Over the years, we have developed a workflow that encourages communication & the free flow of ideas all throughout the design and development process. We have found that this is the best way to ensure that we deliver a product that is in line with your goals, and is something we can both be proud of. While every stage is certainly open to detours along the way, this is a general idea of the path we will take on your project.

The more engaged and invested the client is in the process, from start to finish, the happier we’ll all be.

Preproduction (25% due upon completion)

• Client survey - This is the first step, where the client fills out an online or print version of the client survey we have created. Not every question has to be answered, but it does help us get an idea of where you’re coming from, and where we are headed together.
• Discuss audience/industry - Once we have the survey, we generally will sit down with you and go over your competition and see how we can differentiate you from them on the web. This helps us with organizing your content and creating your design.
• Establish requirements for site - As a continuation of the above step, here we determine where we can improve on your current site’s offering, and what we will consider a ’success’.
• Discuss example sites and why - Now the fun part. We will find a few example sites that you like, and find out why. This will help us come up with a design that works for you.
• Discuss budget and deadlines - Finally, we will determine a timeline that works best for both of us, and how to stay within your budget.

Content Audit

Once we have agreed on the framework for your project, the actual work begins. In this step we will determine what content you have, what can stay, what should go, and the structure of your new site.

• Audit existing content - Here we will review your current site (if you have one) and see which content works, which content should possibly be consolidated, and what content should be dropped or rewritten.
• Establish proposed site map - Based on what we determined in the last step, we will now come up with a rough skeleton of what content is going to go where, and how the user will navigate to that information.

Create wire frame & protosite - A simple site with your content will be created so that we can test the ‘flow’ of the site. This way, if important content is orphaned somewhere that is hard to find by a user, we can make those changes now instead of after your site launches.

• Begin work on CMS if requested - If you have requested a content management system, we will discuss the requirements for that at this stage, and begin work on it immediately.

Design Visual Interface (25% due upon completion)

Here’s where the actual design phase begins. Based on the information we discussed in the first meeting, we’ll go ahead and provide you with designs based on sites you like, improvements you have requested from your current site, and things we have learned from your competition.

• Develop comp - Here we will deliver a mock-up of your site based on the information we discussed in our first meeting.
• Receive revisions - If the client has any changes to the design, we will make them and return a revised comp for client review.
• Deliver revised comp
• Make further changes if needed

Assess deadlines & make changes as needed

If needed, we will adjust any deadlines based on the progress of the project thus far.

Build out site (25% due upon completion)

• Implement design - Once the design is approved by the client, we’ll write the markup to make your new site look like the mockup we agreed upon.
• Create and populate pages with content - Once the page has been structured, we’ll put the content into the site based on the sitemap we agreed upon in an earlier meeting.
• Integrate content management system if requested - Finally, if there was a content management system requested by the client, we will integrate that into the design at this stage.

Conduct QA Testing

Before we hand the site to the client for final changes, we will conduct a round of tests to make sure that everything appears the same in all browsers, there are no typos or grammatical errors, and that the site is as easy to navigate as we originally intended it to be.

Client Preview

Finally, we hand off the site to you at this point. Barring any other changes or revisions, the site is as the public will see it.

• Receive client changes - If there are any outstanding revisions to be made, it is at this point that we will complete these changes and seek approval from the client.

Deliver Site (25% due upon completion)

Once all changes are completed from the final preview stage, we will publish your site. And with that, you’re on the web!

While most of these steps seem to be common sense, and some will actually be invisible to the client, I feel it’s important to have transparency in the entire workflow, so that that everyone is on the same page on day one, on the day the site is published, and every day in between.

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 17th, 2008 at 5:55 pm and is filed under design, process. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.