“There are three responses to a piece of design – yes, no, and WOW! Wow is the one to aim for.” -Milton Glaser

Web design and development is all about delivering great user experience to your web audience. The wow factor really makes a huge difference and makes your web design stand out from the crowd. Developing a sound understanding of web design and development process is critical for the achievement of this goal. In this article, you will learn about different stages involved in web design and development process.

1. Idea or Concept

It all begins with an idea, right. This rule is also applicable on web design and development. At this stage, you can be as creative as you can be in refining your idea in your brain. Share your ideas with your team and clear all the confusion regarding objective of your website at this stage. Define the scope of the website at the initial stages so that your web design and development project is subject to scope creep. Scope creep is one of main reason why projects fail.

2. Discovery and Requirement Gathering

After you are done with the idea and concept bit, the next stage is of discovering and gathering requirements from the clients. Conduct through research and ask important questions during this phase to develop a clear picture in your mind about the target audience, purpose and objective of web design. Decide about the type of content your audience wants to read at this stage. The information you gather will help you give your clients a web design closer to their expectations, which will increase their customer satisfaction level. Irrespective of how good your web design might be, if it deviates from user requirements, it will never satisfy the user of the website.

3. Design

“What separates design from art is that design is meant to be… functional.” ― Cameron Moll

It is time to put all the information you have gathered into action by creating a logical design in the form of wireframes (visual framework of a website).  Finalize the visual outlook of the website and make sure that it coincides with your brand personality so that user can create a connection with the brand. If you consider the different types of user roles and how each of these roles interacts with your website, you will see a much higher user engagement rate on your website. It would be great if you could turn those wireframes into interactive prototypes, as it would make it easy for you to develop the website.

4. Development

During the development phase, a website template is created followed by different web pages. Web developers creates pages through coding but they should make sure that your continuously refine the code for better results. This will help you to keep your website load times down to a minimum, which would have a positive impact on the overall user experience of the website. Take care of front-end development and back-end development of the website, and ensure that it meets all the web standards.

5. Testing

Once developed, website has to go through rigorous testing to make sure that every aspect of the website is working, as it should. Everything from functionality of forms to compatibility issues on different browsers are addressed in testing phase. Code validation is also an important component of testing stage. Remember, “It takes years to build a reputation and seconds to destroy it.” Nothing dents your brand reputation more than a site that is not functioning, as it should. Check all the design elements careful to ensure that a perfect website is what your web user sees.

6. Maintenance

The job of a web designer or web developer is not over even when the website is completed. Now, you have to make the website go live. Moreover, a continuous maintenance cycle begins. Some web design companies also have separate packages for website maintenance. Some companies gives you access to content management systems so that you can update the content and refreshes your site without the need of a professional web designers. It is up to you whether you want to update your own website yourself or get an affordable package for website maintenance. With increase in cyber attacks on websites, it is important to keep a backup of your website.

Conclusion

A good website is created when you complete all these stages successfully. From the website concept to website launch, you should keep your audience in mind in order to give them the best web experience. Each stage has its own importance in creating a wonderful website. If you know about any other stage involved in web design and development process, feel free to share it with us in comments section below.