web design
Our Web Design Process
A good website is a culmination of a good web design process. Granted, each client and project is different, so our web design process—while well-defined—is not rigid. Some projects need more steps than others. It’s fair to recognize that some accounts can afford more steps than others too. Larger web design budgets afford us those ‘ideal scenarios’ by which we can go that extra mile to assemble focus groups, get more market research, perform more competitive analysis, etc. But we’re not so high on our horse to require every client go through such an extensive process. We tailor our web development process for each client to create the best mix of value and results—the best process to get the most bang for your buck. Below is an outline of that web design process:
Phase I: Discovery and Planning
Evaluation of Business Plan / Revenue Model
It’s important that we understand the business and objectives so that everything we do goes back towards meeting those goals and objectives. This evaluation also gives us the chance to provide feedback on your plan and possibly suggest other revenue models that you may not have considered and to provide discussion on the ones that you have.
Competitive Web Analysis and Market Evaluation
We’ll go out and scour the marketplace to see what the competition is up to so we can learn from both their successes and mistakes. We’ll also perform due diligence and provide data as to metrics such as how many users may have queried any given search term for a particular period. This can provide invaluable insight into relative demand and demand trends for specific topics and phrases.
Marketing Plan Consideration
The dynamic and interactive nature of websites and web applications enables us to utilize the site itself to enhance marketing efforts (such as building in viral marketing features, focusing on search engine optimization, etc.) It would be malpractice for us to build the website in a vacuum without considering both internal and external marketing efforts. The line between marketing the site and the site itself is always blurred.
Web Design Technical Discussion
Most of the time, our engineers will figure out the best technology to use for the project. We consider platform, scalability, browser requirements, and factor in any third-party systems or processes which may interact with our work product. Once we have all the facts and requirements, as well as any requirements or concerns you may have, we’ll propose the best technology and platform with which to build the project.
Scope Revision to Web Design Project
It’s quite possible (if not likely), that as a result of all of the above steps, we may mutually decide that it makes sense to revise the original scope of work set forth in this proposal. Not only is this okay, but it’s encouraged. Taoti subscribes to a very flexible and versatile software development process (known as the “Agile Method of Software Development”) that basically asserts that the best results come from constant evaluation and reaction to ideas and results as a project develops.
Phase II: Design and Interface Development
Creative Direction and Brand Development (if applicable)
The look and feel that you put forth to the general public is critical. The tone and connotations that the brand conveys can greatly impact the markets and demographics you’ll appeal to. We’ll discuss these factors, then create not only a solid brand, but all the collateral material and the overall creative direction by which we’ll use as our ‘guiding light’ for everything that we do when it comes to design-related issues.
Web Site Wireframe and Mockup Development
This is where we start to really see things take shape. We’ll develop wireframes (rough pencil sketches to approximate layout, navigation, key elements, etc.) to paint the broad strokes, and once everyone is on the same page, we’ll go back and turn these wireframes into actual mockups so that you can begin to get a pretty good feel for what the end result will look like.
Website Mockup Revisions
One of our most unique offerings is that our mockup revision process is unlimited in nature. We will continue to create and revise mockups for your review until you say they are perfect and approve them. There is no charge for additional mockups. We go through this process for the homepage and any key internal pages specified in the scope of work.
Sample Content Pages
There is nothing worse than having a great homepage and design, only to get into the content pages of a site and see blocks of boring, poorly formatted text. Taoti specializes in typography and using fonts and styles to get the most out of formatting text. We’ll create a sample page with fake content just to serve as a template and inspiration for creating other content pages. This will provide a model for anyone tasked with developing content.
Phase III: Web Development and Production
Web Production
This is the term used to describe the first part of the production process. Our developers take the approved mockups and ‘slice’ them into a bunch of smaller images that we can then use to program the user interface and design. The result here is a one-page website with nothing on it—essentially, a custom template. This template is built with search engine optimization in mind (we just do that as a matter of good practice—it’s not something you pay extra for.)
Content Integration and SEO
There is nothing worse than having a great homepage and design, only to get into the content pages of a site and see blocks of boring. So as we migrate your content onto the pages, we’ll work with you to enhance formatting and layout for maximum effectiveness. This is also the point where we spend a lot of time honing the pages for search engines. We’ll add titles, meta data, ‘alt tags’ and also refine the content to an extent for better SEO results.
Functional Web Component Integration
Most of our projects involve a few functional, dynamic, or interactive components (in other words, pages that have more than just static text on them.) Typically programmers have been working on these modules and components since the outset of the project, and now it’s time to merge them into the rest of the website and test them in place and with relation to any associated modules or functions.
Quality Control and Testing
Everything we do is built on a staging server (which we provide) so that you can see our progress in real time and make any comments or provide feedback at any point. This also gives us a chance to stage the site on a live web server so that we can test it in situ. We use a four-layer quality control system:
Production Level: the guy doing the work is tasked with checking his own work
Project Manager Level: your project manager then reviews all aspects of the site
Executive Level: Before we call any site complete, a high-level inspector will review the site
And of course, once we’ve done our own internal review and quality check, we’ll present the site to you for the same. We’ll address any issues or concerns, and end up with a site that is ready to go live.
Phase IV: Web Deployment and Ongoing Support
Once everyone is content that the site is ready to go live, Taoti will set up your hosting, prepare the server (as applicable), and deploy the site. We handle all of this for you so that you needn’t get your hands dirty with the technical details. We of course do one last quality check to make sure that everything migrated over to the live server without incident. If there are any admin interfaces or ‘dashboards’ that you’ll use to manage parts of the site, we’ll also demonstrate and train you on those (though this usually happens back in the production phase.)
Now that the site is live, it’s time to support, maintain, and market the site. Later in this proposal, we’ll describe what ongoing services we are suggesting; however, know that you can always add or modify your service plans at any time.
On top of technical support maintenance, Taoti can also play an active and ongoing role in constantly monitoring site performance, traffic, trends, and other analytics. We track the data, provide the reports, and most importantly, we’ll analyze the data for you, tell you what it means, and what we think you should do about it. (What good is date if we don’t act on it?) And unlike most consultants, not only can we suggest what changes should be made based on the data, but we can actually implement them for you—whether we’re talking about an interface tweak, a new feature addition, or even unrelated marketing efforts (such as print, media buys, PR, etc.), Taoti has the in-house resources and close relationships to support, enhance, and market your website and business in general.