By Abigail Jackson
Whilst the rest of London gears up for the annual Christmas party season, there was no slacking to be found here at ECOM! As part of our policy of professional development, staff were invited to attend a late-night training session given by Andrew Warren, a senior project/web development manager from the industry. They discussed live examples of site build projects, from the initial scoping stages to design and user acceptance testing.
The presentation broadly covered large scale website builds, and can be divided into four sections. Firstly, the requirements and scoping stage, where the audience and their motivations are analysed. The user journey can then start to be mapped, and the information architecture can begin to take shape. This stage is crucial to inform the next stage, design.
Design begins with the creation of a concept. This is followed by back end development, where the decision between .NET and open source frameworks needs to be made. The positives of using the open source option are that it is fast-paced and more engaging, where the source code is unprotected and therefore open to be borrowed and shared by the online community. The positives of the .NET CMS are that it is straight out of the box and you don’t have to customize – but this comes at a cost. Once the back end development has been implemented, the front end development can begin. It is at this stage where aesthetics really come into play, and the website starts to come to life. From here, content may be uploaded, and the design re-jigged depending on how the site functions.
The third stage (and the final stage of project planning) is User Acceptance Testing (UAT). If there are any flaws in the design, they can be ironed out at this stage until the site is fully functional for all users.
Fourthly and finally we discussed the pros and cons of different project management methodologies, in particular the distinction between the fixed Waterfall approach, compared with the more flexible Agile method.
All involved found the experience to be very beneficial, as it gave us a greater understanding of the whole process of site builds. Having increased our collective expertise, we are looking forward to passing on the benefits of the training to our clients and candidates. Along with the thank-you Malteasers, we genuinely want to express our gratitude to Andrew for taking the time to pass on his knowledge at this busy, festive, time of year. Merry Christmas to one and all!
