Professional Website Design: What to Expect

A Website with Purpose

When conceiving your website, before you think about colors, pictures, or even format, take a few moments to consider why you are wanting a website in the first place. What is the purpose of your site? The reason defining a purpose is so critical to the success of your site is that it helps immeasurably with the creative process. With a clear purpose in focus, talented designers can apply their skills and talents in crafting that result. They can create with the end in mind. They won't waste time and creative effort in trying to mix and match things that ultimately don't apply or could detract from your goal.

Here are some purposes that may apply to your future site.

• Catalog Information
• Educate on Issues, Events, Places, or Things
• Encourage Discussion
• Entertain
• Facilitate Cooperation Among Different Groups
• Foster Working Collaboration Between Colleagues
• Give Cause to Take Political Action
• Inform about a Subject
• Provide a Platform for Communication
• Sell a Product or Service
• Tout Important Findings or Research
• Store and Display Pictures or Images
• View Videos

How to Prepare for Your Design Interview

One technique designers at HIT Web Design use to facilitate excellent web design is to conduct a design interview early in the process. This interview is a critical step to getting the design off to a good start. The designer's job is to find out from you what your purpose is, and how you envision accomplishing that purpose.

To make the most of your interview, you should prepare. You will be alerted ahead of time by the designer that your interview is coming up, so take advantage of that time. Collect all of the doodles you may have sketched out for your site, and compile all those long lists of what you want.

Next, organize your thoughts. Don't worry about “how” it is all going to work. Instead, focus on your purpose. Clearly define exactly what you want to achieve, and leave the mechanics up to the designer. Of course, you may have seen examples of things you like, or you may be well versed in design yourself, so be sure to share those things and your ideas, but remember your designer is educated on the latest techniques and design tricks of the trade, and it is possible that he or she may have a solution to accomplishing your goal that you may never have considered.

On the other hand, you may know nothing about website design. That's OK, too. What matters is that you convey your purpose clearly. The designer will do the rest. The last thing you want to do is to tell your designer “I don't care—it's up to you, you're the designer.” By shrugging off this opportunity (and your responsibility) you open the door to wasted time, money, and effort on both sides of the table. Obviously, involving you, the client, early on is critical—after all, it's your website, you have to approve it before it goes live, and you should be incredibly happy with the results when it does.

A clear purpose and effectively communicating it to your designer during the interview helps insure your ultimate success.


• Design with the end in mind for best results with your new website.
• A designer / client design interview sets the stage for successful web design.
• HIT Web Design encourages interactive design processes.