Web design vs Page Design

Many people assume that web design and page design are one and the same thing.  They are not...  Page design is a graphical layout skill.  Web design is about content, functionality and useability.
Page design is what you usually get when you pay a student £500 to knock you up a web site. Web design is what CNN paid someone else $10 million for to come up with http://www.cnn.com.

Steps A GOOD Web Design House should follow:
1. Why do you want a web site?
Sounds like a stupid question... The first question a web designer should ask you is why you want a web site. Not what it is going to look like, or how big it is, or how much you are willing to pay or any of those things.
Having a web site should solve a defined set of problems. It should ideally be just part of a larger plan. For example, it might be the first stage in the launch of a new product.
It must have a purpose - If it doesn't, then why have it?
2. Set your goals
You should be able to say the following:
The web site will be a success if 'something' happens
And 'something' should be measureable... "It will raise the company's profile" is not good enough. "It will increase sales" is better. "It will sell 1500 widgets a month" is much better.
If your web site has a goal then it will either succeed or fail. Right from the outset you need to have a way of measuring that.
3. Choose the content
This is a lengthy stage but because the purpose(1) and the goals(2) of your web site have been defined it should make the process easier than simply trawling through your product catalogs cutting pages into your web site.
4. Build a relationship
This is your opportunity to give the web site visitor (surfer) an idea about you. You need to form some sort of bond with your web site visitor. The kind of bond that will make the web site visitor want to have continued contact with you. To do this, they must, to some degree, come to know you and trust you.
Write down half a dozen words or phrases that will sum up the impression you want to give. (Use these as a starting base to flavour your web site)
5. Design the look of your web site
This is where we come to the topic of page layout. You should now know what you've got to tell them and how you want to be seen and so it's time to go through all those very detailed questions about what the colours will be, whether to use frames, whether to use Java. How dynamic it should be. How the navigation works. Whether to use ShockWave.
6. Register your site with the Search Engines
This is possibly the most important component in Web Design.  Its pointless spending significant time and money on a fine tuned web site if its 'poorly' registered with the main search engines.  Search Engine positioning is not a clear science, depending on the search engine you are registering your web site with. Many organisations fail to optimise their web ranking because their site has been poorly submitted.

How can you tell if you've been to a bad design house?

They will not ask you what you want to achieve

They will ask how many pages you want or (even worse) ask you how long you want them to spend on it

They will try to charge you on that basis and that basis alone

They will do most of the talking and ask very few questions

Within the first five minutes they will use the following phrases: "JavaScript", "Frames", "Applets"

They will give you quite definitive opinions about all of these technologies


Good design houses are less easily defined, but should adhere to the following:
They will primarily talk of the web site as achieving a particular set of goals
They will want to sell a solution, with a charge based on functionality and scope.
They will already know their overheads and will build that in to their basic costs. There should be no charging by the hour.
They will do more listening than talking.
They will be willing to use (or not use) any technology dependent upon the particular circumstances. But they will be more interested in showing you example sites than in telling you how they did them.