AKRON (April 20, 2015) — I’ve never been someone who operates well in a knee-jerk environment. I will make decisions quickly, but I need to weigh potential outcomes. I need to have the space to think long-term.

As an online manager, I’m responsible for our online properties. I help them succeed, and short-term planning can be detrimental to a project’s success.

I was in the middle of a recent project, and it was suggested that room for growth was unnecessary. I call that crazy talk.

When it comes to setting yourself up for success, it’s important to have goals. It helps even more to track progress on your goals. 

When I first set out to write this blog, I had my goals drawn out for the next six months and three and five years. Since I actually started writing the blog, I’ve rearranged many of those goals. I also had a very clear train of thought about what I wanted to say and what points I wanted to make.

Assessing and setting goals is fine. But it doesn’t mean a lot unless you have the ability to think long-term about where you’d like to be in three or five years. That’s one of the most fun things to consider when Web design is involved.

I love thinking about who our customers or users are today and how that will change over time. I enjoy making predictions on how websites will be used, how experiences and needs will change. And I enjoy solving problems.

That’s really all Web design is. It’s solving problems — even if the problem you’re trying to solve hasn’t happened yet. Being proactive and thinking long-term when considering Web design means considering what challenges will arise for users and what adjustments you might need to make a few years out. So that way you can leave yourself a bit of growing space in your design.

As many of our Tire Business’ readers know, we recently made the change to a responsive website design. One of the guiding principles in deciding to make that change was the long-term goal of making our site ready for the future and our future readers.

When you’re making any change to your website, business or goals, you’ve got to think long-term and consider what the future may look like and how it will affect those changes. Making changes as knee-jerk reactions will hurt more in the long run.

Email Online Manager Alaina Scott at ascott@crain.com with your feedback.