Starting from Scratch
The three-step process
At Project Muse, I've learned that the best way to build a website or a web application from scratch is by following a simple, three-step process to take the customer from their idea, to a finished project. Modern websites and applications are large projects that require significant planning. The three-step process is designed to engage with the customer about their ideas, and their viability, without backtracking, and redoing steps. The three step process looks like this: Step 1: Planning and designing your website. Step 2: Framing and filling your website. Step 3: Programming and databasinging your website. Following this process allows us to work together in smaller sections at a time, while always maintaining the larger picture of what we're building.
Step 1: Planning and Design
A proper design for your new website is an essential component for its overall success. And a design that isn't backed by a functioning business or website plan is a disaster waiting to happen. Are you looking for a single page application (SPA), or a multi-page application (MPA)? Will it require a back-end, or just a contact page? Do you have a prefered colour pattern, and does it fit with your overall brand? These are questions that will come up in the planning and design process, and it's important that we have a solid answer to these questions, as well as both your website preferences, and your business goals, before we begin development. This strategy helps prevent costly issues from developing by planning for different opportunities early into the build.
At the end of this stage, the customer will have a functioning website or application blueprint, which will inform the website's design, even before the wireframe is developed. This blueprint will be shared between the developer and the customer, and serve as an organic document, informing the website or application's development. Furthermore, the customer will receive a wireframe of the web applications's initial design, presented with Github Pages. This wireframe will be a coded version of the website, but in Latin, and using only stock images.
Step 2: Development
The second stage of the web development process is to template and build your website, at your domain. To do this, first, I build the design from Step 1, described above, using PHP for server-side scripting, at your chosen domain. Next, once the first version of your website is completed, I develop the content for your website, starting with the words. Once I have the first pass written into the website, I develop and insert its other media, such as images and videos. As I'm working, I send you live updates of your project to ensure that your design is mapping into reality the way that you intend it to. At the end of this stage, the customer will have a completed website, at the domain of their chosing. This website will be edited, and from this edit, an SEO profile will be started, which the customer may choose to continue by purchasing an SEO package.
Step 3: Programming
The third step to developing your website is to light it all up. In this step, I handle all of the programming and data logic that will be needed for your website to perform optimally, and as intended. This includes JavaScript and form handling on the front-end, so that users can interact with your website or web application the way it was intended, as well as connecting your website or application to a database, and then writing the logic needed to handle the data from daily user interactions, as well as general traffic. This data can be accessed by you at at time, or leveraged into actionable business intelligence by purchasing a data package, and letting Project Muse analyze your data for you.
