Last week (or so) I wrote the first installment of an article series on the process of completing a website project. That article covered the “Exploring” process, which allowed all the possibilities of the project to be identified.

This article details the second of the following five process segments:

1. Explore
2. Define
3. Design
4. Build
5. Deploy

Define

After the initial brainstorming, or dreaming, process of exploration, it is critical to pare down the project specifications to the most important items and define them. Every project must have a clearly defined scope.

One of my biggest peeves when entering a team project after it has begun is finding that the goals of the project have not yet been defined. This will only prolong the project and cause headaches and stress for everyone involved. Be sure to whittle the notes from your brainstorming session down into milestone-based goals first, then work on defining the details. They will act as your compass for the remainder of the project.

Determine which of the great ideas you came up with are logically Critical, Desired, or Future needs. Also, don’t be afraid to classify some of them as Never! Usually, a good rule of thumb is “less is more”.

After defining the most critical items in the project, start defining the features of each item. You shouldn’t necessarily begin thinking in terms of navigation and architecture yet… This phase is simply to determine “what” the site should do, not “how to do it”.

After completing the define process, compile your notes into a thorough outline of exactly what the site will offer, and what it will do. This will serve as the guiding document for the site… the “manifesto”, of sorts.

By reading this document, any team member should be able to quickly become familiar with the project, and have a reference to check against, to make sure it remains on target.

So, that’s the end of the Define process, but even though it looks small, it is actually a lengthy and critical process.

In the next little article for this series, I’ll talk about the design portion of the Website Process.

Over the next week or so, I will define my personal process for the creation and execution of a website project. This will be a high-level overview so, while some areas may be very detailed, the goal is to give a general workflow overview that can easily be followed and implemented.

This article will detail the first of the following five process segments:

1. Explore
2. Define
3. Design
4. Build
5. Deploy

Explore

The beginning of every project always starts with a dream. Many times, a client comes with only a seed, and a ton of hope. They don’t know exactly what they need, or how it should be brought to life… all they know is that their idea has great potential, and they want to see it brought to life.

Other times, the client has a good idea of where they want to go, but they just don’t know where to start. This is where the exploration process comes in. Call it brainstorming, conceptualizing or dreaming, but for the sake of this process, I’ll call it exploring.

Be sure to define some initial goals for the project, and then explore the possibilities. Explore the potential failures and successes. Let the imagination run wild and see where it leads. What features can and should be added? What should be left out? How big can it be? How big should it be? Who will use it? How should they feel while they are using it? Will it generate revenue? How will it create value? The questions to ask are limitless, so don’t be limited in your ideas… this is just the beginning phase. You can build it up as big as you’d like, and then scale it back to what is reasonable. It was said of Michelangelo that his sculpture creations resulted from merely releasing the end-product from the confines of it’s block of marble… Just chiseling away the pieces that did not belong. So go ahead and dream… you can chisel it back in the next step of the process.

I have found it most effective to work on a large whiteboard. Just begin writing ideas, drawing sketches, drawing schematic flows, whatever is necessary. The goal is to leave as little white on the board as possible… just let creativity cover the board like ink spilled from a bottle. Let everyone involved have turn at the board, and don’t be afraid to modify, add to or delete from anything. Sort of like a wiki , let the board be alive… keep working at it until there is satisfaction that the dream is turning in to a solution.

Along the way, transfer the ideas to a legal pad for later reference. When you’re finished dreaming, make sure you have good, detailed notes of the process. They’ll come in handy for the next step in the process, which I’ll talk about in the next post.

In a recent post by D. Keith Robinson , he talks about an article at digital-web.com called, End of Usability Culture . The article itself is a very good read, but Keith threw out another small thought-provoker, saying that there must be a “sweet-spot” between usability and branding, and that we need to find it.

In my mind that sweet spot is, for lack of a better term, “likability”.

As I posted over at Keith’s site…

”…If a company’s product, whether it’s a website or a kitchen utensil, does not give the user a good experience, it affects the perception given to that brand. That’s why our designs should convey a mood or emotion to our visitors.”

It has long been known that good design sets the initial tone for the user experience at a website… and even physical products as well. Not only does it set the tone, but it embeds a user’s impression of the company as well. This is what branding is all about. But even a good graphical design and layout are feeble if the usability destroys the user’s experience.

Branding and usability truly must work hand-in-hand. I would dare even say that usability falls nicely under the banner of branding.

This is not a new concep, although it may just finally be coming into common knowledge on the web. But I recall learning about this very simple marketing concept years ago in school.

At any rate, I’m looking forward to seeing how this idea impacts the world of web design and development.

It was 15 years ago today that President Ronald Reagan’s call to Gorbachev was met with the resounding approval of hammers hitting brick.

Margaret Thatcher contemplated years later that it was Ronald Reagan who ended the cold war with his stand against communism.

I recently read the book, “God and Ronald Reagan”, which chronicled the evident influence of Reagan’s faith in God. In the book, the author Paul Kengor writes about Reagan’s childhood hatred of the communistic regime, and his lifelong goal of ending it. With a direction that he attributes to God’s will, Reagan set forth policies in America that would eventually culminate in the disintegration of not only the brick walls that separated nations, but the social and moral walls that separated people.

Congratulations to the late President Reagan, thanks to Mr. Gorbachev, and Happy 15th birthday to the crumbled walls of Berlin.

For those that may be so inclined, my church (The Pentecostals of kentwood) has begun a building fund, and could definitely use your assistance.

As some of you know, my wife and I started a church from scratch here in the city of Kentwood, Michigan over a year ago. Since that time, we have seen growth in our congregation, and are nearly too big for the building we are in.

We are trying to set our sights forward and have begun raising money to purchase a building or property to build on. This is quite an endeavor, but we are confident that God will help us… and it may be that He’ll use you to further our progress.

So, if you would be interested in donating any amount of money to a great and worthy cause, we have a paypal donation account set up where you can give using a credit card.

Just visit our site and click the “Make a Donation” button in the sidebar.

Thank you!

I am nearly finished building the website for our church, and am pretty satisfied with the results. If you haven’t seen it yet, check out my design at MyPentecost.com and let me know what you think.

There still are several undone areas, but overall things are beginning to come together. I have integrated TextPattern into the site, (which was a pretty big chore), so there are great possibilities for fresh content and things. Maybe some day I’ll write up my experiences with using TP to build a non-blog site like this… but right now I just want to forget about it… it was pretty frustrating.

I’m hoping for more updates to the site soon… the homepage is still lacking quite a bit, and the picture there is only a sample… I’ll be putting actual pictures of our church people there in a Flash movie soon. Also, there will be some better treatment to the information display there soon.

Anyway, any thoughts or critiques are quite welcome and coveted… Thanks!