Deciding the right agency/ developer for your web development project can be a tricky business, and you might have a hard time figuring out the right one. One of the reasons you are stuck is because no one explains the process in detail in a way you can understand. Here we will try to understand the stages of web development visualizing it as if you are building you home!

Phase 1: Drafting the Idea/ Sketching & Designing

For every new project, the Architect analyses the site, factors in the soil and climate of the area, and plans according to government’s protocols and your budget! As the project is being drafted, you will get better clarity of what you really want, and understand the flaws that you need to get rid off. You will also understand how much each feature will cost, and which parts you want to change. Do you want a wooden windows or ones made of steel. How all the rooms are connected to each other, where are the pipelines, and how the load is shared. All these aspects become clear with this draft. Some people chose not to consult with the architect, and later on realize their mistakes, and always end up spending much more than they had estimated.

Similarly with a web development project, it is always a better idea to have a clearly illustrated draft of what you want beforehand and agree to it. You can chose to skip this part, but you can never be able to prepare a proper estimate for the project and will be forced to patch up a lot of issues, leading to higher spend and a lower yield. The plan and layout can vary greatly depending on your plans and budget.

Phase 2: Choice of Language / Building the Base

This is the most crucial aspect that can make or break your project. It becomes more important if you want to incorporate a few changes or scale the project later on. If you are planning to scale a single story building into multiple stories in the future, then the base, design and materials have to be chosen accordingly. You need to discuss with an expert to understand the efficacy, durability and scalability and decide accordingly. Should the base be made of concrete, what should be the type and thickness of the column are the kind of questions you need to answer.

Similarly, a good developer understands your goals and long term vision and offers the optimum solution for your project that is cost effective, robust and scalable. If you have a very small budget, you can ask the developer to build up on a template, but it might get extremely difficult to add new features into the project. You can ask the developer to build from the scratch with a clean code if you see it as a long term project. The choice of language (PHP/ Dot Net/ Angular/ Flutter etc) also plays a crucial role in determining the cost and quality of the project. You can discuss all these aspects with your developer.

Phase 3: Writing the Code/ Construction Phase

Once the construction work is started, the quality of the foremen, craftsmen and the labourer plays a crucial role. They are the ones who implement the idea. An inexperienced team can create a home with slanting roofs, uneven walls and unsystematic weight distribution. Once done, it becomes extremely difficult and expensive to correct the mistake.

Similarly the quality of the code written by the developer plays a crucial role in determining the functionality of the the project. A lot of fresh graduates offer crazy discounts that may tempt you, but the quality of code is something that takes a hit and you might be left with a code no one wants to work with and might have to redo the entire code from scratch.

Phase 4: UI/UX Design / Furnishing your Home

Once the code is written and the elements that you want are incorporated, now you want it to look good. You can chose to live in a non-plastered home, or you can chose to have the finest of wall papers with the best of flooring and luxury furniture. It depends entirely on your vision and your budget. You can give sample websites to the developer who can work accordingly.

**Phase 5: Maintenance **

Once your home is ready to move in, you can move in and keep adding new furniture and decorations to your home. You might also face some technical issues that you might want to resolve, and few features that you might want to change. Changing a core feature (like removing a wall to merge 2 rooms) might be more expensive than adding a new feature (adding a new power socket). There are some unforeseen issues that might also show up every once in a while, while you might want to change the paint or the wall papers after some time.

Similarly your web project also needs regular maintenance. It is always better to sign an AMC with the developers to ensure that timely and regular checkup is done to ensure that you project keeps going on smoothly.

Conclusion

Your short term goals and long term plans are important. In India your construction cost can vary from $100 per square feet for an non-plastered slum building to thousands of dollars per square fit for a well furnished home. It all depends on your budget.

Similarly, instead of trying to figure out the right agency by asking for quotes, it is better to figure out the maximum budget that you can allocate for a project, and reaching out to agencies with your budget and the features that you want, and decide on the basis of the features and the quality that they can offer. Depending on your choice you can either have a well furnished elegant looking output, or just an ugly looking skeleton that nobody wants to use. So your choice of every single stage of web development is extremely important.

At Sofyrus technologies, we ensure that all the 5 stages are explained in detail so that you can chose the best option available to you. You can contact us at [email protected] to discuss your project with us. To understand how much your project can cost you can check on our previous blog.