Things That Contribute to Make Good Web Development Company
The world of web development is still full of uncertainty. And that is the reason why people call it dark art. Are you looking for help to turn your ideas and designs into a high-quality website or web application? But how do choose a skilled developer who can do website development for your business is crucial?
Keeping some points in mind is the only key that makes a good web development company, and also give an idea bout the kind of questions you should be asking development companies.
What Need to Look for in a Web Development Company:
Developer must know about both front-end and back-end development
Don't specialize in one back-end technology
Should follow best practices
Understanding of marketing strategies surrounding the projects
Invests time in research and development
Has a rigorous testing process, including automated tests
Flexible to change
Use source control
Able to Do Both Front-End and Back-End Development
Don't go for a developer who knows either front-end development or either back-end development only. It is quite like a plumber who only fits pipes and leaves the fitting of the baths, showers, sinks, and toilets to someone else.
If we talk about web developers and web designers then we agree that there is a separation between web developers and web designers as there is a completely different thought process going on there. But in the case of front-end and back-end development, the separation between front-end and back-end is just wrong. Knowing the full development cycle and the ability to get involved in the project from start to finish is a must.
Don't Specialize in One Back-End Technology
In back-end development, some back-end technologies are appropriate for web development including Ruby on Rails, ASP.Net, and PHP. All these technologies have their strength and weaknesses and not one is perfect. The flexibility of web development companies in technology is a must. That is is the strong reason why we have spent time learning some technologies is to able to pick and choose the bits we like.
Should Follow Best Practices
A good developer is not the one who uses only technologies but a good developer follows the best practices. The technologies come and go in our ever-changing industry and best practices will remain, or at least evolve. For a developer who has a good grounding, he will move with the times and technologies fairly easily.
Let us Take a Look at Some Best Practices that We Are Talking About!
- Writing semantic HTML
- Follow web standards for all front end coding
- Automated testing of both front-end and back-end code
- Use of an MVC framework
Understanding of Marketing Strategies Surrounding the Projects
Many web developers don't think about the marketing strategy of a project. In general, we can say that these are the developers who don't care. Well, they should know their marketing strategy. Such developers can't advise clients and also can't think about helping clients produce the right solution. in simple words, we can say that a developer who blindly does the work is not offering the client a service, they are just being meat puppets.
Always take your time to understand the client's requirements properly, and don't hesitate to advise them, after all, the client doesn't understand the ins and outs of web development, you do. A two-way conversation in the development cycle plays a great role.
Invests Time in Research and Development
In this fast-growing web industry, things come and go in the blink of an eye. A good web development company gives its developers allocated time each week to look at new trends and technologies. Undoubtedly some of these trends and technologies are dead ends but you won't know unless you look into them.
To make sure whether a web development company knows their stuff or not, just ask them what their developer has been looking into recently. There is no need to understand everything you are told, you can note them down thoughts, and search them on the web to understand if the company is looking at new trends or not.
From a developer's point of view, research and development is probably the most important time each week for a developer. In case if you notice that the developers don't evolve, the solutions they build will become stagnate and dated very quickly.
Has a Rigorous Testing Process, Including Automated Tests
It is important to keep in mind that your client is not a tester for a project. If this is happening, then, to put it bluntly, the development company doesn't understand your project well enough, they are just "banging out" code.
A good web development company should be writing automated tests (integration tests, unit-tests, etc) for all their code, both front-end, and back-end. On a simple level, tests help developers to concentrate on the code they are writing at that given time, they also help developers to write more concise code. More concise code means the code base is easier to understand and cheaper to maintain.
The major benefit of a test suite to a client is that when changes are made to the code in the project there can be a lot more confidence in the fact that the change, or new code, hasn't broken anything else.
We are not saying automated testing is the silver bullet of web development, and tests are only effective if they are written well, but they certainly should be part of any web developer's toolset.
Automated tests aren't the only important aspect of testing. The web development company should also have a level of human testing, and this is certainly something clients should be involved in. Using stories is the main key to this process. As part of the development process, clients should work with the Web Development Company in Mohali to put together User stories, so that all parties involved understand how users will interact with the site or application and the results of those interactions.
Flexible to Change
More developers usually complain about how their clients' change the requirements of a project midway through a project. Developers need to stop making complaints about this topic, many of us can face this type of hassle and it's never going to change. A good web development company should have processes in place to cope with change. As a client, you can ask how change requests will be handled.
Web developers should work on short release cycles, preferably 1 - 2 weeks. The worst thing that can happen to a project is that the developers get the brief, start the work, and then 2 months later they announce it's finished, only for the client to say "This isn't what I asked for!". By working to short release cycles, clients can be involved at all stages. At the end of each release, the client should review the project so far and submit any change requests.
Use Source Control
All the code done by the developer should be source controlled. We have discussed a few key points here. First of all, it is one of the best ways of keeping a log of changes made to code. The second foremost reason is that it allows developers to change code without the fear of losing work already done. This is the case when trying out other possible coding solutions to a problem.
