Designing and building a website is a complex task, and there are many margins for error. The idea behind having a checklist, is to try and find out where any errors are, and fix them before any website goes live. These check lists range from the start of a web design well before any sketching, coding, or even asking the question, so what does this site do?

If you follow these checklists you will find that many problems are caught and solved before a single user uses the site, which has considerable benefits as we all know. Some of these checklists, are quite specific, so you find you do not need them, or may need only them. The decision of which ones to use and which ones not to use, is yours.

1. Client-Focused Checklists and Questionnaires

How to Extract the Facts with a Web Design Client Questionnaire
Design checklist: What clients should provide their designer
Comprehensive Web Design Checklist
How I Approach Logo Design – A Checklist
4 Critical Logo Design Details You May Be Forgetting About.Client Questionnaire for Web Developers
Step-By-Step Website Development – Check List
Project Planning Website Checklist

2. Pre-Launch Checklists

The Ultimate Website Launch Checklist

Blogger’s Checklist Before Hitting The Publish Button

3. General Web Design Checklists

Web Standards ChecklistTypographic Rules Checklist (PDF)
Typography Checklist (PDF)
Essential Navigation Checklist for Web Design

Checklist for usable forms
Sensible Forms: A Form Usability Checklist.

GUI Screen Design Checklist
GUI Testing Checklist.

Web Accessibility Checklist.

Another accessibility checklist.

Checklist To Improve Your Site’s Speed and Performance
The Ultimate Testing Checklist
101 Essential Checklists

50 Questions to Evaluate the Quality of Your Website

Content Quality Checklist
CSS Crib Sheet

Beginner’s Checklist Before Debugging CSS
Ruby On Rails Code Quality Checklist
Launching Ruby on Rails projects, a checklist.

Checklist for Securing PHP Configuration

4. Usability Checklists

Web Design Best Practices Checklist

The Ultimate Webdesign Usability Checklist

Quick Usability Checklist

The Blog Usability Checklist
25-Point Website Usability Checklist

Everyday Usability—14-Point Checklist for Success
Usability.Edu: 25 Incredibly Useful Usability Cheat Sheets & Checklists
The Usability Toolkit
Key questions to ask your usability testing supplier (PDF)
Dr. Web: The Ultimate Usability Checklist (in German)

5. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Checklists

Common Sense SEO Checklist

The Ultimate SEO Checklist

The Beginner’s Checklist For Small Business SEO
The Beginner’s Checklist for Learning SEO

The Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet.

SEO Checklist

6. Marketing Checklists

Viral Marketing Campaign Checklist

The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklist, Period!

Improving Conversion Rates Checklist

Landing Page Checklist
Checklists for starting your first business

7. WordPress Checklists

WordPress: The Complete Post-Install Checklist
More checkpoints.

WordPress: Blog Maintenance Checklist

WordPress: Theme Development Checklist
Another checklist

yet another one

Moving and Upgrading Your WordPress Weblog: A 20-Point Checklist
WordPress Upgrade Preparation Checklist.

8. Ultimate Web Design Checklists

149 Mortal Sins That Will Send Your Site to Web Design Hell

The Official ‘Successful Website Checklist Challenge’

PC Limited’s Web Design Check List
A Solid Web Design Checklist
A Website Design & Development Project Checklist

Test Your Website: A 57-Point Checklist for Maximum Usability

These checklists will be espeically useful to you if you are a freelance web designer. It can be scary going it alone and only by using checklists can you be sure you have everything in place, especially if this is your first project.

We hope these checklists help you in creating better, error free web designs, and we hope that you will make good use of them. They are a very good resource for your designs and they may well be the key to making a good website.

Have fun.


Related posts:

  1. More tips and tools for usability testing in web design
  2. Freelance web designer tips for handling clients
  3. Freelance web design and project planning
  4. Tips and tools to improve the usability of your web design.
  5. Freelance web design tips for avoiding project planning disasters.