Questions before designing and developing a website

Logical order of questions

When you want to know information about the project that you are proposed to develop, the first thing is to determine what it is about. Yes, it seems obvious, but many make the mistake of asking questions that are not relevant and leave out the basic information.

The first question you should ask, and that marks where the interview is headed, is:

· Do you already have a website or is it a project from scratch?

Regardless of the answer, you can ask questions that will help you offer a proposal according to the needs of the project, for example:

· Who is the page for?

· What is the purpose of the page?

· What differentiates your business from the rest?

· How do you want your website to look? set an example

· Does your company have a defined color scheme?

· Do you like the design / functionality of any web page?

· What would you include from that design in yours / what would you not include?

· Who will be involved in the project? (other designers, programmers or technicians of some kind.)

· Do you have a maximum budget?

If you notice, all these questions are general, and they seek to have information about the environment in which the project is going to be developed. In fact, many answers will be the basis of inspiration in the event that you have to present a design proposal (as is usual in these cases).

Something important in any project, and that must be clear from the beginning, is the budget that is managed, since it depends on it, the type of solution you offer.

Remember that, when requesting a budget for your website , in Web development there are many solutions to the same problem, only that some are more expensive than others. At some point we have already talked about how the budget influences the customization of the project and the functionalities that can be included.

This is closely related to another article I wrote a while ago, seeing it from the other point of view, of the questions you should ask before hiring the design of your website(webdesign California USA).

If the client has a website

The most common scenario when a company already has a website is that they want to improve it and, therefore, you must ask specific questions that do not make sense in any other context.

For example, asking a company that has a website if it has a domain is, moreover, silly. What I would ask before continuing is:

· Do you want to work on what is, or are you looking for something totally new?

· Is page migration required? From one domain to another? Server?

Let's look at other typical questions in this case:

· What do you like about your current page that you want to keep?

· What do you dislike about your current page and want it to disappear?

· Can you give me access to the server and the administration panel?

· Are you satisfied with how your page works? (technical)

· Do you need search optimization services?

· Do you need to integrate Google Analytics?

· What are the objectives of improving your website?

· Do you have any specific requirement?

In general, when a company contacts to improve a website they already have what they want in mind.

In some cases, you have even determined what problems your site is currently experiencing.

As I said at the beginning, you should know how to ask, you can obtain a lot of information just by looking at the website that is currently mounted on the domain and the questions: what do you want to stay, what do you want to be included and what do you want to go, They help you determine the plan to follow.

Asking about very technical aspects of a Web page is complex, for example, asking if the server resources are good or if they are satisfied with the storage space, these are questions that are not going to give you information that you can use later, unless your clients know about it.

If you want to know that information to offer technical improvements, the most sensible thing is to ask:

· Do you want us to do a technical evaluation?

From the results you can suggest a change. Remember that the characteristics and technical requirements depend on the type and function of the website.

If the client does not have a website

If it is a project from scratch, then the question format changes a bit. In this case, you should know how to ask, as it is likely that the client is not very aware of the options. Remember:

Keep the questions to a minimum and the information gathered to the maximum.

Here are some basic questions

· Do you have a domain?

· Does your company have a logo?

· Do you have a structure in mind for your site?

· Do you have the content for your site?

· Should the content be imported from another site? From where?

· Do you need training for the use of your website, content creation and publication, etc.?

· Do you have a gallery of images and photos?

· Should your site include any videos?

· Do you want the site to have chat functionality?

· Do you have any other content formats that you want to include on your site? (PDF, etc.)

· Do you need your site to support different languages?

· Do you have a preference for CMS (content management systems, like WordPress)?

· Do you need different levels of access?

· Do you want to include a blog or a forum?

· Will users register on your page?

· Do you need features to share content on social networks?

· Do you need contact forms? How many? To what end?

· Do you need to integrate an application to your website?

· What information should always be visible?

· What information should be emphasized?

· Do you need an internal search engine?

· Will you offer advertising? What spaces need to be created?

· By when do you need your site finished?

As you will see, when you start from scratch there is much more to ask and it is very likely that this is because the client is just discovering the objectives he has with the project. This will not always be the case, a client may need a page for a specific project, but may already have Internet experience with other projects; in that case, planning is much easier.

Do not miss the opportunity to offer your services

Many questions can lead you to offer additional services that will generate more income and leave a good impression on the client who understands you can help them with everything.

For example, if a client does not have a domain or hosting, you can offer advice as a web consultant to achieve it, that, in addition to generating income, leaves a good impression on the client, since he understands that you want to help him as much as you can.