Planning a website

An overview should lay out the broad requirements of your website. If you already have a website and you want to update it this should be mentioned here. Also mention if you require the website to integrate to any specific service in-house or third party.

The aims and objectives section should detail what you want the website to achieve. Details of specific features you require within the website such as a shopping cart, online payment, document download, photograph gallery etc. should be outlined here.

Knowing if your website is to be targeted at a specific audience can greatly aid further discussions and decisions relating to the project.

The Design Specification covers the general look of a website. 3Legs.com offer different design options so we need to know what your specific requirements are. Our web designers will interpret these requirements quite literally, so it is important to be as clear as possible. Here are some points to consider:

• Do you have a current design look that the website should fit into?
• What colour scheme, typeface, logo etc. do you want to include?
• Are there any specific elements that the general design should include such as photos, banner advertising, flash animation?

Please include any sketches or drawings of the type of design you are looking for.  Our web designer’s find it helpful if you include addresses of websites you particularly like (or dislike) as it helps them understand what you are trying to achieve.

The functionality specification covers the content within the website and make up the pages within the website. It is a good idea to draw up a draft site structure which can be done as a basic flow-chart with boxes for pages and lines representing the links between them. This is a great way to visualise the various pages within the website and how they need to link with each other.

Writing a short description with details of what will be included on each page is essential. It is particularly important to know what photographs, images, flash animation and other features you would like to have on the pages within the website. If any pages have special functionality such as a shopping cart, or a photograph gallery then this should also be detailed.

You should ensure that your Functionality Specification includes the following:

• Navigation
• Media requirements (just text and pictures or animation, virtual reality and sound?)
• Interactive elements
• Specific functions (e.g. 'Shopping Cart' or 'Photo Gallery')

Having made decisions about the content/media on the various web pages, our web design team need to know what content you will be providing directly yourself and what content you need us to produce for you. Content production can be one of the most costly elements of a website so it is very important that you detail everything specifically you want us to produce.

Any specific functions within the pages of the website should be carefully detailed because our web designers need to know how you expect these functions to work along with any specific features they should have. For example, if the website has a shopping cart then processes like where the goods can be shipped to, how delivery is to be calculated, how payments will be processed and so on need to be specified.

The budget for your website plays a key factor in the quality of website you receive. If you are working to within a specific budget then please include these details. Depending on your budget it may be necessary to change elements of your design brief to bring your project in on target.

In order to plan out your project 3 Legs Ltd will need to know the timetable you have allowed for your project to be completed. We want to work with you to achieve your goals and complete your project within a reasonable timescale.  To assist this it is very important to establish clear lines of communication from the outset so we advise that you ensure there is a single point of contact throughout the project. Please include the full contact details of your chosen point of contact including an e-mail address as we often use e-mail as a primary method of communication because of its speed and ability to include documentation.