Development Methodology

Radius offers a full web design service using a five stage Development Methodology. The customer is fully involved at each stage and has to approve and sign off significant stages where required.

Customer interaction can either be face to face, or by phone and email, whichever is most suitable.

The five stages are:

1. Consultancy Stage

At this stage Radius will define customer requirements as far as possible and offer advice and guidance on how best these might be achieved. This is done using a Definition Document which holds all of the information collected during meetings and telephone conversations.

After the Definition Document has been completed Radius will submit a short Proposal. This will include:

• Site requirements as listed in the Definition Document
• A sample Contract
• A fixed price Quotation

Radius will now answer any questions regarding the proposal. If these are satisfactory Radius will submit a Contract for signature before any work starts.

 

2. Design Stage

The Design Stage is where the new site is planned out before work begins.

For larger sites Radius will create a Design Document. This is the customer’s site on paper. It includes:

• A ‘Site Map’. This is an outline of the pages in the site and their relationship to each other.
• An ‘Wireframe’ diagram of each significant page covering:
  • Layout
  • Position and description of text and graphics
  • Position and function of database fields
  • Position and function of any programmed features eg: search, e-commerce
• A sample Home and Content page which will be uploaded to view as a Demo Site.

For more simple sites Radius will concentrate on a Demo Site only.

Radius and the customer now discuss and amend the design document and demo site until the customer is satisfied.

Once the Design Stage has been completed Radius will ask the customer to sign this off. Any significant further changes will be subject to a revised quotation.

Radius will now submit the first invoice for larger projects. Radius will also wish to acquire all customer supplied text and graphics by the end of stage.

 

3. Construction Stage

The site will now be built. This may take several weeks depending on the size. Interaction with customers is required.

Once the site has been completed it is ready for quality checking. This occurs in three stages:

• The customer reviews the site to approve its general layout, appearance, and operation. Any minor changes and additions can now be done. Any significant further changes will be subject to a further quote as before.
• Radius then performs a full Quality Audit of the site. This covers checking:
  • Spelling.
  • Cleaning up all Word HTML
  • Validating and cleaning up all XHTML.
  • All navigation and links
  • Page layout consistency
  • Usage in all current major browsers.
• The Customer then reviews the site and Radius will ask the project to be signed off as finished.

 

4. Marketing Stage

After the site has been signed off Radius will:

• Insert all Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) coding
• Arrange site hosting and upload the site to the internet
• Submit the site to the major search engines

 

5. Support Stage

Radius offers a three month warranty with all its sites. This includes:

• Correction of all errors attributable to Radius.
• Correction of any corruption of text, graphics, or links that occur from time to time with website's.
• Telephone and e-mail support during working hours.

After the site has been operational for a period then most customers require some updates or changes. If these are major then a fixed price quote will be issued for the work. If they are minor then Radius will complete the work at its current hourly rate and record work done on an ‘Open’ Invoice to be submitted periodically.