As with all design projects, we will need to establish goals for your website, define your target audience and identify graphics (fonts, colours shapes and textures) that appeal to your audience and support your goals. We will need to document any expectations and measurements of success. We will go through a creative discovery phase to do this. The creative discovery phase will consist of a creative survey (to be filled out at the beginning of the project), competitive research and design research for references to other websites that may inspire us and open up dialogue between the client and designer about creative expectations. This is also an opportunity for the client to reveal any creative visions that they may want to bring to the table.

We will discuss the anticipated web pages for the website and the relationship of the pages. For example, there may be an About page, and children pages of this page may be Our Team and Jobs. In your website proposal, we will typically provide a rough site map for your review and consideration. After the project kick-off, we will refine the list of pages to be built. This phase may take 1-2 back and forth emails or conversations to clearly identify the pages that you really want on your site.
We know looking at a list of pages can be boring to some people, but it is a great foundational step towards planning a website. As the saying goes, “Failing to plan, is planning to fail,” and we want to plan for success! This helps both Concept Incarnate and the client understand what the priorities of the website are. Sometimes, priorities might appear to be one topic, in theory, but in practically, if that topic is very small, and other topics take up the majority of the page count, it helps to reveal what the website is really about. A practical example of this is someone saying they want to eat more salads, but when it comes to dinner time, that person eating a burger and the salad going to waste; we want to keep out grocery budget in line with reality.
Note, post-launch you will have the ability to add/delete pages as needs change since this website is easily update-able in WordPress; if something else comes up post-launch you will have the flexibility to change pages, menus and hierarchy as your needs change. Please don’t have a fear of commitment to pages; as in software development thinking: it does not have to be perfect because perfect may never come; the cost-benefit ratio of reaching that last point to perfection may not be worth it or even noticed by most users. It just has to be better than before, and there is always room for further important later, as time permits.

You will generate content that will support the pages defined in the site map. Content generated by the client should be submitted in text or MS Word document to the designer; file names should indicate the page the content should be placed on.

At this point, we may find we need to add or delete a page or two from the site map due to lack of, or abundance of, content; it will be fine to do so as long as such additions are limited and do not result in new functionality requirements (ex: adding a new page with static text is different from adding a page with a shopping cart).

This text should be ready to copy and paste into the website. Typically, with websites that have many pages, we ask that the client make a unique Word document for each page, self-named to the intended page title, and organized in folders similar to the site map. Text should be editable and not embedded into images; text that needs to be typed from hand written notes or non-editable text, may be subject to additional hourly pricing as transcribing is not part of this proposal.
We can relay more technical specifics on file organization when the time comes for this process. We will work with your team to prioritize content on a mutual agreed upon schedule. Your team will deliver the content to Concept Incarnate on, manageable, incremental deliveries.
Also, keep in mind that content edits may be made by your team directly in WordPress after the delivery of the website, so there is less pressure to have everything 100% in place and polished. You can always edit it and make it even better later.

Professional Copywriting

A highly recommend option, we can offer professional copy writing consultations and assistance if you need help generating and editing copy. Keep in mind, you will need to be able to answer questions and give the copywriter(s) something to work from; they are not mind readers (yet)! It’s always best for an experienced writer, who is also new to your subject matter, to take an objective look at your text to figure out if it is clear, concise and coherent.

Concept Incarnate will provide you with two unique homepage designs with the provided sample content in place. This will be flat artwork made in a design program; it will incorporate ideas from
the creative surveys and our professional expertise. You may request two rounds of design updates to the one selected design. You may also mix-and-match elements of designs, if desired.
After the homepage design is selected, secondary pages will be designed using the same design styles.

Your custom proposal may vary in offerings.

Custom Professional Photography

Due to the nature of your business, it may be best to use custom photography. Keep in mind, real photos speak a lot better than stock when trying to describe your business, so we highly recommend this option! Depending on the scale of your needs, 1 or more photographers may be needed. Websites heavier in photography should prepare to have a budget for such needs.

Stock Photo Licensing

Also due the the nature of your business, custom photography may not be an option. We will work with you to find the right stock photos for your website.

DIY Photography

We don’t recommend this route for most clients. Unless you had some photographic training, the photos you may take yourself won’t best represent the value your company can bring through photography; this is the honest truth… but don’t worry… stock photos may be your best friend that you just haven’t met yet.

We will convert the design file into the working website. The website will use responsive CSS, which will make it easy for mobile phones to render the website. The website will be built on WordPress, a free, open-source CMS. We will make sure to use all techniques to keep the website easy to update by yourself. We will use basic SEO techniques to help people on Google searches. The development phase of this project will be inclusive of the following:

Pre-Development

Concept Incarnate’s team will begin pre-development as soon as the hosting environment is ready. Pre-development includes installing WordPress, creating our team’s user accounts, installing WordPress plug-ins, and doing basic configurations on plug-ins and settings that are not dependent upon design designs. This step ensures progress is made in steps that should happen regardless of the final design of a site map or page templates. When the site map is approved by both parties, we will begin to also create the blank pages in WordPress and create the menu hierarchy.

Front-end Development

Once the designs for the homepage, secondary page, and other agreed upon page templates have been approved by both parties, we will begin to convert these designs into HTML/CSS/PHP for usage in the website. Design changes will not occur once development has started, unless a change work order with additional pricing and time-line changes are agreed upon.

Unit testing

As a page or object is customized or developed, developers will conduct unit testing for the segments of the site they directly handled. Content Placement This is where we start placing in content as soon as possible. We would need the page content submitted by the client and to have reached pre-development to have a place for such text. This phase will be on-going until all text/images have been received from the client.

Internal Testing

The quality of anything we design and produce is important. This quality is our best reference and proof to our next client that their website will be of equal quality. It is very important to us that there are no errors and nothing looks blatantly broken on a website, because we do not want our clients to look bad and we don’t want out skills to look bad either. This is why we pay much attention to detail. We will test the website on multiple devices and operating systems to clean up any cross-compatibility issues. Our goal is to have tested the website for any functional or rendering errors, AND have such items resolved before passed to the client for user-acceptance testing. The Concept Incarnate team will begin to test the developed website, with the content in place. Testing will be inclusive of page rendering, comparison of the web page to the graphic mock-up, verification of the proper content, and testing of a links, forms, and interactive elements on pages. Pages will be assigned to testers; individual testers will be the champions of the success of that page. Any errors will be documented and reported to the development team. We will complete this initial round of testing on desktop. Developers will make the required modifications to clean up errors and send the items back to the test team members for further testing. This testing and modification cycle will continue until the test champion accepts the page to not have errors. After that round of testing is complete, we will begin testing for cross-browser compatibility. In some instances some browsers just can’t look exactly like another browser due to technology limitations of a specific browser, but we will do our best job to get the browsers looking as gracefully similar to the design mock-ups as possible per browser. Generally, Chrome and Firefox have far fewer issues than OS specific browsers upon initial testing. Internet Explorer, Internet Explorer Edge and Safari sometimes take a bit more attention to smooth out flaws. After the desktop version of the website has been approved by the test team, mobile testing will start. Testers will again test every page of the website, click on input boxes, toggle drop-down menus, click on buttons, and slide through photo galleries. Testing of mobile devices will occur on iOS, Android and Microsoft phones. Testers will document issues and submit them to the development team for correction. Developers will make the changes and request the testers again test the issues to verify correction. This cycle of testing and correction will continue until the tester approves the page as clear of any defects.

This will be the client’s designated time to review the website, ideally in a state where it is close to being launched. This won’t be the time for design edits, like changing a colour scheme; it also won’t be a time for deciding to re-write previously submitted text. It will be a time for the client to review the website to verify that it matches the mock-up in a reasonable manner (print designs can be a bit different from output web designs). It will also be the time for the client to verify submitted copy has been placed in the right spot. Clients may also test out forms and any niche functionality for their peace of mind.
The client will also test to ensure that the delivered content is placed in the proper spot. Any forms, links or photographs associated with the placement may also be verified by the client.

The client’s Project Manager will gather all reported errors from their team and submit them to Concept Incarnate’s Project Manager. The client should record the page the error occurs on, the nature of the error, any steps to re-create the issue, the device and the browser the error, and the level of importance of the error (critical, low). Our team will test the reported errors to verify and perhaps request more information if needed. We will need to be able to re-create the issues found by the client in order to fix it. Once the issue is verified, issues will be resolved by the development team, tested by the test team, and upon clearance of the testers, sent back to the client for verification of the fix.

Testing of defects will be tracked internally by Concept Incarnate’s project site, where priorities, browser types, operating systems, resolution summaries can be tracked. Each issue will be marked as a separate ticket and will not close without resolution.

Approval of features should be limited to the features clearly written in this proposal. Features, such as an expectation for the website to make coffee, should not be considered guaranteed unless written in this proposal by Concept Incarnate.

We will train you how to login and update content using WordPress with an in-person training session. The session should be limited to hours in your proposal for a maximum of a specified number of representatives from your business. Generally, one-on-one or one-on-two training is something we prefer to conduct. In our own experience, getting too detailed on complicated administrative functions on a website with a large number of people can get confusing for the group as the technical fluency of the audience can range from novice to advanced. There is also a risk that the group may start leading the session. In light of this, we are breaking down the training into segmented units.

• Training by live demo.
• Training by text tutorial. (non-standard price)
• Training by recorded video, (non-standard price)
• Training for Large Organizations

General Website Training

This will be a beginner level training session. It will include showing all needed team members the front end of the website, what is update-able, basic concepts of the mechanics of content updates in WordPress and a demo of simple content edits in WordPress. This is anticipated to be in-person session and for 1 - 2 hours.

Administrator and Content Editor Training

This will be more intimate training session for SAHA team members that need to know much more about managing the website. Concept Incarnate will reach out to the client to ask if there are any specific functions that these members anticipate needing to know. We will demonstrate how to go over advanced WordPress functions that we see fit, and include the items specifically requested by client. Participants are encouraged to ask questions as they arise in the session. We generally go over all commonly updated elements, running down each important item in the right sidebar of the WordPress dashboard interface. This can get technical, but it limited to the changes that can be made in WordPress; we do not go over things like, ‘how to program.’ Generally, a training session of this nature takes 2 hours. A follow up training session can be conducted if needed. This is generally conducted with our screen-share service as we want the trainees to have a clear view of what to click on (conference room screens make people squint).

Post-Launch Training

After the launch of the website, Concept Incarnate will be available for further training sessions on an hourly-billing basis. Sometimes clients find they discover new questions about the website months after launch, because they never needed to edit a certain something before or simply got a bit rusty in exactly how to execute steps. As an added courtesy, for a period of a time set in your proposal post-launch, you may submit brief questions about content maintenance via email. Questions should be limited to a nature of how to update content within the existing templates and using the functionality as delivered by the designer. Maintenance question response time should not total more than hours specified in your contract The goal here is that we want to you be comfortable editing your website and be able to maintain in so it can keep looking good post launch! If many people need to update the website or you want the peace of mind of being able to update the website after your content manager moves on, we can offer additional services of a printed/digital training manual. Training booklets are not part of our standard pricing. We are working on a general wiki library that should suit the needs of all clients in general training needs, which may be available upon request.

We will launch the website so that the public can view it, provided that you have authorized us to do so! This may be able to be done at the in-person training session, depending on your set-up.