The following is a description of the four typical phases of the Web development lifecycle for large-scale enterprise projects: Discovery/Planning, Design, Development and Deployment/Implementation. While all projects don't necessarily include every task listed here, most do involve these four phases.

Discovery/Planning

During the Discovery phase, key stakeholders and team members brainstorm to determine the project scope and business goals. The project team collaborates to develop a plan which dictates the holistic user experience of the Web site, including audience, look and feel, tone and navigation.

Typical tasks that take place during this phase are:

• Define scope of project
• Gather technical, business and content requirements
• Determine brand strategy
• Complete user research
• Develop user profiles and scenarios
• Analysis of existing content assets
• Creation of high-level site map
• Development of high-level use cases
• Analysis and selection of external tools (third-party content providers, search tools, content management systems, etc.)

Design

Once the high-level goals and requirements of the Web site are determined, they are further explored and developed during the Design phase. During this time, use cases are fully developed to outline the functionality of the Web site. A detailed site architecture fleshes out the inner workings of the site. Wireframes are created to show the content and functionality needed. A prototype is developed so that user feedback can be gathered during user testing.

Typical tasks that take place during this phase are:

• Develop detailed use cases
• Create detailed site architecture
• Produce wireframes of each template or page
• Create design comps
• Develop prototype
• Hold additional user testing

Development

At the beginning of the Development stage, the visual design, site structure, content strategy, functionality and overall user experience have already been determined. Therefore, this phase concentrates on the actual creation of pages, content assets and functionality. Templates of each page are created and coded. In some cases, content is loaded into a Content Management System or database. Quality assurance is performed on the user interface, content and functionality. A round of user testing may also take place at this stage to validate the new design.

Typical tasks that take place during this phase are:

• Content development
• HTML development
• Programming
• Content load
• Quality assurance
• User assessment testing

Deployment/Implementation

In the final Deployment stage, the completed site is tested and launched. During this phase, team members and stakeholders review the site. Communication plans are developed and training sessions are held. At the end of this stage, the site is launched to a live environment.

Typical tasks that take place during this phase are:

• User validation testing
• Content, functional and technical testing and QA
• Last-minute fixes and revisions
• Development of communication plan and training materials
• Training of content managers and other business stakeholders
• Internal presentations of beta site
• Launch of site
• Post-launch enhancements