Our Process Model

How do we work with your company?

At Rahvalor Interactive we constantly test and evaluate our methods so that we can best fulfill the needs of our customers. So far, experience has been our best teacher. We bring to your service years of trial and error that have yielded a basic development process that has proven to us and our customers to be straightforward and effective.

Whether this is your first foray into marketing and you’re not sure where to start or you’ve already been down this road and have a specific need, our team will work with you through a series of carefully constructed steps so that the end result will add value to your business.

Orientation – Getting to know you and your business

The first thing we do when we engage a new customer is listen. This gives us the opportunity to get to know you, your business and your needs and to gather some background information to help us make an initial assessment of your project.

During this preliminary consultation, you will also get to know us and the way we work so that you can make an educated decision as to whether you would like to work with us.

This is the only informal stage of our development process. Our goal is simply to gain an understanding of what you’re looking to achieve and how we may be able to help you do it.

At the end of this stage, we can provide you with a broad-range estimate for your project based on the specifications that you present during the consultation. However, this stage always ends with more questions than answers, which is exactly the way it should be – any successful project begins with careful planning, and that is what the next stage of our process is about.

Discovery – Planning for success

This is the first formal and arguably the most important stage of a project. During this stage we help you to:

• Define your target audience – is your project intended for customers, employees, salespeople, distributors? It’s important to know who will be using your product and who the project is intended to benefit.
• Determine long and short term goals – it’s not necessary to do everything at once. In fact, it’s often more productive and cost-effective to develop immediate goals and future goals, and build on your project as your business needs evolve.
• Determine the appropriate technology to deliver your message – whether web, intranet or CD-ROM, we can help determine the best medium. Whatever the technology, we make sure it’s easy for you to use and doesn’t require you to have any technical expertise.

A Discovery process should be an integral part of any project that requires an investment of your time, energy or financial resources. The preparation that goes on before development will build the foundation for everything to come. You can liken the Discovery process to the architectural design of a building: would you begin pouring cement without detailed measurements and drawings, or build a wall without a solid foundation beneath it? Likewise with a custom web or software project, it’s important to have a basis for production and detailed guidelines to follow to avoid a collapse and ensure that your project meets your business goals.

Our Discovery and planning stage designs the architecture and lays the foundation for your project. As such, it’s an investment in the success of your project and ultimately in your business. We will map your web site, diagram your intranet, outline your presentation – whatever it takes to clearly define the objectives and the means of achieving them.

At the end of this stage, we will present you with a complete specification document, proposal and budget guideline so that you can answer the two most often-asked questions: "What do I get?" and "How much is it?" All documentation including specifications, proposals, diagrams, sitemaps or drawings are developed exclusively for your business and your project and will be comprehensive enough to be used by any development team.

Ultimately, we anticipate working with you and supporting your business needs for years to come, but should you decide to move in another direction, you can do that knowing that you have made an important investment in the success of your business.

Production – Putting plan into action

During this stage we carefully follow the specifications that we developed in the prior stage so that you are assured of a product that meets or exceeds your expectations. We take a number of steps to ensure that we meet project goals, including:

Preproduction – before we begin development, we acquire and organize any materials or content that may be required. We’ll collect photography, organize, edit or write copy, gather preexisting marketing materials, contact third party vendors, outline the steps to come and make sure we have all of the elements that need to go into your project.

Prototype – Otherwise known as the “first draft”, we may present you with a digital mockup, a test site, a storyboard or a print proof. This first draft allows you to make revisions, add features, or just change your mind about the details without getting so far into a project that making changes will cause a production (and budget) nightmare. Often the prototype is a minimally functional version of the finished product and it provides an opportunity to visualize your product and provide feedback to help refine it. The first version of a web site in particular might raise a few eyebrows. It will be a text-only site, with text-only links for navigation. We do this for a very important reason: we want the site to work. With only text to contend with, we can easily rearrange navigation, add pages, change layout and modify content without worrying about working within the confines of a specific graphical look. Often, when graphics are designed first, you are locked into a pattern or layout that is not so easily changed without adding to the time and cost of the project.

Design –Design is the final piece of the production process, uniting all of the functional elements into attractive packaging. Our goal is to be sure that the design supports functionality, usability and overall marketing and business goals.

By the end of this stage, your project will be completed to the specifications outlined during Discovery.

Testing and Debugging – Making sure everything works

This is the behind-the-scenes work that we do to make sure that anything electronic does what it should. It means we see that your forms are programmed and functioning properly, your site links are working, your database is functioning, or your CD is running. It’s important during this stage to test on multiple browsers, multiple platforms and multiple computer systems. Some very different things may happen to a web site, CD or presentation on a Mac versus a PC, in Netscape versus Internet Explorer or on one laptop versus another desktop. We make sure that however customers access your information, it will be running at 100%.

Evaluation and Approval – Getting your feedback

Ultimately we want your stamp of approval. At the end of a project we will provide you with a project closure document that you can use to review each component of the finished product to be sure that we have met the project requirements. Once you are confident that we have met or exceeded your goals and expectations, we will close the project and begin the maintenance stage.

All of our electronic projects include 30 days of support for “bugs” or errors that may have been overlooked during the testing and debugging stage. This support is free of charge and provides an extra level of assurance that your product will function smoothly.

Maintenance – Keeping it fresh

This is the point where you often find yourself asking, “What now?” The “what now” is that we follow up either on a predetermined schedule or in an ongoing capacity to ensure the success of your endeavor. If you have a web site, this may mean keeping news current, adding additional content or embarking on a search engine marketing campaign. If you have a content or customer management system, this may mean providing additional training for you or your staff or tweaking features as you find that your needs have changed.

We also provide monitoring services to test and measure functionality and performance in order to isolate and eliminate bugs before they can impact your business processes or your ability to serve your customers effectively.

The important thing for you to know is that whenever you have a “what now” question, you can call or e-mail and we will gladly spend time with you to find the answer.

Support – Dealing with the unforeseen

If you use a computer, you will inevitably experience a crash, glitch or bug. While this behavior is not desirable, it is a reality of computers and software. The electronic products we produce are essentially custom software products. Bugs do creep in unexpectedly, and we’ll be there for you when they do.

We fully support the products we develop after they have been deployed either through an ongoing support retainer or on an as-needed basis.

If you have any questions about the way we work or would like to discuss your business plans, contact us for a free consultation.