Steps of a redesign

Overview
Goals
Time estimate and team
Content review
Site structure and navigation
Finalize timeline and content
Visual design development
Production and proofing
Launch and maintenance

Production and proofing

The content is developed, the design and templates are done. Now you begin the process of flowing content into your templates, tweaking any custom pages, reviewing the work, and making corrections.

Workflow

Your workflow will depend on the size of your site and your team. Here are a couple of examples of workflow - the first for a team of three, the second for a team of eight.

Example A: one writer, one editor, one designer or production department
Example B: two editors, one designer, two production departments

Challenges and solutions

Some of the biggest production challenges include

• keeping track of what's finished and what's not
• maintaining site-wide updates
• managing multiple production-staff members
• deleting files

A spreadsheet or project-management software (or a really big paper sitemap) is essential for keeping track of what's completed.

Dreamweaver's check-in and check-out system is handy for sites being produced by more than one person. When performing site-wide updates (like changes to the templates), it's essential to implement these when no one is on the system. If you're updating templates, be sure to plan on using nights or weekends. On a site with a production staff of more than one, it's also helpful to have everyone download the site weekly to get rid of pesky "we've deleted that file three times already!" files that keep coming back.

All production staff should have a copy of the design style guide (example) and the writing style guide (example) you've created for your site.

If you're changing file or domain names, be sure to set-up redirects to your new pages. Even better, alert anyone linked to your site of the changes in advance.

Proofing checklist

From editorial proofing to cross-browser and platform compatability and accessibility, you'll want to triple-check your work.

 

Next step: Launch and maintenance

 

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