The house my parents currently live in was designed and built many years ago when I was a kid.  I remember sitting down with the architect as a family and we made a list of all the cool things we wanted the house to have. We made a list of everything; from the necessary things like how many rooms to the seemingly insignificant (like the hole in the wall my sister wanted instead of a bedside table). It was a long and tedious process, but it was also exciting and my fascination kept me intrigued.

The architect then drew up a blueprint based on our conversations and as we went over it, we gradually adjusted the list of features we wanted the house to have. Some of the things we started with were abandoned and others we hadn’t thought off were added. In the end, we had a blueprint mapping out the layout of the eventual house.

Based on the blueprint, the architect built model/prototype of the house  (my sister eventually converted it to a doll house). My siblings and I spent hours looking at it and imagining what life would be like after the house was finished. Again, we spent time going over the features of the house and rearranging things until we were sure it was perfect.

Many years later (or so it seemed to me at the time), our house was finally ready.

I often feel like that architect whenever I start out on a new web design/development project because it turns out the only difference between our jobs is that I build websites and he builds houses (granted it’s a pretty big difference, but the methods are strikingly alike).

Just like with the house, the beginning of a project is spent learning about it, the clients and their goals, etc… We discuss your project and list any features you’d like, colors, etc… until we eventually settle down on a final list of features and how we would like them to work. This is often the most tedious part but doing a good job at this stage exponentially increases the chances of a smooth project experience.

This is also a good time to develop the content for your website and compile any additional files that will also be used throughout the website (images, PDFs, documents, etc…).

With the list of features in mind, a layout of the finished website is designed. Much like the blueprint of a house, the layout simply gives us a visual overview of the website’s structure and concentrates on placing each feature in the right place. In fact, the website layout is often called a blueprint in some circles (wire frame is another term also commonly used).

That layout then serves as the platform the mockup (the model) is built on. Basically, a mockup is a picture of what your website will look like after it’s been completed and its features have been implemented. It maintains the structure from the blueprint but now the color scheme is added, buttons designed, etc…

It’s never quite right the first time around so several revisions are designed, colors experimented with, features are moved around, etc… until the “Eureka!” moment arrives (this is hands down the best part of a project).

This is where you (the client) goes to Mexico, the production team work their magic with code and another remarkable website goes online.

-FT

Special thanks to Eric of Floorsnet for allowing me to use his project as an example