What the website needs to do
We start with the people using the site and the people looking after it. A visitor might need to find an answer, make a booking or check an order. The team behind the site needs to keep that information current and know what to do when something goes wrong.
- Finding information and taking action
- We organise pages around what visitors come to find or do. For an enquiry form, that means asking only for what the team needs to respond, explaining how to fix an error and confirming when the message has been sent.
- Keeping content current
- We look at what changes regularly and who makes those changes. A team that publishes articles every week needs a way to draft, preview and publish them while keeping the layout consistent across the site.
- Connecting the website to the work behind it
- A booking or order starts a process someone has to follow through. We work out where the record belongs, who can see or change it and what the visitor and the team should see if a payment or confirmation fails.
- Changing a site people already use
- We review the current site before planning changes. An old address may still bring people to an article, and an existing account may hold years of order history. We decide what needs carrying forward and test those paths before release.
Before a new build or a change
These are some of the questions we ask before deciding what to build and how to release it.
What do people come to do?
Look at the tasks that matter most. On an existing site, where do people get stuck? On a new site, what should someone be able to do on their first visit?
Who will look after it?
Decide who will update the content and who will act on enquiries, bookings or orders. Their work shapes the editing screens and the information the site needs to pass on.
What needs to carry over?
List the pages people already link to, the records that need to move and the services that must keep working. Use that list to decide what to test before launch.
Journal entries
Notes from building and maintaining websites, including the decisions behind the work and what we learnt along the way.
No journal entries have been published on this topic yet.