OUR PROCESS
There are numerous steps in the web site design and development process. From gathering initial information, to the creation of your web site, and finally to maintenance to keep your web site up to date and current.
Phase one - Information Gathering
Your business is unique which is why this stage can be the most important. Cockermouth web Design needs to know exactly what you need to make this work for you otherwise the whole exercise will be pointless for all.
It involves a good understanding of your business requirements and how the web can be utilized to help you achieve your goals. We will start off by asking a lot of questions to help understand your business and your needs in a web site and a questionnaire will be used by us to assist this.
Certain things we will discuss and consider are:
Purpose – Do you want to provide information, promote a service, sell a product ?
Goals – What is this web site for ? To make money or share information or both ?
Target Audience -– Is there a specific group of people that will help you reach your goals?
Content – What are people looking for on your site specific information, a particular product or service, online ordering ?
Phase Two - Planning
Cockermouth web design will now use all information gathered in the above stage, to put together a plan for your web site.
This is the point where a site map is developed. The site map is a list of all main topic areas of the site, as well as sub-topics. This serves as a guide as to what content will be on the site, and is essential to developing a consistent, easy to understand navigational system in order to assist the end-user of the web site – aka your customer.
During the planning phase, Cockermouth web design will also help you decide what technologies should be implemented. Elements such as interactive forms, ecommerce, flash, etc. are discussed when planning your web site.
Phase Three - Design
Using the above work this is where your web site will really start to take shape.
Target audience is one of the key factors taken into consideration. As part of the design phase, it is also important to incorporate elements such as the company logo or colours to help strengthen the identity of your company on the web site.
Your web designer will create one or more prototype designs for your web site. This is typically a .jpg image of what the final design will look like. Cockermouth web design will either send you an email with the mock-ups for your web site, or take it a step further by giving you access to a secure area of their web site meant for customers to view work in progress. Either way, we will allow you to view your project throughout the design and development stages. The most important reason for this is that it gives you the opportunity to express your likes and dislikes on the site design.
In this phase, communication between both you and us is crucial to ensure that the final web site will match your needs and taste. It is important that you work closely with us, exchanging ideas, until you arrive at the final design for your web site.
Then development can begin
Phase Four - Development
This is where Cockermouth web design will create an actual functional site as oppose to example pages.
This is typically done by first developing the home page, followed by a framework for the interior pages. The framework serves as a template for the content pages of your site, as it contains the main navigational structure for the web site.
Once the framework has been created, we will take your content and distribute it throughout the site, in the appropriate areas.
Elements such as interactive contact forms, flash animations or ecommerce shopping carts are implemented and made functional during this phase, as well.
This entire time, we will continue to make your in-progress web site available to you for viewing, so that you can suggest any additional changes or corrections you would like to have done.
On the technical front, a successful web site requires an understanding of front-end web development. This involves writing valid XHTML / CSS code that complies to current web standards, maximizing functionality, as well as accessibility for as large an audience as possible.
This is tested in the next phase
Phase Five - Testing and Delivery
Cockermouth web design will now attend to the final details and test your web site.
They will test things such as the complete functionality of forms or other scripts, as well as testing for last minute compatibility issues (viewing differences between different web browsers), ensuring that your web site is optimized to be viewed properly in the most recent browser versions.
Cockermouth web design are well versed in current standards for web site design and development. The basic technologies currently used are XHTML and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). As part of testing, we will check to be sure that all of the code written for your web site validates. Valid code means that your site meets the current web development standards. Once you give us final approval, it is time to deliver the site.
An FTP (File Transfer Protocol) program is used to upload the web site files to your server. We offer domain name registration and web hosting services as well. Once these accounts have been setup, and your web site uploaded to the server, the site will be put through one last run-through. This is just precautionary, to confirm that all files have been uploaded correctly, and that the site continues to be fully functional.
This marks the official launch of your site, as it is now viewable to the public.
Phase Six - Maintenance
We will be more than happy to continue working together with you, to update the information on your web site. We offer maintenance packages at reduced rates, based on how often you anticipate making changes or additions to your web site.
If you would prefer to update your own content, there is something called a CMS (Content Management System) that can be implemented to your web site. This is something that would be decided upon during the Planning stage with us.
Its really up to you as far as how comfortable you feel as far as updating your own web site. Some people prefer to have all the control so that they can make updates to their own web site. Others prefer to hand off the web site entirely, as they have enough tasks on-hand that are more important for them to handle directly.
Other maintenance type items include SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SES (Search Engine Submission). There are a lot of details involved in optimizing and submitting your web site to the search engines – enough to warrant its own post. This is a very important step, because even though you now have a web site, you need to make sure that people can find it!
