Website development process step by step

I think that is way too sophisticated for most web sites.  Web sites are an exchange of information.  The client can find out about the business and contact the business.  Even Ecommerce is an information exchange.

The obvious things for a business web site, even a large one, are information on the business, contact forms for the client to contact the business, and then product related information and possibly ordering.

I would make a list of the things that the web site can do for that particular business and pare it down to the things it should do.

Hi Dave
What exactly did you mean by "pare it down to the things it should do"?

Additionally I also noted your comments about the complexity of the website, however please note that the business will require a website which provides much more features listed.

We need the following features:
1.   Requirements CRUD (Customer and Internal)
2.   Request for Quotes CRUD
3.   Quote CRUD
4.   Order CRUD
5.   Invoice CRUD
6.   Shipment CRUD
7.   Customer CRUD
8.   Supplier CRUD
9.   Product Catalogue
10. A couple of web-services

Once a customer creates his or her requirements, he or she should be able to track all the Request for Quotes, Quotes, Orders, Invoices and Shipments, that are related to a particular requirement.

Our company is into distribution so in some cases we will be using web-services to request quotes and order products from suppliers.

Finally based on what I have just indicated, do you think that the approach that I initally suggested is too complex?

I think your feature list is much more important for the web site.  The web site does not normally represent all of what the business does.  Any of those items that the customer can access must be split between customer and internal access.  

And one of the biggest items will be SECURITY!  All caps because there is clearly money involved and that attracts hackers and thieves.  You may end up with two databases, one for internal use and a different isolated one for web access.  If you are collecting and storing credit card data, then you must implement PCI-DSS security which is both data and physical.

Finally, just a couple of questions based on what you mentioned:

1. Will you recommend placing the two databases on the same server?
2. How is the data transferred from the web database to the internal database?

1. Depends on needs, no particular recommendation... except that the web database should have only data that is used by the web site, nothing else.
2. Just an update or transfer procedure done daily or as needed.

Hi Dave,

In your first comment, Posted on 2014-01-03 at 10:27:40 ID: 39754532, referring to the website design process I mentioned in the opening question you mentioned, "I think that is way too sophisticated for most web sites." However, considering that the business is a start-up, I believe that such steps are vital for success. Could you therefore comment on the two following questions?

1. Can UML alone be used for the Logical Data Modeling step?
2. Are there any other steps that can be included?

I have never used UML or "Logical Data Modeling" so I wouldn't know what other steps might be included.  After a little reading in Wikipedia, I can see where they might be useful.  But in doing 100 web sites, those concepts have never come up.  Though maybe they should have a few times.  It's hard to get small business owners to even list their requirements.  They are usually stuck on the "panic of the moment".

Please click on "Request Attention" above to get others to look at your question.

You have already had lots of good stuff above.
I will just add my 2 cents:
1 - you plan on site building; however you must also anticipate what will happen when the site will be up and running: is your customer aware of all the tasks that will need to be done sitewise (add new products, change prices, make season promos etc.) and for delivery (ie stocks, delivery, tracking, etc);
-- some of this is not your turf, however you must ensure of their awareness;
-- some of this is your turf: who will update? whether it is you or not, some work is involved from you and should be billed (even if you do not handle updates, you will need to train the updaters!)
2 - For design, just to insist on Dave's comment: consider that you web database might be destroyed or hacked... so place there as few info as possible; and your order/ stock / customers database should be accessable ONLY thru 1 or 2 machines

Hi,

I think these apply more to software development.
By experience even long time company don't take the time to do the things correctly because they need money (fast money).
These steps are overkilled for website development to my opinion.

Most of the time Website are marketing tools to attract new customer.
Know the domain, client, competitor (the market).
Use your own code try not depend of CMS or Framework.
Think about visual, mobile, responsive aspect, navigation, security, social network
and the content.

Good luck