There is a lot more to designing and developing a website than many people think. It’s not as simple as making a load of content look nice. Things have to be considered, research has to be done etc.
An early site map for my portfolio site
Something that I think is very important when planning a website is creating a site map. By site map I don’t mean that long a-z page that many websites have detailing everything on the site. I mean a diagram that outlines what content, sections, groups and labels are required for a site.
I use a tool called Write Maps to build my site maps, but initially I find it useful to start on paper.
By listing all of the pages you think a site might need and then all the content that will be assigned to those pages you can start to see the structure of the site come together.
Every site I build starts with a scrap of paper containing lists, flow charts and diagrams. It seems so simple but if you ignore this stage of the design process then things will be a lot harder than they need to be.