Xavier Media®

Most people building a new web site, for themselves or for a customer, don't plan the project a head, they simply just start building the site. Would you start building a house before you've consulted an architect? No, I didn't think so and this is why it's important to have website functional specifications ready before you contact a web designer and/or programmers because otherwise the disaster is just waiting around the corner for you

Some benefits by having specifications done before the project starts:

• You know exactly what you want and how the web site should work when ready. That way you need exactly what skills you need to hire and what requirements you have on hosting the site.
• You can plan for future features to be incorporated into your project already now. By adding something unplanned in the future you may have to re-work some parts of your site, but if you've planned for future features you don't have this problem.
• Since you know what you want you can easily estimate both the time it will take to build and the cost of doing so.

Why can't you just ask the web designer to the specifications? They usually design the web sites after their own knowledge. This means that if a specific feature requires for example Ajax, and the designer you've hired don't know how to program Ajax you will get a different solution which may not be what you want.

Also by doing the web site specs before you start a project it's must easier for you to get quotes from different designers and programmers. If you let the designer do the specs for you you've already hired someone

Since most people don't do project plans or specifications daily it could be a good idea to contact a professional consultant to help you. You could also start by checking out this sample website spec I found searching the Net.

Conclusion: Think before you act and hire a professional consultant to help you before you start building.

About the author
Andreas co-founded Xavier Media® in 1996 and has since been involved in all kinds of development, marketing and making money online.