OVERVIEW

You can plan, plan, and plan some more, but ultimately a delivery date looms in your future. In the design and prototyping process, you have developed the plans that are the foundation of the site. Build-out, or production, brings together all the elements toward the outcome of a final, complete, and fully tested website, sitting on the client s server and ready to go live. It is time to work the plan. Your payoff for the planning time will be a more organized, smoother production process. As much as you plan, you will undoubtedly still encounter surprises and obstacles. You will still need to call on your skills in communication, coordination, and cooperation in order to meet your client s expectations for a high-quality project.

Building out and producing the site encompasses such processes as the following:

• designing all the pages

• gathering, reviewing, and placing all content

• programming or scripting all site features

• testing the site and fixing bugs

The Web development process is continual. The processes described in Chapter 8 do not cease when the project goes into production. The transition is one of emphasis, from planning to implementation. The feedback loops of an iterative development process continue to raise design issues as the project proceeds, and even after going live. In fact, because a website is in effect always a work in progress, requiring maintenance and updating, the design of your site will always be up for discussion.

PRODUCTION PLANNING

For project managers, the planning never stops. When building...