One of the most common questions we get asked by potential clients is “what process will you be going through to complete my website?” It’s important to think of a website design as a process because each of its elements contributes to the finished product that you provide to the client.
Here at Wubbleyou, we use quite a common process that includes 5 stages of development for each website. The length of each of these stages is dependent on the size of the project and the amount of testing required for example testing for e-commerce sites can take up a few weeks alone!
The 5 stages we follow are: Planning, Design, Development, Testing and finally the Roll-Out.
Below I’ll give you a basic run-down of what goes into each of the stages. One thing to bear in mind is that each company probably has their own processes that they follow. As part of small business management, it’s important to create a process that is efficient and benefits your business model as a whole. Therefore, this article is written to show how we approach each of our projects, and will hopefully help give an understanding of how our 5-step process works.
Planning:
It is well known that planning is just as important as the development stage in a project. If there is insufficient planning taken place, it makes the design stage very difficult as there is no structure to follow. The planning stage starts once a contract has been agreed upon after a client accepts a proposal we’ve created for them. This is used to gather all the information needed before the project can start. This ranges from receiving all the branding and content from the client to creating site-maps and UML diagrams of the structure of the site. Once a plan has been created as to what needs to be created for the clients site, the design work can begin.
Design:
Most of the sites we create include our Content Management System and therefore two stages of design run in parallel together. Our development team will start to design plugins for site-specific elements of the site whilst the design team will be working on draft mock-ups for the site. The design team normally creates a few possible layouts for the project and indicates where each element will be positioned on the site. These are created as images that indicate where the interaction with the site will take place. Once these have been agreed upon by both the client and design/development teams, the project is then moved in the development stage.
Development:
During the development stages of a website design here at Wubbleyou, the previously agreed upon mock-ups start to take shape in the form actual web pages as (.html) or (.php) files. These are usually created as templates that allow the development team to apply the Content Management System to. This is this stage at which the client will be able to see their websites come to life. The development stage is usually where the client will be most involved within the project. This is because revisions of the site are sent to the client to make sure they provide the client with what they required out of the website. Development can be seen as a continual cycle until the final stage when the website is “rolled-out” or when it is made “live” on the World Wide Web.
Testing:
Testing can therefore, be included as a sub-category required within the development process of a website. We find that this is the most overlooked process by some website companies as they rush to get their creations online. We take testing seriously at Wubbleyou, and try to make sure each element of the website is working correctly before it is “rolled-out” in the final production of the site. There are always going to be small bugs that appear when the site is “rolled-out” but it’s important that sites are tested thoroughly before going “live” to the web.
Roll-Out:
Once the site has been given the green light by both the client and design/development teams, the site is uploaded onto the World Wide Web. This is when all the hard work through the previous development stages all pays off. This however, isn’t the final stage in the project design process. After the site is uploaded to its location on the World Wide Web, it is important to test each element of the site in its “live environment”. The world of website design is plagued with version compatibility issues and plug-in upgrades; therefore it is important to provide testing on the final product where potential clients will actually gain access to it. Once each element has been tested, the site will then be made live for access by anyone on the internet.
Hopefully this has helped to give you an idea of what actually goes into the development process of a website here at Wubbleyou. If you have any queries or questions, please feel free to get in touch as we love to hear comments and feedbacks from our readers.
