Decide

• Who will manage the project for the department? (WDS will manage the overall project, but we’ll need someone to coordinate the work on your end.)
• Who is the final decision maker?
• Who is responsible for writing, gathering, and maintaining the website’s content?

Prepare

• Identify your main audience(s).
• List, in order of priority, your audiences needs. What are they looking for on the website?
• List, in order of priority, your goals for the website.
• Make a list of what you like and don’t like about your current website. Look at other websites and make a list of what you like about them.
• Inventory the information on your current website. Click on all the links – go through the entire website. Decide what information needs to stay, go, or be rewritten/reorganized. See the Content Inventory section below
• Begin to think about your main menu items and how you’ll group or categorize your information in a way that is logical to your audience (not only yourself).
• Begin to gather any logos, imagery, and photography.