How we work

Project management that works

By outlining our process here we want you to understand that we are not a traditional Website Development Company, we have a well thought out process that ensures projects start out on the right foot and continues along a well planned route to a satisfactory conclusion.

The Traditional modus operandi in Website Development is to quote for work based on an incomplete understanding of the project, in order to secure the work. Because the project is not fully scoped out, it is inevitable that the Client will expect more than the Developers expected, leading to the Developer needing to cut corners or add additional costs and longer delivery dates. The proposal may have been the cheapest but the end result is a poor quality website that cost more than expected and was delivered late.

Phase 1

Architecture

1

  • Research Business
  • Research Competitors
  • Research Customers

Analysis

Before any design or development work begins, we take the time to understand how the website will fit into your business, how your customers will want to interact with the website and what your competitors are already doing. The majority of website development projects fail, and the main reason for this is that the project wasn't fully understood by the Client or the Development Company from the outset.

  • Design Brief
  • Functional Brief
  • Cost/Time Proposal

2

  • Create Static Designs

Design

Next we create visual designs of the key pages for the website. This is to confirm that we fully understand the design requirements for the project before we start building the website prototype. Any changes to the visual design required are simple to make at this stage so it's very important these are agreed now, changes to the design after the site has been coded can take ten times as long to implement.

  • Approved
    Static Design Proofs

3

  • Build XHTML/CSS Prototype

Prototyping

Now we have an approved Static Design and a Functional brief, we can build the Website Prototype. The prototype is a representation of the finished website, allowing users to interact with the site to see how the end product will appear and work. Changes to the functionality of the website are much simpler to make at this stage, compared to making changes during or after the Development of the website.

  • Approved
    Website Prototype

4

  • Conduct Usability Tests

Usability testing

Probably the one phase missed out more often during a Website Development Project than any other.

The reason is that many Clients and Developers think they understand the requirements well enough and that this step adds unnecessary costs and slows down the project unnecessarily. In fact, precisely the opposite is true, usability testing takes a few hours to complete and always finds small

  • Website Usability Report
  • Approved
    Prototype Changes

Phase 2

Execution

5

  • Create Technical Specification

Technical Specification

By now we have an excellent understanding of how the completed website will look and how it will work. Armed with this information we are able to create an accurate and complete Technical Specification. It's usually about now that the traditional method of website development is starting to unravel. The design, prototype and usability aspects were rushed and so the technical aspects of the development are not completely understood. During the development phase.

  • Accurate Technical Specification

6

  • Create Site
    in PHP, MySQL

Development

Because we have made so much effort to understand and refine the website prior to coding, we now have an accurate Specification to ensure the Developers can focus on Quality - Usability, Performance, Robustness, Scalability and Security. Website Developers are not Designers or Usability experts, they need clear instructions. If you start requesting Design or Functionality changes during the Development phase, you will inevitably impact on the Quality of the finished Project.

  • Quality Website Development

7

  • QA
  • Security Testing
  • Performance Testing

Testing

Before the site goes live, we test it for Performance and Security. We have continually tested the website all the way through the design and prototyping phases to ensure it complies with our Quality Standards (including W3C, Accessibility, SEO visibility, etc.) but only now is it possible to see if the completed website will perform as expected in the environment it will be required to operate in. Obviously we fix any bugs or issues that we find.

  • High Performance &
    Secure Website

8

  • Move Site
    to Production Server

Deployment

There are always last minute tasks during deployment, such as the creation of site maps, redirects, etc. that ensure a smooth transition between your old website and your new one, likewise with a completely new project. We plan to make this as seamless as possible.

  • SUCCESS!