A Framework for Website Design That Actually Works
Everyone who comes to us wanting a new website has a dream for what it could be – a place that finally reflects who they are, reaches the people they’re trying to reach, does what they need it to do. But if you aim at nothing, you’re certain to hit it. The difference between a website that becomes everything you hoped and one that quietly disappoints comes down to a few honest conversations before any design work begins.
We call it PAMS: Purpose, Accessibility, Management, and Sustainability. Here’s what each one means, told through some true stories from the field.
Want to skip straight to the checklist? Download the printable PAMS checklist here, or head to our full PAMS Checklist page. We have a Docx version too.
PURPOSE
Does the purpose of the website align with your organisation’s ethos and the outcomes you actually want?
We once had a client who ran a security camera and alarm installation business. They came to us and said, “Shane, we want a website, and we want it to be a web store .” My response was: “No, you don’t!”
They were righlty confused. So I asked why they wanted a shop. “Because everyone else has one,” they said. I asked what they’d actually sell through it. They paused. Their entire business was physical – going into people’s homes and workplaces to install and service security equipment. They didn’t sell products directly to customers at all; doing so would have been a logistical disaster for them.
The issue wasn’t that a web shop is a bad idea. It’s that it didn’t fit the purpose, ethos, or style of their business. They wanted one because everyone else had one, not because it served what they actually did.
ACCESSIBILITY
This covers font choice, colour and contrast, the ability to see and understand images, and overall navigability – including mobile responsiveness and multilingual support where relevant.
Years ago I worked in a butchery with a bright red vinyl floor. We used green plastic scouring pads to clean the equipment. One day the boss dropped a scouring pad on the floor and came in muttering, searching for it. To the rest of us, it stuck out like a sore thumb against the red floor. but because our boss was red-green colourblind he genuinely could not see something that was, to everyone else, perfectly obvious.
Websites do this to people constantly. Poor colour contrast, meaning conveyed through colour alone, images with no alt text for screen readers, fonts small enough to drive your parents nuts so they call you to complain. What seems obvious to a designer may be functionally invisible to a real visitor. There are a set of web accessibility standards called WACG. You can read more about them here : https://www.w3.org/WAI/fundamentals/accessibility-intro/
MANAGEMENT
Getting the site designed and devleoped is just the beginning. Then it has to be managed. How hard or easy that will be is deeply affected by design and pre-planning
How easy will the site be to manage day to day by someone without deep technical training, How much will that cost? What training is required? Is there documnentation? What options do we have?
A church once came to us with a beautiful website – genuinely gorgeous design. But there was a problem. Every time they wanted to change a sentence or add a page, something tiny in their eyes, it cost them $100, $200, sometimes $300 dollars, because they couldn’t make the change themselves. They had to go back to the original developers, who charged $180 dollars per hour or part thereof for even the smallest edit.
A minor wording change became a major expense. Their question to us was simple: can we have a website we can actually manage ourselves, without needing to hand off every small change to someone else?
My answer to them sadly was no. The site had been devleoped in a prioprietary system and the only way to stop paying and start managing it themselves was to rebuild the site from the ground up n a system that truely gave thme control, management and freedom.
SUSTAINABILITY
This covers support (how easy and accessible it is), cost (both the upfront build and ongoing hosting or maintenance), and long-term viability as your needs change.
We recently picked up a client whose website had been built on Squarespace. They came to us wanting out – it was costing them a fortune, and every time something broke or needed help, they were stuck waiting on the phone, in a chat queue, or for an email reply, unable to move forward with their own site.
The hard truth we had to share: they can’t simply export their Squarespace site into something else. Squarespace is a closed, bespoke platform. Their only real option is to pay to have the site rebuilt on an open system, such as WordPress or another open-source content management system.
Once on an open platform, their options for support, hosting, and control become enormous – thousands of providers to choose from. Staying on Squarespace, they had none.
Financially, a small decision in the planning stage became an ongoing cost. After we moved them to WordPress they had the choice of hundreds of hosters, access to thousands of developers and millions of pages of information on the web to learn how to manage their own site. THe shift incurred costs but within a year they had repaid the investment with interest.
Ready to think through your own website with purpose, accessibility, management, and sustainability in mind? Get in touch, or jump to the PAMS Checklist to start working through it yourself.
—