61 Questions You Need to Answer Before Developing Your Website

Transcription

1 Here s a checklist of 61 questions you need to ask before you start working your new website. Webalite 2015

2 Mike Eastwood A background in product design, graphic design, branding and business have given Mike a huge advantage working with clients on websites. From New Zealand Mike has worked with clients in Europe, America, Australia and locally on a vast range of projects. Contact Mike Eastwood mike@ Mike designed his first website in 1994 for Arts Marketing Board of Aotearoa (AMBA), he has specialised in web design and development since As a passionate foodie you may have met Mike at the dinner table. He is well know for his Tuesday Night Dinners which have happened in Wellington - and around the world - every Tuesday since Webalite In 2007 Mike joined the TBD Design team to get the web department back on track. The team grew quickly and, as demand increased, we decided to create a new company Webalite. Clients included business small and large, government departments and other organisations. In 2011 Mike followed his family to the UK for a few years, still working with clients in New Zealand and abroad. When he returned to New Zealand working on the world s first end-to-end business coaching system, and the related websites, changed to the way he looked at websites. Now Webalite specialises in Authority Based Websites helping grow businesses online. The Webalite team has worked hard to ensure the information in this publication is correct and accurate. However, this publication is for general information purposes only. Webalite is not responsible, or liable, for any damages that may result from your use or reliance on this information. The Webalite logo and Webalite name are the intellectual property of Webalite Limited (New Zealand). The Webalite logo, website and publications may not be reproduced in any way without prior written approval. All rights reserved Webalite 2015.

3 Mistakes, lots of them To be honest I ve made most of these mistakes personally, or one of our team has made them. Learning the hard way over the last decade means I can now warn you about the dangers so you can talk to your web professionals and ask them, in a friendly way, if they ve covered off all these points. The checklist is grouped by roles, some roles may overlap, or may not even be provided by your website company - you still need these questions answered before you start work. Contents 10 Questions for your Website Designer 2 10 Questions for your Website Developer 3 10 Questions for your Account Manager 4 10 Questions for your Website Host 5 10 Questions for you 6 10 Questions for your Business Application Development Team bonus section 7 One last question... 8 Glossary 9

4 10 Questions for your Website Designer Graphic designers may have experience in print or branding however design for the web has its own set of challenges. Your designer may be a true artist that creates exquisite work however, you need to ensure the following design and technical issues have been considered. Will your Website Designer use Responsive Design practices? Your site needs to optimised for different devices e.g. smartphone, tablet, desktop. Google will not display your site in Mobile Search Results if your site is not Responsive. What devices is your Website Designer testing the website on? Emulators are great, they speed up the workflow, but they aren t 100% accurate you need to test on real devices. You need to test on Windows and Macs, ios and Android and more if your target market uses other devices. How many fonts are being downloaded? Custom fonts are great, when used sparingly, too many fonts can slow your page down significantly. Does your custom font support other languages? If you are working in international markets your font needs to have special characters for most non- English languages, usually this is only available on professional fonts. How does your design communicate to your Persona? If your site is selling cheap product your design needs to reflect that. Some designers struggle to see that good design is communicating your values with your audience. That means if you are selling a cost sensitive product good design is not the same as high design. Are all your images optimised? A designer will try and use the best looking image but that can slow your site down. All images should be optimised for speed and looks. How well will your new design translate to other collateral? Your design should be consistent across social media, electronic documents and printed material. Does your designer supply you with a Style Guide? When developing a logo, brand and website design it s important that your site is cohesive. Does your logo work at small sizes? If you are getting a logo designed, as part of your website design, how does it translate to small sizes? A Favicon can reduce your logo to 16 x 16. Are you photos real or Stock Images? They may be significantly cheaper but that s why everyone uses them. If an image you use on your site is also on your competitors website what does that say? 2

5 10 Questions for your Website Developer Geeks can be hard to work with. I ve often been asked to come in as the Fix-it Guy, at the end of the project, because the client is frustrated with their developer. Usually, the developer built what they were asked to build but it s not what their client really wanted. Have you got design mockups, wireframes and sitemaps? it s important to get everyone on the same page and ensure nothing is missed (especially in the quote). What Version Control system is the developer using? Version Control is essential to keep track of the code, it s even more important if there s a team working on the same codebase. I recommend GIT, you can also use older systems like SVN, CVS. Does your developer use a Staging Site and/or Testing Site? If your developer is uploading changes to your live site - without testing in the same environment - you re just asking for trouble. How does your developer keep track of bugs, issues and tasks? There are lots of moving parts in a website, if you re not keeping track of errors, changes and issues it s easy for them to get missed. Missing things is infuriating for everyone. Is your developer using and IDE (Integrated Development Environment)? This is an interesting one I ve heard developers that say IDEs slow them down, even though they were a much faster and more experienced coder, they made more errors because they weren t using the best tools for the job. Does your developer use Google Developer tools? Google has created a suite of free tools to help analyse, maintain and optimise your website for your site visitors and search engines. Is sent from your server? If you are using your webservers mail software you may need to make changes to your Domain settings to allow to get through tile recipients SPAM filters. Does your webserver use and SMTP relay? You may need to offload the s to a Job Queue so it doesn t slow down the User Experience (it takes a while to log into a remote server). Are you using a CDN? Content Distribution Networks keep copies of static content e.g. images and video on a server network so you can download the content that s closest to you, speeding up page loads What SPAM prevention techniques do you use? You have a responsibility to make sure you aren t propagating SPAM. Using best practices you can reduce or elimate any potential for sending or receiving SPAM. 3

6 10 Questions for Your Account Manager Account manages no offence intended can gloss over the details and say oh, yes! like of course we do. However you need to check to see if batteries are actually included. A few of these questions may be better at directed at other members of the team. What Analytics system will your website use? Your site needs some sort of Analytics to analyse the traffic on your website, we recommend Google Analytics however there are several other sophisticated systems that work across Social Media and even inside your Apps. Are you engaged on a fixed price quote? If you are on a fixed price then make sure your scope is clearly defined. It s easy, later in the project, to say something wasn t included which is often the case on big projects because when you start you often don t know what the final project solution includes. Are there any additional costs? There are always costs, over and above hosting, that pop-up like annual domain renewals, off-site backups, etc. Does your website come with a Content Management System (CMS)? Can you update the content on your website without needing to hire a specialist? Can you revert something if you made a mistake? Oops, I deleted the website! Well, maybe not the whole website but it does happen. Usually in a Content Management System (CMS) you can revert back to an old version of the page and start again. Who can you call if the website is down? If your site is monitored correctly your Account Manager should be calling you to tell you if your site is down and what s being done to get it up again. Who owns the site and it s content? It may seem a silly question but if you want to move your website it can be a major challenge. Some companies may reserve the right to keep your content and code should you decide to leave. Does your development team use a wiki? Is everyone on the team, including you, taking notes and keeping them all in one place? Does your website understand buiness? More importantly do they understand your business? Unfortunately most people think like employees rather than business people, make sure they understand your business. Is bug squashing included? When working on a website hours can disappear trying to get something to work properly, even if it s worked fine every other time. Make sure that time isn t eating the time you have allocated for new features. 4

7 11 Questions for your Website Host Your website, during and after development, will need to be hosted on a webserver. Website hosting, like anything, has a wide range of prices from a few dollars a month to tens of thousands. If you are serious about setting up a website, and keeping it up, talk to Mike about Webalite Supported Sites (we don t offer normal website hosting). How often is the site backed up? The minimum recommendation is daily backups. You can backup hourly, or when a page changes but assuming you have Page History (so you can revert changes) you should be ok using daily backups. Where are the backups stored? Please, whatever you do, make sure they aren t on the same server. You can back up to Cloud locations very easily and extremely cheaply. Who is maintaining the security updates for the server? Webservers use distributed code so anyone can access the code and look for weaknesses or security holes. Luckily the software is updated regularly as annoying as that is so we can avoid potential security exploits. Where, physically, is the server where your site hosted? If Data Sovereignty is an issue for your site then you may need to host in your own country. We usually use cloud servers for Load Balancing and Failover which can reside physically in a number of locations. How often does the site monitoring check your site is live? Every 5 or 10 minute intervals is fine, once an hour is a minimum. How many sites are on the server? If you are using a cheap website hosting company there could be thousands of websites on that server. If there s a traffic spike, or attack, on another site your site can slow down or go down. If another site on the server has been sending spam or worse your site can be guilty by association. What ports are open on the server? Shared servers often have multiple ports open for different applications - it s like having a building with thousands of doors open - it s much harder to control security than if you ve only got 4 or 5 doors open with security guards on every door. Are the DNS Records set up correctly for www and non-www When you visit a website you can either use webalite.co.nz or, more traditionally, you need to ensure both work. Do you have 24/7 locally based support? It s no fun being on hold. It s worse when you get to talk to someone who doesn t understand what s wrong and regurgitates solutions from their list even though they didn t listen to your problem. 5

8 10 Questions for you If you re reading this then you re one of the people who is represented by your website. There are some challenges here that you need to know about before you get started... Who is managing your Domain Name renewal? If you don t renew your domain it will go down and it s difficult and time consuming to get your site and back up. I ve seen multi million dollar companies stop dead because someone forgot to renew a domain for a few dollars. Who gets the renewal notification for your domain names? Is your name on the Domain Name Record? If there s a dispute, or error, and you re not on the Domain Name Record then technically it s not your Domain Name. Do you comply with Privacy Laws? Most countries now have Privacy Laws for websites. It s easy to comply with and clearly displaying your Privacy Policy will help your site comply with Search Engines (especially important when using advertising). Do you know how to update the content on your website? It s challenging enough to update your website; if you find it difficult, or worse, then you re going to find other more important and urgent tasks and your website will never get updated. How often are you going to update the site? Create a Content Create Calendar with dates and times when you work on, and publish, yo0ur content. You can also include your Social Media publishing. Do you have a documented step by step process to update your website? I m the first to admit it updating your website is often the last job on your mind when you re running a business. If you document step by step the process to update your content then you can delegate the job safely. Do you have an approval process for publishing? If you are delegating then this is important, even if you re not it helps to have a fresh set of eyes reading your content to pick up on those spelling mistakes. How are you going to drive traffic to your site? Build it and they will come? Nope, that only works in the movies you need to implement a marketing plan. Are you committed to building a site that represents you? Your website is one of the first impressions you get to make. Do you want it to be a positive impression? Or are you ok with giving the tired, outdated, careless impression? Do you have a cookie policy if your site services European customers? In Europe they have also have regulations around the use of Cookies. 6

9 10 Questions for your Business Application Development Team bonus section If you re looking to develop an App, or systemise part or all of your business online here are some additional questions you need to ask your development team. Do you have your business processes documented in detail? A big part of the challenge when building online business systems is documenting the business process from end to end. We ve often learnt from a colleague, the boss or we ve just made stuff up. Can your business process be followed without a human decision? Can your business process be followed end-to-end without a person making a judgement call? Your system needs to be based on programmable decisions - if you need to ask someone then you are creating bottlenecks in the workflow. Have you made clickable mockups of all the pages? Once you ve got the process documented the next step is to create a clickable mock-up so you can go right through the business process, preferably with everyone involved, to make sure there s no gaps. Do your development team use Agile Development? If you re doing a big project online business system or App development I recommend you use a company that works using Agile Methodology. Are the delivery milestones specified? Most IT projects run over budget. By using Agile Methodology it will be easier to manage but you will still want to know when you can deliver your online system. Who is responsible for testing the application? Developers are not renowned for testing. Any change can make the system fail everything needs to be tested whenever there s a change. It s even better if there is Unit Testing (programmable testing) Who is going to support the user once the project is running? Someone on your team? You? Your development team? You need to decide who and how to support your end users. How are you going to train people how to use your new system? You can produce videos to walk users through the process and/or document the process on your site so anyone can easily learn (without using your team s time). Does your system have clear instructions for the user? You can make your system more intuitive by engaging a good UI (User Interface) Designer and UX (User Experience) Designer. Anything which needs explanation can be included on screen so you don t need to look for answers. Do you have an SLA with your development team? Unfortunately it s unlikely your project will ever be finished there are always bug fixes, tweaks and new features. Your SLA needs to cover ongoing Support and Maintenance for your system. 7

10 One last question... You ve read a range of questions - some geeky - some basic common sense (which often isn t that common). Building a new website is a big undertaking and will require lots of work on your part, even you you delegate the work. However, your website is like the shopfront, for you and your business, open 24/7 in every country in the world. So, my closing question for you is... What will it cost you if you don t build your new site? 8

11 Glossary As you ve probably found out website design and development is loaded with acronyms and buzzwords. Here s my translation in English (well, my version of English). If there s something you want explained feel free to me directly mike@ Agile A Project management methodology that continually delivers small parts of functionality regularly during and after the development phase. Analytics Anonymous data analysis of your users use of your site or app. Domain A textual representation of an address on the internet. Computers use addresses that are made up of characters that don t make much sense to anyone other than geeks. Emulators To mimic multiple devices during Mobile Search Results The search results your see when you search on your phone. they are different results to the same search on a computer. The Mobile Search Results take into account your location. Persona A marketers technique to visualise development we use Emulators. These your target customer. Android approximate the behaviour of mobile Googles operating system on mobile Responsive Design devices on screen. devices. The best practice for developing Favicon sites that can be viewed on multiple Avatar A small (16 x 16 pixel) image, usually devices. A marketers technique to visualise a logo, displayed in browser tabs and your target customer, also called a Shared Server bookmarks. Persona. Multiple sites are installed on a single Failover server to share resources and reduce Browser When a server goes down, if managed cost. Software for viewing websites and correctly, it can be set to switch to other content e.g. Safari, Internet Sitemap another server. Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome. A flowchart representing the pages on GIT your site or app. CDN A distributed version control system Content Distribution Networks keep SMTP allowing developers to work on code copies of static content e.g. images and A system for sending . without accidentally overwiriting each video on a server network so you can others code. Style Guide download the content that s closest to Specifications on how to use your logo you which speeds up page loads. IDE and brand consistently. An Integrated Development CMS Environment that helps coders by Staging Site Content Management System is a providing tools and highlighting to A site that is used to test and review system for managing content on your make code easier to read, write and changes before they are moved to the website - yep, you could have guessed debug. Production Server. The Staging Server that. should be identical to the Production ios CSS Server and locked down so it s not The operating system for mobile Cascading Stylesheets deliver the publicly accessible. Apple devices e.g. iphone, ipad. information about the design to the Version Control Browser so it renders as the designer Job Queue A Version Control system allows intended. A system for moving processor developers to work on code without intensive jobs into a queue so the Data Sovereignty accidentally overwiriting each others user doesn t have to wait. Also used Some data, often personal code. for heavy lifting on non-urgent jobs. information, is required to be kept in Wireframes the contry the data originated. Load balancing Mockups and layouts that contain Software and hardware to distribute Devices business information usually without traffic so systems can cope with high In this context we mean phone, design so you can focus on the demand. smartphone, tablet, computer, etc. business process and/or content. 9

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