I recently took on an website project as a means of putting together some of the side skills I am picking up, you know XHTML, CSS, PNG and other alphabet soup. However before you can build a professional site, it is important to start with planning. Here are the items I picked up on planning and come back for more as I go through the complete workflow.
Here are the steps in the planning phase.
Objective: Why are we building this site? Who is it for?
Competitive Analysis: Not just direct competition of the business, but also from a site design perspective who do we want to benchmark against.
User definition: Who is going to be using the site?
Sitemaps: what will people be doing when they get to the site?
--> Process Flow: What information is going to be provided?
--> User maps: How will it be accessed? How will it be displayed?
Elements common to all pages e.g. Footers, Logo and Call to Action
Wireframes
2 types of wireframes – planning wireframes (use PowerPoint or Visio); Graphic design wireframes (Photoshop PSD files)
Typography – Font, Color, Layout
Technology:
Static content – XHTML or Flash or Silverlight
Images – PNG, JPEG or GIF
Video Animation – Flash Silverlight
(Hosting for Video Animation is another issue you will have to deal with)
Downloadable files? – pdf or word
Database – MS-SQL, MySQL or XML/XLT
Scripting Language – JavaScript, ASP.Net, Java
Overall, remember the best tool is the one you know best.
OVERALL PROJECT WORKLOW (Based on what I know now :) )
Planning –> Resource gathering –> Building –> Testing –> Repeat.