Website Design Process
Website Design Process
Potential clients often ask about our website design process. If we choose you, what happens next? How long does it take? How does the design and build process work? What is our responsibility as a client? Most if not all web development projects are custom, but they all follow a typical work flow that I will attempt to outline below.
Website Design Quotation Request
Typically, a quotation request is initiated by the you the customer either via our quotation form or via our online contact form or by a phone call.
Introduction & Data Collection
Once we receive your request for quotation, we will review any documents provided, review and referenced websites, and consult with you to obtain any additional information we may need to make an accurate quotation.
No-Obligation Consultation and Brainstorming
Our development team will review your quotation request to make sure it contains all of the necessary information for us to assemble an intelligent, competitive quotation for your project. If we are missing information, or need clarification on an idea, someone from our offices may contact you by email or phone or both. If we have all of the necessary information, we can usually provide a quotation within 24 hours (usually sooner)..
Detailed Proposal
After the brainstorming process, we make a formal proposal detailing pricing, timing, and assumptions. After your quotation is completed, you will receive an email notifying you to come and “pick up” your quote. It will be
From: CAD Website Design Sales
Subject: Your Quote From CAD Website Design Is Now Available
You will be provided a log in username (your email address) and a randomly generated Password. The log in area to view your quotation when it is ready is located HERE.
Project Authorization & Retainer
If our proposal meets your approval and you select our company to develop your website, you will print the contract and sign it. You will then fax the signed contract to our offices and follow up with a non-refundable 25% retainer fee. An example of this is if your contract is for $4,000.00, you would issue payment for $1,000.00 and only owe the balance of $3,000.00 during the following phases of the design process. You may make this retainer payment via check, cash, or credit card.
Design Concepts
The actual look and feel of your website is key to ensuring the customer/visitor has the best possible browsing experience. The core of your site will be designed and laid out using best practices with emphasis on SEO to present your business to the visitor in a manner that reflects your professional image and brand. Equally important is usability. The easier it is for the visitor to use your website the greater your chance of converting them into a customer and increasing the chances of repeat business. The template design process consists of custom graphic design employing photoshop/fireworks/flash with 2 concepts and up to 2 rounds of revisions (depending on package selected), graphical splicing of approved templates to optimize load time and usability, css/XHTML production, unique css/xhtml adaptation to user platform and additional bell and whistle functionality. Total time involved can range from 40 to 60 hours.
Design Concept Review, Revisions & Approval
Once the two concepts are completed, they will be submitted for your review. This allows you to choose one of the submitted concepts and request up to 2 rounds of revisions to the concept for final template approval. This does not equal a third design concept. Concepts will be provided to you and ask that you provide all revision requests in writing, all at the same time. Doing so will reduce the risk of a missed revision request. You may wish to take up to 48 hours to submit revision request to make sure you remembered everything. A design revision provides for the following; Color Tweaks, Font Tweaks, Design Element Locations (moving elements left, right, up, down, etc..), Minor Graphic Changes (buttons, arrows, etc). To quantify this, a round of revisions is anything we can complete in a 4 hour period. If your revision request exceeds 4 hours of work, we will provide a detailed quotation showing which revisions we can complete in 4 hours and quote the remaining revisions at a cost of $100/hr.
Database Programming & Additional Development
Once we receive a signed Template Approval Form, we begin developing any other parts of your website per our agreement. This is when we begin installing cms modules, shopping carts, and performing any other custom programming if quoted.
Additional Payments
Two additional invoices will be mailed on 2 week intervals during the development process. These invoices typically coincide with milestones or deliverables identified early on in the project time line.
Testing & Debugging
During the development phase, we may ask you to take a look at work completed and test for functionality. All development work will be done on our internal development servers. There will also be a final testing and debugging session (if needed) just before delivery of the finished web site.
Final Acceptance & Final Invoice
After all testing has been done and everything is determined to be functional per our arrangement, we will require you to sign a Project Sign Off form. This form indicates that you accept the work that has been performed and that nothing else needs to be completed or corrected. At this time we will also expect the final invoice to be paid prior to transferring files to your hosting server.
Release For Production
Once we receive the signed Project Sign Off form and receive final payment, we will transfer all files, images, and databases to your hosting environment. We will make sure that once the files are transferred to your hosting environment that our work performs as needed. If there are compatibility issues, we will advise you on how to have your hosting environment upgraded or updated to facilitate our web development solution.
I invite you to look at our website development solutions or request a custom web design quotation.
