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Design, Style and HTML

The first stage in the process is graphic design or the ‘look and feel’.  Your web development company will engage a designer who is a specialist in graphic artwork. You will be presented with a concept of how your website will look. At this stage you can approve a design to your satisfaction before starting on the actual website development.

Once the website has been designed, the next step in the process is to have the graphic sliced-up so that it is web ready. This stage is also known as ‘skinning’ the graphic into HTML and Style-sheets (CSS).

Note that it is important that your development company uses modern standards such as style-sheets (as opposed to tables), this will enable your design to be compliant for future browsers.

Develop Site Functionality

The ‘skinned’ design is then handed over to the development team who implement the functionality behind the web pages. Ensure that trained web developers perform this job as too many designers in the industry ‘give it a go’ and get it wrong. This will lead to poor functionality, unmaintainable websites, time and budget overruns.

Ensure your development company develops your site in a modular fashion. This means you can enhance your site without having to rewrite the lot, again costing you time and money.

Ensure your site is written in a common language (like PHP), this will give you the added security that you are not stuck with one development company as there are a large pool of developers that can develop your site.

An understanding of the general web site development process will assist you to choose the right design and development companies to get the job done. Look at their portfolio, their customers’ endorsements other services they provide, get a second quote and ensure the provider you choose follows processes and standards that will ensure to give you the best results.