Where do you start?  

I see Web planning as a process of moving from a broadly defined concept in a few words, small on details, to a thoroughly developed concept, heavy on details. I visualize it as a pyramid that grows wider and taller as the concept is developed. I see it as a 60-100 word summary of the idea growing into a 40 page business plan with appendices. I conceive it it in my mind as a bare bones skeleton fleshing out into a functioning creation.

We could start by  stating the Website parameters or purposes, the specific business functions for your site, and the design tasks you will implement and design problems you will solve. However, if I think as a business person, I prefer to start with the Business idea (read opportunity) and the Market (read typical customers) before I get into the detail. We need guiding focus, limits, direction or else risk doing too much with too little resources or spending our resources inappropriately on directions and strategies that won't work.

The following is a visual representation of where we are in this process thus far.

So far, we have covered, to some degree the first tier, and three parts of the second tier:

We'll continue here with the Design Parameters and summarize the Specific Content as we have looked at it so far. Remember, the 2nd tier leads to and helps us identify necessary specific content for the site to include on individual pages, in an organization and design, yet to be determined.

Website Design Parameters - Your Design Tasks & Design Problems, the goals and purposes for the site's Web Architecture. They are stated measures of success that will be met through implementation of a site design concept that includes pages, content, organization, navigation, user interface and usability. Parameters are usually thought of as constants...thus we are looking to identify and state guiding  goals which are constant factors in the design process.

These are challenges and opportunities such as: include the logo, make it load quickly, we want the whole catalog displayed, use our color scheme, use our current print materials (we spent a lot on them), how to dump in and format data, minimize clicks, make it navigable, etc. If you're a consultant, your client is certain to make it something like "I want it to load in 3 seconds, add five graphics and still load in 3 seconds. 

We could just say goals, but that leaves us a little short on seeing the relationship of a site design concept as a driving force for all the elements at your site. You want to carefully state  measurable standards for assessing the results of your design concept and to guide the creation of all the parts of the site plan and its contents. Setting parameters before designing and then measuring against them after opening for eBusiness allows you to rate your degree of success and to see what needs fixing.

Explore the meaning of "parameters": http://www.visualthesaurus.com/

Don't forget to state design parameters in a measurable way.

A Word on Goals and Objectives and Strategies: Goals (or parameters) are usually general statements of  direction, defining what we wish to do, excluding what we wish not to do and setting the limits of out vision. Each goal is followed by several objectives, each written with a task, measure, degree of change and time frame. Always connect objectives to one goal. Each goal has several objectives. When writing an objective, use the following four components in your stated objectives.

1. what's to be done
2. how it's measured
3. degree or change
4. time frame

Example of an Objective: Increase the average sale per customer from $20-30 in the next three months

Strategies are suggested by the objectives and are steps and actions to take.

Below are some common design parameters or guiding, constant design goals:

Specific Business Functions - The specialized duties and performances required during the course of the Websites operation. The activities to be carried out by the site. We approach this planning step by looking at the e-business categories we are going to engage in, and then identifying specific activities within each broader category.

We have already categorized E-Business activities by noting that E-Business is often used as a global idea wherein E-Commerce is one type of activity. Consider again the following popular business activities (categories) on the Web.

Your Business Idea would come from one of these E-Business categories. Within the category of eCommerce, you could list specific activities to be facilitated through having a Web Site as page content after looking at your market, competition, goals and design parameters. Consider the following as examples of specific activities that imply Website content:

• Sell products, wholesale or retail (e-tailing)
• Sell space, exchange links or banner ads, accept advertising
• Promote products to be sold through traditional channels
• Consulting
• Publicity for products and services
• Events
• Branding and educating
• Public Relations for the organization
• Distribute or sell information
• EDI - electronic data interchange; digital document delivery
• Shopping cart
• Take orders, online ordering, shopping cart ordering
• Online billing and payment
• Catalog site
• Attract new customers and enter new markets
• Better serve existing customers
• Sell advertising
• Distribute samples
• Customer support and service
• build a customer database
• email newsletters or special interest communications
• wholesale
• agent functions (matching buyers and sellers)
• accept forms
• company updates and news
• testimonials and reviews
• negotiate
• offer special customer deals
• product/service comparisons
• conduct meetings
• customer interaction/communications via email, telephony, fax, video conference, IRC chat, newsgroups, listservs, newsletters, forms
• demonstrations, tours, examples, models
• Online Publishing or samples  (newspapers, magazines, textbooks, audio files, art, video clips, movies.
• IA's - intelligent agents (computer programs that help users to conduct routine tasks, search and retrieve info, support decision making)
• Others?

Of course, you can set up a Web site for non-commercial purposes such as promoting ideas, supporting political messages, religious considerations, internal communications, or any other passion you may have. Most of the ideas in this course will apply well to the creation of a non-commercial site.

eCommerce - Most of us want to engage in selling online, probably retail. This usually means displaying a catalog of our products. The following is a chart comparing paper catalogs to Online (digital) catalogs.