The process of building a website

Finally have a bit of breathing room to write a new post.  We’ve been busy here - no complaints.  Some of our recent projects have helped me stream-line the development process and others have pointed out where our processes still need improvement.

Since we started in the web development business, we’ve followed this basic process:

1. gather client requirements
2. create the visual design for the site
3. get sign-off on the visual design
4. build the site
5. launch the site

For the most part, this process has worked well for us.  We’ve found that clients really need to see the visual concept to get a handle on what the final product is going to look like.  On the down-side, we get visual sign-off, build the site structure then wait for content.  That waiting can take a long time with some clients - they don’t relish the idea of put words on a blank page (as a blog writer, I can empathize with them whole-heartedly) - sometimes months and even longer.  We’re left with projects just hanging.

So, that’s made me wonder if we’ve been taking the best approach.  Should we switch the process?  Get the content first then develop the design and build the site?  Will that speed things up at all?

That said, I have found ways to speed up the development process at the back-end by creating libraries of common code clips, standardized css files, favourite plug-ins, etc.  Once we have visual sign-off and content in hand, we can turn around some simple sites quickly.  This also opens the door to handing-off development to a new employee or outsourcing development when we need to manage an overloaded production schedule.