Go ahead, Mock my Site
One of the important techniques I learned from Vincent Flanders’ original book was that you should first use a graphics application to mock-up what you want your site to look like. Of course, this should be done ONLY after you have:
- defined the personality and purpose of your church
- clearly identified your target users, and
- established a content hierarchy/outline.
As I continue to work on the Redland Baptist redesign, and having engaged the three above steps, I’m now hashing out the look-n-feel with a mock-up which at arbitrary stopping-points, I post up on the church web site server. I then email a URL to the church staff and others involved to solicit their comments, ideas, thoughts and feelings.
One of the few problems that arise from this approach is that they’re looking at a static graphic, so those viewing it cannot envision what I see with regards to various technical aspects. So along with a ‘clean’ graphic, I also provide them with an annotated mock-layout. This then gives those viewing the mock-up some technical context as to what I’m proposing.
And just to show you I’m no Matthew 23 type pharisee I’ve posted my annotated layout for my sub/section pages here for your inspection. See what you think (careful, the full-sized version is about 42kb).
