How We
Work Work 

A project is a unique piece of work, but we have a general way of working. So, let’s take a look at a typical project lifecycle when working with us. In this case, we’ll assume we are working on a Web Development project.

We hope this will give you a clear picture of what it's like to work with us. If you're ready to start a project, or even if you just have a question, we're here to listen. Let's connect and explore how we can bring your project to life.

When you first contact us for a quotation, a dedicated technical account manager will be assigned to you. This expert will work closely with you to fully understand your project requirements, answer all your questions, and ensure we have a clear picture of your vision. We’ll work with you to refine your requirements, so if your project is in its infancy, we’ll discuss options and make recommendations to help you in the requirements definition process. 

This consultation allows us to prepare an accurate and comprehensive budget that outlines a summary and complete breakdown of the requirements and estimated effort for each part of the development, enabling you to evaluate and revise it as needed.

If you change your mind during the project and want additional work, a change in direction, or a different schedule to work to, we have a simple process to cater for this. It’s your project, your choice, and we’ll happily discuss any changes with you as the project progresses.

Kicking Off the Project

Once the budget is agreed, a specialised project team will be assigned to your project. Work will officially begin with a kick-off meeting (either in-person or virtually), where we will define clear objectives and agree upon the preferred communication methods to ensure seamless collaboration throughout the project lifecycle. 

We’ll gather any additional information needed to fully understand the design requirements: branding, target audiences, examples, likes and dislikes, and anything else we need to ensure we meet your design objectives.

We’ll agree on the schedule, checkpoints, and milestones as needed, ensuring everyone knows what to do and when.

We typically follow an agile methodology, executing development in a series of structured, iterative sprints (short periods of work, followed by review). To facilitate transparency and collaboration on the coding side, we will utilise GitHub for managing the project's codebase. You will be provided with access to the repository, which will aid in reporting issues, tracking progress, and collaborating directly with us as the project develops. 

You'll have plenty of opportunities to review our work on a development site, and you can provide feedback at every stage, ensuring the final product aligns perfectly with your expectations. If you have a technical team, they are welcome to review and comment on our code and progress at any time, or even contribute.

Design & Development

We start by designing the look and feel of your application or site, creating flexible layouts that adapt to different devices and screen sizes. We collaborate with you to define the right aesthetic, starting with your homepage and moving through key lower-level pages. We then build the application iteratively, with space for collaboration, discussion, and flexibility to adapt to evolving needs.

Content & Assets

For text content and any necessary translations, these will be provided by you. Should you require assistance with writing or editing, we can provide this service. Similarly, for graphics and images, we ask that you supply them in editable vector and high-resolution digital formats, respectively. We can recommend stock photo libraries or source images for you if needed.

If your project involves integrating your existing data, you will provide us with access to the appropriate, clean, and structured datasets or a connection via an API. You will also help us understand the data through definitions, context, and explanations of its intended use to ensure accurate implementation.

Compliance & GDPR

When running a public-facing application, you will need to designate a person within your organisation to oversee data protection and GDPR compliance. While we implement technical measures like cookie consent tools, privacy notices, and secure data handling practices, responsibility for legal compliance and responding to data access requests lies with you. We’ll support you as much as possible and discuss these options with you. We are not legal experts, but we may be able to recommend appropriate contacts to you.

The Tech Bit

Our approach to web development involves using the most appropriate technology stack for your project. For the front-end, we primarily build using React, often with Next.js, to deliver fast and accessible pages with semantic HTML, clean CSS, and well-structured JavaScript components. Our back-end development typically leverages technologies such as Node.js, React, and Python. However, if you have an existing technology stack you would like us to work with, that’s no problem.

We’ll choose suitable database technologies, such as MongoDB or PostgreSQL, and a hosting service that will work best for your application. If you’ll be hosting the application after the project completes, we’ll provide technical documentation and support to help you get up and running.

We'll Keep You Updated

• You’ll have access to a development site where you can see progress visually and try the latest version.
• If you’re following on GitHub, you’ll see the work as it progresses along the Kanban Board.

• We’ll send you emails to show you the work and tell you about new features that are ready for your review and feedback.
• We’ll meet at our agreed checkpoints to demonstrate where we are, discuss next steps, prioritise tasks, review any issues, and answer any questions.

Testing Time

Although you’ll have enjoyed access along the way, to make sure the application does what it needs to do, we’ll spend some time testing.

Browser & Device Testing: We ensure that the user experience is appropriate across a range of devices and browsers, rather than striving for pixel-perfect identical designs. 

We test our work in current versions of major desktop browsers, including Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge, and Opera. 

For mobile browsers, we test on Safari and Chrome for iOS and Android across a range of devices. If we’ve agreed on testing on older browsers or specific devices, we’ll do that too. We will be realistic with you; there are thousands of devices and potential configurations out there (especially Android!), so we cover the major brands, which we know from experience is a good approach.

If we’re building a native mobile App for you, we’ll also test these thoroughly across platforms.

We’ll carry out security testing to ensure that the application will be as resilient as possible. In addition, you may wish to employ the services of an independent Penetration Testing service. Although we can carry out these services, common sense tells us that we shouldn’t be certifying our own code (remember the Post Office scandal?).

We’ll then support you through your testing and fixing any issues you’ve found. At this point, it’s common for new suggestions and ideas to arise - we all get excited when it’s nearly ready to go live! We’ll capture these and agree on what needs to be included in the initial launch or added to a wishlist for a new phase in the future.

Going Live

When everyone is happy with the work, we’ll agree on a date to put it live. We’ll ensure that the User Documentation and Technical Documentation are in place and plan the application deployment with you.

When it goes live, we'll carry out our pre-scripted tests to ensure that it is working as expected. Then, we’ll let you know it's ready for you to use.

What Now?

We’ll continue to support you for a while after the application goes live. If we’ve agreed on an ongoing support and maintenance plan with you, we will continue to support you according to this agreement.

We will check in with you from time to time over the first few weeks or months to ensure everything is performing well.

What Else?

SEO: While we cannot guarantee specific search engine rankings, we build applications and sites that are accessible to search engines and structured for good performance and visibility. We can discuss the options for good SEO practices and paid advertising with you. We can provide content writing services and social media support if needed. However, if you have a super high demand for marketing services, we can discuss the options for engaging a dedicated team.

Legal Bits: We adhere to good industry practice and maintain a high professional standard in our work. However, we cannot guarantee that our work will be 100% error-free, and we are not liable for indirect damages, lost profits, or similar. Your liability to us is similarly limited to the agreed project fees. If any clause in our agreement becomes unenforceable, it does not affect the validity of the remaining provisions.

Intellectual Property: Upon full payment, you will own all intellectual property rights for the application, visual elements, source code, and design assets we create specifically for you, as well as any text, images, or data you provided (unless third-party owned). We retain rights to any tools, code libraries, or design systems developed before or separately from your project, and reserve the right to reuse these on other projects.

Showcasing Our Work: We take pride in our work and reserve the right to display aspects of your project in our portfolio, articles, or other promotional materials, including sketches, work-in-progress designs, and the completed project. Should you prefer otherwise, just let us know.

Non-Disclosure Agreements: We are happy to sign non-disclosure agreements with you. This is quite a common practice and, as long as what you are doing is legal and ethical, we’re happy to work in this way.

Competition: It does very occasionally happen that two competing organisations approach us (remember the carbon offsetting trend a few years ago? We had eight requests for building carbon offsetting websites in one month!). Fortunately, it doesn’t happen often. Rest assured that we won’t engage with two companies doing the same thing.

Let’s Build Something Together

Now that you have an idea of our approach, let's discuss how we can tailor it to your specific needs. We're equipped to handle projects of all sizes, from initial concepts to the evolution of established applications.