Our Process
So many times the question comes up - How fast can you get the project done? So many people hear the commercials that state "you can have your site up and running in 30 minutes with just a few clicks. Boy wouldn't it be cool if it was that easy!
Truth is, good development takes time. There's a lot of back & forth in the process between you (the client) and the folks doing the work for you. Blog Design & Setup could take a week to ten days, but an app for the iPad could take weeks or months - it just depends on what you need developed. Listed below is the Chris Harrington Interactive process; no matter what you're doing - there are 6 steps.
- What's the Project?
- When you decide to use Chris Harrington Interactive, we're going to interview you - probably as much as you interview us :-) We want to get to know your idea. Is this a new idea or has someone tried it before? What should yours do better? What technology can be used? We'll come up with the project goals, the timeline, assemble the right team, and propose the final deliverables.
- Interaction Design
- Ever been to a site or used an app that a button did NOT do what you thought it should do? That's bad "Interaction Design". We're gonna make an outline or diagram of your site or app. Where does this page go to? What's that button do? Does the site flow? Do you get lost in the content? Questions like those are posed during this part of the process. We're going make up some "wireframes" that show where content will go, what buttons & links will do, etc.
- Visual Look & Feel
- This is where we start putting some color to the project. Visual Designers will work with you to take the "wireframes" from Interaction Design and they'll put some "boards" together that will show you color schemes, marketing images, fonts types & font sizes. Depending on the type of the project, you might see one board or you could see 20 boards. Each one will need to be signed off by you, so the next step in the process can begin.
- Programming
- "Revenge of the nerds!" All the work before this leads up to this very important step in the process. Before this, all you saw were "boards" or "wire frames" of the final product - they had no life to them; they were just flat. When the programming begins, your site or app will start to take shape and you'll get to see it in action. We'll also confirm that the technologies chosen at the beginning are giving us the desired results. If not, we make adjustments.
- Quality Assurance & Testing
- Now, we try to "break" your project - really, we do :-) We put some quality assurance testers on the project to see if everything works as planned. If a project "breaks" or doesn't react the way it was designed to, we fix it. Once again, depending on the project, this could take a couple days or a couple of weeks.
- Launch & Release
- PARTY TIME! This is what you've been waiting for - your project is released for use. Depending on the project, a training booklet might also be produced for your use going forward. We'll also discuss ongoing maintenance.