How to plan a website before you design anything
6 min read
Short answer
Plan a website in four steps before opening a design tool: define one audience and one promise, list every page the visitor needs, write the message for each page, then design. Skipping straight to layout is the main reason redesigns never finish.
Why redesigns stall
Most stalled websites are not stalled on design skill. They are stalled because nobody decided what the site is for. Without a decision, every layout looks equally wrong and you keep starting again.
The four planning steps
Work through these in order, and do not open a design tool until step four.
- One audience, one promise: who is this for, and what do they get?
- Site map: the smallest set of pages that serves that promise.
- Page plan: for each page, the job it does and the action it asks for.
- Message first: write the words before the layout, in plain text.
How to know the plan is good enough
A good plan survives being read aloud to somebody outside your business. If they can repeat back what you do and who it is for, you are ready to design.