Design stages

Which decisions are tested before the final mockup and why a visual concept cannot be replaced with a finished picture.

Website design starts before choosing colours and fonts. First you need to understand which pages the project will have, what a person does on each one and what content must appear there. Otherwise a beautiful mockup quickly becomes a place where the real business tasks do not fit.

The stages can loop back and get refined. What matters is not the ceremony of approval but that key decisions are tested before expensive implementation.

Structure answers what needs to be designed at all

A sitemap shows the sections and how they connect. It makes it easier to notice that a service got lost in a general list or that different audiences need different paths. For a small landing page it can be a short diagram of blocks; for a large site, a full page structure.

This is also the time to discuss future content. If the company plans to add articles or products, the design must include repeatable templates, not just the pages of the first launch.

A prototype tests the idea without pretty excuses

A prototype shows the composition of a page, the order of information and the user's actions without final styling. If it is unclear how to choose a product or send an enquiry, a new button colour will not fix it.

A prototype can be schematic. Its job is to test the logic before the team spends time on detailed graphics and development.

A mood board helps agree on direction

A mood board gathers visual references: typography, photography, materials, colour combinations and mood. It is a way to find out what each participant means by "strict" or "modern" design. It is not a finished page and should not dictate the site structure.

The final mockup brings logic and visual language together

Once the structure and direction are clear, the designer builds the real pages and interface states. The mockup is where texts, images, forms, navigation and behaviour on a narrow screen are tested. For repeating pages, a component system and templates are created.

Approval of the mockup does not end the work: during development, cases may appear that were not in the demo content. This is where the designer's involvement in implementation helps. The earlier the team sees a difficult scenario, the less rework it needs.