From Idea to Plan: Thinking Like a Developer — Web Development Professional Program

Amateur projects start with code; professional projects start with questions. Before a single tag is written, a developer establishes what the site must achieve, for whom, with what content, on what budget of time. This planning hour saves ten later — and clients judge you on it.

Key Concepts

Requirements in one page: site purpose, target visitors, top three user tasks, success measure
Sitemap before design: list every page and its job — Home, Services, About, Contact is the classic small-business core
Wireframe on paper: boxes for header, hero, content blocks, footer — layout decisions before styling decisions
Content first: collect real text and images early; 'lorem ipsum' hides layout problems until it is too late
Choose boring technology: HTML, CSS, JS, PHP and MySQL run everywhere and outlive frameworks
Define 'done' for the project: a written checklist prevents the endless-tinkering trap

In Practice

Throughout this program you will build 'Himal Trek Guides' — a small tour-guide business site with five pages, a contact form that emails and stores enquiries, and a tiny admin page listing them. Every lesson advances this one project.

Try It Yourself

Write the one-page plan for Himal Trek Guides (or substitute a real business you know): purpose, three user tasks, sitemap of five pages, and a paper wireframe of the home page. Keep it — lesson twelve checks the finished site against it.