by Melanie Spring, Sisarina
First there was 10 Questions to Ask Before Choosing a Designer, then HOW TO: Write Your Own Design Scope. Now for the final step: writing your own website development scope.
Your website developer is a very particular person. They think with the left (analytical) side of their brain and they want to know every little detail. The designer was the architect, they are the builder. A developer takes the plans and sketches and colors and creates the infrastructure for everything to sit and move and work. Your designer will need to review the development scope to make sure their design works with how the site will function but the developer will be the one putting the scope into action.
Development Scope for: Website
Organization/Person: (name of your business, organization, person)
Contact Info: (name of main contact, phone number, email)
SITEMAP
What pages do you need to include in your website? You should have 5-8 sections for your website and all of your pages should fit into these. Make sure to include every page you can think of and what you would like those pages to do aside from just basic content, pictures and links.
HOMEPAGE CONTENT
Content should be written prior to starting the project but sometimes it's written during the design process. Having homepage content to show the designer and developer what information you'd like included is crucial to making sure you have the right areas setup for you.
HOMEPAGE ELEMENTS
What information must be displayed on your homepage? Blog feed, events, rotating images, video, newsletter signup, etc. Make sure to include everything you must and/or expect to have functionality for.
HOMEPAGE VISUALS
Will your main visual be: A video or image or rotating images? Will your call-to-action be: newsletter signup, contact link or donation link?
INTERIOR PAGES
What information needs to be on all or many pages of your site that you'd like to change in one place and will update all other pages? Do you want images that pertain to interior page sections or just one image on all pages?
SOCIAL MEDIA
Is social media a big or little part of your marketing plan? If it's something used often, provide links to all items you'd like to link to and they will be placed at the top if used a lot or bottom if not needing to be in main line of vision.
FORMS
How will users contact you? A contact form with multiple departments? An online application? What about your newsletter signup or donation form?
Have anything else to add this list? Let me know! All comments are welcome.
