Designing a Website
The design is probably the most underestimated stage of making a website. You may sit down thinking this is easy and then instantly get writer’s block. You must set yourself a goal; work with your customer to find out what they want the website to achieve and what they had in mind.
After you have figured out the content, colour scheme, art and concepts, you may want to start mocking up a prototype. The first thing the user sees in will be their first impression; you can use this to draw the user’s attention. A common mistake is to waste this opportunity to let people know they are in the correct place; placing stock photos or a large amount of text could intimidate the user.
Whether your customer has a specific design, the developer is the one who makes it work. It’s unlikely your site will end up like your initial plan; you should constantly check if it looks right and shift your design. Using a custom-made website means you can tweak everything, unlike a templated site where your content is pre-mapped out. Remember to check with your customer frequently as they may have input and a different opinion than you.
You may want to leave the header and footer until after creating your initial page, as you may change what you display on the home page or split it onto a new page. Recently i have been designing the header on the landing page so that it does not take up space on smaller devices. I would still use a standardised site header for every other page to keep consistency and provide navigation.
The foot usually stumps me to most, especially for new or small businesses. Other than disclaimers and partner links, the best advice i received is to think about what the user might have scrolled passed. If they have reached the footer, they have most likely not found anything useful. If you have a minimised navigation menu or links that appear after sections(they might skip), you may want to add the links to the footer.
You must constantly remind yourself of the end goal and work with the customer to achieve a compromise between their vision and what works well. If you get stuck, start thinking like a user. What am i searching for? Once you have found a design that works, it becomes easy to finish the site.