I just put a long and thoughtful post on Seattle 2.0 about how to create a website that will meet your customer's needs.
Here is a summary of the steps:
- Identify the site customer
- Identify what the customer wants
- Create personas
- Identify what you want them to do
- Get a pen and paper and diagram your site
- Start sketching the website
- Layout, Text and Graphics
- Go live, get feedback, repeat (free bonus step)
Let me know what you think and feel free to Digg, Dot-it, del.icio.us, link to it, etc.
I'm the Co-founder & CTO of