Our Web Design Process: From Discovery to Launch
Written by Gabriel Bertolo
Published on February 27, 2026
You go through the daunting process of reaching out to different web designers, getting quotes, and deciding who to hire. You pay the retainer invoice and sign the contract. Then what?
When web design projects fail, the culprit is often not bad design but a bad process. Every web design company has its own process. It varies somewhat depending on the price point the companies offer. Cheap designers typically don’t do real onboarding or discovery, so we’re going to exclude the sub $5k web designers from the rest of this conversation.
Even in the professional web design pricing tiers, the process varies wildly. Most agencies are vague about their discovery process. And I’ve seen some really bad ones over the years. Discovery is crucial to delivering the best digital asset. The more a design strategist knows about who you are, what you offer, and your audience, the better.
It’s a fine line tho. Business owners don’t have time for endless meetings and a drawn-out discovery process that feels more like therapy.
83% of web design projects with discovery phases succeed vs. only 52% succeed without discovery.
And this difference isn’t talent. It’s methodology.
Without a clear process and established expectations, things go sideways. Here are some industry average statistics.
It’s a common story to hear from other business owners. They were told the website would cost $20k and be done in 2 months. Then it launches 5 months later, riddled with bugs and glitches, and in the end, it costs you $30k.
It’s not a design issue. It’s not that they lied to you, hopefully. It’s a bad process. Just like anything, preparation and planning are what make things flow.
Over my 13+ years running Radiant Elephant, I have designed a multi-phase onboarding and discovery process that is smooth and detailed, without being an imposition on the client’s time. This process prevents project failure.
Fewer meetings mean more billable hours go into the work.
Detailed pre-contract scope questions so the timeframe and quote are accurate.
Clear expectations for both sides.
I’ll explain each phase and why it is important, what happens when it’s skipped, and how it leads to you getting a much better website and experience.
You’ll understand why a good discovery process prevents expensive mid-project changes and how a strategy-first design leads to lower long-term costs.
Over the years, I’ve learned a lot from clients coming to us from other agencies. I’ve heard client experiences with local web designers and some of the biggest U.S. web design companies.
From this information, I have continually refined Radiant Elephant’s web design discovery process to prevent these kinds of issues.
Discovery is where most agencies cut corners.
When I was younger, I used to paint houses for some extra cash. Painting the interior of a house is interesting. In most cases, the first day or 2 or 3 is often spent taping, laying plastic, and preparing for the actual painting.
The better the prep, the better the paint job. It’s a decent analogy for web design. The better we prepare, the better the result you get. Discovery is the highest-ROI phase because it lays the groundwork for the entire project and is the #1 factor that impacts project success.
Of course, the time discovery takes varies. A small business site is going to be a lot shorter than a national E-commerce site. But every web design project benefits from some type of discovery process.
Aligns Business Goals: As the strategist, I need to understand what success looks like to you. Is it more leads, more sales, or awareness? Is there a specific aspect of your company you are trying to scale? Different goals need different design strategies. The web design company and the client need to be completely goal-aligned.
Audience Research: Who is your audience? What segments drive the most growth? What are their pain points? What builds trust with them? Successful websites don’t try to target everyone. Understanding your users is crucial for a website that converts.
Competitive Analysis: What are your top 10 competitors doing right? What are the gaps we can use to our advantage? This develops strategic positioning in the market.
Technical Audit: For website redesigns, it’s important to analyze what the current website is doing well and what it is doing poorly. I look at conversion rates, bounce rates, and user behavior to better understand how users are engaging with the current site.
Content Strategy: What content do you have, and what content do you need? Who’s going to write it? Content is the biggest bottleneck, so it’s important to work it all out in discovery. This is also a discussion I have during the pre-contract phase.
Success Metrics: Every business is unique. Knowing the most meaningful KPIs is important. This is how we measure if the project is successful. Did the new site increase traffic, conversions, and revenue? We set these benchmarks in discovery, so the design strategy is crafted to meet them. This is important for ROI.
Scope Creep: Without a very clear understanding of project scope, things get out of hand quickly. Those “one more thing” emails from various stakeholders halfway through the project lead to wasted time and going over budget. It’s not fun for anyone involved. Discovery minimizes this.
Design Misalignment: This happens a lot. The agency thinks they know what the client wants, and the client thinks the agency gets it. The project is getting towards the end, and the clients see the site and immediately feel that it is not what they had wanted. Then a complete redesign is needed, and a lot of time has been wasted.
Going over Budget: It’s more expensive to fix things post-launch than it is during design. And this becomes even more expensive once in the maintenance phase. Discovery is where we can easily fix things while in development.
I had a client come to me a while back. They had hired a well-known web design company for a $30k website redesign, and they really felt like the company didn’t listen to them. They felt they had to fight with the company to be heard. The result was a very corporate website, which was off-putting to the brand’s target market. They would have realized this in discovery. This led to a drop in conversions and a loss of revenue for the company.
Wireframing is an important step in the design process and separates the pros from the amateurs. Layouts aren’t to look cool or to decorate. There are UX and CRO best practices that outline the best ways to present information. Order and flow have a profound effect on website conversions. Wireframing is also how to solve strategic and information architectural challenges before visual design is applied. Wireframing is about user experience.
Site Architecture: How should pages be organized? What’s the hierarchy and the established user journey? How clear is the navigation structure? How can all of this be improved? This is foundational. No amount of pretty design can overcome structural issues.
Content Hierarchy: What are the most important elements on each page? What should users see and know immediately when they land on each page? What elements and information lead to conversions? Content hierarchy is very important.
User Flows: How do users move through the site? Where do they enter? Where do they convert? The better we can understand this, the better we can design and structure the site to help the user find what they need faster and convert more often.
Mobile Vs. Desktop: People use sites differently on different devices. I always look at Google Analytics to see the % of visits from each device type so we can optimize for each and prioritize the most used. We always design websites Mobile-First.
Changing something in a wireframe is quick and easy. And the further you get in the build, the more expensive the changes become. For enterprise projects, we present the site as an interactive wireframe designed on WordPress. This streamlines the process rather than going between Figma and the platform. This strategy also allows us to test and debug as we are moving through the design process.
Now that the strategy is locked in, the user journey is mapped and validated, and the content hierarchy is approved, we move into the fun part, visual design. This isn’t designed for design’s sake. Every design choice is to serve the overall strategy.
Brand Expression: Visual design is the expression of your brand’s personality. Are you quirky? Innovative? Laid back? Luxury? The design choices, like colors, typography, imagery, and white space, are used to communicate the brand’s identity.
Conversion Psychology: Design directs the user’s attention. Contract creates focus, white space provides breathing room. The colors chosen influence emotion. The size of the button affects click-throughs. Every design choice is well thought-out to align with the goals and the strategy, using conversion rate optimization and UX best practices.
Visual Hierarchy: We make sure that the most important informational and conversion elements are large, bold, and unmistakable. Supporting elements are secondary. The goal is to guide the user’s eyes to the conversion path.
Mobile-first Design: Over 60% of website traffic comes from mobile devices. We design the mobile layout first, then we scale the design up to tablet and desktop. This ensures that your mobile design is optimized for mobile conversions and not an afterthought.
Accessibility: Good design must work for users with disabilities. Color contrast ratios help with readability. We add descriptive Alt Text for images. We implement keyboard navigation. People with disabilities account for 16% of the population.
Design System Creation: We build reusable elements for consistency, including buttons, cards, forms, and more. This approach also makes future updates faster and easier.
Presentation: We present designs with an explanation. We explain the thought behind the choices and how it aligns with the overall strategy and business goals.
Revision Rounds: This is typically 2-3 rounds, depending on the project. Round 1 is about overall direction. Round 2 is for refinements. Round 3 is for the final polish. We use structured feedback tools to keep revisions organized and easily implemented.
Design QA: Before we handoff the site for final development, we QA the designs. We make sure all states are designed (hover, active, errors). We make sure all mobile layouts are complete. We handle all loading states. By doing a thorough QA in the design phase, we prevent costly development changes.
Phase 4 is where design meets function.
Clean Code: We write clean code and only work with frameworks that generate clean HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code without bloat. Clean code is easier to maintain. Future developers have a much easier time updating code.
Performance Optimization: We built sites that are built for speed and performance. We optimize all images, use minimal JavaScript, and use fast hosting. Our target is a load time under 2 seconds because sites that take over 2 seconds to load can lose up to 60% of visitors.
CMS Integration: We typically use WordPress configured to your needs. We can implement custom fields for easy content updates, and we provide training so you can make minor changes yourself.
SEO Foundation: We implement advanced on-page SEO best practices into every site. Clean URLs, proper heading architecture, meta descriptions designed to rank and get a high CTR, advanced schema markup, sitemaps, etc. These are the technical foundations to help the site rank in search.
Security: Security isn’t an afterthought. Every site we build includes SSL, hardened WordPress configuration, two-factor authentication, automated backups, and active security monitoring. A website breach doesn’t just take your site down. It can damage your reputation and erode customer trust in ways that are very hard to recover from.
Responsive Execution: Every element is built and tested across screen sizes, not just checked in a browser’s responsive preview. Real devices behave differently from simulated ones. We build and test on actual phones and tablets to make sure the experience is seamless everywhere your visitors are.
Most agencies disappear into a black box during development. Clients don’t see anything for weeks, then get a “reveal” where they’re supposed to approve a complete site in one meeting. That’s a disaster waiting to happen. Problems get buried, assumptions aren’t caught, and you end up with expensive revision rounds.
We build in sections, not all at once. Complete the homepage first. Then the about page. Then services. This allows clients to preview real functionality (not just designs) and give feedback on interactions and animations before the full build is committed. Issues surface early, when fixes are cheap.
Weekly Progress Updates: Clients get access to the staging site throughout the build. You see progress in real-time. This keeps you engaged and prevents the “surprise” reaction at a final reveal that nobody wants.
Version Control: We use Git for version control on every project. Every change is tracked and can be rolled back if needed. This is standard in professional development. If an agency you’re talking to doesn’t use version control, that’s a red flag.
This is where amateur agencies fail. They “test” by clicking around for 20 minutes and then launch. QA isn’t perfectionism. It’s basic project economics.
Bugs found during QA cost a fraction of what the same bug costs post-launch. And bugs found months later? Those can cost 100 times more to fix if the original developer is even still around. Think about that the next time an agency tells you they’ve factored QA out to speed up the timeline.
88% of users won’t return after a bad experience. 60% of production bugs come from untested code. One missed bug is lost customers, lost revenue, and a damaged reputation. QA prevents this.
Functionality Testing: Every feature works as designed. Forms submit. Links work. Buttons do what they should. Navigation functions. Search returns results. Seems basic, but 52% of websites have broken links at launch. We check everyone.
Cross-Browser Testing: Your site must work on Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. Different browsers render code differently in ways that can be significant. We test on actual browsers and catch inconsistencies before your visitors do.
Responsive Testing: We test on real devices: iPhone, Android, tablets, and desktops. Browser “responsive mode” is not the same as a real device. We catch touch target sizing issues, text readability problems, and layout breaks that only show up on actual hardware.
Performance Testing: Is the load time under 2 seconds? Are Core Web Vitals passing? Images optimized? Code minified? Caching configured? Performance isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s directly tied to conversions and search rankings.
Accessibility Testing: Keyboard navigation works? Do screen readers function? Color contrast sufficient? ARIA labels present? Accessibility is required by law in many cases, and good practice always.
SEO Testing: Proper heading hierarchy? Meta tags present? Image alt text complete? Schema markup installed? XML sitemap generated? Are analytics installed and tracking correctly? We verify all of it before launch.
Security Testing: HTTPS working? Do forms have spam protection? User roles configured correctly? Backups automated? Are security plugins active? We run through the full checklist.
Content Proofing: Spelling checked. Grammar reviewed. Phone numbers correct. Email addresses functional. Team photos are actually your team. This sounds petty until you launch with the wrong phone number and spend a week wondering why no one is calling.
Here’s the real math. A bug caught in QA takes an hour or two to fix, usually around $200. That same bug caught a week after launch involves context switching, reproducing the issue, deploying a patch, and re-testing. Now you’re at $800. Catch it three months later, and you could be looking at $2,000 or more, especially if the original developer has moved on and the codebase feels foreign again.
And those numbers don’t include the business cost. Launch with broken forms, and your leads aren’t submitting. Launch with slow load times and 60% of visitors bounce before they see your offer. Launch with a security vulnerability, and you’re exposed to liability. These costs make the QA investment look trivial.
We use structured QA checklists with 100+ items and test on real devices. We also do “bug bash” sessions where team members from different roles test the site, because fresh eyes catch what developers miss. Some agencies “test” by clicking around for 20 minutes. We invest 40-60 hours in comprehensive QA because fixing bugs pre-launch is 5x cheaper than post-launch.
Before launch, clients test the site themselves. We provide a testing checklist and a structured feedback tool. This catches content errors (you know your business better than we do), missing functionality, and user flow issues that only become obvious when someone new is navigating the site.
Clients who engage in UAT find 25-30% more issues than developer testing alone. That’s not a problem. It’s the system working exactly as it should. Better to find it now than after launch.
Nobody wants to talk about content migration. It’s not exciting. But it’s one of the places where projects most often stall, and where agencies that don’t plan for it cost their clients serious SEO damage.
If you have 200 blog posts, 50 pages, and hundreds of images on your old site, they all need to move to the new one. Content needs updating. URLs need mapping. Redirects need configuring. None of it happens on its own.
Content Doesn’t Migrate Itself: Someone has to move all those blog posts, optimize images, and reformat content for the new layouts. If this isn’t budgeted as part of the project, your launch date will slip. We plan for this from the start.
URL Mapping & Redirects: Every old URL must redirect to the corresponding new URL, or you lose the SEO equity you’ve built up. We map every page, configure 301 redirects, and test each one. Miss this, and Google treats your new site as brand new, meaning lost rankings and lost traffic, sometimes overnight.
SEO Preservation: Your old site has years of SEO value built into it. We preserve that equity with proper redirects, retained URL structure where possible, metadata migration, and schema markup. We’ve seen agencies launch sites that lose 40% of their organic traffic because they botched the redirect strategy. Our checklist-driven migration prevents this.
Content Updates: While we’re migrating, we update outdated content. Remove old team members. Update prices. Refresh photos. It’s your best opportunity to improve content while moving it.
Analytics Setup: We install Google Analytics 4, configure conversion tracking, set up goal tracking, create a dashboard, and connect Search Console. We test everything before launch. Launching without verified analytics is flying blind from day one.
Timeline Reality: Content migration takes 1-2 weeks for a 50-page site and up to 3 weeks for a 500-page site. If your agency isn’t factoring this in, your launch timeline isn’t realistic.
Launch is exciting. It’s also where things can go catastrophically wrong if the process isn’t planned carefully. A lot of agencies treat launch like a finish line. We treat it like a critical operation that requires precision timing.
Final QA Pass: We re-test everything one more time. Forms. Links. Functionality. Responsive behavior. Performance. Things can break during final updates, and we want to know about it before your visitors do.
Backup Old Site: Full backup of the existing site before we touch anything. If something unexpected happens, we can roll back. Having that backup is peace of mind for everyone.
DNS & Hosting: Hosting confirmed and ready. DNS records prepared. SSL certificate installed. Caching configured. We make DNS changes during low-traffic hours, typically 2-4 am, to minimize disruption.
Monitoring Setup: Error monitoring installed. Uptime monitoring configured. Analytics tracking verified. We need to know immediately if something breaks. Not in two days when the client emails us.
Stakeholder Communication: The client’s team is notified that the site is launching. Everyone is prepared for the brief transition period. A developer is on standby for the first 24 hours.
DNS Propagation: When you change DNS records, it takes 24-48 hours to fully propagate globally. During that window, some visitors see the new site, and some see the old one. This is completely normal, but clients should know to expect it, so no one panics.
Immediate Monitoring: We’re watching error logs, contact form submissions, site speed, and overall functionality during the first few hours. That window is critical.
Browser Cache Issues: Clients often see a cached version of the old site after launch and think nothing changed. We provide clear instructions for clearing the cache before going into testing mode.
Quick Fixes: Minor issues at launch are normal. A broken link here, a content typo there. We fix them quickly. We maintain a 24-48-hour support window post-launch specifically for this.
Our launch timing is intentional. We go live on Tuesday or Wednesday mornings between 9 and 11 am. Why? The developer is fully available if issues arise. We avoid Monday (too chaotic), Friday (fixes might wait until Monday), and weekends (no support available). The timing sounds like a small detail. It’s not.
Most agencies disappear after launch. We don’t. Launch is the beginning, not the end. The first few weeks after going live are when you learn the most about how real users actually interact with the site, and that data is too valuable to ignore.
Monitoring & Fixes: We monitor site performance, user behavior, and error logs. The first two weeks reveal things QA occasionally misses. We fix issues quickly while the build is fresh.
Content Updates: Clients often realize after launch that they need to adjust something: a headline, a service description, a team bio. We’re available for quick content updates while everything is still fresh in everyone’s mind.
Training: We train your team on content management. How to update pages, add blog posts, update images, and change copy. We create video tutorials for reference so you’re not dependent on us for minor updates.
Analytics Review: We verify that all tracking is working correctly. Goals firing. Data accurate. Tracking issues gets caught and resolved quickly.
Performance Tuning: Now we have real user data to work with. Which pages are loading slowly? Where are users bouncing? What needs to be improved? We optimize based on actual behavior, not assumptions.
SEO Monitoring: We check rankings, monitor traffic, confirm redirects worked as expected, and watch for 404 errors. The first 60-90 days after a redesign launch are critical for SEO continuity.
Conversion Optimization: We review user behavior flows. Where do people drop off? Which forms aren’t converting? Which calls to action aren’t getting clicked? We make data-driven improvements that build on what the launch has shown us.
Iterate: A website is never really done. Launch is version 1.0. The goal is to keep measuring and improving over time. The agencies that understand this are the ones clients stick with.
After the initial engagement, we offer maintenance plans covering monthly updates, security patches, content changes, and technical support. We also offer ongoing SEO services, conversion optimization, A/B testing, and content creation.
We maintain a 98.5% client retention rate because we don’t disappear after launch. We’re invested in your long-term success, not just in completing the project. The site we launch is version 1.0. We help you get to 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0 as your business grows.
After 13+ years and dozens of successful projects, here’s what I’ve learned separates the agencies that consistently deliver from the ones that leave clients frustrated and out of budget.
Transparency: You know exactly what’s happening and when. No black boxes. No surprises. You have access to the staging environment throughout the build and receive weekly status updates. There’s no moment where you’re left wondering what you paid for.
Client Involvement: You’re not a passive buyer. You’re a collaborator. Your input shapes strategy, design decisions, and content. But you’re not project managing the build. We guide the process. Your job is to give feedback at the right moments, not manage tasks.
Methodology Over Improvisation: We follow a proven process. Not “let’s figure it out as we go.” Every phase exists because we’ve seen what happens when it’s skipped. This isn’t rigid. It’s disciplined.
Quality Standards: We don’t cut corners. Thorough discovery. Strategic wireframes. Comprehensive QA. Proper launch process. These phases aren’t optional. They’re how we prevent the expensive failures that plague web projects across the industry.
Owner-Led Service: I personally handle strategy and oversee every project. Not delegated to a junior team member. When you work with Radiant Elephant, your investment gets senior-level attention from start to finish.
Accountability: We hit deadlines. We deliver what we promise. We stand behind our work. If something goes wrong, we fix it. No excuses, no runarounds.
Long-Term Partnership: Our 98.5% retention rate is the proof. We’re your web partner, not just a vendor you hire once and never hear from again.
When evaluating agencies, here are the questions that reveal how seriously they take process: Do they do discovery, or do they jump straight to design? Do they show wireframes, or just visual designs? How many hours of QA do they budget? What’s their launch process? What happens after launch? What’s their client retention rate? The answers tell you everything.
Process isn’t bureaucracy. It’s how we deliver websites that actually work, on time, on budget, with minimal stress and maximum results.
Agencies that “move fast” often mean they skip important phases. Fast discovery means a missed strategy. Fast design means generic templates. Fast QA means buggy launches. Fast looks appealing right up until your project becomes a $30k mistake and you’re starting over.
Good websites take 12-18 weeks for a reason. Each phase prevents specific, predictable failures. Cut corners, and you pay later: missed deadlines, budget overruns, post-launch fixes, and poor performance.
We follow this process because it works. 13+ years. Dozens of successful launches. 98.5% retention rate. Clients stay because we deliver predictable, quality results. The process is why.
Ready to start? We offer paid discovery phases, typically $3,000-$5,000, that clarify your strategy, define requirements, and create a full roadmap. Whether you work with us or not, the discovery document is yours to keep.
Prefer to jump straight into a full project? We’ll walk you through exactly what the next 14-18 weeks look like, what we need from you, and how we’ll collaborate. Total transparency from proposal to launch.
The process we follow isn’t magic. It’s discipline. Every phase exists because we’ve seen what happens when it’s skipped. When you work with Radiant Elephant, you’re not just getting a website. You’re getting a proven methodology that protects your investment.
Gabriel Bertolo is a 3rd generation entrepreneur who founded Radiant Elephant over 13 years ago after working for various advertising and marketing agencies.
He is also an award-winning Jazz/Funk drummer and composer, as well as a visual artist.
His Web Design, SEO, and Marketing insights have been quoted in Forbes, Business Insider, Hubspot, Entrepreneur, Shopify, MECLABS, and more.
Check out some publications he's been quoted in:
Quoted in HubSpot's AI Search Visibility Article
Quoted in DesignRush Dental Marketing Guide
Quoted in MECLABS
Quoted in DataBox Website Optimization Article and DataBox Best SEO Blogs
Quoted in Seoptimer
Quoted in Shopify Blog