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Choosing the right web development company can be crucial for any business, which wants to attract customers and provide direct contact with them through a website. In addition, a high-quality and experienced company can create such a web solution for the customer, which will meet all the customer’s individual needs and provide a seamless user experience and powerful functionality with an aesthetic appearance of the interface.
It is important to pay attention to key criteria such as reputation, relevant experience, development team, technologies used, basic work approach, documentation development, etc. How to choose the right company, regardless of whether you have experience with web development or not – the answers are in this article.
Reputation and Feedback
So, if a customer is looking for a company for their web solution, they should follow several important steps. The first is a real test of the team’s qualifications. They can evaluate specialists on Upwork, which shows the team’s rating, and their experience (how many hours they worked, how many contracts they have, and how long they have been in this market). You can also read reviews about the team on Clutch and other similar resources. In addition, some customers may even ask for the contacts of previous customers of the desired company, and ask them for feedback by phone, email, or other means.
Experience
To make sure of the experience, the client takes a proficiency check. This check is carried out using a developer testing service (quality tests are usually paid for). The client sends tests to various companies. And the client leaves only experienced developers who passed the test quickly and clearly. When this stage is passed, they go on a call with agencies. During all this time, they should understand how people communicate, and how pleasant it is to have a conversation with them.
During the call, a client is usually told which team may be working on their project. There should be at least four people: a manager, a tester, and so on. And if the number of developers is more than three, then the team includes one more tester. If a client is in a hurry, they don’t need more than one developer.
However, for the client, it is still important what experience the company has in developing projects with more than one developer. For example, we use a Gantt Chart, where tasks are divided by time and assigned to someone. For example, one developer deals with the backend, the next one deals with the front end, and the third deals with the admin dashboard.
Relevancy Development
The next criterion is relevant projects. If this company has projects completely or partially similar to what a customer wants, they should ask the company about these projects. An experienced client will always understand that having the kind of relevant project he needs ensures that his project will be completed successfully and on time.
In general, it is recommended to use the experience of developing elements, and excellent features, contained in the project they need to develop. For example, a client’s project needs to have a real estate listing. And the company has experience in developing another project where there is a listing of goods, for example. However, the principle of developing the functionality is the same: both projects have a list and pictures with a description. The more relevant features, the better. Because, with rare exceptions, clients come with some unique project that is not yet on the market, and therefore it is difficult to find a company that would do a one-by-one project but to find and look at a company that would do certain aspects of the future platforms relevant to the client’s future project.
Technologies
It is necessary to pay attention to whether a client has any preferences in technologies. During the team selection, a customer needs to make sure the team knows how to use these technologies. If the team level is decent, but they work in PHP and the client needs C# or Python, those are completely different stacks and a client still needs a different team. On the other hand, if the client doesn’t have specific preferences, they can ask some questions and find out all the pros and cons and technologies to write the project from the same Python to PHP. And then use exactly the command that is most suitable. And if it is important for the client, i.e. they need only Python, then they should look for a team with only a selected stack.
The Approach To Development
Web development is responsible work that requires thinking through a work plan and established project management processes. The priority is what tasks they set, and what tools they use (such as Jira, and Trello, for example). In particular, this also applies to Agile and Scrum approaches, which involve flexibility in the work mode. It will be good if developers use a Kanban board for project management.
What is a Kanban board? This is a table with columns that contain separate tasks: a General One, Selected For Development (tasks that programmers have chosen, coordinated with the manager for development, and cards are dragged there), Ready For QA (ready for testing), and Done (a column with tested and approved tasks). If the task was not performed well, the testers move it back to Select for development, so a programmer sees that they need to perform the task again.
Team
A pretty important sign of a good company is having its own, experienced team which has basic knowledge of web development. The team should usually have a main developer, a team lead, several additional developers, a designer, and a tester. Project management also includes the presence of a manager. A good company must have a manager who will lead the team and who will manage the project itself.
All developers of our company are full-stack, but some of the developers prefer to work with the backend, for example, others – with the frontend. There are, of course, those who can do both frontend and backend equally well. But they all have one direction, and we recommended assigning them to the project according to the chosen direction. And also an important factor is the presence of a designer in the team who could draw the design itself. Interaction with the designer takes place directly or through the manager.
Another important point in cooperation with the team is compliance with the timezone, that is, the time difference between the client and this company. If the company is on the other side of the globe, and the difference between you is 12 hours or more, it can cause certain communication difficulties. However, communication is possible if you can fit into cross hours: for example, morning in the US, and evening in Europe.
Rates and Payment
One of the key factors is assessment. It usually means how much the client needs to pay for the services provided. Some teams work on a fixed price, and others on an hourly rate. However, which approach is better?
When opting for a fixed-price project, clients have the advantage of knowing their budget. However, this approach comes with its share of potential pitfalls. Firstly, developers may need to estimate costs and timelines more accurately, leading to additional evaluation and ultimately more time and money spent on development and error correction. Furthermore, clients often need more direct oversight of the daily time allocation and specific team members working on their projects, relying solely on updates from a project manager. While managers are typically trustworthy, uncertainties may arise regarding transparency in certain aspects of the project.
That is why we recommend paying attention to the hourly rates. Because a client will know the exact number of hours allocated to the project and monitor what they are doing. However, the main disadvantage is that the budget can grow and it isn’t controlled. But, of course, the development company can argue one or another budget discrepancy, and this is normal in hourly work. Better control over hours needed can be obtained from a detaIled specification document, which describes all parts of the project together with wireframes and design. With this kind of document and estimated hours needed to finish the project from the development team, the client can be sure that the budget will not change during the development with 95% probability. Still things happen and it could change a bit, but it is a rare case. Of course if a client wants to add something or change something this will affect the hours and the budget. So clients need to be very careful with this and think about all necessary things during the documentation creation process.
Documentation
The best team to choose is the one that will provide an estimate for all the features that are listed in the documentation. If a client has already prepared documentation, then a professional team of developers studies it, works through it, and then estimates it. Team creates a table with a list of all features, where each of them is estimated separately.
However, if the client is less experienced and has no documentation, and no design, then a good company should cooperate and use the Discovery Phase. This is the project research that is done before writing the documentation. In this phase, it is studied how much this project is needed, what it should consist of, and how it should work. If the company writes the documentation, that’s good. Working on the Discovery Phase, and writing the documentation – it’s great, the client won’t have to contact anyone or write this documentation himself.
Saving Money Or Quality?
If the client is faced with the question of whether to save money on the team or pay extra for quality, then in this case we recommend paying attention to quality. There are often customers who sacrifice quality for money. First, they save on less experienced developers, then they come to a better company with a request to complete the project. However, after the code analysis, it often becomes obvious that the project architecture and database structure will need to be completely rebuilt to complete the project on a needed level. Adding new features to a poorly written project without completely reworking it can lead to problems with the site/platform in the most unexpected places in the future. In this case adding any new functionality will cause issues with different functionalities and features with high probability. Refactoring project architecture and database structure can minimize these issues.
However, we can offer two options: refactoring the code and database or redevelopment of the project from scratch. Developing a project from scratch may cost the client 5-10% more than refactoring, but development in this case is faster and newer technologies will be used, together with high quality coding from the very beginning.
Choosing a web development agency is a responsible step for any business that wants to become successful in the digital space. To make it easier for you to find the right company, we have provided a whole list of criteria that you should pay attention to. The company’s qualifications, experience in projects relevant to you, and the ability to research and create documentation – this is still an incomplete list of what an experienced and qualified agency that can realize your goals should know and be able to do. The right team will contribute not only to the successful launch of the site but also to its further development and support, which is the key to your success in the online environment. One of the most important things is to work with not just a development team but with a custom business solution provider, so not just coders(developers), but a team which is able to think about end business goals and suggest best approaches to achieve results.
