Questions to ask in a design brief

So today I had to design a website from scratch, the brief, ummm nothing too wacky, but not too corporate either.... yes that was it! Brilliant so you have a blank canvas but then how the hell do you turn that canvas into something the client is going to like. Well to avoid this situation, and to help you get a design that suits you client I suggest the use of a design brief.

This document tries to get as much information out of the client as possible. Not only does it get you some information as a starting point but it makes the client think about the website they have commissioned and the reasons for needing a new or updated the website.

So here are the questions I ask in a design brief:

Objectives

1. How are you currently positioned within your market?
2. How, if at all, does this differ from how you wish to be positioned?
3. What are the reasons for needing a new look and feel for your online presence?
4. What do you think a users expectations are of your site? e.g Do they expect to be able to purchase online? Information only, reassurance?
5. What are the main objectives of the project? E.g to drive web enquiries, to show products/services, to drive phone calls, online brochure, addition to branding?
6. What are the core messages that you want to communicate about your company? For example professionalism, fun, reliable, qwerky? Do you have a strap line for your business?

The Current Website

1. What do you like about your existing website?
2. What are the known issues that you are currently experiencing with your current web site?
3. What business needs are not currently being met by your existing web site?
4. Define the target audiences for your website, and the priority of those groups.
5. What do you think a users expectations are of your site? Do they expect to be able to purchase online? Information only, reassurance?
6. What primary messages are you trying to communicate to your individual target audiences?

The New Website Design

1. What are the top-level content categories for your website that will make up the main navigation?
2. Let us know what elements you require on your homepage. Products? Newsletter signup? News? Events? Feature boxes? Introduction text? Imagery?
3. Please specify the tone of voice required for your website.
4. Does the project have to work within an existing corporate identity?  Are there guidelines for their use?
5. Do you have existing imagery you wish to use on the website?
   
6. Can you give a brief outline of some keywords you feel would fit the design of your site e.g. clean white crisp, black background, highly colourful, funky, corporate, etc.
   
7. Please can you suggest some colour schemes. It can be as simple as blue, or red or you can supply exact pantone references.
   
8. Do you have a company logo and can you supply it in an EPS or PDF format?
   
9. Do you have any specific fonts you wish to use in the design both graphical and web safe
   

What's already out there

1. List 5 websites that you like together with reasons as ti why (they don't need to be in your industry).
   
2. List 5 websites that you dislike together with reasons as ti why (they don't need to be in your industry).
   
3. Please list websites of some key competitors
   

I find that the 5 sites the client likes is often the key information, that will at least let you know if they want a solid black background or a nice clean white site. Even that's a starter for 10. To be honest there is nothing more demoralising as spending a heap of time creating a beautiful design only to find it's a million miles from what the client want. So get that information out of them, that way you'll cut down on both the time it takes to design and also the number of amends that need to happen on the project.

JQuery - Easy guide to tabs with HTML and CSS

So today I had to put some funk stuff into the HTML site I was building. Enter jquery. Now I'm no coder but this seems like a great way to get funky functionality into a static website without much mither.

1. Go to the jquery site http://jquery.com/ and download the current release. It's just a .js file. Point at this file in your HTML doc. I'd also take the time to read the introduction to jquery.
   
2. Next you need to set up another js file that's basically going to do all the work. So I did site.js saved it and pointed my HTML file at this too.
   
3. Next you surf around until you find the functionality you want in my case tabs. I found this website http://www.sohtanaka.com/web-design/simple-tabs-w-css-jquery/ and follow the instructions. Adapting the CSS to fit in with the website.

There are hoads of great little scripts that can really improve the look and feel of a website. I like the accordion menu which can either be used as a menu or for content like a Q&A page. Seem to me that there are loads of little ways to make the page more interactive but also space saving. So you can have lots of content on the page without the old scrolling page from hell syndrome.

Then I found this menu tutorial which was simple and easy to follow and had great results. I like simple things.
http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/javascript-ajax/exactly-how-to-create-a-custom-jquery-accordion/

So my advise for today is designers, if you haven't already entered the world of jquery have a snuffle.

Getting an RSS Feed onto my website

So todays mission is to get my new blog postings into a RSS feed displaying on my website. So simple I hear you cry ... well that's what I thought but obviously like any DIY project it starts with a banging a nail into a wall and ends up taking out half the house. So I read up on everything I could. Simple enough to get a little RSS graphic and link that to sign up for feeds. But I wanted to display my new blog posts automatically on my website.

Google has a gadget called Slim RSS Reader. http://www.google.com/ig/directory?synd=open&url=http://1o4.jp/google/module/slim-reader.xml brilliant except you can't alter the settings so you have all the feeds appearing on a white background and you have almost no control over the aesthetics. So not really very useful.

Next I found http://panel2.feed.informer.com/ Feed Informer, which appears to be excellent. I can enter as many feed sources as I like, in my case just PepperStreet. Then I can set the number of items I want to appear. Brilliant. Even better I can edit the HTML myself for the feed, I can set font, colours, borders anything I like. I can take out the source as it's all Pepperstreet anyway and all I have to do in return is display a small powered by link at the bottom. I can live with that. Also - she goes on rather evangelically - the code you put into your HTML page is the same whatever changes you make to the layout in Feed Informaer itself. So you can simply play with the settings in Feed Informer and the look and feel automatically changes on the website. Now I'm no coder, I can write HTML and CSS with my eyes shut, but I once tried to master Joomla and was a dribbling mess inside 20 minutes. But this has worked, it's simple, easy and effective what more can you ask from a piece of code.
Check it out on http://www.pepperstreet.co.uk/

Welcome to Pepperstreet

So how to start a blog, well I'm a web designer, with my own business, the focus of which is most definately squeezing as many holidays out of the year as possible. My husband tells me I'm always full of advise. Two types of advise, and he didn't specify which one. However he's right I  do love dishing out advise so my blog is going to be advisory featuring everything from web design to the weather in the Peaks, to my thoughts of how to tackle the political issues of the day.

I gave up full time employment to dedicate a month a year to taking young people overseas on expedition with World Challenge Expeditions. No one seemed all that keen on giving me 16 weeks off a year, the only person who thought it was a good idea was me, so I figured the best boss in the world would be me ... and here I am nearly 2 years later. Making a living and perhaps more importanly living. I love designing, but I also love travelling so the combination works well for me. World Challenge encourage the young people to run their own expeditions so really my role is simply to mop up the mess and stop them actually killing themselves in ingenious ways, of which there are many in the wilds of Africa. I will in the fullness of time share some of the amusements of expedition here which are decidedly more interesting than the exploits of day to day web designing but for now my advise is to travel, even if it's only to Scotland or the next county.