A lot of collaborators (non-IT or beginner in the field) think that any IT project can be solved just by typing the source code but it's far to be sufficient.

When we start a new Website or application, we need to think in project mode not in task mode ! 

Work in project mode requires a specific team organization in which there are not only developers but also functional analysts, project managers and eventually test engineers.

A good web project is a set of pieces that we get together and to do it, you need to follow these steps:

Analysis

Without this step, there's no project ! 

When you build a house, the architect defines plans, foundations and materials in order to communicate the requirements to the construction team.

In the IT sector, it's exactly the same! We need to discuss with the customer to create mock-ups, to describe the functionalities, conditions, user profiles and expecting results.

Development

Once you know the context, you can start to code. The team will choose technical languages to cover as better as possible the need.

Some people prefer to code a solution from scratch or use existing frameworks.

Back-end developers will create the database and rest api's that will be used by front-end developers.

Anyway, the most important is to structure the code, preferably with a design pattern such as MVC that is very popular (especially if the project is growing up). Of course, for a single page with a contact form is not necessary.

Another important thing for a good practise is to write the code in English with understanding variables or functions names (not var1, var2,...) and also create generic functionalities or constants to avoid duplicates.

On the side, you can also use a versionning tool to retrieve the last coding changes and if you are too busy to write technical documentation, I recommend to explain in a "readme" file the technical flow by choosing a module of your choice that you already created. So, you could dive more quickly into the project the next time especially if you switched in the meantime in another one and it could be very helpful for new colleagues who need to handle the project. 

Testing

That's an essential step before showing the final result. Every functionality and scenario are checked by the testing engineer or development team in order to fix major bugs and display issues.

Conclusion

- Write detailled requirements + mockups

- Choose the best technical solution for your project

- The code must be clear and understandable

- Use a versioning tool (GIT)

- Explain the technical flow

- Test each feature to provide a good result