How to approach a website project?

I too am interested in knowing people's website building approaches. I've always gone with just going with it, but I always end up kinda lost half way through.

I purchased some software called 'The Brain' and it's brilliant for projects like designing a website.

It's just like having a virtual brain to quickly and efficiently add thoughts and ideas as you go and then look back when you need too, or add more as well.

It's increased my productivity work flow and made creating websites less stressful! :-)

Check out this: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Website

Great video on the modern workflow:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsTrAfJFLXI

How would you write a song? You could start with the melody, or the chords, or the rhythms, but in the end, does it matter about the order that the rest of the parts came the be included in the song? Nope. Just matters if the final song really can touch the audience.

I've not built a full website / program as of yet, but to me I'd start with figuring out the main functions and features. Once I knew how I would display these functions I'd start structuring the rest of the content around the features in some sort of logical way.

Next I'd think about how the user will get around from one page to another and start either sketching out layouts on paper or in illustrator (so that I could easily play with sizes/ composition) and once happy with the layout I'd start adding detail and colour.

Then I'd hopefully be ready to start actually coding/ building the site!

I might be way off the mark, like i said I've still not gone from start to finish yet! :P

My workflow is generally something like this:

• Content strategy / planning
• Design
• Front-end:
  • HTML
  • CSS (mobile first responsive of course!)
  • JavaScript / jQuery
• Backend:
  • PHP / mySQL
  • .htaccess / robots.txt
• Testing / Cross-Browser / Device
• Final checks / Additional SEO / Deployment

Of course, it changes depending on the project, but that's pretty much it in a nutshell.

I would go with a workflow similar to Michael's post. I would test as I develop the frontend to make errors easier to identify. Then do more robust testing after implementing the backend.

Exactly, you kind of mix all the pieces as you go, but set up a specific time to really focus on each section you're on. For example, you'll want to test you're responsive design while you're working on the layout, and test your scripting and PHP as you're working on behaviors, then retest all the pieces, as well as everything as a whole at the end. Thanks for pointing that out William!