Website Design & Development
Phase 1: Project Planning
Upon approval of the contract, 76design and the client will meet for a brief kick-off meeting. The overall objective of this phase is to seek input from the client to gain a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities they are facing as well as their objectives and expectations in developing a new website. Once client expectations have been confirmed, 76design will establish and develop a timeline and project schedule. This timeline will be provided to the client to ensure that deadlines are being met on both ends. Once the above deliverables are approved, the project manager and creative director will proceed to develop the creative brief and conduct the internal team briefing prior to commencing the project.
Phase 2: Technical Planning
Upon completion of the internal kick-off meeting, the team is ready to begin working on the project. The first phase is to review the client’s web requirements and to brainstorm ideas that will enhance the site’s navigation and accessibility; to organize and categorize the site’s content in a way that is intuitive to the visitor and will allow for more accurate search results. At this stage, the development team begins to brainstorm solutions against the confirmed scope of work. They will then proceed to develop a technical specifications document including; Stating assumptions, defining features, platforms & tools, identifying risks, level of effort & critical elements, establishing priorities, developing a sitemap & information architecture and wireframes. Also included in the tech spec is a content inventory highlighting existing and new/required content accompanied by a timeline & development plan. 76design will connect with the client or their technical team to confirm a host & server requirements. The technical specifications document is submitted to the client for review, feedback & approval.
Phase 3: Design Site Look and Feel
76design will develop a unique design theme for the new website that adheres to any existing corporate look and feel and incorporates the organizations brand (if required). We will want to develop a look and feel that will best resonate with the audience; it should be simple, clean and crisp, utilize adjustable font sizes, easy to navigate, consistent throughout, modular and expandable, and easy to maintain. 76design will develop two or three written themes which represent a high level interpretation of the proposed concepts. Based on the selected theme, 76design will proceed in developing two to three mock-ups to present to the client; design mock-ups provide a more detailed expression of the overall look and feel including graphical elements & brand assets. The client will then be asked to select a design direction and provide feedback for refinement.
Phase 4: Development of Site Infrastructure & Site Production
76design incorporates current best practices for user experience, customization, dissemination, and interaction based on the latest available website/internet technology. 76design will develop the “back-end” functionality of the site based on the needs and requirements of the site architecture. 76design may build the site using our customizable content management system to allow the client’s staff to perform site updates, edits & additions without outside assistance. The content management system is a proprietary tool that we have developed and use to accelerate the website development process.
Some of the features include:
- Modify content in Rich Text Format (RTF) in an environment that is intuitive and easy to use – content can be copied in directly from Word or any office software
- The ability to add new pages and delete unwanted pages on the site
- All edits to the site are backed up at the time of editing so that any unwanted edits can be undone
- Security features to restrict certain pages if required
- All management of site content, features, and functionality is controlled through an easy to use console.
In addition to the development of the site infrastructure, 76design will setup styling sheets, implement design templates & develop all necessary graphics for the new site. The complete design will then be married up to the back-end. 76design will coordinate and implement migration of site content into the new system. 76design will provide guidance and feedback based on our knowledge and experience in developing content for websites.
Phase 5: Quality Assurance & Testing
76design will not release any work and will not consider it complete until it has undertaken rigorous testing and quality assurance measures to ensure all site functions are operating according to specification. Prior to launch, 76design must ensure that all site functions are operating according to specification. As a result, we apply a series of quality assurance measures; we test & review functionality, conduct cross-browser & cross-platform compatibility testing, and prioritize & manage any issues found in testing. It is our standard practice to implement web analytics & metrics on all websites.
Phase 6: Launch & Support
Once 76design has completed its QA testing and has managed any required fixes, the site will be in a good position to send to the client for a final review and approval. The overall objective of this phase is to setup the live server and to transfer all files to the appropriate host. Once files have been transferred successfully, 76design will proceed in conducting a post mortem; measuring resolutions against objectives & making recommendations for modifications if necessary.
Phase 7: Content Management System Training
76design typically allocates a 2-hour training session for the content management system. In our experience this is enough time for a thorough training on the CMS. We will always be glad to answer questions should you have any subsequently.
