Project Management in the Web Design World

With the amount of web design companies popping up all over the world, and the amount of web sites needing development there is a rapid growth in the need for project managers for web design teams. There are many things that a project manager will have to monitor when it comes to the development of a website, especially to ensure things are perfect every single time.

Learning how to create a successful website will take some time, and as the project manager you will want to be aware of how to do this before you even begin the development stages with your team. You don’t want to begin developing your site and then find yourself doing things that will place your site at the bottom of the ranking pyramid the entire time it is open.

Here is a list of the top ten common errors that many Webmasters and business owners happen to do when they develop a site without knowing the true facts for the perfect and successful website:

1. Home Page Cluttered
There are thousands of sites on the Internet that do this, making viewers confused quickly as to where they should even begin looking on the site, turning many visitors away. You want to be able to develop a plan in the visitors mind as to where they should go throughout the site. Avoid using tons of buttons and icons and keep everything simple, yet sophisticated so the viewers will continue coming back.

2. Animation
People loved the use of animation back in the 90s, but now many people find it overly annoying. They can be great for drawing attention, but if you over do it and have them playing constantly people will look away and find something less complicated.

3. Unreadable Backgrounds
There are many websites out there that look amazing, until suddenly the actual background loads. When a background is developed you should ensure that the text and content is still legible and the background isn’t annoying to the eye of other viewers. Even though you love it, doesn’t mean the next guy will.

4. Inconsistent Text
Using a different font is fine, but using several different fonts is not. You want to stick to one font type throughout your entire site, and it must be one that can upload onto someone’s server. The most legible online fonts happen to be Arial and Verdana, but if you don’t want to use them don’t. Just make sure that the font you’ve selected is readable and will upload quickly.

5. Under Construction
Just about every website is still under construction as they are always updating their information, so don’t put the heading “Under Construction” on your website during the updating stages. Yahoo! now denies any site that has “Under Construction” displayed for page content even if its not the homepage, so be wise and don’t do this.

6. The Site Best Viewed With
This is one of the most annoying statements anyone will ever see on the Internet. I don’t know a single person who has actually gone out of their way to download a new browser to see a certain website, so don’t do this. If your website is compatible with Internet Explorer and FireFox change it so that it is. You want people to be able to view your website right away, and not have the delayed process of downloading another browser, because we all know they won’t and they’ll continue on to a new website that is compatible with their system.

7. Background Music
Background music seemed to be a big thing a few years ago, but that changed quickly. Have you ever loaded a website, speakers full blast, and then music starts playing making you jump and click back real fast. Well you’re not the only one. Background music is okay to an extent. Don’t have annoying music, don’t have it play automatically, and make sure you give the visitors to option to have it on or not. You will literally scare your visitors away if you have the music play automatically.

8. Non-sizable Tables
Tables happen to be used on millions of websites, but if you develop your website around one resolution then those that are using a different one won’t be able to view the site correctly. Try using only a percentage of the tables that you have available to allow the site to expand and contrast with the visitors settings and size of the browser window to get the best feel of your site.

9. Colour Combinations
With there being a web palette of 216 colours for both Windows and Macintosh systems, there is a wide range of graphics that could be displayed. Many graphics happen to be too large with many unused colours causing the system to take much longer to upload. Remove any of the unused colours to assist in the faster loading process of your graphics. OptiView is a great source for assisting you with such process.

10. Overall Consistency
Keeping your site completely consistent allows viewers to know they are still on the same page. Don’t have different layouts or backgrounds for your pages, keep every layout and background the same to get the best results from your visitors.

As you can see there are many ways that you could put your site to the bottom of the search engines. By sticking to the basic rules of successful web design you can truly design a successful website.

Now as a project manager for a website design team you will be monitoring every single step and change that is going on with each website that you manage. At the beginning you may find yourself going through tons of interviews if the person who hired you hasn’t supplied you with a coder.

When looking for a coder you will want to find one that specializes in the website design area that you are looking for. So if you are developing an online marketing company you will want a coder that is familiar with what is involved with an online marketing company. Find out if they’ve developed other online marketing company websites, the timeframe it took them, and what development language did they use.

The three main languages that are involved with website development consist of:

• HTML/XHTML
• JavaScript
• CSS

Attempt getting someone who is skilled in each of these areas and you will find yourself saving tons of effort in the long run.

Once you’ve hired on a coder you will want to develop a plan of action. Your plan of action will display all the things that you want included into the site, how you want the site to be viewed (layout), colours, backgrounds, etc. This may take you the longest to develop as you will be design the website in a text format.

One idea for developing an action plan could involve actually drawing how you’d like the site to be viewed. For example you could do an image like the following just by simply using Paint:

As you can see by the above example you can develop a plan of how you’d like your website set up, what you’d like to include, just about anything that pops into your head.

For the project manager you will follow your workers every step that they take throughout the entire process. When they develop a page you will want to test it over and over again. Even though you are the project manager, you will have to test everything to ensure that it meets all the standards that have been set. Many documents will be created displaying the information of what you’ve found, what browser you’re using for testing, and any problems that have occurred during your testing.

There are many tasks that you will find yourself doing throughout the entire website design, and a lot of them have to deal with testing. Having website quality analysis background will come in handy during the entire process. If you don’t currently have any, then consider hiring a person who does. They aren’t too difficult to find if you know what you’re looking for.

Depending on how large the site is, the amount of content and graphics included into the site, and the complexity of the site, will vary the time frame for development. You will want to give yourself a week timeframe after the entire site has been developed to do extensive testing of every single area of the site. You will want to ensure all links are working, no spelling/grammar errors in content, all sub-categories are listed correctly, and just about any little detail you could imagine has been done correctly before you are fully ready for the launching process.

By developing many milestones for the entire process you could surely save yourself tons of testing. The first milestone that you will begin is of course what you want included into the site. Send your coder all necessary graphics, images, etc. that should be included into the site and whereabouts they will be going as you will have to add in the content side of things on your end.

In the end you could find yourself hiring more staff then you thought. Some of the occupations you may find yourself working with include:

• Coders
• Graphic designers
• Website Quality Analysis Agents
• Writers
• Editors
• Search Engine Optimization Specialists
• Link Builders (marketing campaign)

These are only a select few of the major occupations that you may see yourself working with. Interview many different people to ensure each have the necessary skills. With the amount of online freelancing companies, and the larger amount of online businesses you could find yourself going through at least 15 interviews for each occupation before you find the right candidates.

You want to ability to develop a successful website, and having all the right connections can help make that possible. Ensure to develop a great action plan, hire the perfect staff, list out all the objectives of the website development process, and create an attractive yet simple site. Project managers can find themselves getting really involved and learning a lot throughout the entire website design process, so keep a business journal of all things going on so you can look back and reference everything. This will not only help you out now, but it can help you out in the future with other projects you may take on.