The Student body of the Ghana Pentecost Students Association – Legon on the University of Ghana Campus contacted us to have their website redesigned. And following is a post about the development processes we used at Kava Media in executing the website design project.

Website Goals and Objectives

After a meeting with the client, we help establish the clear goals for the website as well as identifying the target audience for the site.

This part is a phase of our project development process that aids us to envision what exactly the client has in mind in coming up with the project. That is not to say the client is left alone in the dark, but we initiate and cordinate conversations to establish the business and user needs of the website.

Designing the Solution

After we were done with the project specification. We went through it designing a feasible solution that works best for both business and user needs.

Then the actual design of the website itself that is the look and feel for the homepage as well as the other content pages.
The right message is communicated through the right graphic design elements on the page to attract the user in executing or achieving a particular goal. The process is usually preceded with a lot of sketches and wireframes to map mental design solutions unto the paper.
We believe designing your own website’s look and feel get you exactly what you want to achieve your specific design goals as such we are not a fan of developing websites with templates or off-the-shelf products.

The Web Development

Our development process entails Front-end development, Back-end development and Database development. At the Front-end stage we handcraft codes usually HTML and CSS for building the web pages for the various pages and sections on the website. It doesn’t end there. With the use of JavaScript, Jquery, Ajax and other front-end technologies, we enhance the User experience for maximum impact and visitor conversion.
Those with modern browsers are not left as we use HTML5/CSS3 features where applicable to improve their experience.

It is the function of a thing that determines the design. The design of these User interfaces is not complete if there’s no function/task achieved. With that in mind, the Back-end then deals with programming the task or functionality and breathing life into the User Interfaces or pages. Database interaction is also done here where appropriate to store and manipulate data.

Content is King. So the integration of a custom CMS(Content Management System) is vital for website updates and seo improvement.

Testing and Launch

Finally we test the website in our quality assurance part of our development cycle. Errors are debugged and stuff tweaked to get working as intended.

We also provided Pensa Legon with Website Hosting, so the deployment was just a matter of uploading and installing the website on the remote servers.

The website is then launched and after, user feedback and reports analyzed and errors fixed where missed or encountered due to live or production environment.

In all it was a very nice experience for us as we worked with students from the University of Ghana bringing back memories of our student days. The final websites includes Photo and Video gallery sections, Student and Alumni section, News, Events, Downloads, Social Media Integration such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc.

The client was more than excited to have chosen Kava Media for the project. At Kava Media, we help you achieve your individual or business goals with a functional and nicely designed website or web application that get your business transformed.

Visit: Pensa Legon (live) to have a peep for yourself or leave a comment about how you go about your development process below.