Project Planning

Clients and developers work together to define the project and project deliverables. Includes these steps:

Requirements analysis

  • client goals, target audience, detailed feature requests and as much relevant information as you can possibly gather

Project charter

  • summary of agreed upon information
  • define navigation
  • gain access to servers and build folder structure

Determine required software and resources

  • cms
  • plugins
  • designs
  • stock media
  • Mock-Up Design

The design stage involves taking the information gathered in the planning stage and creating a visual representation of a design or selecting an existing design.

Design Elements Planning

  • confirm design requirements
  • identify design solutions to meet requirements

Mockup Developed

  • colors, sidebars, headers, menus, footers
  • logo requirements
  • media plan

Design Testing

  • elements are put into place and tested
  • necessary changes are made
  • development

Content Management System Installed and Configured

  • plugins installed and configured
  • theme installed and configured
  • pages built
  • relationships developed (categories, tags, keywords)
  • portfolios created

Fill with Content

  • content provided by the client or writer are added
  • media is uploaded

Testing and Verifying

  • review all content
  • inspect and test plugins, widgets, and extensions
  • Project Launch

The purpose of the launch phase is to prepare the website for publication. This requires reviewing and testing design elements, interactivity and features and, user experience.

Polishing

  • identify parts of the website that could be improved in small ways

Transfer and testing on live server

  • site is moved from development server to the live Web server
  • website goes through the final diagnostics

Final cross-browser check

  • Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, iPhone, BlackBerry
  • Hand off to client
  • provide documentation for the website
  • copy of database and files
  • copyright assignment for created and purchased collateral

Project close, final documentation

  • final payment is due