This is a class in web development. For most people, web development is the singular phenomenon of creating websites. However, those in the business of doing such things generally break the development cycle down into several phases. Often, each phase is handled by a professional who is specialized in a specific task, and who is not involved in the other phases.
Job specialization
In ad agencies, interactive design firms, and other corporations with available resources, there are a variety of people involved in a typical web development project. At a minimum, these are: the client, project manager, information architect, graphic designer, front-end developer, back-end developer, quality assurance tester. In large operations, there may be multiple people in each role. However, at smaller companies, a single person may handle several of these roles. And, of course, some talented people perform all of these roles single-handedly.
The typical phases of the web development cycle
Regardless of whether you are a one-person team, or a dozen, it’s often helpful to explicitly think of your web projects in terms of a multi-step development cycle.
Here is an outline of a typical web development cycle broken down into 6 phases:
Concept
- come up with an idea for a web site
- often based on a business or personal need
Requirements
- decide what features, functionality, and other components are necessary on your site
- often, in a corporate setting, these requirements are gathered by talking with clients, managers, and any other core stakeholders.
- this phase should result in a written Requirements document that lists all the necessary features of the project
- it’s very important to be thorough in this step, so that everyone involved in the project has a clearly documented idea of what it is, as well as what it is not… this helps avoid problems and disagreements later on
- however, it is the step that is most often skipped by inexperienced managers and developers
Information Architecture
- group and prioritize information that will be displayed on the site
- decide what the most important information on the site is, and what is least important
- sketch and diagram outlines of what each page will look like, and where each bit of information will go
- professional Information Architects typically use Visio or Omnigraffle to create these diagram, however napkin sketches are just as good
- determine which page will link to which other page, and how the user will get to the information they are looking for
- this phase typically results in the production of information architecture “wireframes” and a “site map“
- click here to see an example of a wireframe
Graphic Design
- convert the information architecture wireframes into “design comps” for each page
- design comps are carefully designed images which show the visual look of each page on the completed site
- typically, designers use Adobe Photoshop to produce these images
- the designer delivers a set of finished “design comps” that ultimately show exactly what the site will look like
- click here to see an example of a design comp
Development
- convert the graphic design comps into actual functioning code
- this phase is the focus of this class
- web developers typically use a mixture of client-side and server-side technologies to produce web sites
- at the end of this phase, you should have a fully functioning site ready for testing
Quality Assurance Testing
- test the site to make sure it works
- fix any problems
- repeat until the site is perfect
Related posts:
- Class 1 – Typical workflow for web development
- Class 1 – Required software and useful websites for web development
- Class 1 – Web Development Summer Intensive Syllabus
- Class 1 – Recommended Mac Software for Web Development