Most differences between a design and the finished site come from small details that were never written down. A simple checklist before development starts prevents almost all of them.
Before building
- Name colors, fonts and spacing once, then reuse them everywhere.
- Design the mobile layout, not only the desktop one.
- Show hover, focus and empty states for buttons and forms.
During building
Build the shared parts first: header, footer, buttons and headings. When these are right, every page that uses them is right too.
Before launch
- Compare each page with the design at phone, tablet and desktop widths.
- Check that every image is compressed and has alt text.
- Click every button and link once.
Twenty minutes with this list is cheaper than a week of fixes after launch.