Ensure a high-quality result

Typically the following types of deliverables will be produced as part of a project:

• Creative design
• Specification/design documentation
• The system

Creative Design

The Creative Design is collaboratively developed, reviewed and then approved by the Client.

Designs are published in our Sharespace website. For convenience, the Client can comment directly on the design images.

Feedback should be provided within 2 working days. Two to three iterations of the design are targeted. Client approvals are by email.

Specification/Design Documentation

When designing a system we consider six domains:

• Business - the system must benefit the business, ultimately via cost savings or revenue growth. This may be achieved by building closer relationships with customers, improving customer service offerings, development of innovative new online services etc.
• Data - usually the most important asset of the system. The database will be designed to ensure that data is stored in the most efficient form.
• Technology - the system will be architected to make use of appropriate technology, sometimes cutting-edge, sometimes tried-and-tested.
• Integration - where required the system will be designed to integrate robustly with existing systems such as financial systems, inventory systems, user management systems etc.
• Security - the level of security required for the system will be designed into the solution.
• Application - must be designed to be robust, extensible and it must perform.

The documentation is developed by the Project Manager and technical team, then reviewed and approved by the Client.

Documents are published in our Sharespace website. Feedback is provided by marking up changes in the document and returning the marked up document by email.

Feedback should be provided within 2 working days. There are two iterations of each document. Client approvals are by email.

The System

The types of testing that the system will undergo are described below.

Unit Testing

The system is developed by the technical team by following the Creative Design and documentation.  The system will adhere to W3C website guidelines. The team will test each component of the system as they build it.

Integration Testing

The technical team will test the system as a whole, particularly where there are linkages between components that need to be tested together.

System Testing

The system is reviewed against the Creative Design, specification/design documentation and W3C website guidelines by the Project Manager.

User Acceptance Testing

The system is then released to the Client for User Acceptance Testing (UAT). During this iterative process any defects found are fixed before another round of testing commences.

There are normally two iterations of UAT. UAT feedback should be provided within 2-5 working days depending on the complexity of the system. Client approvals are by email.

Production Testing

Once UAT is approved by the Client, the system will be deployed to the Production environment for final testing and go-live.

Load and Performance Testing

We rarely need to carry out formal performance testing but individual operations that are found to be slow are tuned to improve performance. Load testing is not carried out as our hosting environment is sufficient or can easily be expanded if additional capability is necessary.

Test Plans

A Test Plan is normally followed at each step. Depending on the system, this may be the specification/design documentation.

The quality standards by which the system is judged are described in the Proposal document. This includes the project requirements, the browsers that will be supported, any required standards to adhere to and any performance requirements.

Environments

The following technical environments are usually utilised:

• Development
• Test (QA)
• Production