What's involved in planning and designing your website

The first step is to arrange an initial consultation, normally a fairly long telephone conversation, to discuss the project and decide whether we want to work together. There is no charge for this.

Once we have agreed to work together I need to gather information from you about your business and your website preferences. The website planning checklist is designed to help you (and your colleagues) identify the purpose and audience for the website, and think through some of the key issues.

The next stage is normally an iterative process to develop and agree the structure for your site, and a storyboard (a sketched or mocked-up layout of a webpage).

The design stages are then as follows:

• You give me some initial content (at least enough for the design of the prototype).
• I design a prototype for you (normally the home page and top level of the hierarchy).
• You give me feedback . The more detailed feedback you can give me on this prototype, the better. You may want to take some time over this stage, to ensure that all those who have an interest in the site are in agreement. It's important that the input you give me will represent everyone’s views.
• We refine and discuss again, to reach an agreed prototype.
• In the meantime, you finalise the content (with my help if you prefer)
• I build in the rest of the content, resulting in a draft website for testing.
• Once tested and agreed by you, the website goes live.

I charge by the hour, although I can generally provide a rough estimate of the number of hours involved once I understand what you require. Billed time will include telephone conversations or meetings (after the initial consult), any detailed e-mails, research and image development work as well as the actual web design.