Web Development Process 1 - A Small Business Perspective

7. Prototype

Here's where the real fun begins. By now you should have spent enough time on the project to ensure that everyone's comfortable with how it will work. The prototype will turn your documents into a reality. Your goal isn't to bicker about minor design elements such as whether you should use one- or two-pixel borders, nor is it to lay down any ASP or PHP. Now is the time to simply produce a visual that you can show the client.

8. Prototype Approval

Because most of the work we do is client-centered, we include this vital phase. If the project you're completing is for a client, this may well be the last time they'll see the site until it is ready for launch. It will give them a vision of where you're going, and provide just enough information for them to digest and be happy.

However, prototype approval is just as essential for internal projects as it is for client work, as it gives everyone a chance to see and critique where the site is at, providing both designers and developers with valuable feedback and information they'll need in order to go forward.

After this step you could easily split your team up into two groups: designers and developers. The designers have enough visuals to produce a final copy, and the developers have enough information, examples and forms to lay down some incredible code.

9. Working Production

This is where the rubber hits the road. Your designers design, your developers develop, and you come together with something that isn't necessarily perfect, but which works. The database is laid out, the ASP and PHP are done, you've written all your compiled components, the design is finished, and the navigation and headers are the best this side of the new millennium. It should look decent, work smoothly, and give everyone a chance to see where the project now stands -- and appreciate how far it has come.

10. Final Production

Yeah baby! This is the final "Look, see? It works!" You'll clean up the code from the Working Production, sharpen up design elements, turn JPEGs into GIFs and vice versa, and ensure that your final output is as standards-compliant as possible. You'll also write a list of the current weaknesses in the system which need to be addressed before you can release the system: things like removing useless code, ensuring there are no server memory leaks, etc.

11. Testing & Final Approval

The word of the day is "hammer". Get tonnes of people to use your site and make sure they enjoy it. Take their comments into consideration, but unless they are extreme, don't rush out and do a redesign -- just tweak the site where necessary. This is also the stage in which you nail down your final codebase, make the code modular so you can reuse it later, and give each other bruises from too much patting on the back.

Wrapping Up

Once again, this article was not designed to be the Perfect Guide to developing a Website. In fact, some suggestions I have to improve this would be to include steps on usability studies, focus group testing, writing documentation and doing a maintenance evaluation study. As I said, this is how we currently work jobs and I already recognize several holes in our process. In the meantime, focus on whatever will grow your business, and whatever brings you the most joy. As a wise man once said: If you wait for the perfect time to do something, you'll never get anything done.

Read on! In Part Two, Rachel Goldstein explains the Website development process from a freelance perspective.