In depth: Plan

Our planning process uses a series of short, facilitated workshops designed to capture the information that we need, but more importantly to help gain alignment and buy-in within your organisation. We take a three-stage approach to planning.

Stage 1: Positioning - reviewing your current activities

We'll take you through a SWOT review designed to bring your team together and agree on the goals for your new community, and identify the opportunities to take a step ahead of your competitors. At this stage, a large group is ideal, as its important to get views from all your stakeholders as early in the process as possible.

Stage 2: Member and customer strategies - Identifying content & functionality

First, we'll help you identify who your users are and what they like to do online, using a technique called profiling with personas. It puts you in your visitors' shoes and because we give the persona real characteristics and identities, they quickly feel like a member of your team.

Next, we develop a content strategy which allows the stakeholder team to review the various functionality and content planned for the site and work out which elements will deliver the most value to the persona.

Finally, we'll take you through a process to define your engagement strategy, working out which content is freely accessible and which can act as an incentive for your visitors to register, profile themselves or spend some money. At the same time, you'll agree how much effort is needed internally to produce and maintain that content, helping to define your plans for getting things prepared for the launch of your site.

Stage 3: Requirements - creating the scope and vision

Now we know what we want to display on the site, we move on to deciding where to put it and what it should look like. The Information Architecture of your site is critical to its success, but it's as much about choosing the right language and signposting to content as it is about defining a comprehensive taxonomy and site structure. Our experts will employ a traditional approach to a modern problem to help you get it right.

Next, our creative team will take you out of the formal workshop environment and get hands-on to produce a creative brief for the site, discussing your corporate identity guidelines and immersing you in other designs and concepts to help maximise the impact your new look will bring. We'll also be paying close attention to accessibility and usability ensuring that the site can be viewed by the largest possible audience, and that they can quickly get where they want to.

Next: Building your community

Everything is in place, we know what you want, so now it's time to build your new community.