Methodology
Every project is different. Every company has specific goals, messages, and strategies that cannot be addressed with COTS solutions.
Our process is agile, iterative, and flexible to meet the needs of a wide range of projects. By following the key steps in these four phases, we create an iterative development system to achieve business goals in a simple, cost-effective, yet straightforward manner. No longer are you locked into six-month or year-long periods of development.
| Phase 1: Discovery | Phase 2: Analysis |
|---|---|
|
We meet with you to clarify your goals and objectives, assess your audience needs, and formulate technical requirements. Aside from closely examine competitor sites and industry trends that may affect or enhance the project, we also conduct user testing on an existing site and assess current and competitive platforms and systems. |
We then analyze our findings in order to formulate the best site design strategy, including high-level site architecture, creative, branding, production, and technical considerations and recommendations. These assessments and recommendations are housed in a Site Design Document. The ensuing design and development strategy is based upon this document. |
| Phase 3: Prototyping & Iterative Development | |
|
This is the most important phase. Once an overall strategy and development cycle period have been agreed upon, we begin prototyping the site from a functional, creative, and technical perspective. The various prototypes produced will serve as baseline for all future iterations of the production version of your solution. During this phase, ChalkLabs produces iterative prototypes with input from the client, specifying all content, functionality, navigation, and overall look/feel. We meet regularly with the client to review these concepts as they evolve. Each iteration is a step towards the final production version of your solution. We constantly add and test features for the final solution. You get to watch your site come to life and, instead of waiting to see what's going on, you can proactively make changes as the final version is being developed for release. Each development cycle also includes unit, integration, functional, and performance testing to verify that each iterative release is as you want it. While others charge for testing, we do not. |
|
| Phase 4: Release & Maintenance | |
|
Once the code has been tested and the monthly development release date reached, we release the code to a staging server whereby you have the opportunity to review and evaluate the latest release. At this point, each client has the ability to add new bugs or changes to the recent release in order to achieve their needs. After successful review and the go-ahead from the client, the release is pushed up to the production server and is then live to the public. Once on the production server, ChalkLabs usage analysis and reporting solutions allow you to analyze your visitors navigation and usage patterns, allowing you to make subsequent decisions about changes and directions you wish to take your site. |
|