5. Design Documents: Blueprints for success

by Sandra Dowie

For the uninitiated, designing a Web site can be a daunting process during which technology seems to rule. If you have contracted others to assist you, you may have found that a thorough discussion of what you want is easily subverted by seemingly arcane production decisions about Java, frames and metatags. At the end of the process, you may not have everything you want in a Web site, but are thankful to have one at all.

Or, if you are a Web site design consultant, you may have been frustrated with having to make costly revisions to sites that you have built for clients. Today's service-oriented culture has mandated that it is critical “to meet or exceed your client’s expectations.” How the heck do you do this when clients seem to have a hard time making up their minds?

The process for planning a Web site and creating a design document is represented in the graphic shown below. It is based on an integrated approach which blends instructional development and project management. Most steps are highly collaborative involving group discussion while the darker boxes indicate independent activities. Select the components of the flow chart to learn more about the process.

Greer, Michael. (1992). ID Project Management: Tools and Techniques for Instructional Designers and Developers. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Instructional Technology Publications.

Lynch, P.J. and Horton, S. (1999). Web Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.

Laying, Jacqueline. (1997). Parallels between project management and instructional design. Performance Improvement. Vol 36:6, pp. 16-20.

Yang, C., Moore, D.M., and Burton, J.K. (1995). Managing courseware production: an instructional design model with software engineering approach. Educational Technology Research and Development. Vol. 43, No. 4, pp. 60-70.

© 2002 Academic Technologies for Learning, University of Alberta.