2.  Design

Storyboard, storyboard, storyboard.  Put it on a storyboard, and do it in PENCIL!  This is not as easy as it sounds.  First, don't forget the 3 click rule.  You want everything on your page to be within 3 clicks of where you currently are if you can possibly manage to do so.  If you have a significant amount of content, this isn't always as easy as it seems!  While initially a storyboard might seem as though it's an "extra" step in the process, wait until you don't do it one time.  You'll be amazed at what a time saver this is.

You've taken your purposes and you've listed your "major" content, such as location, membership information, addresses, phone numbers, who we are, what we do, yadda yadda yadda.  Next you've combined that with the items that you've added as a marketer, and now you have a lot of "stuff" to put on your site!  If you included all of your "must" information, along with everything we have added, I count over twenty pages so far for the BBSA site.  You can bet that once we get going we're going to think of more ideas.

Based on the content you know you want to include on your site, what might be the main headings for your storyboard?  What might be the subcategories?  There is no right or wrong answer here, but your goal is to make your site as intuitive as humanly possible for even the most novice visitor.  Lay out your main headings, including subgroups.  Your storyboard you should also include external links, or links to other sites.  Map it out (refer back to to chapter 2 of Web Pages That Suck if you need more assistance).  It's hard to describe exactly just how beneficial this step is until you see how many different ways there are to formulate a navigational system for your site.  Give it a try, and allow yourself plenty of time.  You may find that you nail it the first time or two, or you may find that you go back to revise over and over again.  I've had it both ways.  So will you.

Now it really is smooth sailing from this point out.  I didn't say your work was done.  You still have to build the entire site.  But I kid you not, the hard part is done.  As you build your site, you will revise over and over again.  Keep your purposes and objectives in mind as you revise.  Don't stray.

Now that you've got it all laid out, let's take one more step.  We want to build a sailing site, right?  Where else should we go to find information?  Let's take a trip to Alta Vista and look for some other sailing sites!  Before you actually start constructing, you really should visit some competitor's sites.  And while you're at it, use the word "competitor" loosely.  Find sites that are similar, but don't limit yourself.  When I did a site for Virginia DECA, I didn't just look at other states' DECA sites.  I also searched other student organizations besides DECA, such as FBLA, and  a few high school sites, too.  Go to these sites to see if they have thought of anything that you haven't.   Our class found links to some of the best nautical weather services from similar sites, and we didn't have to search any farther to find them.

"Why don't we just search these other sites to begin with?" you ask?  Intuition may tell you that you can save yourself a lot of work by getting a feel for what's out there first, and it probably can.  However, I truly believe--and practice--that you should avoid visiting competitor's sites prior to laying out your own because it inhibits creativity.  If you look at another site first, like it or not, you envision what a site of that nature "should" be.  It puts your blinders on.  See what you can come up with first before visiting other sites.  You can always add to or even revamp your own ideas, but you can't ever get that "blank slate" mindset back again.

After your site has been constructed, do some last minute design and usability testing.  Before you actually post your site, have two or three people sit down and try and use your site.  They will come up with suggestions that you will like, guaranteed.  I sat beside a good friend of mine once after building a site, and after he finished navigating each page, he kept intuitively moving his pointer back to the top of the page in search of a navigational bar.  However, there wasn't one there!  After watching him for a few minutes, I quickly decided that the site needed a navigational bar at the top.  Because of the time constraints for this class, and this being its initial semester, you may have found some of these navigational faux pas right here.  Please tell me about them.  I'd love to hear from you!

Planning and design won't ever stop.  As you modify your site, keep these things in mind.