Internal Workings of a Web Project

By Scott Babcock

What exactly happens when a web site is under development?

A web project simply refers to the process of making a website. Whether its three pages or three hundred pages, the process has generally three steps; design, page content and hand-off.

Some sites may include a fourth item, programming, depending on what features the site may need. Some common programming features would include user logins, send mail forms, database administration and data tracking. The programming phase starts after the design phase is completed but, is always in progress up to the point of the hand-off.

Design: The design of a website is what the majority of people think of when they think of what work is done when a website is created. The design is done by a Web Designer who is pretty much a web artist. The web designer gets a good idea of what the customer is looking for with their new website by asking specific questions about the company, their audience, what the site will be used for and if you have any current marketing material the website should match.

Page Content: Once the design is complete and has been approved by the customer the page content is inserted into the website. The page content is what the end web browsing users will see and read when they visit the site. The page content is usually just text, but can include images as well. The use or lack of use of images depends on the design of the site.

Hand-off: The hand-off occurs as the last part of a web project. The hand-off is where the completed website is handed off to the customer. In most cases this is when the website will “go live” by uploading to a hosting account with an File Transfer Protocol application (FTP) this may not seem like part of creating a website but a lot of hangs- ups can happen in the hand-off of a website.

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