What I look at before I design a single page
Most people assume the web design process starts with opening a design tool and making things look good. It doesn't, or at least it shouldn't.
Before I design anything, there's a lot of time spent thinking, researching and planning. It's the part of the process that's invisible to most clients, but it's also the part that makes the biggest difference to the final result.
Here's exactly what that looks like.
Stage one: defining the scope and goals
The first thing we do together is define the scope, exactly what I'm going to build, what pages are included, what functionality is needed, and what the site actually needs to achieve.
This sounds obvious, but it's worth being deliberate about. A website for a service business trying to generate enquiries is a fundamentally different project to an eCommerce store trying to sell products, even if they look similar on the outside. Setting clear goals before anything else means every decision that follows has something to refer back to.
I also want to understand what you don't want. What doesn't feel like you on your current site. What you're tired of explaining to people because the website isn't saying it clearly enough. What you'd be embarrassed to show a potential client right now.
That kind of honesty at the start saves a lot of time later.
Stage two: competitor research and audience understanding
This part of the web design process is where I do the bulk of my thinking before any visual work begins.
If you have an existing website, I look at it properly. Not just a quick scroll, I look at what's working well, what the structure is, what copy is worth keeping, and where the obvious gaps are. Sometimes there's more worth salvaging than people expect.
I look at your competitors. This is one of the most useful things I do and one that clients are sometimes surprised by. Looking at what everyone else in your space is doing helps in two directions: it shows what's working across the industry, the things all your competitors include that are worth noting, and it reveals where the gaps are. Where you could do something different, present yourself more clearly, or simply look more considered than everyone else in your industry.
I think carefully about your visitors. Who are they, and what do they already know? Are they comfortable navigating websites or do they need more guidance? What questions are they arriving with? What do they need to feel confident enough to get in touch? Understanding the person on the other side of the screen is what shapes every layout decision, it's where the psychology background genuinely earns its place.
I ask you to send me websites you like. This is not about copying them. It's about understanding how you want your own website to feel. A significant part of design is subjective, two people can look at the same site and have completely different reactions to it. Knowing your preferences helps me to make the design feel like you the first time rather than after three rounds of revisions.
Stage three: gathering content and assets
This is the stage that can make or break a project, and the one that's most often underestimated.
Before I design anything, I need to know what I'm working with. That means copy, the words that will actually go on the site, and assets, primarily photography.
Photography matters more than most people realise. A well-designed page with generic stock images will always feel slightly hollow. A simpler design with real, specific photos of you and your work will almost always feel more compelling. If you have good photos, I want them early because they genuinely shape the design, the colours I choose, the layouts I use, the mood of the whole thing.
If you don't have photos yet, that's not a problem, it just means I spend time finding stock images that feel like your brand. But knowing that early means we can plan around it rather than discovering it halfway through the design.
The same applies to copy. If your words are ready before I start designing, I can build the layout around what you actually need to say. If copy comes later, there's always a risk that the design and the content end up fighting each other.
Getting content and assets in place before design begins isn't about being organised for the sake of it. It's about giving the design the best possible foundation to work from.
Stage four: wireframing the layout and user journey
A wireframe is a simple structural sketch of each page, no colours, no real typography, no imagery. Just layout, hierarchy and user journey.
I always wireframe before I design. Whether I share the wireframes with a client depends on the complexity of the project, but the process happens regardless because it saves significant time. Sorting out the structure of a page before applying any visual design means you're not making layout decisions at the same time as colour decisions at the same time as copy decisions. You solve one problem at a time.
It also means that when the designed version arrives, the thinking behind it is already solid. The layout isn't a guess, it's the result of working through how a real visitor will move through the page, what they need to see first, and what should happen next.
The design itself, the part most people think of when they picture web design, comes after all of this. By the time I open a design tool, I know the goal, I know the audience, I know the visual language, and I know the structure of every page.
That's what makes the difference between a site that looks good and a site that actually works.
If you're thinking about a new website and want to know more about how I work, I'm always happy to have a conversation. No commitment, just a chat.
FAQs
A good web design process starts well before any visual work begins. It typically involves scoping the project, researching your audience and competitors, gathering your content and photography, and wireframing the structure of each page. The design itself comes last, once the thinking behind it is already solid.
Most small business website projects take between two and eight weeks from the initial brief to launch. The timeline depends on the scope of the project and how quickly content comes through. Having your copy and photos ready before the project starts makes a significant difference.
The most useful things to have ready are a clear idea of what you want the site to achieve, any photos or brand assets you have, a rough sense of your budget, and a few websites you like the look of. Bonus points if you already have a rough plan of the website copy. You don't need to have everything figured out, that's partly what the discovery process is for.
%20(1).jpg)
