What do you focus on before starting to draw a design?

Question

Layouts and prototypes

Lately I've become interested in web design, but I don't understand much about it. The question is therefore to practicing designers.
Good design is more than just a pretty picture. As far as I understand, the designer should think over the user's interaction with the future site. What do you focus on when you start designing a new layout?
Please share your experience with specific examples. I want to clearly define cause and effect relationships. I look a lot of interesting things can be found on dribbble. It seems beautiful, but it is not clear for what audience this or that layout is designed. In short, there are practically no descriptions.

Answer 1

Above correctly noted - the question is very correct.
Now I will describe two worlds - ideal and real.
A client who cleans apartments comes to you and wants to get new clients via the Internet. What you need to do:
1. Learn everything about the cleaning business. How is the cleaning process? What cleaning products are used? What exactly is included in the cleaning? What are the problems with cleaning and communicating with customers? What are customers afraid of? What would you like? What is the profile of a potential client? Your client knows the answer to all these and other questions, if not the first day in business. If the first day, you will have to look for answers yourself.
2. Based on the collected data, you will already have an idea about the following things:
a. Regular customers order cleaning on a regular basis. So we need to make a convenient subscription interface for them.
b. New customers are afraid to let strangers into their house and leave them alone for the cleaning period. Ok, let's write that the cleaners have been tested to the maximum and have been working for a very long time.
in. New customers are not yet ready to order cleaning, because it is not clear whether they need it and don’t want to spend money just like that. Ok, let's give them a 20% discount on their first order when they subscribe to the newsletter. The client will receive a discount, and your client will receive constant contact via mail.
e. Clients have small children and animals that may react acutely to chemicals. Well, we describe that only super-safe means are used in the work.
Etc. In a nutshell, you need to understand all the questions, all the fears of the people for whom you will make the product, and answer them with the help of the site. And, most importantly, to make the order/purchase process as simple and inconspicuous as possible.
For these purposes, there are auxiliary tools such as characters, user path maps, mind maps and interviews. A ton of information has already been written about this, therefore, with your permission, I will not repeat them here. Let me just say that these tools really work well.
As a result, you will have excellent luggage to start with. And what to do with it further is up to you to decide. Do you want prototypes? You are welcome. Do you want a design? No problem. As you please.
Ah, yes, the real world.
Everything is much more fun here.
A client comes to you who cleans apartments and wants to get new clients via the Internet. He always comes with a Word file, which contains 40 references to various sites that 100 percent contradict each other in style. And, of course, he asks to draw seven red lines, two of which are green, and the fourth is a square. And, by the way, in the same Word document there is a logo that was drawn to him by the son of his mother's friend, but there are no source codes, but there is only a 50x50px jeep.

Answer 2

You are asking the right question, but there is no quick answer. It takes a certain amount of practice to start seeing how to do and how not to do. Where to use the rules and where to break them. Work hard, there is no shortcut.

Answer 3

What do you focus on when you start designing a new layout?

The paradox of design is that each client seems to require an individual approach. But in the end, no - you can use a template. Therefore, there are a lot of marketplaces and designers on the Internet with a billion ready-made templates, take and change the content, everything has already been invented before us.
The main difficulty is to estimate the amount of work. It is clear that the client would like maximum utility for minimum cost and time, and the designer would like maximum price for minimum utility and time. Therefore, half of the work is stupid chatter. Negotiation. Questions. Clarifications. Good practice is to agree on the TOR. If the client himself cannot write a normal specific TK, it is better to do it for him.
Next is the matter of technology.