Allchorn Design

Things Evolve, you can’t avoid that

You can’t always predict every facet of a project’s lifespan. Things change and evolve as you work on it. As detailed a scoping document you draw up, there are more often than not extenuating circumstances that influence the workflow and final result of any project.

• client expectations may differ from those of the designers and developers
• additional features may be required mid-way through the project
• features might need to be changed or removed during the project
• as much as we’d love it not to be the case, there are always bugs of some sort to contend with.

Believing otherwise is naive. If things on your initial agreement don’t evolve during the design and development phases, you can rest assured that there will be some form of maintenance, additions, changes, repairs or unforseens following launch.

You can’t turn lead into gold

Coming to grips with the fact that things will grow and change, you also have to look reality in the eye. You have to realise that a poorly conceived and hastily carried out project isn’t going to grow into a solid, stable and flexible one.

Making some good choices early in a project’s lifespan is imperative to the successful deployment of a website. Things to consider before starting work:

1. Have you done your homework?
   It’s important to know what you can budget on your web project. It’s not too difficult to look at the expected ROI to justify the expense. By setting a target amount of conversions to have it pay for itself you’ll know what you can afford, and a good website design consultant would be able to tell you if thats realistic or not. You do realise that just publishing a website doesn’t automatically guarantee success? Have you looked at the cost implications of online marketing?
2. Decent web hosting
   Do you own your domain name? Does your host do daily backups? What kind of support do they offer? Do they have all the technologies installed to launch your site? If all these questions were answered with a yes, or a favourable response, then you’re probably on the right track.
   Three last things I’ve learnt over the years…
   1. You do not choose your host based on price!
   2. You do not choose your host based on price!
   3. You do not choose your host based on price!
3. Development team
   It should be obvious, but it’s overlooked time and time again. Your nephew’s best friend might be able to get a little bit done for you… he might even do it quite well. But when he gets offered a job getting paid more every month than you’re willing to pay him for one website, he’s going to take it.
   A website design company needs to be sustainable, and for that, they should preferably show some form of business longevity.
   Client references? Ask, I know I’d be able to give a list of happy clients to contact if you were considering me for some work. If they don’t, either they’re so big that the NDA’s don’t allow them, or they simply don’t have.
4. Design team
   First and foremost here: Print Designers are NOT Web Designers! Web interfaces designed with a print mindset more often than not result in an unusable mess. The coding of which can be more than double the amount of time and money spent than having it designed by an experience web interface designer. Thats not to say that collateral assets cannot be sent to the website designer by the print designer with style guides, colour palletes, CI document etc. Just leave the the page layout and interaction design to those that know it best.
   Portfolios are an important way to gauge the creativity of a team. A good grasp of effective colour use, usable layouts and the general aesthetic value of their work.
5. Technology
   Believe it or not, I won’t even type one acronym in this part. The question here is… do you want to use an open source system (Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, Typo3 etc.) because it’s free, or do you want to use an open source system because it’s used by such a wide community and will be supported at least in the forseeable future? If the latter, do you know if you can get the support you need in the country (or at least timezone) of your residence? Really? Do they work in their pyjamas or are they legitimate companies like those you chose for development?
   Your other option is to go for a fully supported, homegrown system. Developed, maintained and supported by the people who initially made it. Sometimes this is the best option. They should have the longevity and sustainability that you need.
6. Marketing & Maintenance
   Are you going to maintain content of the site yourself, or at least in-house? Does the vendor of the technology or development team (often the same people) offer training? If something goes wrong with the site, are there people on call to fix it promptly? Remember, it’s not always their fault… it’s like a car. You can’t get angry at a vehicle manufacturer when your tyres wear, or cam belt needs replacing can you?
   Marketing your website is a multi faceted process. It’s best explained by people like Christine at Altersage. It’s a serious topic and one that your development and design team have to take seriously, or don’t take them seriously… seriously.

Conclusion & Footnote

This post was sparked by a repair project we’re currently doing. It was a project that started small, on a very small budget, then as it grew it started to trip over itself. Regardless it grew more, changed development teams who made it worse and now it’s broken and in need of a considerable amount of fixing. To the extent of requiring a re-do.

It’s not the only time I’ve encountered this, and I think it’s safe to say that some people never learn, no matter how many times it happens to them. Hopefully after reading this you’ll be wise enough to not let it happen to you.

A good foundation laid by the right people with enough initial research to give you a better chance at success is what it’s all about.