Web Development Process
Learner Description: This lesson is for students, administrators or teachers that want to learn about the steps to designing and building a website, and who might be interested in some links to help them get the process started.
What are the steps?
Designing and developing a website from scratch can at times be a very taunting task. There are a lot of things to consider when you begin to map out the plan for your website, the more time you take to carefully plan the better off your website will be.
There is no denying that a website is very similar to the construction of a house or building, it all starts with careful planning or a blueprint. In the web world a blueprint is often called a prototype, it is the basic structure of what your site will be, where key elements such as the header, navigation, content and footer will be placed. Prototypes take some time to develop and are not as visually appealing to a client, but they are a necessity for web design and development, especially with larger websites. Prototyping can also assist with concept development which follows the prototype phase.
The concept development phase is where you design the homepage and several subpages of a website in popular programs such as Photoshop or Fireworks, the design phase gives the client a view of what the site will look like before development begins. The concept development phase is crucial in the fact that it gives you the opportunity to make design changes quickly and easily before spending your time making changes during development. Once you get the concept approved by the client the development phase comes a lot more manageable.
During the development stage the website is coded up in HTML, XHTML and CSS, if you are building a dynamic website you might also be using such scripting languages as PHP, ASP.net, JSP, Ruby, Perl or ColdFusion. The development phase is a phase that doesn't include a lot of client involvement due to the fact that the client has approved the overall design and look of the website.
Testing and initial launch is the final stage of the process. It is important to remember before laungh you should be sure to test your website in as many browsers as possible. The current standard is to test in Internet Explorer 6 and up, while some design companies are beginning to choose not to test for IE6 there is still a huge number of users out there that still make use of this popular browser. Before you make the decision to not test for a particular browser, be sure you know how your target audience is, and what browser they will be using to view your website.
As you can see there are a lot of steps to the design and development of a website, however there are some sites or tools out there today that can help you move the process along more quickly. In the image map below you'll find links to three popular sites, one pertaining to typography, another pertaining to color schemes and then finally one that has to do with CSS based layouts. These sites should be helpful during the prototype and concept development stages of your projects.
