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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