Chapter 4: Timetables

To illustrate a website development timetable, we’ll use the example of a site with the look and feel of twenty pages. Our shop generally allows about three weeks for completion of a site this size, from the time of receipt of all original materials. We’ll use a hypothetical twenty-page site for ABC Company as our example for developing a timetable. We’ll introduce some variables to the project to give you an idea of how to project completion times on your own project. This will give you a framework to discuss the timetable of your project with your own supplier or in-house team. You’ll want to review timetables, of course, before you make the final choice of supplier or team members and assign the project.

Materials

Our example assumes you already have many of the materials that will go into the making of your web presence. First, gather all existing materials (everything available in print). Assess whether you (and your ad agency, printer, photographer, and/or illustrator, if applicable) have all the original materials. It is most helpful to provide your supplier or team members with all of your content in a digital format. If not, consider having someone in your own company do the keyboarding necessary to deliver digital text. You want your more highly skilled and higher-cost people actually developing the web presence, not typing. Most web development shops will be able to convert all the major word processing and desktop publishing formats: Word, WordPerfect, Quark Express, PageMaker and Publisher, as well as Notepad and WordPad. Most suppliers can handle either the Apple Macintosh or Windows PC version of any of these programs. Check with your supplier. Photographs and illustrations do not have to be in a digital format. If you have original visuals (prints or negatives) in good condition your supplier can scan them. Nonetheless, high-resolution digital images and original media are preferable. The best situation is to have visuals and literature available in both scan-able and digital formats.

Additional content covered in the print edition of WebForging includes a paragraph to a page or more on each of the following:

  • Site Outline and Navigation
  • Design and Design Proofs
  • Production
  • Procuring or Transferring Your Domain Name
  • Larger Sites
  • Scheduling/Postponing E-Commerce and Dynamic Content
  • Search Engine Registration
  • A Last Word on Timetables – Your Timetable
    Talk to anyone in an ad agency, printing or web development business and they’ll likely tell you that the their number one problem is getting original materials and timely review from clients.
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