Web design, whether starting from scratch or redesigning, is all about planning and organization. Think long-term but focus on short-term and never lose sight of your customer.
1. FOCUS ON YOUR AUDIENCE
A successful user experience continues to be the main reason people return to a company or website.
One bad experience and your customer is lost.
Your company's brand value is established by the experience, positive or negative.
2. SET MEASURABLE GOALS
Sites often launch or relaunch with loose or no measurable goals in place.
Aim to have specific, targeted goals in place for each launch or relaunch.
And instead of a full site redesign, focus on specific areas of your site and iterate toward your long-term goals.
Clear benchmarks are necessary to determine design success.
3. KEEP SITE MAINTENANCE IN MIND
Many sites are developed by people who don't work with the site after launch and often have little sense of to how the content will change on a regular basis, or who will change it.
Have the right design/coding resources ready for regular updating.
Design based off a template or content management system
Code according to Web Standards
4. REDESIGN TOWARD WEB STANDARDS
Follow established standards and incorporate style sheets.
Separate content from presentation to achieve greater flexibility and updating ease.
Use semantic markup
5. DON'T HIDE FROM EXTERNAL SEARCH ENGINES
Make sure your site is friendly for individuals as well as for search engines.
6. RESEARCH THE CLIENT
Spend as much time as possible understanding the company, the outgoing site, and the redesign project.
Gather information and ask questions.
Learn about the audience.
Analyze the current site and compare it to the competition, both on- and offline.
Develop an understanding of the strategy behind the site and what the value is for the target audience.
7. CREATE A DESIGN STYLE GUIDE
For the purposes of ongoing production, design, and maintenance, a Style Guide is an excellent reference document.
The Design Style Guide lists established standards for fonts, colors, headers, and many other treatments to help maintain the integrity of the design.