Web development is often broken down into two categories, design and coding. There of course are many more aspects that go into it such as dealing with clients, customer service, billing and all the other business management. I’m focusing primarily on the break down of a site construction start to finish. The beginning of the process starting with talking with the client about what they want and how they want it to look all through the back end building of the site to the beta launch and actual launch of the site.
First, a site starts as a client’s vision of what they want their Internet presence to be. The client then finds a company like dallaswebservices.com to build out that vision for them. In a couple of meetings the idea of the site and what the site should generally look like and the company will begin to work on the site.
Second step, the designer steps in. The designer will spend as much time as is necessary to complete a design with a look and feel that is clean and satisfactory to the client. Their job can be complicated and time consuming as they need to stay up with the design trends of the web and make sure their sites look futuristic and always have a new edge in the market.
The next step is one that often confuses some people. This is the stage where front end programmers take over. They are programmers that take the design that has been built and cut it up and code it into html and CSS. These types of front end programmers are very important as they are the link between design and functionality. They are the people that are making the Graphical User Interface (GUI) for the model view controller. They are not hard core back-end programmers, but at the same time they are not full blown designers.
Next phase is the back-end coding and database integration. Once the site has a good look and feel and it is cut up and coded in html is when the back end programmer steps in. This can be one of the most complicated processes depending on the site. First the coder takes all the functionality and has to install what the client wants and build out every little detail. As the back end coder is making the site he does what is called white box testing. This is where the person that is coding it (or someone else who has access to the code and can view what is really going on) tests the site to make sure that it works right using the code and watching what happens as values are passed though it.
Once the back end coder is done white box testing and considers the site to be near completion the site is sent quality team which begins black box testing. Black box testing is defined as testing where one does not know about the code on the site hence this means the testers have to be people other then the ones that coded the site. This testing is a testing that goes though all the phases of the site process, design is testing to make sure it looks good, front end coders are tested to make sure all the browsers look good, and back end functionality is tested to make sure everything run smoothly. Any errors found are sent to the respective department tested by the department and returned for more black box testing.
After the black box testing we send the website to the client for more black box testing / teaching the site to the client. This is the phase where the client learns to use their own site and they also test to make sure everything works to their expectations. Anything that goes wrong will again be sent back to the respective department and work its way back up the tree till it gets back to the client.
Once all of those phases are completed fully the site can be launched usually in beta mode. This “beta” mode is another form of testing. No software is written perfect and even with all the testing that software runs though before launch it still needs to be updated and fixed. It is extremely hard to catch all the errors on a site before launch. Beta Users will report any errors they have to the client or web development company that will send the problems to the right department running though the process again till it is updated on the site.
Once the beta phase is complete the site is ready to be launched. There is still the possibility of errors in the code of the site but after all the testing that it goes though they should be kept to a very minimal.
There are many things that go into building a site. Some of these steps are overlooked by companies which can lead to poorly made products being produced. It is important for all web development companies to take all of these factors into account so that the internet is not cluttered with poorly made websites.
