Overview of Web Authoring: The Fundamentals

Step 1: Strategy

Before you start designing your website, you need to understand what your strategy is going to be. Your strategy will inform the many decisions you will need to make as you design your website.

To determine your strategy, consider your objectives and audience.

Objectives

Ask yourself: What is the purpose of your website? What do you want to accomplish?

Consider writing down a purpose statement to anchor your design process. For example, the purpose statement for this website is "The purpose of this website is to provide an overview of the fundamentals to building a simple website."

Audience

Hand-in-hand with purpose is audience. Ask yourself: Who are your users and what do they want to get our of your website?

In order to answer this question, you first need to identify your users. When identifying your users, be as specific as possible. You should consider characteristics such as age, cultural values, profession, familiarity with content, and purpose for visiting your website.

Each of these characteristics will affect decisions you make about content, style, functionality, appeals, word choice, and so on.