Steps of Web site development

Abstract

Development and maintenance of a good Web site implies many consecutive steps involving various actors. These actors all have their own objectives and understanding of the process, but all are supposedly commited to the same overall goal: building the best possible Web site given thei set of constraints.

While not claiming to be a definitive guide for the creation of good Web sites, this document tries to:

Identify all the actors in a generic Web site building process
Identify the main steps of the process
For each step and each actor, point to a document within the QA Library adapted to the focus of this particular audience

Note that some documents are marked as being under development or yet to be written. Contributions on these from members of the Web community, following the QA Interest Group's contribution guidelines are welcome.

Status

This document is a DRAFT article produced as part of the W3C Quality Assurance Interest Group work. Please send any public feedback on it to the publicly archived mailing list public-evangelist@w3.org or for private feedback to karl@w3.org.

identified Actors

In the generic case of a Web site ordered by a company to a Web agency (or an internal Web department), we have identified roughly four types of actor:

Management: Responsible for the budget and giving the green light for the Web project, the management needs clear, short explanations ("executive summary") as well as acurate figures in order to make its decisions.
Communication and Marketing department: The Communication and Marketing department (which we will refer to as "Communication" for the sake of shortness) has the customer's role in most of the interactions with the Web agency (or Web department) and is their main point of contact. This actor is responsible of most of the practical decisions. Its goal is to get the best possible result from the transaction, especially with regards to the branding and image aspects. It often also interacts with a Design department if this role is not held by the Web agency.
Web Agency: Usually the actor with the best technical expertise, the Web agency is the provider of the finished product.
Technical team: The internal technical team may provide advice to the Communication and Marketing department during the transactions with the Web agency, and is in charge of the maintenance of the finished product. The latter role can be held by the Web agency as part of its contract with its customer.

identified Development Steps

The whole set of documents can be tied together by an improved version of Web-Quality. We can certainly benefits from the old documents of Tim Berners-Lee, Design Issues and quality tips.

Table of different steps when you develop a Web site
Step:	Who? What to do? What to read?
Idea	Communication dept.	Exploration of ideas, choices of style, first technology choices. Survey to know what the competition is offering, etc. Good reading: "Web-Quality (Usual comments)"
	Management	Demonstration of the benefits of the use of standards on the budget side. Good reading: "Business benefits of Web Accessibility" [Missing: QA overview of web standards. Cost Benefits, bandwith, ease of development]
	Web Agency	Prospect new customers and sell the technologies they are using (hopefully, standards-based) Good reading: [missing] "Sell standards compliant Web sites"
Request for Proposal (RFP)	Communication	Write the RFP. Clearly state the minimal information which must be present in the Requirement Document. Good reading: "Buy standards compliant Web sites"
Initial Requirements Document	Web Agency	Read the RFP and answer with a Requirements document outlining the technologies used, a preliminary schedule and a rough estimate of the cost. This document should also define the modality of the contract, and state how the quality control will be achieved and how the customer will be able to verify the level of quality required. Good reading: [missing] "Sell standards compliant Web sites"
Initial Requirements Document	Communication	Verify that the Web Agency has replied accordingly to their RFP. Good reading: [missing] checklist from "Buy standards compliant Web sites" Part 2
Final Requirements Document	Communication	There's a need for a document that will guide the Communication dept. on all steps that the FRP must contain : schedule, module and how-to impose a standard checking at each steps. Good reading: [missing] "Buy standards compliant Web sites" Part 2
Final Requirements Document	Web agency	The counterpart for the Web agency where all the necessary information must be present and maybe how to write it. Good reading: [missing] "Sell standards compliant Web sites"
Web site Mockup	Web Agency	A website mockup is not a photoshop screen but a small version of the Web site on the few pages that illustrates the design as well the functionnalities of the Web site with regards to standards, accessibility, etc. Good reading: [missing] "Sell standards compliant Web sites"
Web site - version 1	Communication	Last check against a checklist for the Final Requirements Document. Final release of the Web site. Good reading: [missing] "Buy standards compliant Web sites" Part 2
Web site Maintenance	Communication or Web Agency	Maintenance of the Web site is a team work. Work is needed to keep quality of the Content (up-to-date content and style) as well as the technical quality of the site (with regards to the technologies used, e.g validity). This work implies quality control and step-by-step improvements. This step also applies even if the Web site is not new but the people in charge want to improve its quality. Good reading: "Web Standards Switch".
Web site Maintenance	Technical team	Technical, practical maintenance work. Good reading: "Step by Step" practical guide to maintaining and improving the quality of a Web site.