Which questions to ask your website design team?

Posted by Cucumber Helen |

As your dedicated website design team, it is always our goal to make sure our processes are clear and uncomplicated. There’s so much goes into the design and development of your new online property, that it might feel overwhelming. Sometimes, we even hear from our clients that they dread the process, based on their negative experiences in the past.

How can we make sure that this time around the process will be enjoyable, fostering growth through curiosity and teamwork?

At Cucumber, we firmly believe that clear communication is an essential part of any project, especially, a complex one, such as website design and development. While guiding our clients through the process, we always encourage them to ask lots of questions along the way. That being said – you don’t know what you don’t know, primarily if you’ve never worked on a similar project in the past.

We hope this list of questions will help you to ask the right questions at the right time! If you are considering working with us on your next website design project (insert a blushing emoji here), you will see in the estimate provided to you, that there are three stages to the process:

Use this checklist to help your team to stay on the same page.

Stage 1. Content Strategy and UX

At this stage, we will be working on content strategy, sitemap and the actual content of the site. Sometimes, our clients provide the copy, but very often, it makes sense for us to write the content and optimize it for search engines (SEO) at this stage as well.
  • Have we discussed all the pages that need to be included on the site?
  • Will we be able to add more pages in the future?
  • Will we need a developer to change this sitemap in the future?
  • Will we be changing any of our services in the next year or so?
  • Are there any policies or industry disclaimers need to be added to the footer?
  • If a potential client comes to the website, will they find everything you want them to know about your business?

Stage 2. User Interface and Brand Design Integration/UI

At this point, you will be moving on to wireframes and graphic design. Questions to think about at this stage:

  • What do I want my clients to do on each page?
  • What are my business objectives for each page?
  • What do I want my clients to think about the business on each page?
  • Will the layout change, when we start coding the site?
  • Is this the final look of the site?
  • Will I be able to add more content to the site in the future?

Stage 3. Coding/Testing/Launch

This is the final stage – coding! At this point, you have already seen the sitemap – you know how many pages you are going to have on the site, and what type of content will fill the wireframes. You know how the site will look and function. Ideally, at this point, you should not have any questions related to the layout, visual aspects, or the functionality of your website, since they would have been discussed at the earlier stages.

Some things to consider:

  • Make sure you have all of your hosting and domain logins, especially if your agency created new accounts for you.
  • Did your agency use any subscription plugins for the website?
  • Were there any purchased plugins that you need to keep for your records? Make sure you collect logins, if applicable.
  • Review all users added to your backend, and make sure that you are the admin for the site, and your agency, or whoever is managing your website is not the only person who has access to the site.
  • Who is going to maintain the site in the future?
  • Is your website going to be backed up on a regular basis? It is a good idea to have your website developer take care of the ongoing maintenance of your site, to make sure the backend is always up to date.

Do you still have most questions? Give us a shout or stop by our marketing agency in Vancouver – we always have chocolate!