Website Development Proposal

Discovery

The discovery process helps us define the project scope, connect with key stakeholders to create a comprehensive overview of the entire project, and conduct user research. This will help our team make strategic and data-based design decisions that prioritize business objectives and help define the direction we need to head in building out the website.

The discovery process sets the tone for the rest of the project. It is also the part of the process that can delay the project if stakeholders aren’t responsive. We place a high importance on moving through this part of the process quickly and efficiently in order to keep everything on the set timeline.

Key areas we include during this part of the process are:

• Needs Assessment
• Brand Guidelines Review
• Business Objectives / Strategy
• Stakeholder Interviews
• User Research & Buyer Personas (if adopting Inbound)
• Marketing Requirements
• Technology Requirements
• Gap Analysis

Audit

We conduct a full content audit of your website to collect and analyze what content is necessary for the site. This audit does two big things – it catches content that isn’t easy to find under the standard navigation and it helps decide what content can be repurposed and what needs to be archived.

This process will require participation from the Y team. We will collect all the initial content and direct the process, but Y staff will need to complete the process by surveying and making decisions on whether or not existing content is purposeful, relevant, dated, etc. These decisions should be informed by an existing content strategy. If no strategy exists, PIXL will work with the Y to create one.

Strategy & Goals

One of the benefits of partnering with our team is we have completed extensive training on the YMCA brand and strategic vision. Knowing the heartbeat of Y-USA is helpful when working with Ys on the local level. We work to understand the strategy and goals of your organization in the Discovery process. Then we work alongside key decision makers at the Y to set a comprehensive digital strategy, goals, and milestones that we desire for the website to achieve.

It’s important that goals are measurable, dated, and have data backing them up. This helps inform the design and build process so we don’t end up creating a website that doesn’t achieve what we need and isn’t held accountable for results.

Our goal at PIXL is to create a successful website and the strategy and goals process will allow us to know what success should look like for your website.

Information Architecture

Correctly organized content and information is one of the most important factors of a website. This is also one of the biggest areas of frustration on the current site. Many times the information that a user needs exists behind a hidden web of complicated pathways. This is a challenge for any web project and one we will gladly accept.

While working with the YMCA of Greater Montgomery, our team helped organize thousands of pages of data to create a clear pathway to engagement through the website. Programs and naming conventions weren’t helpful for users and many people were frustrated with the user experience. Figuring out if people were looking for swimming, pool activities, aquatics, aqua aerobics, or swim class is just one small example of how complex navigation on a site can be.

We work with you to build out a full site map of the entire site based on user research, keyword research, and business objectives. This allows us to organize the site into clear pathways to engagement.

Our goal is that every step of a user’s experience will be an opportunity to create a meaningful relationship and serve their needs. We have extensive experience in helping YMCAs and other nonprofits, such as Dare 2 Share, and even health care organizations with their information architecture solutions.

Design & Build

The moment we’ve all been waiting for. Design and build is our favorite part of the process! We take all the research, data, information, goals, objectives, etc. and finally turn them into tangible components of a website. Our process is intentional and methodical. We require check-ins every two weeks and an option for an additional meeting in the off weeks to answer any questions and obtain feedback on our progress.

Here are the steps to our design process:

• Wireframes
• Visual Design
• Content Design
• Content Templates

We use real content for our designs and will start with the homepage to lock in our most necessary page and drill down into the various content sections from there. The homepage sets the tone of the user journey and is highly important to get right. Based on previous conversations, we should have a solid idea for what pages to showcase that will help drive the functionality we plan to build for that page or pathway.

Once the design is completed and approved to move forward, we will begin developing the site on a live staging server. This means you will be able to see and visit the site during development when we need feedback or testing, but Google will not be able to see it until we push it live.

This part of the process requires quite a bit of setup and includes:

• Servers & Hosting
• Prototype Build & Test
• Website Style Guide
• Technology Integrations
• Content Management Process
• Website Governance Plan
• Training

The prototype is the most important part of this process. This refers to the full development of the new website complete with all required functionality. PIXL Designs uses agile development which allows us to stay flexible for input through the development process. We may require client input during this part as we build out content templates, sidebar widgets, custom post types, and work with advanced custom fields. All of these items help create a website that is easy to input information that will dynamically create content on the website without the headache of manually organizing it.

This list simplifies the process but contains significant work. We keep you in the loop every step of the way. The entire project will be managed in our project management system on Trello so you can see the timeline progression and ask any questions that arise. You may have noticed by now that we work in development sprints. This allows us to have focused time to build, iterate, and evaluate. We do this to avoid going too far down a path that requires a change in direction.

Launch & Evaluation

Every launch needs a good party without interruption and we make sure this happens! Once the site development is completed there are a significant number of items we checklist through to make sure the site is ready for prime time. From user testing to multi-device testing, our goal is to help you create a website with the least barrier to entry possible.

One feature we believe separates us from other companies during this part of the process is accessibility. We believe the disability community should have as much access to reading, hearing, watching, and experiencing a website as anyone else. We build-in assistive learning and screen reading features to your site to make this possible, and we make sure your staff are trained to fully understand the importance of creating a website that works for everyone. We also add JSON Schema at this point which allows your site to be shown as feature-rich on Google search.

Here’s our list of items we complete during this stage of development:

• User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
• Live Servers & Hosting setup
• Content Revisions
• Documentation
• Analytics Implementation
• Accessibility Features
• Mobile / Responsive Tweaks
• Pre-Launch & Launch checklist
• Monitoring
• Post Launch Evaluation
• Google Webmaster Monitoring