Managing Website Development Teams

Traditional approaches to web development are typically plagued by a variety of problems that can stall projects. Miscommunication, unclear expectations, content creation bottlenecks and HTML formatting delays are commonplace with web development. Adding to these problems is the reality that each party is often dependant on the other to complete tasks before they can move forward. The grayscreen prototyping process was employed to overcome these problems and enable clear communication between Newfangled and the committee from New England Gas Company.


Newfangled began the project by creating an HTML grayscreen prototype of the proposed website. This grayscreen prototype allowed Newfangled to work closely with New England Gas Company to define three key aspects of the site: its structure, content and functionality. The prototype allowed the project team at New England Gas Company to see their site's structure in the context of HTML, giving them the ability to grasp and evaluate its subtleties. Newfangled's specialized prototyping tools allowed the development team to modify the site's structure quickly in real time as new ideas, suggestions, and refinements were proposed during the project's initial brainstorming sessions. Using their prototyping tools, Newfangled was able to work efficiently with New England Gas Company to finalize the structure of the site during the first few days of the project.

The grayscreen prototype was visually generic in order to keep the focus off of the site's visual design and on the three key elements of structure, content, and functionality. This approach allowed us to define these elements clearly, using a tangible structure that eliminates confusion and miscommunication inherent in traditional web development methods. Once completed, the prototype became the blueprint by which the actual functioning website was constructed.