Initial Discussion

Over the course of our email or phone conversations, we will complete a Request for Proposal (RFP) survey that will help us both define the project more fully.

Once I have a fair idea of your project's scope — and, equally important to the way I work, a sense of you and your aspirations for the site — I will provide you with a written cost estimate.

Specs & Agreements

Let's say my preliminary ideas suited you and we've settled on a budget and penciled you into my production calendar. Now, I'll develop those ideas into a detailed written design specification and send that to you, along with a simple written agreement, for your signature.

At this point my practice is to invoice ½ of the total fee.

Content Creation

Now is the time to pull together “the stuff” of your site: all the information and personality and soul that will make your presence on the web do what you intend. You'll want to think about your goals for the site and what kind of content will help you achieve them.

That said, writing copy for your website is a dynamic process. It's hard to determine, exactly, what content will be needed and what will go where until you see the context and environment it will go into. Likewise, it's hard to create that environment without some idea of what will furnish it!

I mention this here because this one of several points where web site projects can lose focus, get off schedule or simply languish. Our agreement will state a deadline and a format for submitting content to me. However, I consider it part of my job to work in partnership with you when it comes to everything that goes into the site and that includes the content. If you need help, ask.

Site Creation

Composing the site may be my favorite part of the process, but it can be the hardest period for the client because it entails—ugh—waiting. I promise it will be worth it.

This stage will involve choosing the most appropriate layout, fine-tuning a color scheme, creating the graphics to support the design, and locating and optimizing photos or other images.

During this phase of the process, I not only determine the “look” of the site, but also its structure, its architecture, and its navigation. It's my job to make the site as functional on the inside as it is pretty on the outside.

Our agreement gives a deadline for showing you a prototype. Following your approval, I refine the prototype into a working site that we can then test and tweak.

Testing, Testing

Before your site goes “live”, it undergoes extensive testing and revising. Where appropriate, beta testers are enlisted to browse the test site and give feedback on the user experience.

Care is taken to ensure the site renders accurately across platforms and in the most common browsers. Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Firefox 2 +, and Safari 2 + are always supported, and legacy browsers can be included in the spec.

This is a period during which I pay special attention to best practices and web standards. There are better and worse ways to solve the challenges of delivering web content. I'm committed to building sites that are 1) coded cleanly 2) likely to stand up to future innovation and which 3) don't exclude users with disabilities.

Launch & Promotion

You will have a chance to preview and proof the entire site while it is still up on my testing server. When we're both satisfied that the site is in the best shape we can make it, it gets transferred to your web host and becomes “live”!

This is a great time to make noise on any social networks you may belong to. I always make some noise here at Hit Those Keys, too.

After we hoist a virtual glass of champagne, I will invoice the remainder of my fee.

Future Care

Rest assured, you aren't left high and dry with a new site. In our planning process, we will have already made some decisions about how new content will be added to the site.

Clients with advanced knowledge of HTML, JavaScript and CSS may choose to do their own site maintainance. Others opt to maintain their sites with Adobe Contribute, with minimal supervision from me. Or, I can make your updates for you—on a quarterly or yearly basis at a flat rate, or monthly and by request at my hourly rate.