Understanding your client’s vision and objectives is key to creating a great Web site. Reaching that common ground can be difficult, though, if requirements and expectations aren’t clearly defined. Whether you’re developing a new Web site for a client or redesigning your own site, asking the right questions up front will avoid confusion and ease the development process.

To streamline Web development efforts for you and your clients, we’ve put together a Web development questionnaire. This 25-question document was produced in response to a member’s request for help with Web development.

Besides clarifying expectations, we think this will help curtail scope creep, reduce the time that consultants and clients haggle over site details, and help ensure that both sides are satisfied with the final product.

To help us write it, we asked TechRepublic employee Angela Lawson to step up to the plate. Lawson, editor in chief for CNET Networks’ TechRepublic and Builder.com e-newsletters, began consulting on Web development projects back in the days when design options were limited to flush left and bold. Before joining CNET, Lawson was the Web content and development manager at ZirMed.com, a healthcare application service provider.

She put her Web development skills to work and created a questionnaire—complete with checklists—that addresses the project’s objectives, goals, and the critical front-end and back-end experience the project team will need. Download the Web development questionnaire and ease the development process for your next client, as well as yourself.

Is anything missing?

Lawson got the ball rolling by providing this Web development questionnaire. The rest is up to you. If you think something is missing, have a change you would like to make, or have your own questionnaire you’d like to share with your fellow TechRepublic members, send whatever you have to us in an e-mail. If we think your suggestions or materials work, we’ll post them in an updated download in the near future.