With your optimisation phase completed, you’ll be looking to move on to the final phases, Launch and Reset.
This is when all the work you’ve done on your website, comes to fruition as you take it live and allow it to be accessed by your customers or users.
This is the moment your Agency, your Business and the public have been waiting for so it’s important to get it right!
To that end, it’s a good idea to have a website checklist in place to make sure you’ve dotted all your i’s and crossed all your t’s.
This website checklist will be bigger or smaller depending on the project and every Web Designer or Developer, will have their own list and order they prefer.
What we’ll provide here is a baseline that applies to all websites, so you have a starting point to make your own list.
The website checklist
A website checklist is here to ensure everything that was supposed to happen has actually been done. Let’s take a closer look at the list.
First, we have the list for Content.
- We check that all items from the content inventory are accounted for.
- That all content on pages has been signed off by the owner.
- That all content has been proofread.
- That all pages have social media content written.
- That all pages have been visited and read top to bottom.
- All menu items are tested and working.
- All links are tested and working and that interactivity, comments, forms, sharing buttons, etcetera, are all working.
On the Design list, we check;
- That the site works as expected on all major platforms, Windows, Mac, Linux, IOS, Android, Windows phone, and so on.
- That the site is responsive across all screen sizes.
- That colour contrast meets accessibility guidelines.
- That font-weight and sizes meet accessibility guidelines.
- That the site is keyboard accessible. and that 404, nothing found, and empty search result pages are accounted for.
And finally, on our Development list, we check;
- That we have valid HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
- That cross-browser compatibility has been verified.
- That legacy browsers are supported to contract specifications.
- That caching is activated where appropriate.
- That CDN integration is enabled.
- That security tests are completed and that local and third-party backup routines are active.
As we said, this list can be longer or in a different order based on the site and you and your team’s methods.
Nevertheless, the items on this list can help you validate and check-off before the launch of any website.
