Discovery Notes
The discovery process in web development is used to explore and define what a client needs and wants for their website. It is important to document either on paper or in electronic format all communications between the client and the design / development team.
Information should be at a detailed level as a good discovery period will enable both the creation of an accurate requirements document and a fair price bid to create the website. Good pre-production documentation is important in that it prevents "Scope Creep" (scope creep = a client agrees to a bid price then keeps asking for more features that are not defined in the bid or the requirements document)and it helps manage client expectations.
If a client want more features add to a website after the bid has been agreed to I will usually add these new features, yet the requirements document will be re-written and then agreed to by the client and a new price for finishing the web site will be agreed upon to reflect the added work.
Web Designers are not mind readers and need feedback from clients in order to create quality web sites.
Here are some sample questions that I ask my clients:
1. Please provide at least 4 website URLs of websites that you like and please give me details about why you like them. Comment on things such as color, navigation, style, page load time, quality of images, page layout, - you may also comment on any other items that you find attractive or relevant to the site that you would like built.
2. Who is the contact person for this project (note I only deal with one person from an organization as I have found it creates a faster site build and thus keeps the budget for the project on target.) What is the contact information for this person?
3. What do you want the users of this site to do or accomplish while visiting the website?
4. Is there any branding identity collateral for your company - logo, branding colors? If a logo does exist is best to deliver it in a high quality digital format such as EPS, or Adobe Illustrator.
These are some sample questions on a Discovery Document that I use (note there are more questions than this, yet I am only sharing this many at this point to encourage you to create questions of your own on the future Discovery Document assignment. I will show you a complete discovery document once your assignment in this area has been turned in.)
