It is NOT (larger, more emboldened characters please...) NOT (thanks...) the same thing as page design. Page design is a layout skill. Web design is about content, context, navigation and usability.

Page design is what you usually get when you pay a student £500 to knock you up a web site. Web design is what CNN paid someone else $10 million for to come up with http://www.cnn.com.

Soon after I dragged those 901 pages back home I received an email from a realtor in America who asked me to look at her web site, which she thought needed a little brightening up. I had a quick shufti and the result of my thoughts I present before you now, for a short time only, as the

1. Why do you want a web site?

No honestly, I'm serious. The first question a web designer should ask you is why you want a web site. Not what it is going to look like, or how big it is, or how much you are willing to pay or any of those things. Don't be afraid of admitting that it might be a complete waste of time. There is a nasty rumour (spread by ponytails trying to drum up business) that not to have a web site these days is deeply embarrassing.

Not true. Many fine and well-balanced companies have got by admirably without them. They still do business. They still make profit. They still provide worthwhile employment. No web site at all is infinitely better than a pointless web site.

Having a web site should solve a defined set of problems. It should ideally be just part of a larger plan. For example, it might be part of a health awareness project or the first stage in the launch of a new product.

It must have a purpose.

If it doesn't, then why have it?

2. Set your goals

You should be able to say the following:

And X ought to be something that is capable of being measured. "It will raise the company's profile" is not good enough. "It will increase sales" is better. "It will sell 1500 widgets a month" is much better.

If your site has a purpose then it will either succeed or fail. You need to have a way (right from the outset) of measuring that.

3. Know your audience

Now you know precisely what you want the site to achieve, you need to have an idea of who is going to visit it.

People have been categorised in many ways over the years. Whether we like it or not, most of us fall into a number of quite clearly defined groups.

There are number of "targeting systems" that have been used by the advertising industry for years. These include ACORN, MOSAIC, PINPOINT and a particularly good one called "Personal Behaviourgraphics" by CCN Systems.

These are the lists that have given us Essex Man and Sierra Man, as well as The Got Set, Bon Viveurs and Fast Trackers. Try to get hold of some such lists. You should find them in any advertising or marketing textbook. They may not be phenomenally scientific, but they will help you get clear in your mind the sort of people you expect to visit your site.

This might be a good time to re-evaluate. Is your audience likely to visit a web site?

4. Match your goals to your audience

You know what you want to do, now work out how you can do it with your expected audience. Try to imagine things from their point of view.

Take the example of the American Realtor. She wanted to sell houses. Let's say she was in a part of the country where house prices are high and there is a large retired population. OK, so imagine a man who is thinking of retiring to her state and is searching the web for information about it. Is he looking for Realtors? Possibly, but I suspect it is more likely that he is looking for general information about the area that he is considering moving to. He's probably doing a search for the main tourist areas and towns and when he spools through the found-list he will probably skip pages with company titles.

All right, why not include tourist information on your site about the local area. That will bring him in. This is the hook, and it's very important. You get a good hook by matching what you want with what they want.

5. Choose the content

You've done the why, the who and the how. Now it's time for the what. The content should now almost choose itself. This is a tremendously lengthy stage but because it can vary so very, very much dependent upon the circumstances, I won't go into detail here. All I will say is that the content provides the building blocks to...

6. Build a relationship

You have an idea about them, so now give them an idea about you. You need to form some sort of bond with the surfer. Don't get carried away. I'm not talking about that kind of bond. I mean the kind of bond that will make the surfer want to have continued contact with you. To do this, they must, to some degree, come to know you and trust you.

If you are using the site to provide information then you want the surfer to see you as regular and reliable source of information. If you are trying to sell something, then you want the surfer to see you as an honest and reliable trader (TIP: the best way to do this is to be an honest and reliable trader).

Aristotle said that the audience is not swayed simply by the words of an orator, but by the sort of man the orator is seen to be. You have the content, which is (if you like) the words of the orator. Now you must use them in such a way that will leave the surfer with a clearly defined impression of you or your company.

Write down half a dozen words or phrases that will sum up the impression you want to give.

7. Design the look and the links

This is where we come to topic of page layout. You should now know what you've got to tell them and how you want to be seen and so it's time to go through all those very detailed questions about what the colours will be, whether to use frames, whether to use Java. How dynamic it should be. How the navigation works. To ShockWave or not to ShockWave.

All these questions that people will want to give definitive answers to when you first mention building a web site, can now be answered in an informed way based upon your particular situation.

8. Cause action

Once you have designed the site, try to make it lead to an action on the surfer's part. This action might simply be to come again. Or it may be to send off for a leaflet for more information. Or it might be to use the online order page to buy that lawn-mower you spent 15 pages telling them about.

News sites are probably an exception, but in general you will want the surfer to go beyond the web.

This action should go towards satisfying the primary goals of your site.

A web site then, is primarily the solution to a particular set of problems. It is not just a set of pages. Unfortunately a set of pages is all that bad design house will sell you. How can you tell if you've been to a bad design house?

Good design houses are less easily defined, but the reverse of the above will usually be the case:

DG

I would suggest that anyone interested in taking a more serious look at web design should try to get hold of this book.