If you cut corners, it will always come back to bite you in the end, whether it is in the form of last minute design or content changes or a site that just doesn't meet users' needs. Consequently, we've worked pretty hard to come up with a development workflow based on a modified waterfall model. This provides structure and flexibility during each stage of development.
We use this methodology to develop our project plan and present it to explain all the steps needed to develop the project. This helps to clarify why the timeline is what it is.
The Seven Phases of Interactive DevelopementOur workflow goes through seven stages:
1. Concept
2. Discovery
3. Design & Content development
4. Development
5. Launch
6. Post-launch
The development workflow model breaks down each of these phases into high-level tasks. These tasks often involve milestones or checkpoints that need to be met or in deliverables that need to be produced.
In addition, some tasks have templates that can be used and others have guidelines that can be followed. This increases the level of standardization across projects and avoids 'reinventing the wheel'.
1. ConceptThis is where the project is defined. The key tool for doing this is the creative brief which is presented to our clients. It is the document we go back to if we have questions about the goals or requirements of the project, or if scope creep threatens to interfere.
Once the scope of the project is fully understood a project plan can be developed.
2. DiscoveryFirst we listen to you. The discovery phase begins with a kick-off meeting in which we gather information based on your experience with your users. Then we research how your users think. What are your users goals and expectations? What is needed to satisfy these expectations? Where do they look, click and why? We also examine the competitive landscape.
Various elements of the web site outlined in the Concept phase will likely get amended based on the results of this work.
3. Design & Content Development
Content development and Design actually happens concurrently rather than sequentially. For instance, we need to have a good idea of the information architecture of the site (which is done in the design phase) before we start developing the content.
And, as the content is developed, it will typically impact the IA - adding or taking away pages or (rarely) even sections of a site.
Design begins with the development of the site's information archictecture and the testing of it using lo-fi prototypes which we mock-up in PowerPoint.
This testing phase is critical as it's very easy to make changes here that would be very time-consuming to do later on in the project.
Once we have the web site IA worked out, the actual visual design is done and approved. We build in sufficient time for the visual design piece to be as iterative as needed - there's nothing worse than trying to be creative when up against a really tight deadline.
It's really important to get the design approved before starting Development. It's much easier to do rework in Photoshop than in HTML, so it really saves time to make sure that the Development phase just involves building out the site and no designing 'on-the-fly'.
5. DevelopmentThis phase involves building the site template and then the pages themselves. We like to review the site template before the bulk of the pages are built out to make sure that the coding is up to scratch.
It's not uncommon that some design tweaks get made during this phase, as we're always having ideas about how the site can be improved.
However, if these ideas could cause a material slip in deadlines, they may well get pushed back to a 'phase 2' enhancement. We also like to do more usability testing on the actual site to make sure we haven't missed anything.
And, of course, the site goes through a thorough content and code QA check.
6. LaunchPrior to launch user testing, quality assurance, and reviews are conducted within a testing environment, a site to which clients have access. We make sure that the appropriate IT resources are available for support.
Once we've launched the site, we'll do a complete link check and also check that all applications are working fine.
7. Post-launchOnce the site is live, we set up a maintenance plan with the client. We'll then do an internal project post-launch analysis amongst our team and subsequently with you, the client.
It's really important to do these so that we can learn from the entire process.
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