Creating a website is a simple matter if you use online constructors. But they are all so similar that reputable firms have to look for webmasters or contact IT companies. At this stage of creating a resource, it is extremely important to specify the work of the wizard, that is, to draw up a technical task for the development of the site.
Why waste time on this?
No matter how educated a person is, he still remains a person and by any means tries to make his work easier. Therefore, customers do not always understand why write a technical task for the development of the site. After all, it is much easier to ask a webmaster to make a "website in blue with the logo of the company on the main page." But when the time comes for the delivery of the project, the customer sees something completely different from what he wanted. And the webmaster has to redo the resource again and again.
Terms of reference is not a "bureaucracy", but a rational act that saves time, nerves and money. For example, a certain company needs to developpresentation site, for a period of two weeks. And if you spend 2-3 days on creating a sample of the terms of reference for developing a website, then at the end of the term you can get a finished product. It will meet all the requirements that customers in the heat of the rush might forget to mention. On the other hand, the terms of reference for the development of the site is a guarantee of remuneration.
Wisdom of the past
If the customer is faced with the task of developing technical specifications, he does not have to reinvent the wheel, it is better to turn to the origins, which have been verified by many years of practical experience. That is, it is necessary to write a sample of the terms of reference for the development of the site in accordance with GOST. It would seem unrealistic to apply the 1978 standards to today's sites, but in the Soviet Union some things were great, and standards development is no exception, and besides, they are still relevant. Particular attention should be paid to the following standards:
- Requirements for content and design (GOST 19.201-78).
- Terms of reference for the creation of an automated system (GOST 34.602-78).
The first document is suitable for regular sites. It describes how to properly draw up the TOR, as well as the sections that you should definitely take into account when drawing up the terms of reference for the development of the site. These include:
- Introduction, which indicates the name of the customer company or resource, its brief description and scope.
- Grounds for creation. Here you needindicate the subject, indicate the documents confirming the need to create a resource, the name of the organization that approved this document. For example, the results of market research show that the majority of users are looking for products via the Internet, and this will be the basis for creating a site.
- Destination. The functional purpose of the resource is indicated. Informing, selling, etc.
- Resource requirements. This is the largest section where the customer describes all his wishes regarding the future web product. Here you need to specify the functionality, determine the level of reliability, describe the operating conditions, content, design, etc.
- Software requirements.
- Technical and economic indicators. That is, wishes are indicated regarding the level of conversion, advantages over competitors, economic efficiency.
- Stages of development. The customer sets the deadline for completing the task.
- Control. The types of verification are indicated.
The second GOST is suitable for creating portals with complex functionality. In general, the main objectives and points do not differ much from the first document, they just have more extensive characteristics. Based only on the information from the documents according to the GOST standard, you can create a full-fledged example of the terms of reference for the development of the site.
Features of drafting TK
How to draw up a technical task for the development of the site? The most important thing when compiling TOR is to constantly think about the main goals of the future document: it must be written in a languagewhich both developers and customers will understand.
Most often, when compiling an example of a technical task for the development of a site, the following points are considered the main ones:
- Customer information. It is necessary to briefly describe the field of activity, the history of the company, and make a list of the main competitors. This information is unlikely to be useful to programmers, but designers and copywriters need it.
- The purpose of the site. This block should contain key information that allows you to understand the structure of the future resource, functionality and the general direction of the design. It also describes the main target audience.
- Resource requirements. The largest section where you need to indicate your wishes regarding the structure, functionality, design, software, hosting, etc. You must also attach page thumbnails and a site map here.
- Action plan. Any template of terms of reference for the development of the site should include in its description the stages of development, the list of work that will be carried out at a certain stage and the timing of the order.
- Control and acceptance of work. The sample terms of reference for the development of the site should clearly describe how the compliance of the finished site with the specified requirements will be checked. It is important to carefully approach the implementation of this work in order to avoid misunderstandings with the customer.
Having worked through all these points in detail, you can quickly learn how to correctly compose the terms of reference for the development of the site.
Who should do it?
Basically, a sampleThe terms of reference for the development of the site can be drawn up by anyone. For example, the owner of a beauty salon needs a business card website. Here is the terms of reference, but whether such a technical specification will be useful is another question.
Usually a good technical background is the performer. Still, a web developer understands the creation of sites more than the owner of a beauty salon. But this does not mean at all that the client is absent throughout this process. Following the basic rules of the terms of reference for the development of the site, the customer must:
- Introduce performers to the firm, its products, services and target audience.
- Explain why he needed the site.
- Share your wishes for a future resource.
- Show examples of sites he thinks are good.
- Answer questions from the designer and web developer (if any).
The customer can sketch out the TK on his own, but, as practice shows, such amateurish sketches are usually quietly thrown into the trash.
Precision and uniqueness
Everything that is written in the examples and samples of technical specifications for the development of the site should be understandable for the client and the contractor. Such concepts as beautiful, modern, unique and others cannot be used, because everyone perceives them in their own way. This also applies to formulations that can be ambiguously understood. Everything must be clear and precise. You can’t write that the site can withstand more load, because it’s not clear how much theylarge. It is necessary to immediately deny the misunderstanding, specifying that the resource is able to withstand 50 thousand visitors at the same time. Any wording should be supported by numbers and precise characteristics.
Other details
When planning work on creating a site, you need to notify all development participants about what the company does and who its main target audience is. You also need to specify the purpose of the site and describe functional preferences so that you don’t get an entertainment blog instead of a serious online store.
In some cases, a glossary is included in the terms of reference for the development of a website. All complex terms are described in an understandable language so that an uninformed customer does not have questions about what and how they will do with his site.
Be sure to specify on which hosting the resource should be. Also, respectable performers will indicate in the terms of reference such an item as “work requirements”, where they indicate that the resource should be displayed in all browsers. Of course, this requirement is already understandable, but it is better to write it down so that the client is protected from unscrupulous performers.
In addition, the structure, design and layout are discussed with the customer, for clarity, the customer can draw a flowchart. The client needs to explain what each page of the site is for and what elements can be on it.
If you have to make a resource with a complex and non-standard interface, it will not be enough just to showsketch and page structure. It is extremely important that the entire development team and the customer himself understand how the average visitor will use the site. Therefore, it will be necessary to develop a script. His scheme is very simple:
- User action.
- Website response.
- Result.
Content & Design
It is also necessary to decide in advance who will be responsible for the content. In some cases, a developer can immediately make a website with content, involving professional copywriters, but then the cost of the resource will be more expensive. This must be agreed in advance and indicate all wishes regarding the content.
True, it will be difficult to objectively describe the content, because everyone has their own ideas about interestingness and usefulness, it’s easier to write that it will be unique. This is easy to check, and there will be no unnecessary claims. This problem also applies to design descriptions. The best solution would be to write in the terms of reference for the development of the site design what color scheme the customer wants, what font the inscriptions will be made in, etc. That is, indicate all positions in which accuracy appears. Perhaps these are all the rules for creating terms of reference for the development of the site. Now you need to put them into practice and try to create a competent TK on your own.
Template of terms of reference for website development
In this TOR, a table of terms is provided on the first page so that everything is clear what will be discussed. It should be noted that the designation of terms is not copied from"Wikipedia" or other resources, but are written by the person who is developing the terms of reference. The list of terms may include concepts such as:
- IP address.
- www (world wide web).
- Administrative part of the resource, administrator.
- Alternative caption for the picture.
- Web interface.
- Link, link.
- Website design, page design template.
- Dynamic and static page.
- Domain name.
- Meta tag.
- Content.
- Part of the resource is public.
- Backup, databases, file structure.
- Hosting.
- CMS.
After the glossary is created, you can start writing the terms of reference directly. First of all, general information is written. This paragraph is conditionally divided into four subparagraphs:
- The purpose of the document. The terms of reference for the development of the site is the main document that regulates the process of creating and accepting a resource.
- Customer data. The following coordinates are indicated: company name, contact details, legal address, actual address, e-mail, website (if it is being rebranded), contact person, contact phone number.
- Brief information about the company. For a sample of the terms of reference for the development of the site, consider the company Fortuna LLC. LLC "Fortuna" produces (goods) for the market of Novosibirsk. The company carefully monitors production hygiene, purity of raw materials and qualitymanufactured products. The company carries out certified control over the quality and safety of manufactured goods based on the principles of the international HACCP system.
- The basis for development. The basis for the development of the terms of reference is Contract No. _.
Purposes and purpose of the resource
The site is designed to increase the company's market share and raise the company's image on the web. The resource is created in order to increase the flow of new customers, create a favorable image, increase the popularity of the Fortuna LLC brand. Also, this resource will act as an additional platform for advertising campaigns, attract new customers and bring additional profit.
The main tasks of the resource is to provide the user with complete information about the product and service. The main target audience is retail buyers, in particular women housewives and wholesalers.
The site should have a convenient admin panel, page loading should be optimized for different devices. The resource must be protected from external attacks, use elements of the promotion of goods and services. In addition to full information about the product, the product card requires the presence of accompanying documents, such as quality certificates.
Technical requirements for the site
The site must be available on the Internet under a domain name (at the choice of the customer) and be an information structure consisting of interconnected sections with clearly defined functions. To maintain the site and its operation, personnel should notrequire special skills and knowledge in the field of software.
In a resource management system, it is important to have a mechanism for backing up information that will work automatically.
The site information is public. Depending on the extent of access rights, users are divided into three groups:
- Visitors - have access only to the public part of the site.
- Editor - has the ability to amend the section materials.
- Administrator - can appoint editors, add or remove sections.
Access to the administrative part of the site should be protected with a login and password.
Technical functionality must comply with the recommendations of search engines. First, the pages must have the same encoding. Secondly, link transitions must be implemented using the “A” tag. Thirdly, you need to specify the encoding in the HTTP headers, and when accessing the site using the site.ru link, you need to set a 301 redirect to the www.site.ru domain.
The resource should function in all modern browsers, so it is necessary to test in:
- IE 11.
- Safari & Chrome for iOS 9.0-9.2.
- Chrome 48.
- Firefox 44.
- Safari 9.
- Edge 13.
- Opera 34.
If the visitor is using an outdated browser, a window should appear prompting you to update it.
The site must have a logical distinction between user and administrative parts. Firstresponsible for providing information, the second - for filling the resource with content. Static pages consist of a title, text, and illustrations. The customer can edit them at his own discretion, as this information should not be related to the site configuration.
Hosting, content, structure
Next, the necessary system requirements are described, the development language is indicated (PHP with databases or plain HTML with CSS).
As for the content, the customer provides the developer with all the necessary materials that correspond to the list of mandatory content. Based on the data received, unique content is developed and posted on the site.
At the next stage of the development of the TOR, the structure of the site is developed. First, the main page and main menu items are described. After each is added a list of sub-items. This can be depicted graphically, but you will also need to describe each section, what should be there and what goals it will pursue.
For example, on the main page of the Fortuna LLC website there is a section "Production". Here it is important to reveal the advantages of the company against the background of competitors and to explain to the consumer in an accessible way why Fortuna LLC is better. Define information about the most purchased goods in separate subparagraphs and support it with photo and video materials. Other sections are developed in a similar way.
Design and functional requirements
If the resource is being improved, it should be noted whether theicons, fonts and colors. For a new site, all these positions are prescribed. For example, the color yellow-green is 9ACD32. It is better to provide the customer with a palette and prescribe the color code in the TOR in order to avoid inaccuracies. Each resource should display the same quality on all devices and dynamically adjust to screen sizes.
Every site has dynamic and static sections. Dynamic administrator can change independently, and static remain unchanged. The TOR must provide prototypes of the main page. The terms of reference for the development of an online store website must contain prototypes of catalogs and product cards. Usually the designer makes them and shows them to the customer, only after that they get into the specification.
Be sure to prepare a typical page layout with different variations of text formatting and information output.
Content and submission process
The customer may ask to fill the resource with primary information, but in this case he takes responsibility for providing the correct data to the performers. It is accepted only in electronic form and at the last stage of development.
The grounds for accepting the site are:
- Compliance with TK.
- Testing for the correct display of pictures.
- Testing functionality.
At the end of each TOR, you must write the order and timing of the project. In general, all work can be divided into 3 stages:
- Design development,approval, sketch layout.
- Software development.
- Filling the site with information.
Near each of these items, the due date in days is indicated. In accordance with the Agreement, the period may vary. If this is not provided, a change in the time of the deadline is carried out by written agreement of the parties.
Benefit
The terms of reference are useful for both the client and the contractor. The former understand what they are paying money for, can immediately see the competence of the performer and insure themselves against dishonest performance of the work. In turn, the TOR helps the contractor understand what the customer wants and thus insure himself against sudden changes. This is especially true when the project is almost finished, but the customer wanted to change something, because of this "something" all the work will have to be redone.
