A web site planning is very essential when one decides to create and upload a site. Some time is to be devoted for planning a site. One has to decide what actually the web site requires. One has to analyze the target audience for whom it is to be designed as well as decide its purpose.
Purpose of uploading a site: Knowing the actual purpose of launching a site is very important. It is one of the first steps of web site planning. Without a clearly defined purpose, a web site cannot be created. Both short and long-term goals are to be decided before creating the site. The audience for whom a site is created will define the purpose of developing the web site.
Audience of a site: For developing a web site the target audience has to be decided. A number of things are dependent on the target audience. Depending on the target audience the site content is decided. The purpose of creating a web site is also dependent on them.
Web site content: Once the purpose of a web site is decided, the web content can be prepared. The content of the web site is to be prepared according to the requirements of the users. The information should be gathered and well organized on the web pages. While collecting the web content, any redundant information that does not suit the purpose of the site should be eliminated. Categorization of the content is also necessary. Each of the categories should bear descriptive titles for the convenience of readers. Planned contents for sites can fulfill the purpose of the site and the requirements of the users.
Compatibility of the web site: Testing the compatibility of a web site is part of web site planning. A web designer gets wider range of scope with alternative browsers like Opera and Firefox than Internet Explorer. The compatibility of the websites often is restricted and viewers cannot access them. As Internet Explorer is not fully W3C standards Compliant, viewers cannot access many sites. While the range of accessing web sites increases with alternative browsers.
Use of different image file formats is another restriction of web page design. Internet Explorer does not support advanced features and thus GIF format has remained the widely used file format for images. While planning a web site, it is always advisable to test its compatibility on different platforms so that they are available to a more number of end users.
Documentation of the planning: This is another important part of web site planning. For documentation the purpose, content, its audience and the site design are kept in mind. The documentation is only a type of prototype for the web site to be hosted. It helps the designer to review the layout of the site. Individual web pages are reviewed and their structure and position of page content are checked. A storyboard can be used to plan the interface and layout of each web page. Documentation of the site helps to get an idea about how the web site will actually look like.
