Website Planning

[JohnBoucher]

Here is an excellent article from Smashing Magazine about planning a website. This also can be applied to any project.

[likzuz]

Great article. Goes into detail on exactly what people need to do.
<wall of text>
Personally when we start creating a website we sit down with pen and paper and make lists of what content is most important and show where things link to other things (Very much like the article states) and we make sure we know everything we need and what's most important before doing anything. This years website easily has had the most content ever for Team 1710. Once you have all the content it is simply adding on top of it. It's a good idea to seperate content, design and functionality. They all need to work together and make sure that everything you plan on doing is practical and furthers understanding of your team.</wall of text>

tl:dr Make sure you do tons of planning with pen and paper before designing and working.

[Dustin Shadbolt]

I loved the article. Currently, I'm working on a re-do of our website with a custom CMS and most of it will be powered by php. I usually just go through and layout the basic frame of the site (logos and locations of things). Then I start listing what exactly will be where and what I present to the end user. I have most of the done, and now I'm thinking about what an admin or web site team member needs to have to manage it without changing code. (similar to joomla or wordpress editing). But awesome share mate!