Website Planning Guide and Checklist

Here is a Website Planning Guide and a Website Checklist. These will help you make sure you have covered the tasks and activities you need to address when designing and deployinng a website. Some of these items may not apply to your website, but you should at least review everything here so make sure you haven't forgotten anything.


Web Site Planning Guide:

Project name for this site.
Who is your primary audience?
Who is your secondary audience?
What is your goal or purpose in having a Web site?
How will your site serve your primary audience?
What type of information will your primary audience expect to find on your site?
What information do you have readily available to provide to your audience?
Make a list of types of information you expect to put on your site (i.e. hours, announcements, staff directory)
Generally, how will your site be structured or organized? (i.e. 4 levels deep, 5 pages each level)
What information will be or could be grouped together?

What other relationships or connections between information should be present?
Who will be part of the web site development team?
Who will serve as the Web Administrator for this site?
Who will be the Maintainer(s) for this site?
How will the different duties and responsibilities be assigned?
How often do you expect to update the content on your site?
How much time per week or month will you dedicate to updating the content on your site?
Who will be responsible for answering e-mail received from the comments link on the site?
List some words that you hope will describe your site when published: (i.e. professional, friendly)
How will you test your site?
  - For readability?
  - For content?
  - For appropriateness for primary audience?
  - For different browsers?


Web Site Checklist:

Text:
 - Proofed for spelling errors
 - Proofed for punctuation errors
 - Written clearly, concisely, and coherently
 - Tone and formality matches site’s purpose
 - Font style is standard and browser proportional
 - Only text links are underlined
 - Big enough to read, but not too large
 - Easily read over page background

Navigation:
 - Bars and buttons are clearly labeled
 - Bars and buttons look the same throughout site
 - Bars and buttons are in the same place throughout site
 - Bars and buttons wording is representative
 - Viewer can navigate easily to related information
 - Viewer can navigate easily to site’s home page
 - Site map or index is available if a large site

Links:
 - Wording is appropriate for page/site being linked to
 - Internal site links are worded with keywords for your website
 - No links are the wording ‘Click here’
 - Represented by graphics are clearly mark as links
 - Color is consistent throughout site
 - Connect to correct page or site
 - Verified to be active and current

Graphics:
 - Image files are optimized for size, eg. 50K or less
 - Load quickly and appropriately
 - All have been labeled with tags
 - Animated graphics do not detract from page content
 - Animated graphics turn off by themselves

Content:
 - Supports site purpose or mission
 - Appropriate
 - Accurate and complete
 - Relevant for target audience

General Design of Site:
 - Loads quickly
 - Consistent look and feel
 - Colors are from the browser safe palette
 - Color scheme is one of the 4 standard combinations
 - Frames, if used, do not obstruct viewing
 - Contact information is available on every page
 - Contact information is current on every page
 - Contact information includes an email link or link to a comments page
 - Footer on every page and includes
 - Author
 - Institution
 - Copyright
 - Last updated/revised
 - Page titles are descriptive
 - Meta tags have been included on every page
 - Author
 - Description
 - Keywords
 - Tested on several browser types and versions
 - Text-based browser
 - Tested on these screen resolutions
    - 800 x 600
    - 1024 x 768
    - 1280 x 720
 - Tested on Mac and PC platforms
 - Tested by a sample target audience