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It's vital that our clients realize the process in which
we develop our products. In this business, structure and
organization is crucial because lack of these key elements
cost both the client and the developer time and money.
It is almost impossible to pre-plan every mundane detail
of a web-based solution for your company. Sometimes, even
when we follow our 5-step process, things still get a
little cloudy within a production schedule. However, if
we follow these 5 stpes, the probability of developing
your project within the original timeline and within budget
will be greatly increased.
During this phase, we ask questions. Lots of questions.
Our developers, designers and project leads need to establish
the short and long-term goals for the project as well
as, establish the target audience and project timeline.
Once these goals are met, we need to formulate a game
plan to not only attract new visitors to your site but
also retain existing users.
Our team needs to determine opportunities, whether visual
or functional, that will separate the client's site from
its competition. We work with the client closely to document
the core business rules and to map out the flow of information
that will be further detailed in Phase 2, the architecture
of the site. We review sites that the client deems viable
to the project. These may be competitor's sites, trendy
sites or sites with graphical/technical elements that
could very well be introduced to the project at hand.
Once the client and the development team have a good overall
analysis documented, we move on to Phase 2.
We then take some of the 'big picture' results from Phase
1 and incorporate a more granular approach to the way
media and text is presented. The flow of information is
not always text so during this phase, we discover new
and interesting ways to deliver a message. We try to answer
questions, such as:
• How will the user navigate throughout the site?
• What will the site do?
• What forms of media will we use?
• Will the site need database functionality?
We then map out on paper or site architecture software
how users will navigate throughout the site. We determine
if a dynamic navigation is needed and if so, how will
it be integrated to the user interface without it being
a nuisance. We determine what pages will link to other
pages within the site and to outside sites as well. The
information architecture documentation is a living document
that we will continue to refine throughout the course
of the project. However for the sake of progress, we continue
on to Phase 3 once we have a solid game plan on the architecture
of the site and the final business rules.
This is the fun part. We take all the data we've accumulated
thus far and begin designing a visual personality. Sometimes
the client has branding guidelines or a recent print campaign
that would need to be the basis for our designs. Other
times the client needs us to design a site under nothing
but the constraints of our creative energy. In either
case, we design the interface as an extension of your
brand.
We have the business rules, content outlines (and perhaps
the actual copy), and the information architecture so
now we focus on the visual design. To insure the optimal
user experience, we work very tight with the client during
this phase and we point out the ups and downs of our approach
as they unfold. The method in which a user navigates needs
to be finalized during this phase as the pages build here
act as the pattern for the entire site.
Integration of the visual interface and the back-end technology
are processed during the development phase. What does
that mean? The visual design merely allows the user a
way to VIEW the content. Depending on the delivery, some
content has to be generated or pulled from a database.
However, not all sites need databases. Here is a brief
explanation of web site categories.
• Static HTML sites
• Brochure sites
• Database-driven sites
• Hybrid sites
The visual design phase gives your site a personality.
The development phase gives your site a brain. Content
management tools can be introduced that allow departments
within your company who are novice computer users, to
edit and upload content straight to the Internet without
any knowledge of HTML or other scripting languages. E-commerce
features can be incorporated, making your site an online
retail gateway with funds flowing from one account to
another without you lifting a finger. Depending on the
desired functionality of the site, we can custom build
the requested features and behind-the-scene components
that breathe life into the information that your site
shares with its visitors.
Once we reach this phase, all sights are on the delivery
of a finished product. However, we must meticulously test
the deliverable to insure quality. We ask the client to
review the main components of the product as well as all
the particulars. A seamless launch of the site is the
goal. Some clients have existing web-based systems that
must be integrated into the new site and this takes time.
After some time finessing the site, we launch and strive
to integrate it into your work environment as well as
educate your staff on the operational aspects of the entire
website. On many occasions, we have had our programmers
and project leads fly to offices all across the country
to insure a smooth transition.
If your site needs search engine optimization, the Fusion
Point team will work diligently to assist in your web
site placement among search engines. With search engine
web crawling software constantly changing the way searches
are performed, it is very important for the client to
have trust in a web development team to maximize web site
traffic. After all, what good is it to have a new web
site only to have nobody coming to it?
Your custom web application will live and breathe as if
a member of your team. Consequently, your web site will
need to expand and adapt to your business model over time.
Fusion Point will be there for future support of your
web products. We have customer support that will gladly
answer any questions concerning your site and/or any new
features you would like to add.
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