A commonly asked question before any web or app development project gets underway is, “how long will our project take?”
In fact, it’s one of the biggest questions we receive. And we get it. You have deadlines. You have a timescale in mind, and you have other stakeholders to please.
However, this particular question is one of the hardest ones for developers to provide an accurate answer to.
Not because we don’t know, or we don’t want to place any accountability on ourselves, but because we need to find out exactly, and we mean exactly, what you’re looking for, otherwise we would simply be providing you with a guestimate.
A successful web and app development project will go through several phases with your development team. These phases allow you to see design, functionality, and content in place at each stage before it goes live.
It is the phases we go through, and the functionality required that ultimately determine the length of your project, and we’ll look at these steps and stages in more detail throughout this post.
Building a website or app is like building a house….
It might sound crazy, but the same principles of building a house apply to building a successful online presence.
Building and development take time. You need to put in the groundwork for it to be sustainable in the future.
This means you must lay the foundations and then work through each stage meticulously before moving on to the next, building all the parts and putting them together to work as you need them to.
However, unlike houses, no two web or app development projects are the same. Some will require minimal functionality, whereas those with blogs, heaps of content, and numerous integrations to consider, with landing pages also thrown into the mix, will take a little longer.
So, starting at the beginning, to determine the length of any project, we look at:
Stages of development
Discovery
Before providing an accurate cost and timescale, we need to determine what you want. This is an initial requirement where we carry out in-depth scoping and fact-finding that will set out what is involved in the project.
We’ll ask you questions about your business, vision, and values. We’ll work with you to define what you want your site to achieve, taking time to understand your goals in order for us to find the right solution to meet these.
We’ll scope out how many pages are required and if the site is to include any integrations, e-commerce, etc. If you need branding, logo design, content writing, and more.
We may also perform a website or app audit for web redevelopments and redesigns.
Once we have all of the information required, we move on to:
Quoting and timescales
We will provide you with a complete breakdown of costs and timescales for each stage and development objective based on your requirements and the information provided from discovery.
Once both parties have agreed on the quote, we move to the exciting part…
Design
Working with you, we further define your requirements, data structures, and user experience to allow us to provide you with mock-ups/visuals of what pages and navigation will look like across all devices.
Design is a big stage as we know your branding and marketing, i.e., how you are visually represented online, must be 100% right. Therefore, any changes to design and visuals must be made at this stage before moving on to…
Development
Implementing the defined requirements, your site is now ready to be built on pre-agreed designs, and at this stage, your web developer will be looking to you for content.
Do you have your content ready and prepped to put in place for all pages? Or is the thought of writing web copy for an entire site something you have pushed to the back of your mind until now and you could really do with the help of a copywriter to take the pressure off? Don’t worry; we can help.
If you would like support from the team at Arkay on your website copy, let us know asap so we can build this process into your timescales.
Once all pages are complete, you will receive these for review and any further modifications.
Testing
We can’t stress the importance of testing enough. Testing is vital to see how your site and app work in real life and provide your developer with feedback before deployment.
Allowing you to iron out any bugs or design inconsistencies, testing and modification can take the longest amount of time in the development stages as your site/app goes through a number of review processes so that it is very much in a complete state as you move to…
Deployment
This stage involves deploying the website to the hosting or publishing the app to the App Store/Google Play Store. A big step but one of the quickest in the process!
Throughout each stage of the development process, communication with your developer is essential and cannot be underestimated. The feedback and discussions filter into the following stages and rounds of amends to allow us to deliver a high-performing website or app that meets your requirements, expectations, and more.
But we still haven’t answered the question….
How long should a web or app development project take?
Depending on the project’s scale and scope, we estimate anywhere between 4 to 12 weeks.
For example, from the project being given the green light, you could expect a brochure website to take around a month. This is due to the basic functionality that a brochure website requires; there is nothing too specific to develop or include it would simply provide you with an online presence, a homepage, a contact page, an about us section, and even a news page.
However, for an eCommerce site, even the most basic website would take a little longer as we would allow more time for testing to ensure everything was working perfectly before deployment.
Often phasing larger projects and breaking these down into sections allows you to see each stage of development with clear timescales attached for each phase (this breakdown of timescales can help to satisfy external stakeholder demands too).
Note: App development will always take longer than web development as it typically requires a backend setup to store collected data.
We know that waiting is not something everyone enjoys.
And we also understand that sometimes, time is of the essence.
That’s why we work with you to find out what is important, what is required now, and what is the best solution we can provide.
If you’re thinking about a website re-design or developing a website or app from scratch, contact us and see how we can help you build something incredible today (or in 4 to 12 weeks).