How To Start A Website: The Basic Guide

Step 1 - Why
Before you do anything, you'd better know why you need to be online. Are you planning a full e-commerce endeavor or just an online advertising brochure? The answer to this will determine the entire scope of your project and should be considered carefully. If you decide now and change your mind later, you'll have to begin the whole planning process again. Be informed and know what you plan to do.

Step 2 - Outline
Now that you know why you're going online, you should begin a general outline and begin brainstorming ideas amongst your partners and affiliates. Set down a rough estimate of the number of pages the site will have, decide the basic style you'd like to achieve, and list every idea you have for the site (outlandish or ordinary).

Step 3 - Rough Draft
Take the list you created in Step 2 and refine it. Mark each item as being "necessary", "valuable", or as a "perk". If you don't know how an item qualifies, it's not "necessary" and therefore is one of the other two. Only items that you MUST have for the site to exist should be listed as necessary. Items such as "logo", "brochure content," "contact info," etc. are considered "necessary." Items such as "email form," "graphical interface," and "product catalog" are "valuable." "Flash animation," "automated link-through-systems," and "really cool graphics" are "perks."

Step 4 - Begin Shopping
If you have a small budget, your list of necessary items is fairly small, and you do not see anything on your list which appears complicated or unusual for a website, then just about any good and reputable designer will suffice. In this case, you should shop by price and service instead of portfolio and pizzazz.

Step 5 - Domain Names
Choosing a domain name is a very important step in getting yourself online. A domain name to your online presence is as important as a name for your business was when you first began. Careful consideration and a lot of thought should be given to your choice of domain. www.yourbusiness.com is a good start. Go to http://www.register.com or any other domain registration site that offers "whois" service (most of them do) and put in your desired domain name. Don't register it yet if it's available, just check. Many of these services also include a list of "suggested alternatives." Look through them; sometimes something you hadn't considered will pop up!

Step 6 - Initial Designs
Unless your site is very simple and you were extremely prepared in the beginning (probably having done this before), you will have to have your site built in stages. Each stage should be thoroughly considered for every aspect of the site thus far. Check the navigability, the color scheme, the general look and feel, will it sell product or get customers interested, etc. Be sure to spend a lot of time with your designer to discuss these attributes and what you like and dislike. Print the pages of the site out (at least the main page for each section, if it's large) and write and sketch on them to show changes to graphics, text, and whatever else. Write up a detailed list of changes you'd like to see made and present that to your designer. Your designer will not be resentful of this-- don't worry about stepping on toes. This only makes his or her job easier!

Line of Attack Game

All those research teams working on the best possible interface for board-gamey computer war games can stop now: The boys from Down Under did it again. SSG’s Battlefront proves once again that if you take an old-school war-game design and build a great interface around it, you’re most of the way to having a darn good game.

The question is, what about the new school? Awhile back, I asked SSG’s Gregor Whiley about the company’s attitude toward new mechanics in board games—using We the People as an example—since they’ve obviously mastered the older ones. Whiley responded:

“I haven’t played We the People, but [SSG designer] Ian Trout has. I’m sure that if it had ideas that were useful, then they would have been part of the design somehow. Steps and overruns have been used for 30 years because they work. What I think is more important is the way we’ve been able to add to the basic step concept in our Decisive Battles series with things like timed replacements and refit rules, which allow us more scope to differentiate between the capabilities of different sides…. Subtle power is what we like to see in our game mechanics—simple rules with lots of different outcomes.”

Battlefront demonstrates this subtle power very well. But you can only get so far with 30-year-old mechanics, which is probably why it leaves me a bit cold. How thrilling would it be to see these great designers use their talents to devise new