Coding a Website For a Friend. What's the Process?

[TogetherWeRise]

*I'm sorry that this is in the wrong section, but i need an answer asap!

Anyways, i've volunteered to design a website for my friend's dad's tiling business. I'm going over there in about 20 minutes to discuss the design concepts with his dad, but I have absolutely no idea on how to carry out the process.

Basically my question is, How should I do this?

I was thinking I bring some graph paper along with me and have him draw out the layout for each page that he wants on the website, and he can give them to me the next time i see him and then i can code them.

What do you think of that process? If it's not correct, what process do you guys usually do when designing websites for clients?

Thank you so much to all who answer! Much appreciated. (:

[VIPStephan]

Don’t leave them alone with white paper and make them draw themselves. Clients often don’t even know what they want or they can’t articulate it. And after all, you are the web designer so you have to come up with the ideas.

A general approach would be this:

Ask him about his business and what values he/they stand for, i. e. what are they selling, “image” wise. Are they trying to come across as local family business or as company operating worldwide? Are they young and modern or are they conservative? Which customers do they address? The average Joe next door or professionals?
Ask him about other websites he may like. Show him examples of other websites and try to find out in which direction it will go.
Figure out specific requirements, i. e. what will the website be for, what will be displayed, how many pages are required (a rough guess for the start), how can the information roughly be organized (like, an “about” section, a “products” section, a “contact” section …).


After you’ve gathered the basic information you can start creating a sitemap to figure out how to organize the site, which relationship the pages are going to have, and how users are supposed to navigate on the site (in terms of guiding them through the site, determining what happens when a visitor does this or that (e. g. what should happen after pressing a button or sending a form). In combination with that you can start drawing initial wireframes that demonstrate the basic layout (header, content (1/2/3 columns?), position of certain content sections, footer, etc. – don’t work with colors and styling yet) and user interaction, and if that’s clear you go about the actual graphic design.

Sounds like a lot but for now all you have to worry about is getting to know the requirements of the company/website. The rest will come after the first meeting.
Hope that helps.

[sarkarijob]

Try Designing the Website in Blogger or Wordpress Platform then redirect it to a custom domain

[Windows 7 Coder]

Since you've no experience in web design, I would suggest that you hire a designer for cheap from sites like fiverr or odesk.

[drastic]

hire someone.

or use a free blog/website service/site so you can learn a bit without spending a ton of money.

at least you'll pick up some basics and have a better idea of what to do.

[blackstonetech]

scope of the website is not clear to me and neither i can find the objective of the website. please share some more details for your site. It would be easy to find the good idea once the purpose of the site is clear. I think you are looking for portfolio site