Our web design and development methodology

We have had the good fortune to work on many great sites and with many great people. We have also had the chance to learn from what works, and uh, well what does not work. One of the things we know is that a well refined and understood process can actually help free the team to do their best work and lead to the best outcomes. Our process is a mash-up. We have combined the best of what we know and given it the name 4d.

In a nutshell Swallowtail's process involves close collaboration with interactive designers, information architects, visual designers, and business owners to develop solutions that are time and cost efficient, delight the end-user, and are easy to operate and support.

For this project we use our web design and development methodology which we have adopted from best-practices and key learnings through our experience designing and developing many sites in the past.

DISCOVER

This phase is critical to the overall success of the project, and how well the project will succeed for our clients over the long-haul. This phase is about shaping the project through the business objective, strategy, operations environment, customer personas, and key customer tasks the project must address. We use multiple tools and have experience helping get at what's important to you and your team.

This phase also forms the foundation of marketing and operating plans we prepare for our clients.

DESIGN

The Design Phase is where the project gets exciting. This phase incorporates many multiple important activities and steps that begin to first sketch out, then round out, the user experience. Often user testing and feedback are incorporated to refine the design before it is finalized and moves into development.

The team will design your web interface based on your existing brand standards, and the finalized wireframes. The goal is to marry your strategic goals of with an easy to use, intuitive, inspiring user experience.

We have our own team we bring into projects, and also enjoy working with in-house staff and design studios. We find our process is useful in all those cases.

DEVELOP

In this phase, the development team will develop, test and launch the site. The team focuses on executing and refining the technical solution. During this stage the engineers, developers, and database resources on the team write code and develop the solution as specified. We enforce discipline with all on the team to manage timelines and project scope carefully. The Project Manager is responsible for managing the engineering & developer team, tracking time, reporting status, and insuring Execution Excellence [e2] - on-time & error-free.

DELIVER

We will provide oversight of the implementation and launch during the Deliver Phase. We will provide project management support to coordinate all activities required to launch and stabilize the new site. From experience we know to build in a "warranty" period in the plan to resolve issues that may arise during and right after launch.

At the end of the Deliver Phase the site will be declared stable and the site will transition to operations. This can be managed by Swallowtail, or we can transition to our clients staff or other service provider.