New to the website scene? this post will help you understand the typical website project cycle and set the correct expectations on communication touch points.

Note: this is a typical cycle for an agency, it may vary for a freelancer. This serves as an example only, you should always check the project lifecycle with your provider before jumping on board.

The website project cycle

The following milestones occur top down;

1. Web design
   This is typically the first touchpoint in a web project. If it’s a custom design, a meeting with the designer is important to gather information by answering some questions which will help form a final design brief. If opted to work from an existing template it’s likely you’ll be presented with a number of templates to select from.

   What to expect: Answer some design related questions. Once the design is complete a snapshot of the homepage (and internal pages) will be provided. In most instances you’ll receive a flat image so focus the feedback on the look & feel rather than functionality as that will be covered later down the website project cycle.

2. Feedback / Approval
   This is your second touch point where a design concept will be provided to you to ensure the designers are on the right track.

   What to expect: Create a list of items that you’d like changes on the design (if applicable), receive another design with your requested changes completed.

3. Web development 
   This is where the approved design comes to life. The development team will take the design, slice it up and use their wizardry to build the website to completion.

   What to expect: This stage of the project is time consuming than design so expect this to take a minimum of 2+ weeks depending on the size of your project. Once complete you will receive a staging link (sometime called User Acceptance Testing area), this is where you are expected to go over the website in full, click on everything, test to ensure everything is working as expected. If not, provide a list of items for feedback to the team.

4. Feedback / Approval
   This second lot of feedback is strictly for the development and functionality of the website. e.g. The contact form doesn’t have validation.

   What to expect: Back and forth communication with the team to attend to any bugs or changes requested to the functionality of the website.

5. Quality Assurance / Quality Control
   The development team will complete a series of final checks to ensure it’s all good for launch.

   What to expect: All bugs are resolved by the team, all page content is populated ready for the public and search engines.

6. Site live 
   After the above is complete your site will now go live on the public domain.

   What to expect: Your to be live and accessible to all. A good supplier should provide support for a period of time after site live to ensure smooth experience.

The timing of each stage can vary depending on the schedule of the team helping you. It’s important to ask timing expectations before kicking off the project.

If you need clarification on any of the points above let me know.