- Information Gathering
- Strategy
- Graphical Design
- Development
- Testing
- Launch
- Maintenance
Information Gathering
The focus of the first step is to gather all the necessary information for the project. As a design team, you should ask relevant questions to go deeper into the business needs. Carefully analyze the client’s requirements, define the website’s purpose, and determine the goals for the website. The most popular targets are information sharing and money-making how business goals can be reached with a good website.
Strategy Wire framing
Using the information gathered from phase one, it is time to put it together and make a detailed website plan. At this point, a site map is developed. The site map is the list of all main topic areas of the website, including sub-topics, if applicable. This map will clarify what content navigational structure is. The future customers are end-users of the website. The basis of an easy-to-navigate website is an excellent user interface.
Design
As a part of the design process, it is essential to carefully and tastefully apply such visual elements as the logo and colors, to strengthen the brand identity on the website. During the design phase, the team usually creates one or more prototypes for the website. A prototype is typically a static image, which represents the final look of the website.
Build-Up
At this point, the design itself should be ready. But it is usually in the form of static images. It requires extra development effort to translate it into HTML/CSS, and then to add a layer of animations of java-script, depending on the complexity of the design.
Testing
When the content and the visuals are in place, the testing process can be started. Every page has to be tested to make sure that all links are working and the website is displayed correctly in different browsers. Even the word order in titles and descriptions has an impact on the webpage performance in various search engines.
Delivery
Once you are given final approval from the client, it is time for the website to go live. But before that, the sites should be run-through for the last time to confirm that all files have been uploaded correctly and that the site is fully functional. Besides, the website domain name should be registered, and web hosting accounts set up.
Maintenance
Once the website is live, some regular maintenance is usually required. User testing can be run on new content and features over and over to improve the usability and discoverability of features. This all can lead to contemporary design and development tasks.
