The web development Life cycle

A web development process is quite similar to that of the traditional software development process. The core part of the web development process is not at all the coding process. There are many technologies like HTML, CSS, Javascript etc that give a new shape to the development process. Something that is exactly the core process of the web development is its early stages of life cycle like, information gathering, detailed planning, maintaining website after its launching etc. Knowing more about each and every steps of website development help the team to understand the the goals effectively.

A well designed website will offer much more than that of its aesthetic beauty. They has the ability to attract people and explains well about the product, company, branding etc. As a result every element of the site need to be work according to the goal.

A systematic website development process follows number of standards, methodologies, languages, frame works etc. Similar to that of the software, a website can also be developed using a certain set of concrete methods. While thinking about a website design, the main thought goes around two major issues, they are cost and time and these two factors depends upon the scope and size of the project. A website development timeline is created and the add different tasks and establish different milestones for it. It is considered as the best way to track project implementation and its development.

• Gathering information

It is considered as the stage of discovering and researching. The most important task at this point is nothing but a clear understanding about the website purpose, its goals and the target audience that you want to attract. Keep in mind that a normal news portal differs from that of the website for teenagers. Different websites provide different functionalities so that the technologies varies according to the project. A well described and detailed plan about the data is necessary in order to prevent the wastage of extra time and resources.

• Review, assessment and analysis

This includes understanding the client requirement and dynamics of the existing client system. The analysis will help you to cover all the business aspects of the client and their needs.

Also it is very important to find the target audience and the present software, hardware, people etc should be carefully analyzed. The analysis should be done in the way that does not time too time or lacks all relevant information.The team should follow a detailed cost benefit analysis. The plan for the project will be the output of the analysis process.

Several input features like interview with the client, initial emails, discussion notes, mobile sites etc are the inputs. Workplans, estimation cost, team requirements, hardware software requirements etc comes as outputs.

• Planning

During this stage the developer will give a detailed data plan that helps the customers to understand the entire look of the website. All the information are used to generate a sitemap. It helps to understand the relation between the main areas of the site. It helps to show how different pages of the sites are linked together and their relation. The major reason behind the creation of the sitemap is to create a user friendly and easy to navigate website. The inner structure of the website can be analyzed with the help of sitemap. Sometimes before you start coding, approval form the customer may be mandatory before going to the next development phase. At this time a wire frame is created. It is basically the visual representation of the user interface that you are going to develop. It will not have any colors, logos etc. It describes only the elements and its location in the page.

• Specification building

Preliminary specification includes covering up each and every elements. Larger projects require additional level of consultations with additional business, technical requirements etc. After the approval of preliminary document, a written proposal is prepared.

• Design and development

The work on the site is commenced after the signed proposal receipt. The prototype is basically the design and navigation.

Some of the customers gets satisfied only on the full functional prototype and there will be a need to show the interactivity of the site. There will be lots of suggestions or changes from the customer side as well. So be prepared for that. All the changes gets finalized before going to the next phase. This stage can be considered as the most vital stage of life cycle of the project. This is a most challenging part of all web development company.

• Content writing

This phase is mainly done for websites. Professional content writers are available who can write content related to the specific industry. The grammatical and spelling checks are done in this phase. The content might be anything from simple texts to videos.

• Coding

Now the turn is for the programmer to add relevant code without causing any disturbance for the design. The developer must be confident that the code prepared by him will not ruin the entire feel of the website.The developer should interact with the designer to know the actual design. The coding team need to develop necessary testing plans along with that need to develop technical documentation as well. The end user documentation is developed by the technical team.

• Testing

web based applications require intensive testing. Some of the testing basically carried out are integration testing, scalability testing, compatibility testing etc. After thorough testing, testing on the live server is also required.

• Search engine and social media optimization

This phase is applicable for websites. Promoting of a websites includes preparation of meta tags, submitting URL ‘s to various directories, search engines etc. Both the digital marketing techniques are continuously on going process.

• Maintenance and updating

Websites need frequent updates in order to keep them fresh and relevant. At that time the analysis process is repeatedly done and the life cycle steps get repeated. Bug fixes are done during the maintenance phase.

For the easy maintenance CMS like wordpress, joomla are the best. This performs the site maintenance without much expenditure.

The above mentioned steps will not complete the entire web development process. Some steps may not require certain steps and it depends upon the cost and time involved.

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Resource: Yarddiant Web Lounge Pvt.Ltd, Office Number: 12, First Floor, Sahya Building, Government Cyber Park, Calicut, Kerala 673016, India