Web Development Timeline: 6 Influencing Factors

When discussing the web development timeline, one of the most common worries customers have is, “How long will this take?” In order to accurately address it, you must grasp designing and developing a website. It involves several processes, each of which might differ depending on the scale of the project and the amount of effort invested in it.

At the moment, everyone is focusing on web development. The majority of companies, irrespective of the industry in which they are working, are focusing all of their attention on creating a website that is aesthetically pleasing and highly functional to increase sales of their goods and services. It is necessary for businesses to have a website or web application that is in working order.

Nevertheless, the development of code is not the only step in constructing a website. When there are a hundred distinct aspects that need focusing on, it is vital to follow a standardized approach to prevent errors. This is because there is a greater chance of confusion when there are more components. The more factors are concerned, the harder it gets to determine the length of time it takes to develop the website.

Nevertheless, you generally can still grasp the time it takes to complete the designing and building of a website. Designveloper will address it in the next section.

The Average Length of The Web Development Timeline

Building a website can take anywhere from 150 to 500 hours, depending on the project’s scope. This involves several stages, including discovery, design, development, and updates.

At Designveloper, we break down the process into four phases: discovery, design, development, and website updates.

Here’s a breakdown of the time required for different types of websites:

Complexity directly impacts the time needed for design and development, but it doesn’t always correlate with quality. Your audience’s preferences should guide your decisions.

Next, we’ll explore factors influencing the web development timeline, drawing from Designveloper’s experience and industry data.

Focus on delivering a seamless user experience, regardless of complexity. At Designveloper, we prioritize aligning solutions with your business goals and audience needs. Stay tuned for more insights on the web development timeline.

Recommended reading: Website Design in Vietnam: What’s in it for you?

6 Factors That Influence The Web Development Timeline

On the web development timeline, you should list the most important milestones. These milestones should show the main steps in making a website. It is essential to give each step a set amount of time proportional to how much work it involves. Also, to move on to the next step, you must first reach the goals set for that step. 

In this section, we’ll show you all of the steps to make a website. This list will give you ideas of what might happen at each stage of the web development timeline, even though the amount of time spent on each step depends on the needs of the specific project being worked on.

1. Strategy and planning for the web development timeline

It’s important not to downplay the importance of this first step because it will be the foundation for the entire project. This stage usually lasts anywhere from two to ten weeks and often includes the following:

• Research
• Requirements and/or definitions document
• Creative brief
• Technical briefs
• Discovery sessions
• Detailed architecture briefs and site architecture documents
• Sitemap
• Wireframe (a skeletal design diagram that provides a brief overview of the intended site functionality)

In this stage, research is the first thing to do because it makes sure that your design and development are going in the right direction. It is imperative to learn about the project and the client.

Your developers won’t be able to give you the right solution if they don’t know what they’re working on and what the requirements are. After substantial research, you can move to other aspects of this stage in the web development timeline. 

Information gathering

The Information Gathering phase of the web development timeline is all about laying a solid foundation for your project. This stage starts with a deep dive into understanding your business goals, target audience, and what you want to achieve with your website. Grasping your vision is crucial as it directly shapes the web development timeline, ensuring that the project aligns with your specific needs and expectations.

1. Identifying Business Goals and Metrics: The process begins with understanding the primary objectives of the website and how its success will be measured. It’s essential to pinpoint what the website is meant to achieve, as this sets the direction for the entire development process.
2. Conducting User Research: Next, the focus shifts to the target audience. This involves exploring who the users are, their needs, and how they will interact with the website. Understanding the audience is crucial for creating a user-centric design and functionality. Conducting free online surveys can also help.
3. Gathering Content: This step involves collecting all the necessary content for the website. It includes text, images, videos, and any other media that will be part of the site. The content must align with the business goals and user expectations.
4. Determining the Site Architecture and Functionality: Planning the structure of the website is another critical activity. This includes mapping out the site’s architecture and deciding on the functionalities that need to be incorporated to meet business objectives and user needs.
5. Establishing Technical Requirements and Constraints: Identifying the technical needs and any limitations of the website is vital. This step ensures that the development process takes into account all the technological aspects and constraints that could impact the website’s performance.

Planning

The Planning phase is not just about structuring the site but also about laying the groundwork for its design and functionality.

• Sitemap: Building upon the data and insights gathered in the previous phase, the development team crafts a sitemap. It’s a detailed outline of the website’s sections and sub-topics. The sitemap lays out the framework but doesn’t delve into the user interface: it is the blueprint of the website’s inner structure. Understanding this structure is vital for both the development team and the client, as it provides a clear vision of the website’s layout.
• Wireframes: At times, before coding or designing begins, client approval is necessary to ensure everything aligns with their vision. This is where wireframes and mock-ups come into play. A wireframe is a basic visual guide of the user interface that will be developed. It’s important to note that a wireframe isn’t about the aesthetic details like colors or logos. Instead, it focuses on outlining the elements that will appear on the page and their placement.
• Technology stack: This includes deciding on the programming languages, frameworks, and content management systems (CMS) that will be used. The choice of technology is crucial as it influences the website’s functionality, scalability, and future maintenance. It’s a decision that requires careful consideration of the project’s needs and goals.
• Timeline planning: Next, estimating timelines comes into play. Setting a realistic schedule with clear deliverables for the project is critical. It not only helps in tracking progress but also ensures that the project stays on track.
• Resource allocation: It’s about assigning tasks to team members based on their skills and expertise. Effective resource allocation is crucial for maximizing efficiency and ensuring that each aspect of the project is handled by the most suitable team member.

2. Design

After the strategy and planning stage, the web development timeline will then move on to the design phase, based on the creative brief and the information gathered in the strategy stage. For this stage, you proceed to show mockups of the design for feedback. Design mockups can show how the homepage looks, how multiple internal pages look, how the desktop looks, and how the mobile looks.

In the web design process, you also start working on the wireframe created in the first stage. The wireframe is turned into things like buttons, tabs, menus, dashboards, color schemes, typography, and graphics to build the website’s main structure.

Recommended reading: The Basics of a Good Web Design Firm: What To Look For

Design a website that is easy to use and interactive. It should consider what you learned from your research on your ideal customers and meet their needs and preferences. Make sure that you do not make web design mistakes. So your website or web app will never get boring for those who use it. Add pictures, colors, and other media types to your website to get more people to visit it. But you have to be careful not to change your website’s brand or its primary purpose. These steps need your team to have basic web design skills to make it work. Besides your team need to look around to find out the idea from web design trends!

3. Content

You can’t say enough about how important it is for a website to have good content. As crucial as a decent design, quality content can set a website apart. Creating new content and importing old content can take a lot of time, but the result is well worth the effort. Setting up key messages and calls to action, moving content from other sites, writing new text, editing text, making headlines, page titles, captions, and text for search engine optimization (SEO), and making headlines, descriptions, and tags are all part of the content writing and assembly process. Most of the time, this stage will overlap with others in the web development timeline. 

For this phase to go well, you need to equip yourself with a certain mindset: content is king. No matter how fancy your design is, it won’t help if you can’t communicate with the people visiting your website. Since it’s the only way to get in touch with end-users and turn them into customers, you should pay enough attention and focus on the user’s problems and the solutions you can offer.

The process of content writing is comprehensive. It involves crafting engaging headlines, proofreading, and writing new text blocks. This phase demands time and effort, as content is key to connecting with the target audience. The quality and clarity of the content can significantly influence the website’s effectiveness.

Typically, clients are responsible for providing the content that will be integrated into the website. Having all the content ready and available either before or during the coding phase is ideal. This ensures a seamless integration of text, images, and other media into the website.

Recommended reading: Top 18 Web Development Companies in Vietnam

4. Coding and development

Once the design, site architecture, technical brief, and sitemap have been approved and validated, the project will proceed to the development stage. This is when the website comes to life, and all parts come together to make a high-quality site. The client doesn’t have much to say in the web development timeline, but you must spend a big chunk of the time allotted on this step. When the site needs custom web apps and connectors, the schedule for this phase can get even longer.

During the development phase, you proceed to code and put together the website. You will have built the website on both the client-side and the server-side at this point in the process. The part of the website development life cycle takes the most time.

Recommended reading: Top 10 Web Design Agencies in the World

There are usually two things to consider in this stage:

Front-end Web Development

During this stage of the web development timeline, the interactive parts in the early stages are eventually added to the website. Web designers use web frameworks and front-end web development tools to add functions and features to a website’s basic structure.

When you go to a website, everything you see, click on, or use in any other way is the work of a developer who specializes in the front end. One of a front-end developer‘s main jobs is to ensure that site users can easily interact with the page they are viewing. They do this by coding the website’s look using a combination of design, technology, and programming. They also take care of any bugs that may need to be fixed.

One thing that front-end web developers must not miss is the mobile interface. If you want to keep up with the latest changes in your industry, you have to have a version of your website that works well on mobile devices. It is possible to make a mobile app and a website that works well on mobile devices. This you can do through the same design process. This is something you must do.

Back-end Web Development

During this phase of development, you will make the essential features and functions of the web app. The front-end is in charge of making the graphical elements and talking to the user. On the other hand, the back-end is about coding the instructions that make each piece do the tasks that have been given to it.

To be more precise, when we say “back-end development,” we mean “development on the server-side.” At this point in the process, the most important thing is how the website works. Server-side development is another name for back-end development. Your primary job will be to keep track of how well the website is doing, find places where it could be better, and make any needed changes. 

Back-end web development usually has three parts: a server, an application, and a database. A website consists of these three parts that work together. The back-end developers are in charge of writing the code that lets the browser get the information from the database. A back-end developer is also the person who is responsible for the work done on a website’s servers, databases, and anything else that is hard to see with the naked eye. People usually do back-end development with job titles like “programmer” or “web developer“.

5. Testing

In the quality assurance process, the quality assurance team uses repeated testing methods like:

• Unit testing
• Stress testing
• Integration testing
• Load testing to determine how well the web application works
• How easy it is to use, how compatible it is and how well it works

After the website has been built, it goes through many tests to find and fix any bugs. Stress testing, integration testing, and load testing are all types of these tests.

In addition, there is something called the beta stage of testing. In this stage of the web development timeline, you give the clients the option of sharing the website with the right people for review and feedback in a place that requires a password.

Project consistency is another focus area in this phase. It’s essential for a well-functioning site. The team tests all features across various devices and platforms. Comprehensive testing at this stage confirms that the app works as intended on all fronts.

Besides functional testing, this phase also includes finalizing small but crucial aspects such as plugins and SEO optimization. These elements are important for smooth deployment. Testing Engineers and developers collaborate closely, repeating the test-and-fix cycle until the QA team is confident that the website is ready for deployment.

An important recommendation in this phase is to start the testing process early. Integrating QA into earlier stages like wireframing can save time and money. It also helps in avoiding major design changes later on. This proactive approach minimizes the need for multiple iterations of testing and development.

6. Site launch and maintenance

When the quality assurance team gives a website or app their stamp of approval, the website or app has passed the testing phase or beta testing phase and is now ready to be used. Depending on what the client needs to do, launching a product can be fast, straightforward, or complicated and takes a long time.

Launching is not the end of the web development timeline because maintenance is still to be done. There are many parts of hosting, content creation, and web security that can be thought of as maintenance tasks that need to be done regularly. Through the constant feedback you get from user interactions, you can learn about potential development areas that could use more work. As a direct result of this, the web application development life cycle is used to make it easier to make any changes that need to be made.

Regular updates are another critical aspect of website maintenance. For those using a Content Management System (CMS), regular updates are necessary to avoid bugs and enhance security. Staying current with updates helps in reducing technical glitches and security vulnerabilities.

For many, opting for custom software development services from outsourcing companies such as Designveloper is a strategic choice. This approach ensures expert development and maintenance of the website. Meanwhile, your internal team can focus on other projects. Outsourcing for website maintenance offers the advantage of specialized expertise, ensuring that your website remains efficient, secure, and up-to-date.

The Web Development Timeline at Designveloper

At Designveloper, we understand the importance of a well-planned web development timeline. This initial stage, which typically lasts between two to ten weeks, is the foundation for the entire project and is crucial for its success.

The first step in this stage is research. We make sure that our design and development are heading in the right direction by understanding the project and the client’s needs. In fact, 57% of businesses prioritize website development to improve customer experience in 2024.

We then create a requirements and/or definitions document, a creative brief, and technical briefs. These documents provide a clear understanding of what the project entails and what solutions our developers need to provide.

Discovery sessions are conducted to further understand the project requirements and client expectations. Gartner reports that 75% of organizations with effective timeline management meet or exceed their project goals.

We prepare detailed architecture briefs and site architecture documents to provide a comprehensive plan for the website structure. A sitemap is created to outline the website’s pages and their hierarchical structure.

Finally, a wireframe is developed. This skeletal design diagram provides a brief overview of the intended site functionality.

After substantial research and planning, the project moves to other aspects of the web development timeline. For instance, the design phase, where the visual elements of the website are created, and the development phase, where the website is actually built.

Case Studies

At Designveloper, we pride ourselves on delivering high-quality services to our clients, helping them grow their business at a world-class level. Our extensive experience in web development has allowed us to refine our project timeline, ensuring efficient and effective results. Here are some case studies that highlight our expertise and the impact of our work.

• Lumin PDF: Lumin is a PDF file storage and integration service developed by us. It allows users to edit and store PDF files on both mobile and website apps, synchronize PDF files across devices, and share PDF files. It has gained 22 million users till now.
• Swell & Switchboard: This is a business management platform in the solar industry. So far, this platform has been working perfectly in every step of their daily process. With this achievement, we are working hard to spread this useful platform all over the world.
• Walrus Education: Walrus is a platform to connect students, teachers, and schools. We used React, React Native, and Nodejs to build up web & mobile applications for this platform.

These case studies demonstrate our ability to deliver complex projects within the estimated web development timeline. They also showcase our expertise in various technologies and our commitment to delivering high-quality, user-friendly solutions.

Conclusion

It’s hard to give an accurate estimate of the details of a web development timeline because no two projects are the same. This makes it hard to know how long a single project will take. If, on the other hand, you know what factors need to be taken into account, you will be able to give a more accurate estimate of how long it will take you to finish the job. 

With that in mind, at Designveloper, we are dedicated to giving you valuable guidance and information on what you need to do for an effective web development cycle and assistance on your projects. Contact us!