Once the Azavar™ Project Plan is set in place, the development of the Web application can begin. Azavar has a standard management approach to ensure that the development adheres to the Project Plan.  The following are various steps of the development process.

1. Build Navigation Map
   The navigation map is a hierarchical view of the application's structure broken up into logical sections and sub-sections. It demonstrates how users are going to navigate between various areas of the application and the interrelationship among those areas. The navigation map is designed by classifying and prioritizing the tasks users want to perform on the site. A good navigation map will clearly define and prioritize the content of the site and become the base for a clear and concise user interface. 
   
   
2. Create Screen Schematics
   A wire-frame mock-up describes the contents and overall organization of a user interface without specifying its detailed appearance or behavior. It is an outline that represents the relative size and position of visual elements and organizes the relative importance or priority of the information or function.
   
   Wire-frames provide an effective bridge between functionality requirements and a final design in the form of a realistic prototype. By maintaining a focus on content, organization and function independent of appearance, wire-frames are the groundwork for effective user controlled navigation.
   
   
3. Data Modeling
   Components that include database interaction require a data-modeling phase. The purpose of the data modeling is to outline how users are going to interact with the database. To understand this process, a model must be created for each component to detail what task is going to be accomplished and what information will need to be supplied or collected by the database for each user task. In most instances this involves creating a use case. 
   
   A use case is a conceptual tool that models the course of users intentions and how they interact with an application to achieve their desired goals. It maps out the necessary steps involved in completing a task, and further elaborates on what information will be required to allow users to complete the desired task. From this model, the database structure can be defined. 
   
   
4. Design User Interface
   The interface is the core of user interaction. It facilitates tasks and helps users achieve their goals. Ultimately, usability comes from the way the architecture of the user interface fits with what users are trying to accomplish. Constructing a Web application with an intuitive, elegant and simple navigation system that shows visitors just where they are and explains how to get to other sections enhances users' experiences.
   
   The wire-frame mock-up serves as the base for the user interface. The user interface is the see, hear and click aspect of a Web application. It blends visual, textual and even audio into a practical, appealing and usable format. This is where the graphical look and feel of a Web application is developed.
   
   
5. Build Templates
   The design of the user interface establishes the overall look and feel of a Web application, but equally important is creating page layouts that present the site’s content in an attractive and usable manner. The page layouts create visual logic with an optimal balance between visual sensation and graphic or text information.
   
   To maintain a consistent rhythm and unity across all the pages of the Web application, a series of templates are built that establish a layout grid and style for handling of text, titles, links and graphics. The templates give the application a consistent graphic identity that reinforces a distinct sense of "place," and that makes the application memorable. A consistent approach to layout and navigation allows readers to quickly adapt to the design, and to confidently predict the location of information across the pages of the application.
   
   
6. Standardize Images
   Many Web applications feature a standardized set of images.  These images may be product images, photographs, graphics, etc. These images will need to be formatted and standardized based on the user interface design.
   
   
7. Format Data
   Once the database structure is in place, the existing data must be paired up against it to ensure that it follows the proper structure.  In most cases the data will need to be cleansed or formatted before integrating it within the application. The extent of the data formatting process is determined by factors such as the size of the database, the format of existing data and the quality of the existing data.

Next Step: Develop >

1. Discover
2. Design
3. Develop
4. Deploy
5. Manage