The Process of Design
Image A
Image B
Image C
Image D
Image E
If you take a look at what we first started with (Image A), you will get a really good idea of what we had in mind. The design was created in MS Paint sometime in April 2006, and it was the probably the best example of our design skills when we first started. So if you are a little self-conscious about your abilities as a designer, don't become alarmed, there is hope for you yet.
As I mentioned earlier, all inspirations for design usually come from something else. But before I could become a "designer", I had to update my toolbox. I decided to finally download Photoshop and searched online for some how-to's on using it. About a week later, I put together a rough sketch of our new homepage (Image B). Looks an awful lot like Google, don't you agree? We would eventually take this design a little further, but we agreed that this design (Image C) would suffice for our first release in late June.
One of the biggest mistakes web developers make is pouring in tons of money and energy into a website that has no potential. Could we have designed a better looking site from the start, sure. But that would have forced us to hire a professional web designer, a very costly service which varies with the experience of the designer. Before we were ready to invest that kind of money, we wanted to make sure that our concept would appeal to the public.
Post-Launch Design
As soon as we launched, we got excellent feedback from our users. As traffic started coming in and as people began using the site (I will discuss the marketing & promotion tactics elsewhere), we felt it was safe to move away from our proof-of-concept. You should always set up some sort of benchmark of where you expect to be with your site at a certain point. Don't estimate a hundred thousand users in the first week, because unless you have an advertising budget to match, it probably won't happen. Spending some time to develop a conservative goal before you launch will make your decision to move forward in the future significantly easier.
We began searching the web for design ideas to inspire our new look. We found the style we were looking for and it was, pardon the cliché term, Web 2.0ish. Rather than hire a designer, we decided to take a stab at it ourselves. I took some time to learn about buttons, gradients and shadows, and put together the first draft of our new page (Image D). As you can see, it wasn't the most attractive design, but it was an excellent stepping stone to our next version (Image E), which we are using in our latest release.
Although the design is important, incorporating useful features into your site will dictate your success. Many of today's Web 2.0 websites look amazing but when you really think about it, what do they do? Before I finish up this tutorial/walk-through, let me briefly touch upon how to choose the right features for your user.