web design cycle

THE LIFE CYCLE OF A WEB DESIGN PROJECT

OCTOBER 7, 2010
Big projects, small projects, e-commerce projects, social projects,EVERY web design or development project, can benefit during each phase of the project life cycle, and in some way each phase will help with the success of the project, from both the clients point of view and the developers.There are many different phases to projects, and everyone involved needs to remember that every project is different. The two major key points to every project that I believe everyone needs to remember is that no project is the same, and that every project needs to have some degree of flexibility, as everyone involved will always learn and experience things along the way that may change a project to some degree.

Here are the phases that should be reviewed within each project life-cycle. While the order, and the relevance of each phase will differ for each project, I believe that each phase is still important to each project.

PHASE 1. ANALYSIS / SPECIFICATION

This is the phase where you and others get to think about all the great ideas for your website, and all the bad ideas as well.

The goal for this phase is to get an idea of what you want to achieve with the website.

PHASE 2. BRIEFING / QUOTING

This phase is where you talk to developers and discuss the specifications and narrow it down to what you really want that fits within your budget. Try and get the brief and spec down to as fine a detail as possible, it will only help later down the track.

PHASE 3. CONTENT WRITING

You can start this phase earlier if you like, or even later, this phase is sort of flexible to a degree, but we recommend writing the content before the design, as it just gives the designer that extra bit of information and understanding of what you are looking for from your site. It also gives them the ability to design around the content, rather then later just trying to put content into areas that have been designed.

Always be flexible here, and remember than content is KING, so take your time and write for your audience!

PHASE 4. DESIGN

This is where it can all start happening, and you actually start to see your site come together.  Make sure that all information from all parties in this phase is communicated correctly and I also suggest giving the designer flexibility as they will probably throw something in there that will either knock your socks off, or be way off the mark, but if you don’t give them flexibility then you will never know…

PHASE 5. IMPLEMENTATION

This phase will probably be the longest of the development phases, and if rushed could mean you don’t have a website that is expandable or useful in the long term.  Make sure you have your goals defined 100% at this point and that your are 100% happy with the design.  It’s always harder to go back and retro fit something than to build it right the first time round.

PHASE 6: CONTENT LOADING

This phase as I said before can be very important to your site, content is KING after all. Content should be designed into the site and not just loaded in, and if content is provided prior to the build this should already be happening.

PHASE 7. TESTING

Test, Test, and Test again! It is always good to over test, and get additional parties to test or view from a different perspective, but remember when doing this not to stray from your original goals, ideas will be thrown up but not everything has to be done at once.  It is better to have a live site that does your core goals well, than have a site in a never ending cycle of development.

PHASE 8. LAUNCH / PROMOTION

It’s D-Day everyone is stressed and wants to get the site live, my advise is don’t rush it! Make sure – if it’s replacing an old site, to go to a pre-live version first so that you can test on your live hosting and also just take your time, and if something does go wrong, respond quickly. Even sites as big as Facebook and Twitter didn’t work perfectly when they first came out but what they did do, was grow on the feedback of their users, so listen well and respond fast!

PHASE 9. GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT

This comes back to what your users want and need. Listen to your users, review your stats and reports (if you don’t have any get some, Google Analytics is FREE and easy to implement) and then gradually improve your site.  Not everything has to be done at once, but users will appreciate seeing your website grow!