An outline of the development process and the people involved

posted by on 2011.05.31, under Development
31:

Sometimes I have to explain to somebody exactly what it is that I do as a front-end developer. It’s something that for the vast majority of people happens behind the scenes. The final product hidden behind the graphic treatment that is the only immediately visible aspect of web design.

Separation and specialisation

At its simplest, web development is split into a few separate stages with different groups contributing to each stage. In reality these stages have blurred and changeable boundaries, but they provide a good conceptual model for understanding how a website or application is built.

Here I’m going to try to explain the life cycle of a web project and what the various roles are in that process.

Research

The first stage of any design project is an analysis of the problem you’re trying to solve or the goal you’re trying to achieve. This analysis includes looking at similar existing products or projects, research into the potential audience and defining goals and success measurements.

Identify the business goals and success measurements

  • Brand managers
  • Sales team
  • Analytics experts

Research the audience and their goals

  • User Experience professionals

Look at and compare existing solutions to the problem

  • User Experience professionals
  • Technical Designers
  • Graphic Designers
  • Information Architects
  • Content Stategists

Design

Having thoroughly researched the problem, the next stage is to design a solution. Note that I’m using the term design here to mean product design, rather than graphic design. This stage will usually involve a lot of sketching, brainstorming and several iterations.

Choose an appropriate medium and platform

  • User Experience professionals
  • Technical Designers
  • Graphic Designers

Define a process for achieving the audience goals

  • User Experience professionals

Design wireframes and sketches of the content structure and processes

  • User Experience professionals
  • Information architects

Plan and structure any content

  • Information Architects
  • Content Strategists

Develop branding and visual styles

  • Brand Managers
  • Graphic Designers
  • Content Strategists

Build

Once you have a detailed plan of what the product will be it is time to start building it. Very often this is seen as a final stage, but for the best results it should run alongside the design stage from as early as possible with regular testing, iteration and refinement.

Note that the Content Management System is really a project in itself and subject to its own equivalent development process.

Platform and server setup, maintenance and monitoring

  • Systems Administrators

Content management and database design

  • Back-end Developers
  • Information Architects

System logic, data processing, payment transactions

  • Back-end Developers

Tools for measuring success

  • Analytics experts
  • Back-end Developers

Building the interface

  • Graphic Designers
  • Front-end Developers

Testing, refining and iterating

  • User Experience professionals
  • Graphic Designers
  • Technical Designers
  • Front-end Developers
  • Content Strategists

Launch

Once your test and refine iterations have reached a point where the product is ready for the public you can put it live.

Launch the website (make it available on the public internet)

  • Systems Administrators
  • Back-end Developers

Post launch

The website or application launch isn’t the end of the project. Using your analytics data to check against your success criteria, alongside ongoing user testing you should be continuing to refine the product.

Ongoing success analysis

  • User Experience professionals
  • Analytics experts

Testing, refining and iterating

  • User Experience professionals
  • Graphic Designers
  • Technical Designers
  • Front-end Developers
  • Content Strategists

So what is your role?

Whilst I’ve listed commonly used job titles under each stage, you’ll find that most people working in the web industry span a couple of these titles. Teams work best when there is a degree of crossover and people working in related disciplines can often provide valuable insight at every stage of the process.

So while I call myself a front-end developer, or occasionally a user-interface developer or user-interface engineer, I’d expect to be actively involved in any of these roles:

  • User Experience professional
  • Technical Designer
  • Front-end Developer

And I can make a valuable contribution to these roles:

  • Graphic Designer
  • Information Architect
  • Content Stategist

Where do you fit into this process? Have I misunderstood, or misrepresented any of the roles or stages above? Have I missed out your speciality? Let me know in the comments.

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