Project Report

Project Report

Abstract

            In this report, the problem outlined by stakeholders is that they were unable to manage their staff due to the lack of a proper management system. The main objective of the stakeholders was to get a system that could enable them to manage their operations and policies easily. However, the stakeholders hired a website designer’s services, where they needed a website to allow them to achieve their operations. In this report, I’m going to elaborate on questions like how the stakeholders can manage their services, the necessary tools or methods needed to customize operations, and recommendations to be made.

The first part covers the project’s design, whereby the basic principles of a good website are defined clearly. The ten principles described were utilized when designing the Wamatrix website. Furthermore, I described the process followed when creating a current website page. The process encompasses the definition of a website purpose and its strategy, research on the latest trends of Website Designs, the template or theme applied, and the Content creation, Positioning, and Optimization of a website page. The second part covers project implementation procedures. I elaborated on the steps followed when the Wamatrix website was implemented to go live. The third part includes the project’s testing plans and results. I distinctly defined the tips used during the Wamatrix website testing and gave the results of the examination.

In the last section of the project, I summarized the recommendations made during the project design. The recommendations I stated included measures like minimizing the Wamatrix website code, reviewing or updating old content in the website, enabling Gzip compression of the website, performing Mobile-Friendly Tests to check the status quo of the website, and adding a link of a simple call to action on the service pages of the website always to hold visitors and make them moving.

Introduction

            A website is a set of different web pages, and any related content identified explicitly by domain name and published in less than one web server. Currently, all websites accessible by the public make up the World Wide Web. However, private websites are only accessible by private networks such as the internal company’s websites for their employees. A website is generally dedicated to particular topics or purposes like entertainment, news, social networking, commerce, and education. However, one has to design a website before its implementation process begins. Web design is the design of websites displayed on the internet. It generally looks up to the user’s experience aspects to the development of websites instead of software development (treefrog, 2016). A website helps an individual or a company gain a web presence or more customers online and, thus, active customer service. This factor enables a company to identify its typical customers. Besides, a website allows for a company to advertise their products or services online. This report aims to document the design, implementation, creation, and testing of the Wamatrix website as well as recommend future amendments to the website.

1. The project design

            The Wamatrix website project was designed using the ten basic principles of a good website. Each of the principles utilized in the project is described below.

1. Self-explanatory: The Wamatrix website implementation was intended not to make the users think. The website was also designed to get rid of user decisions that are conscious while considering alternatives.
2. User patience: This website’s purpose was to offer visitors minimal requirements of services or tools. The users were to explore the Wamatrix website and discover services without pushing them to share private data.
3. Manage user attention: The Wamatrix website used eye-catching graphics and interfaces to ensure that visitors have the best experience ever than on any other website. The implementation process applied different plugins to grab user attention.
4. Feature exposure: Wamatrix website ensured that the user saw the available functions of the website. The web’s content was well understood, and any visitor felt comfortable in the way they interacted with the system.
5. Effective writing: Wamatrix website has adjusted the writing styles of user preference and browsing habits. The promotional copies were eliminated, exaggerated language ignored, and long text blocks reduced.
6. Simplicity: Wamatrix website used the “keep it simple” principle since users are rarely on the site to enjoy the design but get the information despite the design. Thus, Wamatrix strived for simplicity rather than complexity.
7. White space: Wamatrix website used white space to reduce cognitive loads. This made visitors perceive information demonstrated on the screen. However, new users could scan the website page and divide content areas into digestible information pieces.
8. Effective communication with visible language: The Wamatrix website was well organized to provide users with clear and consistent conceptual structures applied in all elements. It was also economized to perform with the least visual elements and cue amounts. Additionally, the website communicated the presentation to user capabilities.
9. Friendly conventions: Since design popular site elements do not ensure a boring website, Wamatrix was designed to provide that it reduces the learning curve and figure out how things will work.
10. Test Early, Test often principle: The Wamatrix website applied this principle to provide crucial insights into significant problems or related issues. Not even did the Wamatrix website comprise testing as an iterative process, but it also viewed it to produce better and useful results always(10 Principles Of Good Website Design, 2008).

However, during the design phase of the Wamatrix website, different procedures and methods were used to form a reliable/effective site. The procedures followed were as elaborated below.

1. Definition of website Purpose and Strategy: The primary purpose of the Wamatrix website was to enable the stakeholders to efficiently manage operations and come out clearly to be authentic and engaging. In this case, the Wamatrix website displayed reliable information to the stakeholders.
2. Research on the latest trends of Web Design: Wamatrix website was based on different aspects when designing it. The trends looked upon included the dark mode, plunged 3D elements, personality adding imperfections, ultra-minimalist navigation, white space solid frames, glowing or luminous color schemes and software shadows, floating elements, and layers. Therefore, the website was based on the WordPress platform, a free and open-source content management system. This is because WordPress website builders have ease to use drag and drop editor, have a high value of money, and have a big help and support features. Wix website builders also have eye-catching designs.

• Template/theme applied: the Wamatrix website project was based on the Neve theme. The template used was chosen because it offers a wide range of menus that supported the natural organization of web pages that do not overwhelm visitors. Secondly, the theme has optimization options that made the website load fast and fully responsive. Additionally, the template offered support documentation. The theme was compatible with page builders and other builder plugins such as Divi, Brizzy, Site Origin, Elementor, and Gutenberg(Barron, 2020). The integration and interoperability of the builders and plugins allowed us to develop the Wamatrix website to be the interactive website seen today.

1. Content creation, Positioning, and Optimization: After the Neve theme was selected and the necessary plugins were installed, the next thing done was to load data and information on the different web pages on the website and to ensure that the website comes first on all search engines. The website appeared on top three on all the browsers used during testing.
2. Project implementation

The Wamatrix website project was implemented using the following procedures, which made it fully operational and safe for use by the stakeholders and other visitors.

• Content proofreading: Automated tools were used to eliminate any embarrassing errors before the website was launched.
• Legal requirements fulfillment: The website was set to use cookies to store user information according to the legal requirements for user notification and consent. The website implemented the necessary plugins to ensure that sensitive consumer information is safeguarded according to legal compliance requirements.
• Image compatibility and security hardening: The website used optimized images with correct labels and alt tags for search engine optimization. WordPress already implemented the content delivery network; therefore, the Wamatrix website developer had the role of creating the SSL certificate, which was successful. The developer also made sure that malware and firewall were active, which protected users from hackers. The SSF certificate provided a high degree of trust for stakeholders and other site visitors. It also ensured that the website is not being penalized or blocked by web filters and search engines.
• Responsiveness: The Wamatrix website was made to look good on mobile phones and work fine. The website used CSS for fluid layouts and changed its layout based on different screen sizes. The website was tested using different devices to make sure that it works effectively. Additionally, the Wamatrix website used an adaptive web design that involved unconventional layouts, unlike on screen sizes.
• Applications and links: The Wamatrix website was manually embedded since it was dependent on the exact duplication of its address, which can change itself and later become sensitive to other website elements. If the stakeholders or any site visitor visits the website and reaches the point of requesting a quote or signing up and encountered a broken problem, the website is squandered. Therefore, the Wamatrix website developer made sure that it does not have questions by checking up the website’s forms.
• Performance: The Wamatrix website developer made sure that images embedded were not in the wrong size or format and that there were no misconfigured plugins, which could prevent the website from loading properly or slow down everything to the extent that the stakeholders or site visitors abandoned the site.
• Backed up the website: Wamatrix website developer created the website’s backup before it was launched. The backup made sure that the website was online even when disasters occurred. The developer later submitted the website to Google, which allowed the direction of search engines to the URL prefix. The submission included tools like email alerts, URL inspection, and Search Analytics.
• Launched Analytics and Monitoring: The Wamatrix website developer added Google Analytics to the website pages by embedding a short code snippet to the headers to track the website’s traffic and launched other analytical tools the website used. Besides, the developer set filters after adding the code to the website(Goolsby, 2019).

3. Project’s Testing plans and Results

            After the project was completed, the Wamatrix website developer tested the website to ensure that it functioned as expected. The testing covered all the project tasks necessitated checking if the Wamatrix website did what it was intended to do. For quality testing of the Wamatrix website, a thorough and detailed test was done to provide quality results. During the testing phase, several tips were put in place to make sure that the Wamatrix website project met the required set goals. The tips covered areas detailed below.

• Covered all Requirements: in this case, the testing included all the Wamatrix website’s deliverables and products. The developer-defined all the parts of the project, which could be accomplished using automated testing tools and the best test suite used.
• Prepared documents early: Wamatrix website developer made sure that all necessary documents required during testing were prepared as soon as during the design phase. The test plans useful files were uploaded in the developer’s online document storage files, which ensured that stakeholders accessed the plans while designing the website. This saved the developer time before the testing was due.
• Involved testers early: The project resource plans enabled the Wamatrix website developer to identify the person to do the project testing soon. The testers were also involved in the project, where they helped in writing the test scripts and test plans. More importantly, they represented the users on the project’s team and helped shape how the development was done. Their involvement helped them better understand the testing requirements.
• It was prepared for bugs: Although the testing was aimed to achieve quality results, the Wamatrix website developer and the website testers prepared for any likelihood of errors. However, this enabled the project team to uncover the mistakes and resolve them before the website went live.
• Broken down the testing process: The Wamatrix website developer and the testers broke down the website into smaller units they could. This enabled them to encompass granular testing to check the quality of every single part of the website.
• Analyzed the test results: Quality testing provides a result of either ‘pass’ or a ‘fail.’ After the examination, the results provided indicated a pass. This meant that the Wamatrix website project was good to go live.
• Grouped the quality tests: The project’s team used test scripts to critically arrange the results related to user experiences in one group and related logging requirements in another group. This enabled the team to manage the plans that could be used to allocate tasks to the stakeholders and the Wamatrix website users. The grouping of results also helped the team quickly identify the needs to be rested when bugs were fixed.
• Tested Performance: Performance testing helped Wamatrix website developer and the testers recognize how long it took for the website to refresh the screen, how secure and vulnerable the website was, how the website responded to multiple users, and whether the website could be audited. Therefore, performance testing minimized user complaints when the Wamatrix website went live.
• Shared Results: After the testing was done and a ‘pass’ result revealed, the Wamatrix website developer and testers shared the results to the stakeholders by use of online project management to manage information flow between the developer and the stakeholders. The online project management workspaces made instant messaging and online discussions easy to share outcomes of the testing encouraged trust between the developer and the stakeholders, and speeded up getting results and bugs fixed(Harrin, 2015).

            The Project Results

The expectations of stakeholders in any company and web designers are reasonable after a project is complete. In this case, the Wamatrix website developer and the stakeholders benefited from the Wamatrix project because the website revised processes and restructured organizations. The website helped the stakeholders efficiently manage their operations once the project was implemented. In the long run, the stakeholders will be able to run operations and processes with ease. Therefore, the Wamatrix website has imposed a positive change to the stakeholders.

4. The Project’s Recommendations

Due to the rapid change of technology worldwide, a website is entailed to variations and modifications regularly. During the implementation of the Wamatrix website, recommendations were made for future modifications of the website. The suggestions listed were as listed below.

1. Reviewing or updating old content by editing styles and readability, updating useful information, optimizing search engines, and updating or adding better source links.
2. Minimizing the Wamatrix website code makes it humanly readable, making files a bit smaller and making pages load faster.

• We are doing Mobile-Friendliness Tests to check the status quo of the website and know if it is mobile friendly and how it is fairing.

1. We are enabling Gzip Compression to make the website’s files smaller, which in turn increases the website’s loading speed.
2. They are a
3. dding a link of a simple call to action on the service pages of the website always to hold visitors and make them moving. Including a service page name in the link will enable users to know what to expect after clicking the link(Schäferhoff, 2017).

References

10 Principles Of Good Website Design. (2008, January 31). Retrieved from smashingmagazine.com: https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/10-principles-of-effective-web-design/

Barron, B. (2020, March 26). 51 Best Free WordPress Themes 2020. Retrieved from aThemes: www.athemes.com/collections/free-wordpress/

Goolsby, K. (2019, April 2). Liquid Web. Retrieved from Your Essential 13-Step Website Implementation Checklist: https://www.liquidweb.com/blog/website-implementation/

Harrin, E. (2015, April 29). Project Manager. Retrieved from projectmanager.com: https://www.projectmanager.com/blog/tips-for-quality-testing

Schäferhoff, N. (2017, September 5). Elegant Themes. Retrieved from elegantthemes.com: https://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/tips-tricks/10-effective-website-improvements-that-take-10-minutes-or-less-to-do

treefrog. (2016, July 25). Retrieved from treefrog.ca: https://www.treefrog.ca/what-is-web-design/

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