Setting goals

Websites are set up for a purpose. People or companies have a reason of why they want to create and maintain a website in the first place, and it's often to get in touch with their customers or viewers or to communicate some sort of exigence to its viewers. Therefore, as "Creating a Design Plan" illustrates, the user's experience with the website is often times more important, and under-rated, than the client's goals for the website itself.

Each website has to cater to both the client and the viewer's needs. Setting goals with the client is important because that's essentially what will outline your work as a web designer. The client can't ignore the question: "Why do visitors need this website?" though, which is a question the web designers need an answer to, since they're not only making it for the client, but for whoever will be seeing and using the site.

This makes a lot of sense to me, and I totally agree with what this reading had to say in terms of questions to be asking clients. In addition, Killersites.com offered a lot of interesting advice for what seems like common roadblocks in the web design process (especially dealing with clients and maintaining professionalism as well as etiquette). Asking other designers seems to be a really awesome and unique tool in the web design world, which we should all take advantage of.

The wheels are finally beginning to turn for this next project, and I'm stoked!