The Site Development Team

• The strategic importance and project budget for your

web efforts will largely determine the size and skill
depth of your web site development team. Even for a
smaller project, however, you’ll need to cover the core
team disciplines. In most small to medium projects one
person may handle multiple tasks or someone with
specialized expertise (graphic design, for instance) is
hired for specific assignments. Many managers who are
assigned the responsibility of creating a web site don’t
have the luxury of picking specialist team members.
Inventory the skills and aptitudes in the team you
assemble, and consider careful outsourcing to supply
any expertise your team lacks.

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 `
The core skill sets needed in a web site development team
are:
• Strategy and planning
• Project management
• Information architecture and user interface design
• Graphic design for the web
• Web technology
• Site production
In larger web projects each role may be filled by a
separate person, although in more specialized skill areas
those contributors are not likely to be full-time team
members for the duration of the project.

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 Web team roles and responsibilities
• Core web team roles and extended secondary team roles in larger web projects are:
• Project stakeholder or sponsor
• Web project manager
– Account executive
– Quality assurance tester
• Usability lead
• Information architect
• Art director
– Web graphic designer
– Interactive designer (Flash, JavaScript, Ajax)
– Media specialist (photography, illustration, audiovisual, Adobe Flash)
• Web technology lead
– Web application programmer (.Net, Java, php/Perl, Ruby)
– Web page engineer (xhtml, css, JavaScript, Ajax)
– Database administrator
– Web systems expert or webmaster
• Site production lead
– html page coder
• Site editor
– Site copywriter
– Content domain expert (content coordination, research)

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 Project stakeholder or sponsor
• The project sponsor or stakeholder is the person or
group responsible for initiating the web site project. In
most instances the sponsor is the client or customer
for the web site development work, but in smaller in-
house department projects the sponsoring manager
and the web project manager may be the same person.
The sponsor provides the overall strategic vision and
purpose for the site development project, approves the
contract or work plan, is responsible for the budget
and project schedule, and provides the resources to
support the work of the site development team.

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• The sponsor is the client the team works to please, but sponsors
have critical work to perform as part of the overall site
development team. Sponsors act as a liaison to the rest of the
sponsoring organization, provide critical domain expertise,
coordinate with the larger goals of the sponsoring organization, and
deliver site content and domain expertise to the project. As such, it
is critical that sponsors and other stakeholders understand their
responsibilities to the web team: late delivery of web site content is
the most common cause of blown schedules in web development
projects. Sponsors also are typically responsible for third-party or
external content contracts, other media licensing negotiations, and
coordination with other marketing, information technology, and
communications efforts at the sponsoring organization or company.

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 Web project manager
• The web project manager coordinates and communicates the day-to-day
tactical implementation of the web site project, acting within the
constraints of the project charters and goals, project budget, development
schedule, and quality objectives laid out in the planning stages. The
project manager is the team member ultimately responsible for keeping
the overall team activities focused on the site strategic objectives and
agreed deliverables, and he or she continually monitors the scope of the
project activities to ensure that the team stays “on time and on budget.”
The project manager acts as the primary contact between the web team
and the sponsor and manages the overall communication among creative,
technical, and production elements of the web site team. In larger web
projects the project manager is not normally part of the hands-on
production team, but in smaller in-house projects the sponsor, design
lead, or technical lead may also act as the project manager for the site
team. Project managers create and maintain the project planning and
strategy documents, budget spreadsheets, project schedules and Gantt
charts, meeting notes, billing records, and other project documentation
that details the team’s activities.

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Gantt charts are commonly used to keep track of
project phases and team responsibilities.

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 Usability lead
• The usability lead’s role is to shape the overall user
experience. The usability lead works closely with the
information architect—in fact, the same individual often
fills both information architect and usability roles. As the
primary user advocate on the development team, the
usability lead has responsibility for user testing, user
research and persona development, and universal usability
standards for the site project. In the initial stages of design,
the usability lead is responsible for running interviews, field
studies, and usability tests and for producing personas and
scenarios to inform project requirements. Once designs are
conceptualized in the form of diagrams, wireframes, and
prototypes, the usability lead tests the designs with users
and gathers feedback for the site designers and developers.

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 Usability lead contd……

• In the final stages of a project, the usability lead

evaluates the effectiveness of designs through
additional field studies and user testing and
ensures that universal usability goals are met.
The usability lead is also responsible for
evaluating the success of the project (Does the
site accomplish the goals? Are users successful
and satisfied with the design?) and for measuring
project outcomes (Are more users visiting the
site? Is the site producing more revenue?).

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 Information architect
• The site information architect organizes and categorizes web site structure and content. The
information architect is most active early in the design and planning phases of the project,
developing content categorization schemes, consistent site terminology, content structure
across the site, and site architecture diagrams that explain the overall site planning to both
the sponsor and the web team members. Information architects also work closely with the
site designers to craft page “wireframes,” the diagrammatic page grids that show how various
areas of the page will be used to support site identity, navigation, and page content. Page
wireframes form the crucial link between the overall site architecture and what the user sees
on each page of the web site, determining how easily a user can find the site’s content and
features and shaping the user’s overall experience. Information architects often have a
background in library science, using controlled vocabularies, carefully designed content and
navigation nomenclature, and search techniques to help users find relevant content. The
primary deliverables from the information architect are usually charts and diagrams: site
architecture overviews, page wireframes, and user interaction explanations. These visual
representations of the site planning process are crucial to communicating site structure and
user experience to both sponsors and other web team members, particularly the back-end
technical developers who support the interactive elements of the site. Wireframes in
particular are used by the usability lead to test design concepts with users

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 Web site designs are necessarily abstract. Planning diagrams such as
wireframes are a crucial means to convey ideas about the site structure.

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 Art director
• The art director’s primary responsibility is the overall look and feel for the web
site, establishing the site typography, visual interface design, color palette
standards, page layout details, and the particulars of how the graphics,
photography, illustration, and audiovisual media elements of the site come
together to form an integrated whole. As the web has matured over the past
decade, many graphic design professionals have become specialists in designing
for interactive media for computer screens and are well versed in user interface
design, web navigation, and site architecture. In smaller projects an experienced
web art director often assumes the information architecture and usability roles in
addition to directing the visual design of a site. In the site development and
planning stages the art director creates or supervises the creation of increasingly
complex design sketches to illustrate the evolving design proposals to the project
sponsor and web team. As designs are approved the art director supervises the
conversion of these design sketches into the detailed specifications of graphics and
typography that the page engineers will need to create html (HyperText Markup
Language) page templates. In larger organizations the art director is usually the
person responsible for assuring that the new web design work is consistent with
any established corporate identity and user interface standards.

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 Wireframes inevitably look boxy, but the final visual
designs don't need to be

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 Web technology lead
• The web technology lead must have a broad
grasp of web publishing environments,
development languages and web
development frameworks, web database
options, and network technology. The
technology lead acts as the bridge, translator,
and plain-English communicator between the
technologists and the creative and project
management elements of the team.
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• As part of the site planning process the technology lead creates the
general blueprints for the collection of technologies that will support the
chosen web site technology framework, including content management,
rss (Really Simple Syndication) or other xml (Extensible Markup Language)
content formats, database integration and support, custom web
programming, and integration with other applications or databases that
supply content or interactive features to the web site. The technology lead
provides the primary data-processing architecture for the project,
determining the technical specifications for the overall web development
framework, assessing the developing strategy and goals, and matching
those needs to appropriate technology solutions. In larger projects the
web technology lead typically manages teams of programmers, network
or server engineers, database administrators, software quality assurance
testers, and other information technology professionals that support the
production and design teams.

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 Site production lead
• Early in the design stage the site production lead is responsible for converting
initial web site page mockups, designs, and wireframes into html pages. Once the
site has been planned and the design and information architecture plans have
been completed, the site production lead manages the work of building the site’s
pages, either directly in “plain” html or within a web content management system
(cms) or using web site production software such as Adobe Dreamweaver. In
coordination with the site technical team, the site production lead is typically
responsible for creating the master page templates in xhtml (Extensible HyperText
Markup Language) and Cascading Style Sheets (css), validating page code, and
assembling the work of the information architects and site graphic designers into
finished page templates ready to be filled with content. If a cms is used to deliver
the finished content, the html/css page templates must be converted into the
required format. In larger projects the site production lead usually manages a staff
of web designers who fill pages with content, integrating finished text, graphics,
and audiovisual elements on each page and linking pages to the larger web site
and (usually) to other web pages on the Internet. In many web teams the site
production lead also manages the work of site editors and copywriters.

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 Site editor
• The site editor has overall responsibility for the written content and
editorial quality of the finished site. He or she creates the editorial
tone for the web site, determines style guidelines, and works with
clients and content domain experts to collect, organize, and deliver
finished text to the production team. In smaller teams the editor
creates site copy, interviews domain experts to create content, and
may be responsible for creating news and feature material for the
site. Experienced editors also play an increasingly important role in
the technical and production aspects of site content, ensuring that
written content from the sponsoring organization is provided on
time, in the specified editorial and technical markup format, and
with sufficient quality to meet site goals. This technical aspect of
content formatting is particularly important in sites where the
content is ultimately delivered through a cms, in xml, or from
dynamic links to a content database.

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• Because most search engine optimization (seo) efforts
are based on careful, consistent use of keyword
language and heading markup, the web editor is also
the team member most likely to lead the day-to-day
efforts to make the site as search-friendly as possible.
Keeping the site optimized for both local search engine
visibility (using your own local search tools within your
site) and keeping public sites maximally visible to
general Internet search engines like Google and Yahoo!
are crucial strategic components of making the new
content accessible and findable for your audience

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• Unlike the other site development roles described
above, the site editor’s role is a long-term job, bridging
the transition from a site development project into an
ongoing web publication process that maintains the
web site after launch and keeps the content fresh and
relevant to your audience. If the project manager is the
focal point of the early stages of creating your site,
then the site editor should gradually assume the
leadership role in the stages just before, during, and
after the site launch. This transition of responsibilities
ensures that the site won’t become an orphan after the
project team leaves the launch party and moves on to
new assignments.

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