5-Step Web Design Process to Create Winning Websites

1. Define your website’s goals.

When starting the website design process, build a creative brief outlining the website’s
goals. Ask yourself and your team the following questions.

 What objective or objectives should this website accomplish? 

 What problems does it solve?
 Who are the website’s target users?
 What is the intended benefit users would receive from using your website?
 What is the website’s primary aim? Is it informing, selling, prompting users to
sign up for a service, or something else?
 Is there a competitor website that operates in your niche? What are its strengths
and weaknesses?
 Should the website integrate with your database, accounting, or other systems?

2. Plan your website design strategy.

Scope creep is a common web development issue. The project’s scope keeps expanding
during the design and development phase, extending the estimated timelines and
eventually requiring budget extensions.

You’ll need to sort out three primary elements: 

 Programming language and technology stacks

 Sitemap and wireframes
 Content strategy planning

3. Design and develop the new website.

Incorporate your color scheme, fonts, design and company logo so website visitors
instantly recognize you. Startups can allow web designers more freedom to choose the
website design. 

You’ll conduct front-end and back-end development during the development phase.  

 Front-end coding. Front-end coding involves compiling an HTML/CSS code

and deploying it to run across the server. 
 Back-end coding. Back-end coding includes advanced functionality,
integrations, plug-ins and other behind-the-scenes functions. For example,
when building an e-commerce business, you’ll incorporate a payment gateway or
payment processor.

4. Test your website.

End-to-end website testing includes functionality, user experience, interface,
compatibility, performance and website security  testing.

These are some of the primary testing categories:

 Functional testing. Functional testing ensures that all website features are

validated against those mentioned within the functional specifications
document. 
 Usability testing. Usability testing focuses on ease of use while browsing in
terms of accessibility, searchability and usefulness.
 Compatibility testing. Compatibility testing ensures the website functions
uniformly across a range of devices and operating systems, including mobile
devices. 

5. Launch and maintain your new website.

Your website launch involves transferring it from a local server to a live server. Web
design is a tightrope between form and function, and your design and development
team must find the sweet spot between the two before launching the website.

Website design mistakes to avoid

-Poor communication with web developers.

-Making SEO an afterthought.

-Being too generic.

-Not closing the deal.

-Setting and forgetting.

-Not setting up and using analytics.