DGD Consulting

Your site will be built to meet your vision – we do not produce off the shelf, standard packages. The more you can help by describing your requirements, and your thoughts on how your web site should look, the better we can work together to meet that goal. Take some time to think about what you want and, once you are ready, send your ideas to us using the proposal email form. We will get back to you, once we’ve had a chance to consider your requirements. Don’t worry about getting everything down straight away – design is an iterative, refinement process that will require an exchange of ideas to produce the result you really want.

• First we need to know a little about what you do – your business or the interests you wish to promote.
• Then we need to know what are the objectives you want to achieve, and the individual topics you wish to cover. If you already have some or all of text and/or pictorial (images and graphics) that will form the content for your site, so much the better. examples of the content will allow a better estimate of the number of pages (or page groups) required by your website. Content examples can be attached to the proposal email.
• Then decide if you wish your site to just display information to your visitors, or whether you want them to interact e.g. by sending comments and requests to you, ordering products from you, paying for products or even receiving electronically product they may have purchased.
• You may have some ideas about the look you want for your site. That may be based on other sites you have seen, particular colour schemes or your existing paper literature. Please send any examples of your thoughts. You may also want particular features such as specialist menus or ticker tape messages. The home or landing page has to grab the attention so you may want extra (e.g. dynamic features) on this page.
• bit more about your content. Which information will never change? Does some content change from time to time, and is there some, that will need constant updating?

Existing Sites. We are happy to work on sites that need extending, completing or may even require a complete make-over. We will need the same information as provided for sites being designed from scratch, but will also need to know which features and pages are to be retained. To assist in evaluation we will require a copy of the current website source code and content.

Evaluation and Ordering. Once you have collected the above information, send it using the proposal email. we will get back to you to discuss your requirements, before coming up with a website specification and a corresponding quote. Where extensive development work is required, this may quoted as time and materials by the hour. You will need to check this specification for completeness and that it is within your budget. The specification can be refined until you are happy with the result.

Deposit. Once we have agreed what is required and if you wish to proceed, we will ask you for a deposit of 40%. N.B. Should you need to add extra features or pages during the development, these can be added and the development cost adjusted accordingly.

Design Process. We will draw up a draft design for your page layout(s) using your initial content for the home page and incorporating the ideas you have given us on page layout colouring and style. The draft pages will be loaded on our own server and a link supplied so you can view it. You are encouraged to review our sample design and your sample content. We work with you, until you are satisfied that the design meets your approval.

Content.Whilst we can help with advice on writing content and editing it, the text content itself must come from you. Unfortunately, whilst we are experts in our own field, we are complete novices in yours! If you can supply photographs, all the better - although we can supply either stock photographs or obtain specific photographs to meet your requirements.

Once you have approved the design, you will need to supply the remaining content for the site - so we can build the remaining site pages.

Testing, All our code is tested for functionality, compliance to W3C international standards, and for presentation by a selection of different web browsers. However, we may miss something and so we ask that you also run through a full check of the site inspecting each page and following all the page links. You should fully satisfy yourself that everything is working as expected. See our guidelines on your testing.

Domain Name. If you don't already have one, we will help you decide on a domain name (the address people type into their browser to find your site) and purchase it for you once your deposit has been received. We can also help with the selection of your ISP. Please note these charges are annual charges. If we make the initial purchases for you, you will need to take over the payments for subsequent years.

Going Live. With testing complete, the site is ready to be deployed. The balance due is now payable. We will then set up the hosting for your site (the file space your website will occupy on our server) and point your domain name to it. The website will be password protected until the final payment has been received.

Post Live. Despite best testing endeavours, occasionally problems may be discovered after the website has "gone live". If any problems are found then these should be notified as soon as possible so they can be corrected.

This section gives an overview of the website build process - if you want more detail, have a browse through the Website Planning Guide.