Before redesigning a public website, understand the service behind it
A successful website project begins with people, content and publishing—not a new homepage concept.
For a company, municipality, nonprofit or NGO, the public website often carries more responsibility than its design suggests. It explains the organization, helps people find services and connects public needs with internal work.
Follow the most important journeys
Identify the questions and tasks that bring people to the site. Follow each journey from the public page through forms, documents, staff follow-up and the systems behind the service.
This reveals whether the website needs clearer content, a better workflow, integration—or all three.
Treat content as an operating system
Decide who owns each type of information, how often it changes and what must happen before it is published. A clean content model makes routine updates easier and future redesigns less disruptive.
Plan for use after launch
Define accessibility, search, analytics, performance and support expectations while the platform is being designed. The real measure of the website is whether the public can use it and the organization can keep it reliable.