Typical Project Plan
Website Design and Production
1. Requirements Analysis
- Determine the goals for the website from the perspective of the user and the business.
- Define the user needs and target usability requirements.
- Evaluate existing versions of the site and of competitors/inspiration.
- Understand existing constraints
2. Conceptual Design
- Sketch out a site design and architecture at an abstract level.
- Conduct a task analysis to find critical features.
3. Mock-ups / Prototypes
- Create visual representations (mock-ups) or interactive representations (prototypes) of the site.
- Evaluate usability through user tests, and walkthroughs.
- Use the evaluation results to create more mock-ups or improve the prototypes.
- Repeat this step until the design and usability goals are met.
4. Architecture
- Determine the most appropriate technologies to achieve desired UI style and backend functionality
- Evaluate cost and time impact/effect of all such components.
5. Production
- Create the website pages
- Evaluate functionality through testing, quality assurance, usability testing, and field testing.
- Use the evaluation results to improve the product.
- Repeat this process (production iteration) until the business goals are met.
6. Launch and Maintenance
- Launch the website or section.
- Maintain and refine with user feedback.
- Use the feedback to create new requirements, and begin major design improvements.
Tags: Client Communications, Project Plan, Successful Webdesign
