My Approach
-
Step0
Requirements Analysis
Building an outstanding website requires serious teamwork, and this is the first and most important step of that collaboration between my client and me. The people I join forces with usually are well prepared and bring fantastic ideas to the table. My task is simply to decide on the technical aspects and strategies of carrying these ideas into effect, and to pinpoint the best tools which help us get the job done.
-
Step1
Design in the Browser
Goodbye Photoshop, hello live, interactive demos! Instead of wasting hours upon hours producing a static jpeg file for review, I prefer coding the mockups from the very first theory. This is a huge time-saver for the entire process, edits are so easy on copy, layout and color scheme alike. The end of this phase yields a static website that is responsive, loads fast and is ready to be ported to any CMS of the client's choosing.
-
Step2
Static Review
This is usually the most collaborative phase for my client and me, simply because at this point we have reached the visual and presentational high spot. Ideas that were great in theory but miserable in practice are discarded and replaced with bells and whistles. Any design change or layout adjustment is still a breeze, and seeing the site shaping up nicely is routinely giving birth to new cosmic and ambitious objectives.
-
Step3
CMS Integration
After all that visual razzle-dazzle, it's time to empower my client to share their awesome content with the world. During this phase I take the static code and convert it into a fully editable, easy-to-manage CMS theme. From this point on the owners have complete control over what and when gets published on their site: adding new articles or moderating comments will now be both possible and desirable.
-
Step4
SEO and Speed Optimization
To ensure that a website appeals to the right kind of audience it's imperative to have a good SEO strategy in place. Through this step I make sure to lay a solid foundation on which a good SEO strategy can be built by writing code that is easily indexed by search engines. Creating a clear document outline, using correct headings and wiriting optimized makup all contribute to your site ranking higher in search results.