Set up a meeting with a business owner and ask him/her what he/she would want from a website. Also ask him/her what the business strategy is and how the website would fit into it.
Then write a detailed document about this.
Brief:
What is the client’s service/product?
My client for this task is an hobby inventor who is just starting out. He invents mainly electronics that should ease the daily life, and want a website to share his inventions.
What are their requirements?
He wants a freshand simple website based on WordPress. It should contain contact information, a static front page that showcases his latest inventions. The invention posts should have a blog-functionality.
What is the website’s goal?
- The website should become an archive with inventions.
- It should spread the info to the world.
- He wants it to be place to connect with the audience, where they can suggest new ideas, and have a two-ways communication.
How are you going to achieve this goal?
- He wants to write about what he makes, and put finished projects in a portfolio.
- He will make how-to videos and interesting blog posts.
- The posts need to have a function where people can comment and discuss.
What is the design style that will be required?
Fresh and simple. No useless decorations, but the content should be in focus.
What are your suggestions for marketing the site?
Facebook for friends, Instructables, Youtube channel. Go viral!
Strategy:
He wants to go from being an unknown amateur to make a living from his hobby.
How:
- To create small and smart inventions that can do big tasks.
- It is a hobby, and he expects that he will get few jobs in the beginning and more and more as he builds his reputation and portfolio.
- He will attend techno exposes to show his work.
- He will not pay for PR, but make invite media on a «studio tour» etc, and people share his articles via social media.
I would like you to use the information from this document and create a website architecture.
Now let’s focus on the web design strategy. Your document should justify all the major decisions you make – from the domain registration, hosting, design and target audience through to what you decide in terms of programming.
Web design strategy:
Domain registration: He will write in english and target people from other contries as well as Norway, so I suggest that he choose an international name for the website with a international top-level domain like .com. He haven’t come up with a name yet, so there are many possibilities. He should also buy .no since he is norwegian.
Hosting: one.com is a good host with little downtime, good support, simple UI and a nice price. It works very good for a simple portfolio/blog function. I am also used to this system and I like it very much.
CMS: I suggest we use WordPress for the content management. I am used to work with this and it has almost endless possibilities, so it shouldn’t be a problem to get the functionality we needs. It is easy to use even if you don’t have much experience with blogging and the back-end of websites.
Coding: It should be clean and easy to update. I suggest that we find a wordpress theme that we can make our own with a child theme. In that way we get the updates and security from the parent theme and the style we want from the child theme. It will also make the site cheaper to make than creating a wordpress theme from scratch.
Design: Fresh and simple. Very easy and intuitive where to click and what you will find there. Lots of white space. No advertising, but with possibilities to add it if he gets sponsors.
Target audience:
1: People, men, age 30-40 that wants a simple solution to a problem they have. They are not into technically stuff, but have family or tasks in life that they would like to be done in an easier way.
2: Men, 25-35 years old. They live all over the world. They are interested in technology and electronics, are creative in their own kind of ways. They are not sport types but more interested in gaming, computers etc.
The Reflected Journal 