Quality in the development of Internet projects
Hi, Habr! In this article I want to touch upon the difficult question of the quality of an Internet project, or more simply, a site made to order by a third-party studio.
Currently, the market is characterized by the fact that most companies (we will call them studios) produce projects of medium and low quality. Why it happens? What are the main factors affecting the quality of the product during its production in the studio?
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Why are there so many low quality companies in the market? Let's try to highlight several main reasons:
- Low entry threshold. In order to declare yourself a “web studio”, it is now quite enough to gather a team of 2-3 people and make your own website. The development market is still considered “student”, and this opinion is unfair only in part. Indeed, what quality of work can you expect from such a “team”? It is worth noting that the presence of a large number of non-professional studios beats the image of the market as a whole, adversely affecting even the reputation of large agencies.
- Disoriented customer. The market is quite young, and many customers are poorly oriented in the subject area, often not understanding what it is for which they take money. Therefore, they turn to the studio, which I mentioned in the paragraph above. Fortunately, the situation is improving, and large companies developing their own Internet business (and for which it is important) are already quite competent in the matter.
- The growing popularity of boxed CMS. With all the positive influence of this trend, there is a negative point. Small studios received an excellent tool (beautiful, honed, literate) for “dropping dust in the eyes” to the customer. They hide “behind the box” the lack of their own achievements and the low level of professionalism, parading the achievements and high qualifications of the vendor. A customer who does not understand these subtleties, sees a beautiful product, and orders a service that he will have obviously bad.
- Lack of personnel. Many would be happy to hire qualified employees, but they are not, because you need to deal with raising your qualifications - study the experience of colleagues from other companies, read articles on the subject, attend specialized events (conferences, seminars), increase the level of complexity of ongoing projects. The majority is lazy to engage in their professional self-improvement, stuck at some stage of development. Therefore, the main asset and the most important competitive factor for each studio is its team.
- The lack of specialized media, which would cover the development of Internet projects. Also, the actual lack of quality standards and professional associations that unite web studios has a negative impact.
2 /
What are the main factors affecting the quality of the product? I will try to briefly convey the experience of the company ADV / web-engineering and the thoughts expressed during regular discussions of this issue within the company:
- A clear understanding of the objectives of the project. Very often, representatives of the studio do not think about why the project is needed by the customer and begin to do “to”. To “beautiful and pictures”, to “complex animation and 3D here”, to “cool”, to “see how we can”, etc. This is said quite often, but when it comes to the implementation of a specific project, most simply forget about it.
Work on the creation of the site - this is not a reason for the studio staff to express themselves! This is a clear business task that you first need to define (not allowing the customer to talk about “red jumping balls on the main”, and transfer the conversation to a business and its goals on the Internet), and then follow it strictly, remember it at all stages. Responsible for this process is not the customer, and the manager from the studio, and no one else. Unfortunately, such managers in the market can be counted on the fingers.
Developing ideas for a project is a creative process, no doubt, but it should also be systematized. The studio must guarantee the customer the achievement of the result, and for this to happen, there must be an effective mechanism, a strategy of “forming an idea”. Only in this case, it is possible to speak about quality not as a random value “it turned out / did not work”, but as a system indicator.
- Work with content. Very often, the studio draws a beautiful “cap” for the main page, and believes that this design and design are finished. This is the main mistake. Content - for the sake of what is created, in the end, any site. It is different, and you need to present it in different ways. The description of the product catalog simply cannot be “hammered” into the same pattern as the greeting of the chairman of the company's board of directors.
Only having worked all the content, having created for him a unique layout, design, layout and visual with a certain emotional coloring, one can expect to get an effective and high-quality result.
- Full support of the project after its creation. There are many examples when a good project, initially put into operation, turned into an eerie mess and jumble of information!
The opening of the site is the zero stage of its life, and its maintenance and development are the most important factors requiring no less qualification than its creation. Of course, customer’s employees can contribute content, it’s not necessary to give all the work to the studio. But this should take place under strict author’s supervision of the studio’s employees who remember and know why “this plate is needed” and “allocation in bold” there. One careless movement can ruin the ideal visual design, one wrong paragraph can negate all the efforts spent on the development of the project. This must always be remembered!
For this material, I deliberately took up issues that are rarely discussed, preferring to talk about “creativity” and “concepts”. It is completely obvious that the text contains only a part of thoughts on the problem, but they seem to me extremely important.
Currently, the market is characterized by the fact that most companies (we will call them studios) produce projects of medium and low quality. Why it happens? What are the main factors affecting the quality of the product during its production in the studio?
one/
')
Why are there so many low quality companies in the market? Let's try to highlight several main reasons:
- Low entry threshold. In order to declare yourself a “web studio”, it is now quite enough to gather a team of 2-3 people and make your own website. The development market is still considered “student”, and this opinion is unfair only in part. Indeed, what quality of work can you expect from such a “team”? It is worth noting that the presence of a large number of non-professional studios beats the image of the market as a whole, adversely affecting even the reputation of large agencies.
- Disoriented customer. The market is quite young, and many customers are poorly oriented in the subject area, often not understanding what it is for which they take money. Therefore, they turn to the studio, which I mentioned in the paragraph above. Fortunately, the situation is improving, and large companies developing their own Internet business (and for which it is important) are already quite competent in the matter.
- The growing popularity of boxed CMS. With all the positive influence of this trend, there is a negative point. Small studios received an excellent tool (beautiful, honed, literate) for “dropping dust in the eyes” to the customer. They hide “behind the box” the lack of their own achievements and the low level of professionalism, parading the achievements and high qualifications of the vendor. A customer who does not understand these subtleties, sees a beautiful product, and orders a service that he will have obviously bad.
- Lack of personnel. Many would be happy to hire qualified employees, but they are not, because you need to deal with raising your qualifications - study the experience of colleagues from other companies, read articles on the subject, attend specialized events (conferences, seminars), increase the level of complexity of ongoing projects. The majority is lazy to engage in their professional self-improvement, stuck at some stage of development. Therefore, the main asset and the most important competitive factor for each studio is its team.
- The lack of specialized media, which would cover the development of Internet projects. Also, the actual lack of quality standards and professional associations that unite web studios has a negative impact.
2 /
What are the main factors affecting the quality of the product? I will try to briefly convey the experience of the company ADV / web-engineering and the thoughts expressed during regular discussions of this issue within the company:
- A clear understanding of the objectives of the project. Very often, representatives of the studio do not think about why the project is needed by the customer and begin to do “to”. To “beautiful and pictures”, to “complex animation and 3D here”, to “cool”, to “see how we can”, etc. This is said quite often, but when it comes to the implementation of a specific project, most simply forget about it.
Work on the creation of the site - this is not a reason for the studio staff to express themselves! This is a clear business task that you first need to define (not allowing the customer to talk about “red jumping balls on the main”, and transfer the conversation to a business and its goals on the Internet), and then follow it strictly, remember it at all stages. Responsible for this process is not the customer, and the manager from the studio, and no one else. Unfortunately, such managers in the market can be counted on the fingers.
Developing ideas for a project is a creative process, no doubt, but it should also be systematized. The studio must guarantee the customer the achievement of the result, and for this to happen, there must be an effective mechanism, a strategy of “forming an idea”. Only in this case, it is possible to speak about quality not as a random value “it turned out / did not work”, but as a system indicator.
- Work with content. Very often, the studio draws a beautiful “cap” for the main page, and believes that this design and design are finished. This is the main mistake. Content - for the sake of what is created, in the end, any site. It is different, and you need to present it in different ways. The description of the product catalog simply cannot be “hammered” into the same pattern as the greeting of the chairman of the company's board of directors.
Only having worked all the content, having created for him a unique layout, design, layout and visual with a certain emotional coloring, one can expect to get an effective and high-quality result.
- Full support of the project after its creation. There are many examples when a good project, initially put into operation, turned into an eerie mess and jumble of information!
The opening of the site is the zero stage of its life, and its maintenance and development are the most important factors requiring no less qualification than its creation. Of course, customer’s employees can contribute content, it’s not necessary to give all the work to the studio. But this should take place under strict author’s supervision of the studio’s employees who remember and know why “this plate is needed” and “allocation in bold” there. One careless movement can ruin the ideal visual design, one wrong paragraph can negate all the efforts spent on the development of the project. This must always be remembered!
For this material, I deliberately took up issues that are rarely discussed, preferring to talk about “creativity” and “concepts”. It is completely obvious that the text contains only a part of thoughts on the problem, but they seem to me extremely important.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/37430/
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