I wrote an article on the Leo Marketing blog – check it out:  How to talk to your web developer  Edit:  This website is no longer there; here is a copy of the text of the article:

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As someone who has been designing websites for years, I’ve found that when someone approaches me about developing a website, many times they know they want a website but don’t really know what they are looking for beyond that.

If you are looking for a website for yourself or your company, here are some things to think about as you are prepping for that new web presence.

What do you want the site to do for you?

Are you looking for a site that is purely informational?  A site that sells products or services?  An application that provides a service?  A combination of things?

What is your target audience?

Who are you targeting?  Are you selling widgets to 18-35 year-olds?  Repair services to motocross riders?  Pizzas to everyone?  Pediatric health services to the parents of small children?

How is success defined?

How is winning defined for this website?  Getting more foot traffic through your door?  Generating leads via email?  Via phone?  Selling products online?  Services?  Getting people to make appointments for your clinic?

What have you already tried?

Have you had success with something in the past?  Had a bad experience?  We don’t want to reinvent the wheel each time but to learn from past experiences.

When the client understands what they want, it means that they can better communicate with the developer what their expectations are.  Once the developer understands the real scope of the project, they can focus more on reaching your goals than having to guess (and worry about guessing wrong!)  Few things are more frustrating than trying to reach a moving finish line and many times that’s exactly what happens.

If you have answers to all of these questions, does it guarantee that you will have a seamless website development experience?  Of course not!  However it does mean that there will be fewer issues, which translates into a website that gets delivered faster, potentially delivering more customers (and their pocketbooks) with it.

Additional Tips

If you already have a website and are looking at a redesign, here are some additional things your developer will need:

• Access to your domain (in GoDaddy, internic, Wix, Dotster, Network Solutions, etc)
• Access to your current hosting
• Any branding assets you might have (logo, colors, etc)
• Existing content from your current website (pages, blog posts, pictures, etc)
• Any social media accounts you want your website linked to

I wrote an article on the Leo Marketing blog – check it out:  Responsible Responsive Web Design  Edit: the blog article is no longer there; this is a copy of what was there:

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With the recent trend of responsive web design, there have been some websites that are pushed out without any thought beyond “Just make the columns stack on cell phones”.  With all the tools out there to make a site responsive (Bootstrap, Foundation, etc) making a site responsive to the width of a device has never been easier.  However to make a site really work as “responsive” takes more than just making the columns stack on top of each other; it takes a responsible developer that pays attention to the details that might be missed if all they are worried about is making things stack.

One of the first considerations a responsible web developer will think about is how things are going to look when they start stacking.  If we put an image in one place, it may look great on a big computer screen but how will it look when we look at it on an iPhone?  Will that image still have the same context that it has on the desktop version?  With the latest version of Bootstrap, they’ve added in the ability to use columns even on a mobile device, but just like Uncle Ben told Peter Parker, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

Another consideration a responsible web developer will pay attention to is a site’s load time.  What happens when we put that big massive background in there?  Will it slow down the load time on our Galaxy S III running on a mobile network?  What happens if someone tries to load the site on their iPad while tethering to their phone while in Roswell, NM where they don’t have LTE?

A third consideration of a responsible web developer is how the site takes advantage of a device’s unique abilities.  Does that pretty slider on the home page still work when someone is swiping their finger on their tablet rather than clicking a mouse?  Are you telling people to click when you really want them to tap?  The tools are out there which allow the designer to find out what the user’s device can do (touch, geolocation, etc), allowing them to tap into the extra functionality with your website.  It’s up to the developer to take advantage of it.

Just because your site is “Responsive” doesn’t mean it’s meeting the needs of your users.  As you choose who will develop your responsive website, make sure to choose a responsible web developer that pays attention to the details when creating your responsive website.