Define the message you want to convey. In the case of the web site for exotic fruits, you might want to convince people interested in healthy eating that eating exotic fruits is exciting, healthy, and fun.

Decide how you will persuade your audience to accept your message. You might decide to educate users on the possible uses of each fruit, to create a lively "hip" ambiance that users will want to participate in, and to make purchasing easy.

Select a tone. For instance, do you want to be serious and formal or fun and more informal? Visionary or conservative? Dramatic or practical?

Identify the depth of information or the level of detail that you will offer.

Select a visual and language presentation approach that will help you meet your goals effectively. To appeal to an upscale audience and develop a site that loads quickly, you might want your site to include original, lively, high-quality flat-toned illustrations that will load faster than high-quality photos.

Plan site features that will help you meet your goals. You might decide to maintain a chat area where users can exchange exotic fruit stories and recipes, an area containing interesting history on each fruit, and an efficient ordering form.

Identify your capabilities and how they can be used to meet your goals. For instance, does your staff have the knowledge and skills to write interesting history articles on these fruits? Do you have the budget to pay for high quality illustrations? Does your design and maintenance staff really understand the communication and technical issues involved in keeping a chat area engaging?