This is the fourth of a four-part series on website design and development.
Your website project is so close to completion, now that you have gotten through the web discovery, design, and development phases. You’ve already done the bulk of the work to understand your website and develop it to reach your goals. Still, you can’t skip this next and last critical phase of web development, which includes quality assurance (QA) and management. Here, you’ll finalize the choices you made in the development phase and perpetuate the establishment of a quality online presence through web development management and web development QA.
What is Web Development QA?
Usually, when you see the letters “Q” and “A” together, it means a question-answer relationship, but for web development, QA means “quality assurance.” It seems obvious that you want to assure that your website’s development is quality, but web development QA is more than just giving a general stamp of approval.
Instead, web development QA is a detailed, comprehensive examination of the large and small pieces of the website to ensure a high standard across the board. Of course, web development QA can never be completely done, but it should be thoroughly tested before your website launches, and then it should stay a priority even after the website is established.
How is Web Development QA Performed?
QA is independent of website development and design since the process of web development QA reviews and optimizes user interface and experience while hoping to discover any errors that are present before the website (or page) goes live, with the ultimate goal being optimal website function across the widest range. This includes a review of design aspects, down to details such as font style and spacing, as well as the website’s navigational flow, making sure there is compatibility and ease of access across devices and for a variety of users since 54.8% of website traffic worldwide is via mobile devices.
In addition to full-website types of web development QA, there are also quality checks for smaller sections, pages, or posts, such as link validation, SEO, and image optimization. Once the website goes live initially, the official web development QA stage is over, but QA should still be performed before any subsequent new pages or new entries of content are posted on the website. Forbes found that 10% of the top 95 marketing firms had mobile responsiveness problems highlighting that web development QA is an ongoing process of catching errors and noticing details, optimizing each piece of the continually developing website.
What’s Important in Web Development Management?
While the technical portion of initial website development does have a clear beginning and ending point, the launch of a website doesn’t mean that web development has finished. Ongoing web development management helps the website to keep running smoothly well beyond the first pages going live.
Web development management simply refers to the ongoing process of monitoring the web development process, making adjustments and optimizations as necessary to help the website to perform as well as possible. Some businesses may have an exclusive web development project manager who performs this role, but even if multiple employees share this responsibility, the importance of certain factors remains the same.
Web development management relies on general project management principles including clear objectives, reliable organizational structure, and consistent evaluation. All the clarity about your website’s goals and specifics that you uncovered or created in the earlier phases (discovery, design, and development) are key in web development management. Keep your website on track by managing your website as it develops.
How is Web Development Management Performed?
Like other branches of project management, web development management works best with collaborative tasks that work towards (a) specific goal(s). After a website launches, there should be a budget and system in place, established beforehand. The average budget allocated towards quality assurance has declined in recent years since hitting a high of 35% in 2015.
Web development management works where, after this evaluation and in conjunction with web development QA, decisions can be made with appropriate adjustments to help the website continue or begin to meet the goals. Of course, the goals can be adjusted as well when necessary. Overall, web development management becomes a cyclical process that relies on attention to detail.
Who Performs Web Development QA and Management?
Each company structure is different, so there is no one guaranteed answer for who performs this step of the process. Depending on the size of your business and the nature of its online presence, you may have multiple employees whose ongoing responsibilities focus on these detail-oriented looks at the website. Or, if you’re an entrepreneur who’s just starting, you may be doing this step mainly by yourself.
However, no matter how small your business or how experienced the person/people doing the web development QA and management are, it is always a good idea to have at least one other set of eyes occasionally look over the website, both before and after its initial launch. You or your assigned employee(s) who complete the web development QA and management may be entirely qualified or competent, but it’s easy to miss small things when you look at something all the time.
A fresh perspective can be invaluable in ensuring an evaluation that considers all sides to make the ideal subsequent web development management decisions, and a second opinion can be just what you need to make sure your website is top quality.
Ongoing Website Monitoring
Web development QA with web development management is all about a repeated detail-oriented examination of your website. Ongoing website monitoring is the best way to make sure your website is not just designed and developed well, but also continues to be optimized for success.
In the previous parts of our Web Design and Development Series, learn everything you need to do to get to this stage for your website, with important details for the discovery, design, and development of your website.
Did you enjoy this series? Reach out to let us know your feedback. Let us know if you have any further questions about web design and development or if you need more details on how to find the best web design company for your needs.