
7. From visiting your competitors’ websites, or those in a similar field, what are some aspects you like and would like included on your site?
8. What type of content would you like to include?
   • Text
   • Images
   • Audio
   • Video
   • Blogs or Forums
9. Is the content already created? If not, who will create the content?
10. For describing your company on the web, what sets you apart from your competition—what makes you special?
11. What content will need to be updated and how often? Who’s going to do the updating?
12. Do you have existing brand elements (logo, business cards, letterhead, etc.) that need to be incorporated or that can be provided as brand representation?
13. Will you be using existing brand colors? Do you have a color scheme you’d like to use?
14. In addition to the Home Page, what will be your other content pages? (About Us, Services, Products, Press Release, Blog, Links, Location, Contact Us, Directions, Site Map, etc.)
15. When someone looks at your Website, what words would you like people to associate with it? (fun, funky, conservative, trustworthy, informative, etc)
16. Is there a theme you’d like to use?
17. Do you have a specific style of design in mind?
18. Would you like a search engine on your website?
19. Would you like to sell products on your website? If so, are you already set up to accept credit card payments?
20. List the words your target audience will use to find you on the web.

If you’d like a printable version of this list, you can download the Word file here:
Website Planning Checklist (41)

About the Author:

Stuart Phillips is the Business Development Director and Project Manager at Bravo Web Solutions, a full-service web development company in Eugene, Oregon. He specializes in putting the internet into human-speak, so clients can grok it. www.bravoweb.com (888) 772-7286

Thanks to @Gautch on Twitter for sharing this!

Using the WPTouch plugin for Wordpress by Brave New Code.com, I was able to quickly and easily set up orkron.com to be formatted to the iPhone and iPod Touch! This plugin is great because it doesn’t require an .htaccess redirect for mobile phones – which doesn’t work properly in all browsers – and I wanted my blog to be easier to read on my iPod Touch (and others’).

If you have a wordpress blog, I highly recommend this plugin!

I, like some of you, recently upgraded to the Adobe CS4 family.  The new interface is very nice; I especially like the tabbing between open windows function.

There are some frustrating differences between CS3 (and older) and the new CS4 version.

I wanted to go over the two differences that caused me the most headaches; I’m hoping this article will help some of you get past a couple obstacles that are not so obvious to figure out otherwise.

Number 1:

One of the things I tend to do most (for some reason) is go into the File -> Document Settings to make adjustments to the file size in CS3 (like at work) this is easy enough: Navigate to the menu and make your changes (picas to inches, inches to pixels or whatever) in the Document Settings dialog box.

Illustrator CS4 has changed the way you make changes here; and it’s not exactly easy to get right away.

To make a change to the document, navigate to File -> Document Setup (like before), but in the dialog box that opens, you will need to click the button that reads “Edit Artboards”.  This will take you back to the document but with a marque-style border around the document.  At this point you can either click-drag the selection area, or use the input fields at the top of the screen for a precise width/height.

Once you have made your changes, click the Selection Tool (the black arrow) and the document will return to normal, with the new sizing.

Number 2:

Where oh where did the Crop function go?

I create a LOT of print-ready work (especially newspaper and magazine ads) that require a Press-Quality PDF as the final artwork.  I always set up my document in the beginning to have a cropped area in the shape and size needed (like a 5″ x 4.917″ ad).

That was simple, create a standard document (8.5 x 11), create a rectangle exactly to the size (because the document can’t go to 3 decimal places but the rectangle can this is the ideal way to set up the document), select the rectangle, click Object -> Crop Image.

This was simple until I upgraded to Illustrator CS4 and wouldn’t you know it: Object -> Crop Image wasn’t there anymore!  Another headache.

Thankfully, it’s not gone, it’s just been moved (why Adobe, why?).

Now to make your crops, you need to choose Effect -> Crop Marks – doh!

One thing to note here: In Illustrator CS3, you could create crop marks without having anything selected.  This new method, however requires an object to be selected to work.  I have yet to discover a way to set the crop marks to the document size like we could do so easily in CS3; If you know how, please tell us in the comments!

I hope this helps anyone trying to learn the differences.  Please comment below.

Last year (around July), I was given the extremely awesome opportunity to create a US Bank University of Oregon Visa Debit Affiliation card.

I made three designs:

1. Of Deady Hall (boring, oldest building on campus bla bla bla, only to satisfy the old [rich] alumns).
2. of Autzen Stadium using a really nice photograph taken by somebody else some other time for some other reason, and
3. a 100% newly created, young, clean, look which included 3d elements and graphical elements.

You can tell my favorite lol.

Anyhoo, after a round of double-blind, very scientific (not really…) testing and opinion-gathering and “which one do you like better?”

It was clear that (my fav) #3 was the clear winner!

Now, 6 months later, it is finally available to anyone who has a US Bank checking account. Read more about the card on US Bank’s site and sign up for it if you like! (I don’t make any money from it, aside from what I was paid to design it – it is just cool to have more people using my design out there!)