Looking for an ideal web design workflow for your new WordPress website?
A well-defined web design workflow process helps to create an ideal website design. And, an excellent website design enables you to rank high on search engines. Also, it makes you seem credible and approachable.
Web design workflow streamlines the entire process of building a website. It collects all the procedures that address each stage of your website-building process and helps to create an incredible web design.
In this post, you will learn about:
- What is a Web Design Workflow?
- Importance of a Web Design Workflow
- Fundamental Phases of a Web Design Workflow
- Things You Need to Know Before Building a Web Design Workflow
- Steps to Create a Web Design Workflow
Let’s get started!
What is a web design workflow?
Web design workflow includes all the processes that cover every step involved in creating a website. A well-defined workflow helps to track the website-building process from start to finish and everything in between.
According to the survey, Workflow design is the backbone of every task. It can help to improve operating efficiencies by more than 83%.
Your design workflow for your WordPress website should cover each design phase from web development to graphic design to new content. Also, make sure that the entire process is well-documented, easy to follow, and optimized for your website’s success.
Importance of a web design workflow
An optimized web design workflow helps you to reorganize all of the design steps in the most efficient way and it results in increased productivity.
Here are the best reasons to convince that why a web design workflow is important for your website:
- Improved planning
- Ensured consistency
- Increased productivity
- Helps to stay on task
- Keeps clients happy
- Improved quality
- Saves the time
Fundamental phases of a web design workflow
Although each project is different. But, here are the three fundamental phases of every web design workflow.
- Planning phase: You can get a clear path that matches your client’s goals and objectives in this phase. Also, you can determine the objectives of your project and the target audience the site will be aimed at.
- Implementation phase: You can start enacting your client’s vision in this phase. Here, ideas and visions start to come to life. Actually, this phase involves the building of the site and the content creation process
- Launch phase: This is the final stage. Through testing, you can ensure that the new website runs smoothly with no errors. After finalizing, you can push the website live for the world to see.
Things you need to know before building a web design workflow
Before building out your web design workflow, there are some things you should know. It will help you to create a slick and smooth process without any hurdles.
You’ll need to gather the following:
- Client’s timeline and budget
- Website’s target audience
- List of all available resources and team members
- Project management software
- List of design elements
- Content index
- Launch date
- Scope of work
- Web design technology
Steps to create a web design workflow
The following steps will help you to create the web design workflow:
Step 1: Define your objectives and target audiences
Your website objectives will actually drive your web design process. No matter what your objective is, always make sure that you can assess your web page’s success.
Target market objectives should be specific and quantifiable. You need to find out which of those platforms your target audience uses the most.
Think about:
- The main purpose of the website i-e: to sell, entertain or inform
- What people are hoping to find when they visit your website
- Survey your website’s competitors
Then, adjust each section of your website accordingly.
Step 2: Plan the site structure of your website
In this step, focus on:
A sitemap lists the most important pages of your website. It helps search engines to find and crawl important website pages.
Wireframes provide a clear overview. It includes the page structure, layout, information architecture, user flow, functionality, and intended behaviors.
Step 3: Create the content index for your website
Your website content helps to attract the right audience to your website. Also, engage them and work towards getting the user to take action on your website.
The content index should include:
- Page name
- Heading 1 text
- Brief description of the page
- Relevant notes from the client
- Call-to-action (Where applicable)
- Links to similar web pages
- Word count range
- SEO guidelines
- SEO keywords
Do you know, 38% of people will stop engaging with a website if the content or layout is unattractive?
Step 4: Design the website mockup
It’s time to create the visual elements. This might include the overall web page design as well as branding assets, print assets, and social media graphics.
Most importantly, a website mockup is static, it shows how a website looks, but not how it behaves.
Website mockup includes
- Text, images, and other media content
- Buttons, CTAs, forms, and other prominent page elements
- Page layout
- Visual hierarchy
- Color schemes
- Branding elements
- Typography
- Visual accessibility, including color contrast
- Visual consistency across pages
Step 5: Review the website with the client
The website is ready to go!
It is time to reveal it to the client and get their approval. Also, take feedback from all stakeholders involved.
Try this by:
- Sending out a survey
- Creating a video walkthrough of the design
- Allowing stakeholders to make comments in a document
Step 6: Complete website development
After the approval, it’s time to develop the website. Build the website according to the mockups.
Web development typically refers to web markup and coding, website development includes all related development tasks. HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are the “big three” of web development. Almost every website uses them in some capacity.
Step 7: Conduct your quality assurance tests
After the website development, it’s time to get this test with the quality assurance team.
The two basic levels of software quality assurance are :
- Functional
- Non-Functional
For example, the copywriter should review all of the content and SEO implementation. The designer or developer should do a walk-through to check for bugs, errors, broken elements, etc.
Seven principles of software testing that represent the ground rules for the process are:
- Testing shows the presence of mistakes
- Exhaustive testing is impossible
- Early testing
- Defect clustering
- Pesticide paradox
- Testing is context-dependent
- Absence-of-errors fallacy
Based upon these principles, get your website tested, take the report and fix all the bugs.
Step 8: Finalize the site and Launch it
It’s time for the website reviewed by the client to finalize everything.
If there are any modifications, get them done by your IT team. Otherwise, it’s time to launch the website.
Always keep yourself prepared for the website launch day. No matter how many times you review the site, before hitting the “launch button,” there is always a chance something could go wrong once it’s actually live.
Make sure your team is on standby and is actively monitoring the site to catch any glitches or issues before a visitor does. Follow our WordPress Website Post-Launch Checklist to avoid any issues.
Conclusion
Wrapping up, having a great web design workflow is essential for any designer. It helps you to streamline the design process and keep your website development process on track. Even you can get more done in less time.
Web design workflow includes all the processes and functionalities that are required to run an efficient project. It includes tips and tricks for staying on top of your work in an organized way.
Ready to develop the web design workflow? Follow the above steps and create the design workflow for your WordPress website now.
Feel free to comment below if this post helped you to create an effective and useful web design workflow. You can also get in touch with us if you need help with website development.
Source: https://wpsupportdesk.com/blog/website-workflow/
