When looking to create a website, understanding the web design process is a crucial part of the process. Designing a website means planning from concept to launch with several important stages in-between, each with its own objectives and tasks. By breaking down the process with a web design checklist, you can create a business website that's not only visually appealing but also functional and user-friendly as well.
Learn more: What is web design?
How to structure your web design checklist
The structure of your web design checklist should include the following parts to give it order and to establish a clear workflow:
Strategy
Before any designs are sketched or code is written, you need to have a clear website strategy. This includes understanding your audience, defining your goals and planning the content. You'll need to decide which type of website you want to create, as this will affect your design planning.
For example, planning a business website for branding versus an ecommerce site for direct sales, will be different in terms of your site's design and functionality. While making a personal webite will include a different strategy altogether from either of these two.
Design
This stage involves creating the visual layout of your website. It's where you decide on color schemes, typography and imagery that align with your brand identity.
You might also plan here all the branding elements of your site, including your domain name and logo.
Creation and development
Here's where your strategy and web design comes to life either by using a website builder or through coding. You can choose to create a website with a website builder and professionally designed website templates, or use an AI website builder. If you choose to work with a developer, they'll build the site's structure, ensuring it's mobile-friendly or responsive and that it functions smoothly across different devices.
Launch
After thorough testing, your website will go live for the world to see. But the work doesn't stop there as you'll need to monitor its performance and make adjustments including website redesign as needed.
Maintenance
Websites require ongoing attention to stay secure and up-to-date. Regular updates, backups and security checks are all part of this crucial stage. If you choose to design a website with Wix, your site includes robust web infrastructure — advanced security features and auto site updates and backups.
If you're building a web design checklist for a client, you should walk them through the following steps before building it out:
Sync with stakeholders to determine what goals the site needs to fulfill.
Clearly outline the scope of the project including deadlines and deliverables.
Plan out the site architecture and sketch basic page layouts or identify which templates you plan to use.
Plan high-quality content for each page that drives engagement and aligns with SEO strategies.
Choose graphics and videos that enhance your message and brand identity.
10-step web design checklist for your website project
Pre-design steps:
Design and creation steps:
Post-creation steps:
01. User and market research
Before diving into the actual design of your website, it's essential to lay the groundwork with thorough pre-design research. This phase is all about gathering information and setting clear objectives to guide the rest of your web design.
Start by identifying your audience—understand who your users are, what they need and how they behave online. Your site will need to behave the way they expect it to based on their online behavior.
Learn more: Web design tips for a small business
Next, it's important to analyze your competitors — look at what others in your industry are doing. What works well on their sites and what could you do better?
Finally, stay up-to-date with the latest web design trends that could appeal to your audience.
02. Define the web design project scope and objectives
Start by asking, what do you want your website to achieve? More sales, increased engagement or improved brand awareness? The goal or goals you settle on will determine what the necessary features for your site are. If you plan to make an eCommerce website to sell, you'll need essential eCommerce functionalities such as a shopping cart, payment systems and customizable product pages.
Next establish a realistic timeline for your project, including milestones for critical phases. For example, how many days or weeks will be dedicated to understanding which type of site you want to create? At the same time try to put a time frame on all parts of the web design process—including choosing a website builder or web developer, time for initial site mockups, as well as overall timing for the entire project.
03. Plan your website structure and architecture
At this stage in your web design checklist, the design of your site should be starting to come together. You'll be moving on more and more from planning and transitioning to implementing.
Some steps to consider here include:
Creating wireframes: Develop your blueprints for each page to outline structure and content placement.
Design mockups: Transform wireframes into detailed designs that represent the final look of your site. Or you can use website templates to do this faster and more efficiently.
Edit based on feedback: Share designs with your site's stakeholders or even potential users and adjust based on their input.
04. Create or develop your site
There are a number of ways to turn your web design into an actual website and at this point in your web design checklist, it's time to choose which will work best for you.
Using a website builder is perhaps the most cost-effective and time-efficient way to create a website, allowing you to implement your web design strategies and plans without compromising on functionality. This is also a great option if you're not a web designer or developer.
Other options include designing your website with AI, for a truly efficient web design process.
If you choose to develop and code a website, either by yourself or with a web developer, your web design checklist will need to consider the following steps:
Front-end coding: Turn designs into code that browsers can interpret, using HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
Back-end development: Set up servers, databases and applications that power the site's functionality.
Content management system (CMS) integration: Implement a CMS, where relevant, to allow for easy content updates.
Don't forget to include in your web design checklist — choosing a domain name and web hosting provider for your site. Both are essential for creating a live site. If you opt for a website builder, like Wix, web hosting is provided and a domain name is free with a paid plan.
05. Plan for a responsive or mobile-friendly site
With mobile device use on the rise, how people search and use the internet is changing. With this emphasis on mobile, it's important to include in your checklist:
Creating a mobile responsive website—meaning one that adapts to various screen sizes by device
Making your site mobile-friendly—there are a number of web design best practices to mobile-optimize your site, including compressing images and using reduced code
06. Create a content strategy for your site
Creating content for your website is more than just filling pages with text and images. It's about carefully building a message that resonates with your target audience. As part of this stage of your web design checklist, you'll need to focus on:
Defining your message: What are the key messages you want to communicate to your audience?
Planning the list of content types you'll need to create for your website: This may include blogs, videos and/or infographics. For each of these, you'll want to draw up a content calendar so you have a clear schedule for creating and publishing website content.
07. Optimize your site for search engine optimization (SEO)
An important of your web design checklist should be optimizing for SEO. Many website builders include in-built SEO tools to make this part a lot easier and even if you're not an experienced SEO there are a number of SEO and web design best practices you can bring together to make sure your site is accessible to Google and searchers alike.
These include:
Keyword research: Identify the terms and phrases your audience uses to search for your products or services. Then think about how to optimize your site pages and blog for these keywords.
On-page optimization: Use your chosen keywords strategically in titles, headings, meta descriptions and throughout the content.
Quality content: Write informative, valuable content that addresses the needs of your audience and those searching in search engines.
08. Choose your website performance monitoring tools
The first stage of this on your web design checklist should include choosing with analytics tools you plan to use to monitor your website. Popular ones include Google Analytics or Wix analytics, which track metrics such as visitor behavior, traffic sources and various engagement metrics.
Don't be afraid at this stage to collect feedback from early users of your site. It's better that you collect feedback before your web design is live than after.
09. Finalize your performance tracking and reporting metrics
Every web design checklist should include your website performance tracking metrics. The ones you choose to focus on will depend on the type of website you've designed and its overall goals. Some popular website metrics to track include:
Conversion rates: Keep an eye on how well your site converts visitors into customers or leads. This might be via direct sales, on an ecommerce website or through newsletter signups on a business website.
Bounce rates: Analyze bounce rates to understand if your content is effectively engaging users.
Page load speed: Ensure your pages load quickly to provide a smooth user experience and reduce abandonment. For this, you can look at Core Web Vitals.
10. Factor in website maintenance and updates
Once a site is live, the web design process doesn't end and this should be factored into each and every web design checklist.
There are a number of site tasks that will always need doing as part of website maintenance efforts — fixing broken links and updating internal links between pages, updating the design to reflect brand evolutions and changes and adding new pages or functionality to meet business and user needs, as well as updating content on pages.
Why should you create a web design checklist?
To be sure that no steps are overlooked during your web design process, checklists can be incredibly beneficial. They often serve as roadmaps for both designers and clients, providing a clear outline of what needs to be accomplished at each stage of designing a website.
The main benefits of checklists for web design
Organization: Keep your project on track by outlining all necessary tasks.
Quality control: Ensure every aspect of the site is reviewed and meets quality standards.
Efficiency: Save time by avoiding the need to remember every detail, as it's all documented.
It's crucial that web design checklists are adapted to meet the specific design needs of each website. They should also evolve with and adapt to changing web standards, especially on web accessibility and related topics. When done right, checklists can help with the creation of high-quality sites that align with user expectations and overall business goals.
Where can you find templated web design checklists?
Free web design checklists
GitHub repositories: Developers and designers often share their checklists for free on platforms like GitHub.
Design blogs: Look for articles that provide downloadable checklists and templates as part of their content offerings.
Online forums: Communities such as Reddit's web design subreddit can be a treasure trove of shared resources.