Gone are the days where websites used to contain just static information. In today’s ever changing world content is key and data transparency is crucial. As the Internet continues to play a bigger part in our lives day by day, customers want more and more from you. Online booking, social network integration, mashups, you name it. Don’t just stand still amongst the web giants such as Twitter, Facebook or Google as you’ll fall behind. Get ahead of the competition and check out our web development services.
What is web development?
Web development, per se, can cover a wide range of services regarding online applications. Generally speaking, an online web application like the ones you use everyday such as Twitter or Facebook would have started life being developed by one or more developers. It’s about creating a simple solution to a complex problem. No one cares about all of the back-end code, bells and whistles. To the user, the interface is the system.
A web developer is someone who learns about a problem or idea, understands it to the full, solves it, and then writes the code to make the brains of the application work. Web development is no easy task. It involves a lot of late nights, coding, coffee and sometimes frustration. It requires an expert – someone who has being doing it for years and knows just what to tell a computer in order to make something magical.
Would a web application benefit me?
Chances are if you’re a company and you’re looking to expand your service to the Internet world, and improve interaction with your customers, then it would. Or maybe the application would be internal. You could be a company with lots of offices all around the country that requires a centralised system to record inventory. You may not even be a company at all, you may be an ordinary person with an extraordinary idea. Whatever your problem or idea is, I can help solve it and realise it.
What makes a great web app?
All of the qualities of a good website apply here, plus a lot more.
- Preparation. The best web apps will have extensive prior planning and preparation, including a clearly defined list of goals and objectives which can be referred to during development for measurement of success. I have extensive experience with the UML approach to analysis and design. There should be sketching, paper, doodling, wireframing, brainstorming, resketching, redoodling and refinement until everyone is happy.
- User involvement from an early stage. The developer may develop the application, but he won’t be the everyday user. To get the best results, the correct people and stakeholders must be involved and consulted before any code is written.
- Clean, maintainable code. A well written code base means that the application performs to it’s best and it is well adaptable and extensible in the future, by the same developer or another.
- Content separation. The best web apps have individual layers seperating front-end presentation logic and code (the interface) from back-end business logic and code (such as database abstraction and API libraries). I favour the MVC approach to development which keeps everything separate, improving portability, compatibility and extensibility.
- Extensibility. Similar to above, the best apps will have been written in such a way that future modifications are quickly and easily completed.
- Transparency. Most decent web applications these days will have an interface (API) to which third party applications may communicate. Your users may want to obtain feeds and information from your system to incorporate in theirs. Twitter feeds are a good example of this.
- Performance. Poorly written code for the database abstraction layer and the application in general can hound performance and even kill a website when traffic loads begin to increase.
- User experience. The interface is what users will be dealing with, not the code. It doesn’t matter how fancy the back-end stuff is, the front-end needs to be easily usable, engaging and a pleasure to use for the best results.
How are great web applications built?
Just like a great website, entirely by hand. The best web apps have hand crafted code that follows all of the above practices. Although crafting of a website in this way can take longer, the results are always the best.
But it isn’t just the coding that is important. The most crucial aspect in creation of a web application is the initial phases. Conception, analysis of the problem, and design of the system are key, and will help minimise common problems such as feature creep. We’ll get those right, and development will be a breeze.
What technologies do you use?
Like every craftsman, I have my preferred toolbox. I have over three years experience programming in Object Oriented PHP in a Linux/Apache environment, and using MySQL as a database engine. I have plenty of experience developing with PHP frameworks including CodeIgniter and CakePHP. For new projects, CodeIgniter will usually be my framework of choice depending on your requirements, but I can work with existing code as appropriate. I have experience developing front-end enhancement using Javascript, and particularly the jQuery and jQuery UI frameworks.
How much does a web application cost?
Unfortunately as every application varies in scale and complexity, it is impossible to give a fixed price without knowing any details. If you would like an estimate on your web app idea, you can either contact me to send me your brief. We could even arrange a meeting, if you so choose.
What next?
I would simply love to hear from you about your project idea. You can either contact me to send me a brief, and I will do my best to quote via email, or if you prefer we could arrange a meeting over a cup of tea and have a chat.