The Design Plan
The Design Plan is a document that describes the concept,design and plan to
create one or more web-pages.
Design Plan Template
Components
The following should be written with a word processor like Word and each
component becomes a section in your
Design Plan Document.
- Cover Page: Has title "Design Plan for XXXXX" where XXXX is the name
of the current web-authoring project. Followed by the Author(s) of the document,
the date and contact information (email,etc) of the Author(s).
- Concept Summary: A page describing the goals and purpose of the web-page.
Included should be mention of who the target audience is and the intended
impact. Sub-sections
- descriptive summary: a paragraph or two on the purpose of the web-site,
and its impact. Discuss how it may be unique
- target audience(s) and demographics: for each target audience of
your web-site, give percentage of audience they represent and their demographics
(age, sex, income, preferences, any other relavent descriptors)
- short term goal(s) w/ measureable(s): Give first year goals. Be
specific, if it is to build marketshare, mention numbers (either or both
in percentage or cummulative numbers) for each target audience. If it is
to sell products, give volumes. If it is profits, again be specific. If
it is to build trust-worthiness....define what this means! Also, for each
goal outline how you are going to track, measure the successfullness of
achieving these goals.
- long term goal(s) w/ measureables: Year 2- 5 goal(s). Give similar
level of detailed information w/ measurables as did for short term goal(s).
- Logical/Navigation Flowchart: This section of your Design Plan is
a chart that illustrates graphically the different webpages or components
of them and their interactions/links to each other. The chart if possible
should be written on a single page of paper and should clearly illustrate
how the user can navigate around the web-site. Each web-page must be a separate
"block" in the flowchart and must give the purpose of
the page as well as the filename. Connections, as directional arrows,
between "blocks" in your chart indicate navigational paths between
pages.
- Resource Plan: This section lists the people involved in the project
and their responsibilities and what they must deliver. Also, a time-line schedule
should be given discussing when each component in the Logical/Navigation Flowchart
will be completed along with Content development and final testing. Specifically
you must have the following subsections:
- People: For each person involved in project give: Name, Contact
info, Biography (include relavent experiences and skills), and responsibilities
and roles on this project.
- Deliverables: Give a table (listing) of the deliverables for
this project. For each deliverable: give a description, list dependencies,
and give personnel responsible for this task. Number or somehow give an
ID to each deliverable to be used in the Timeline/Schedule. YOU SHOULD
breakdown your web-site into deliverables of each page, as well as each
piece of content for each page, design, testing, advertising, etc. (look
at the design process steps for ideas here).
- Time-line: For each Deliverable in the previous sub-section,
create an Excell spreadsheet or use a similar tool to illustrate the time-line
of the entire project, with the span of each deliverable visible in the
timeline.
- Tools: List the tools that you will be using for the various
deliverables.
- Detailed Design Sheets: Here the major components stylistically from
the Logical/Navigation Flowchart are planned on paper as to their appearance
and function. You should indicate colors, structure, any forms (and their
elements), indicate where links go, etc. These sheets should give a good idea
of how the web-site will look as well as how you use it and navigate the site.
You will have one sheet per web-page in your web-site. Hence for each block
in your flowchart, you will have a separate design sheet. (Note: if you have
many pages that are the same, like a series of product pages, you only need
to submit one with a note on it saying this design is the same for all the
product pages). You are to use the following word document template of a web-browsers
screen to draw-on and illustrate the buttons, text, etc. that will appear
on that "major style web-page component".
© Lynne Grewe