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How We Work

A well-defined product development process keeps everyone involved on the same page. Our process results from over 30 years combined experience creating user-driven web sites. We've found that a proven, scientific, metrics-based, user-centered design process consistently yields the best product for our clients. What this means is that we learn what the audience (your customer) wants from your site, then we build architecture and functionality to streamline those actions.

Furthermore, by developing our websites with Drupal, we are able to put the bulk of our attention to these high-level arcitcheture and usability issues, rather than the nuts and bolts of functionality development.

At Switchback, we see the proven results of our 11-step design philosophy in every website we build:

  1. Define Your Requirements—We work closely with you to identify your needs for your website.
  2. Design Your Interface—We can provide expert website design or advise you on an existing layout.
  3. Create Your Template(s)—We build a standards-compliant, working template built with HTML and CSS.
  4. Develop Your Information Architecture—We define every page of your site and structure navigation.
  5. Setup Your Drupal CMS—We install the base Drupal system on your development server.
  6. Customize Your Drupal CMS—We build and configure features to meet your needs as defined in step 1.
  7. Input Your Content—We train you to add content to your website, or can offer data input services.
  8. Quality Test Your New Website—We thoroughly test your website (on multiple browsers and platforms), repairing any bugs and improving performance.
  9. Train Your Administrators—We train you further in the day-to-day upkeep of your website.
  10. Launch Your Website—We set up your server and DNS and migrate your website to it's final deployment server.
  11. Maintain & Support Your CMS—We keep your Drupal installation current and provide ongoing support.

Even More for Your Users

Beyond our standard 11-step process, we can provide additional user-centered design services to achieve an even higher level of metric-based success. Our user testing methodology ensures that your website is meeting your customer’s needs:

  1. Evaluate Your Website – We give a stand-alone evaluation of your site, based on industry best practices.
  2. Identify Your Customers’ Needs – We work with you to identify competitors, customers, audience needs, metric-based goals, and common tasks users perform on your website.
  3. Optimize Your Website – We optimize your architecture and design for those tasks determined in step 2.
  4. Test Your Website – We perform one-on-one testing with representative users on the improved design.
  5. Revise Design as Needed – We can iterate this process until your metrics and goals are fully met, as necessary.