Recently I was asked how I pre plan websites. This is how.
The first thing that is taken into the creation of any site is user access and ease of use. A lot of people are trying to create new and exciting things which I am all for but do not do this at your users experience’s expense. Keep it simple stupid is one of the greatest things when it comes to a design. A designer once stated that the best user experience is one they hardly notice. This is why it is a good idea to always think about them using your site over fun and exciting things you can add.
The second thing that you need to consider is the space requirements for everything that you need. Depending on the website you are going to want to keep the users coming back for more. The best way to do this is to not fill the area up with advertisements, a few are ok but if you have a horizontal ad space on the header don’t put one in your first post. Ads inside of content just make the readers annoyed and whatever you do, do not place and add in the very top right sidebar. This is a high clicking zone and you are going to want users to stay in your site as much as possible. Pre plan your menus, headers, content, footers and anything else you are adding into the site in an appropriate manner. Take margins into consideration because spacing can completely throw off a design.
The third thing you are going to want to accomplish is the overall design and layout of your items. This means that if you use a font for one size of header you should keep it consistent with that header inside of that area of the site. Meaning, if you are creating a blog, every post should have the same style of header. This does not mean that you should keep all of the heading fonts the same throughout the site. Some of the best designs on the net have different fonts in the header, sidebar and post content. Now getting away from fonts and back into the idea of layout and design I should add that the layout should stay to its theme. This means that you should not be changing the size of drop shadows between items and text, backgrounds should stay the same pertaining to their selected area and high traffic areas should contain a large amount of contrast. It will make the users eye go to that direction.
Simple rules you need to follow in order to give your site that design it needs:
Keep it simple stupid.
Be careful with ad placement.
Consistency is key.