Preparing and Planning a Web Site Using Dreamweaver
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
What You’ll Do
Begin with a Plan
Create a Visual Mind Map
Create Sample Page Sketches
Generate a Timeline
Assemble the Site
Create a Marketing Plan
Create a Storyboard
Create a Site Local Root Folder
Introduction
You might have heard the expression: A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. While that makes perfect sense, there is one other thing that must be accomplished before taking that fateful step... proper planning.
Attempting to design a complex Web site without proper planning would be akin to taking a trip from New York to California without the benefit of any roadmaps. You might understand that you need to travel in a westerly direction; however, without proper planning, you would probably make a lot of wrong turns before arriving at your final destination. Planning therefore is a fundamental part of any journey, and it’s a fundamental part of any Web design project.
Planning for a new Web site involves understanding in two key areas: knowledge of the applications you will be using (the logical side), and knowledge of what direction you want to take this new Web project (the creative side).
Dreamweaver will help any Web design project run more smoothly; whether you are building a Web site from scratch, collaborating with a Web-design team, or anywhere in between. So, before starting the planning process, you need knowledge of Dreamweaver and what’s it’s capable of doing.
Regardless of the scope of your project, take some time in advance to think through the architecture of your site (the layout structure of the pages as a whole, and the options for navigating the site), develop a look-and-feel (graphic design and interface), and gather the content (the information you want to include on the site pages). When this preliminary work is done, you can plunge into the development, staging, launching, and the very important maintenance of the site.
Creating a comprehensive plan of the project will simplify the process of creating a complex Web site, and like a road map, will help to keep you on track as you make that journey of a thousand miles.