Our core expertise is website development services, particularly open source web development using PHP-based frameworks such as Drupal, WordPress, Joomla and Expression. While we originally started as a .NET development firm here in New York City, we chose to migrate to PHP and LAMP (Linux / Apache / MySQL / PHP) platform for a number of reasons, including cost benefits to our clients, ease of development and large number of resources available as themes and modules for frameworks. The technology choices we made allowed us to produce exceptional work in the web space and easily transition to software and app development using the same resource base.
The website development services we provide really start from our involvement in the discovery phase, where we advise our clients and partner agencies on most effective technical solutions for their projects. While we can certainly work off a spec, our real value add comes from years of expertise that we bring to projects even at the RFP stage, providing guides on web technology possibilities and limitations and balancing those against budgets and schedules. Although we are headquartered in New York, the nature of our work allows us to provide services worldwide with discovery and consulting done either in person or via conferencing. The programming itself is done exclusively from our production office and deployed to client’s infrastructure remotely per standard industry practices and procedures.
The goal of any discovery stage is to produce a solid scope of work document that identifies all major deliverables. The next step in the process is project specification that usually involves creative direction, page wireframes, UI/UX explorations and SEO strategy. Our involvement is again that of advising all parties involved on the possibilities and challenges of specific functionality on overall website development and long term maintenance and performance. As the explorations progress, we begin putting together a comprehensive technical specifications document that reflects both front end and CMS functionality for each template, site structure based on defined templates, and any server functionality that is implemented on the site. This document, besides being the master guide for all programming work, is also used as a basis of quality control process and site manual. Technical specifications is an organic document, updated to reflect specific functionality changes during every round of site revisions both before and after launch, with corresponding changes being made in CMS manual.
As the creative takes shape and project spec becomes more defined, the actual website development per se begins. Work starts in multiple parallel streams, with server side group working on their own set of tasks while front end developers are building global CSS styles and framework specialists deploying an instance of core build (using WordPress or Drupal as an example). Quality control team sets up test cases using commercial and our own proprietary software that can later be used by programmers themselves to validate work in progress. As project moves forward, completed portions of work are passed from one team to another, integrated into master project repository and reviewed during scheduled checkpoints both internally and with our partners.
Completion of core website development phase leads to comprehensive quality control process, which validates the site against technical specifications document and approved creative. Once we are satisfied with our own work we share the completed site with project stakeholders and work with them on implementing any site changes deemed necessary prior to launch. Having completed all modifications we validate launch protocol by taking fully completed website from development to stage environment and wait for the go ahead to take the site live.
This is what we do in a nutshell. Needless to say, the development process is a lot more nuanced and complex than what a short article will allow without getting numbingly technical. If you have specific questions, please feel free to reach us using our contact form or calling one of the numbers below. And best of luck on your next web project!