Development

The Atmosphere of the homepage is determined through a Client feedback revision cycle. A mock home page is created. The client rips it up. I revise it accordingly, the client rips it up, and so on until the home page has determined a general atmosphere <page layout, color theme, graphic images, typography etc.> for the entire Site. Once the Homepage is locked in, a "local" and a "functional" page go through the same process.

While the Team continues to gather content, Templates are created. Page skeletons are created with the rules of navigation systems. All of this stuff is worked on; Client/server applications, style sheets, javascripts, include files, "libraries", meta tags, Alt tags and so on. Navigation is tested and retested. Functions and server interactions are developed as much as possible, and tested where appropriate.

Details: Home Page Elements, Graphical Information, JPG and GIF images, Navigation Rules, Navigation Systems, and Text and Typography.

Content Delivery

In a perfect world, the client delivers the content (prose, text, images, etc.) on time and complete. But usually the client needs more time. Once the content has been delivered, the Site deadline is modified accordingly and the revised contract signed off. The site can now be produced.

The content is transferred content from Content Preparation documents to Pages themselves. Then the content is twiddled... ad-hoc links are coded, all images are "Alt" tagged, fields and functions created, styles are applied, spelling is checked, page weight is checked, functionality is tested.

Then the site is published to the server and moved into the testing phase. Both the Team and I perform browser testing, we might get a few others invoved for usability testing, we spell check again, and we check your server's error log. The results are gathered into one large List (knock list). Errors not caught in the original testing will be allocated to Maintenance. The problems revealed in the Knock List are corrected. The fixed up Site is republished.

With the arrival of the final payment, the Site is published publically. At this point I personally submit the site to all the major Search Engines and provide you with links to other Search Engines you may want to submit to. This is also the time that your marketing department makes a big industry buzz about the new site launching. Your marketing people send out Press Releases to industry specific magazines, press packs go out the Internet Ezines that are related to your market. Everyone rejoices and the party generally degenerates into a regular maintenance schedule that is built into the contract.

A package arrives at your door with a nice printed copy of all the documentation involved, whatever material I have been supplied with that needed to be returned (ie. photographs that needed to be scanned), a CD of your website in case you need to recover from some disaster at your Serving host, and a thank you letter from me.