User Analysis | Market Analysis | Content | Tools & Technology | Schedule | Strategy

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Schedule of Time and Resources

Schedule development timeline

Create a schedule to help ensure that you meet your development deadline. Below is a sample schedule. Start by making a table (step A) which lists each step in your process, followed by the number of working days each step will take to complete (step B). Include user tests throughout the plan.

Next (step C, below) work out each step into a Gantt chart. You need to consider those steps that occur serially versus those occurring in parallel, and a Gantt chart is a good format for visualizing the relationship between these steps. Also consider weekend and holiday dates which will be recognized by your team. In order to control your schedule throughout the project, it is critical to understand which steps of the project are affected if there is a change in the completion date of any individual step.

Return to your table (top, step D) and list the completion dates for each step, based on your Gantt chart. Of course, you may also need to revise the number of days allotted to certain steps (step B) in your table as well as in your Gantt chart in order to accommodate your deadlines.

Plan for an iterative development and design process

Plan budget

Your resource budget needs to account for the following:

• Personnel: technicians, designers, and editors to maintain the server and the content

• Hardware: production machines as well as a hardware test environment for staging and testing the site

• Server: either a server, domain name, and network lines, or an ISP for hosting your site (Make sure the server you will use is capable of handling the programs you want it to run, such as Java, and the amount of traffic you expect it to receive)

• Software: search engines, authoring tools, visual design tools, scripts to support feedback mechanisms, database software

Assign a team

Make certain you have the skills necessary to complete a Web development project. Below is a list of skill areas and the activities that must be completed within those areas. The exact titles and number of people who fill these functions will vary according to the size and goals of the project and the organization.

• Project Management

  - Client contact
  - Communication of project requirements
  - Project scheduling
  - Budget planning
  - Resource allocation
  - Assures copyright compliance
   

• Usability Engineering

  - Users and task analysis
  - Communication of user and functional requirements
  - Management of user evaluation of design
   

• Media Design

  - Information structure design
  - Prototype design
  - Design of communication concept and physical media
  - Design of physical interface, navigation, interaction
  - Style guide writing
   

• Content Management

  - Provision of domain-specific knowledge
  - Writing and editing
   

• Implementation

  - Planning hardware and software requirements
  - Programming and scripting
  - Producing imagery, sound, and other content elements
  - Performance testing (testing for speed, accuracy of link connections)
  - Accessibility testing (alt text on images, titles on frames and pages, etc.)
  - Site transfer to server
   

• Maintenance

  - Maintenance on content and links
  - Server maintenance, database support
  - Creation of content updates (text, graphics, programming)
  - Quality, performance, and accessibility testing of any new content
  - Customer/user support and communications
  - File administration

Schedule user involvement

Scheduling user involvement appropriately in various stages of the development process will improve the effectiveness of your design. Remember to allow time in your schedule to make the changes that testing indicates are necessary. The best time to involve users is early in the planning and designing stages, so that you will have time to make changes based on their responses and still meet your deadline. The following types of user input and feedback are particularly valuable:

• Gain input from users on the goal and content of the site (See "User/Audience Analysis" in the "Planning" section)

• Gain input from users on the organization of the content (See "Structure" in the "Design" section)

• Gain feedback from users on the proposed site visuals and/or site metaphor (See "Visual Layout and Elements" in the "Design" section)

• Gain feedback from users on site navigation (See "Navigation" in the "Design" section)

• Provide a way to get feedback from users once the site is published (See "User Feedback" in the "Maintenance" section)

Assign work to content providers and experts

Communicate your project plan with your team

Create a document that will guide and unify the efforts of the team, and/or clarify your intentions for the client. You may want to do your project plan on an intranet using HTML. This experience would be particularly useful for any members of your team who are unfamiliar with HTML. Your project plan should include the following information:

• Goals definition

• User/audience profile and evaluation

• Results from task analysis

• Competitive analysis

• General strategy

• Projection of recommended web development tools, and how and why they may be used

• Prioritization of content into that which is necessary, and that which is merely desirable (consider whether desirable content can be added in the future)

• Team assignments and individual responsibilities

• Team communication mechanisms (meetings, databases, minutes, distribution lists)

• Activity tracking processes to manage who is doing what

• Problem and issue management processes

• Schedule and publish date

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