The purpose of Phase 1 is to define the project. This may be the most important phase. You will want to discover as much about the client's needs, their industry, the target audience and the purpose for the Web site. This is also a good time to work on a schedule. Once you have an idea of the scope of the project, you can put a proposal together to present to your client. To accomplish the tasks of Phase 1, we will use two tools: Client Survey and Time Estimate.
The client survey should include detailed questions that will help to determine what the client's needs are. This should be completed with the client. View a sample Client Survey that was modified from the resources available for a book titled "Web Redesign: Workflow that Works" by Kelly Goto and Emily Cotler.
You should use the sample Client Survey that I provided as a starting point. There may be new questions that you want to add or questions that can be deleted. Make sure it is appropriate for your project. You can have your client fill this out on his own or you can complete it with them using the questions as a guide while you "interview" your client.
One of the first questions your client may ask is "How much is this going to cost?" Creating a budget for a Web project takes a lot of experience. Most budgeting methods will center around the time you estimate it will take you to complete a task. If you are working with a team on a project, this will help to define the time commitment each member should expect.
This project will be completed at no cost to your client. However, we will be estimating and tracking the time so that you will have some idea of what it takes to complete a project of this scope in the future. The finished project can be used in your portfolio to show a sample of your work to future clients. We want you to estimate how much time you think you will spend completing the Web project and then track the actual time it takes you to complete the project. We realize this is difficult to do when you are learning new skills, etc. You are not graded on how close your estimate comes to the actual time it takes you to complete the project. We are just asking that you go through the process of estimating at the beginning of the project and then track your time and record it as you complete the project.
Sample time tracking tools from the book titled "Web Redesign: Workflow that Works" by Kelly Goto and Emily Cotler. :
Here is the sample Time Estimate spreadsheet that I want you to use when creating your Web projects. Be sure to expand the "Production" phase that is included in this sample Excel spreadsheet. There is currently only one line item on this spreadsheet for production. You should add more line items for production based on the tasks you complete or you could list the pages that you will be creating.