When you visit a website, your browser connects with dozens of computers around the globe which act in synchronicity to produce a cohesive result. It’s an intricate technical ballet that must happen in the blink of an eye. When launching a new website, it’s pivotal to plan properly, considering all the moving parts, so that this dance comes together gracefully.
Websites are notoriously hard to budget for. Any organization redesigning their site will have myriad options around what to build (Flashy or functional? Full or minimalist?), how to build it (Squarespace? Static React site? Custom Laravel superapp?), and with whom (Freelancer? Agency? Internal team?).
At Cantilever, when we kick off a project creating large new site, the first thing we do has nothing to do with pixels. Before we design a single page, we ask questions. We call this process Discovery.
Almost every time we build a new site at my web design firm, Cantilever, the client will make a request that looks like this:
The Cantilever team is 100% remote, with team members spread across the U.S. and Canada, and even one currently traveling through Asia and Africa. There is no central office, and it’s rare that team members even share a city.