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Anyway, I currently teach web design and I have looked far and wide to find a definitive description of the life cycle of a web site. I can find a lot of generic information, but they tend to be geared towards content specific life cycles.
Are there any resources or links people could post that could point me in the right direction please?
I would be most grateful, thanks in anticipation.
It really depends upon your sites' purpose as to its life. That's why i'm not sure you'll find a definitive period.
Or are you referring to what happens after a site goes live and the work done to keep it fresh?
Do you think you can be more specific as to what you mean by life cycle? Life cycle of content, life cycle of systems, life cycle of business viability? What you design and promote a site as, and indeed one's perception of what the web in general is, will affect its "life cycle" immensely-- I suspect a entertainment or community site would follow a different trajectory from a webmail provider or online marketplace.
I guess what I am trying to get at is an explanation of the following quote, taken from the syllabus I am delivering:
Site life cycle: regular site maintenance to improve usefulness and relevance
I need to explain the above to my students and they need to provide evidence that shows they are able to:
Understand how websites should be managed in terms of updating, development and organisation
I hope this makes my question a little easier to understand
If you have a content-rich site pertaining to a subject with a very fast mutability factor, its life-cycle may/probably will be long - AS LONG as you update it regularly to keep up with that mutable nature. If you let it lie fallow, it will die a death either slow or not so, depending on the nature of the site and the folks who access it.
On the other hand, if your site is more "stable" (that is, not particularly changeable due to the nature of its content - like, say, a site with grammar and vocabulary for one of the living languages), then its life-span/cycle may be long whether or not you update frequently, since its value lies in what's THERE no matter how "new" (or not so) it is.
I have the feeling that you might like (if you can/are allowed) to rephrase/excise that quote in the syllabus somehow - as adding a hugely complex dimension to something which might not NEED that complexity.... Actually, I think that statement might become a full-semester class in its own right!
1) "Life cycle" re: Maintenance Schedule
The more dynamic the product cycle, and/or the competitive environment, the more frequent the need for content and marketing management.
In an environment where the products come and go quickly (food, seasonal, etc.), the sites need to be updated often, and usually the marketing efforts need to reflect that. You don't want the beef spoiling on the rack, after all. If the competition is fierce and/or expensive, as is often the case with popular web marketing in common arenas, then you'll want to be aggressive in updating the site content to make the most of aggressive demographic info-gathering campaigns and to balance your marketing budget needs. There are different challenges in managing product and managing consumer psychology and market dynamics, and each demands very different kinds of content management.
2) "Life cycle" re: Viability Curve
How long does a website remain viable? What are the activity profiles for various types of sites? What could you teach that would enable your students to gain a practical understanding of these things that would be useful in the field?
Again, agreeing with vkaryl, this is dependent on the goals for the site. If you need to sell an overstock of 5,000 widgets in two weeks, you can easily imagine a brief, focused life cycle for a site to promote that. If you want to create a web community, you're talking years and a very different life cycle with extremely different needs in almost every management category.
Regarding your immediate need to teach this stuff..(!)
IMO, you could satisfy the syllabus' requirements by addressing this variety. As part of your course, you could integrate each student's project as a case study, asking the class to discuss life cycle challenges for that student's type of site as the program proceeds. The students would come away with a perception of the true nature of the demands in the field, and, perhaps, be on their way to being able to think creatively as the professional situation requires during their careers.
Fun, huh? :)
As an example, on one of my web sites, I sell a product. I guess I could be classified as a "value-added reseller". (The product itself, though, would be useless to the average person unless they had the equipment to do what I, and many others do.)
The product doesn't change much, so the content of my web site doesn't need to change either. It's usually several years before major changes to the product line are made, and usually nothing earth-shattering that requires any more than a simple update.
So, in terms of content, the site has a pretty long useful lifespan. It's been online with only minor changes for maybe 5 or 6 years now.
But, one thing that has changed is the technology and people's expectations. My ordering system, while good and fairly "modern" at the time which it was built, is woefully out of date. It accomplishes its purpose, but it is not up to date with current technology and customers' expectations.
In fact, it could have been, and should have been (it *is* a work in progress...) updated years ago.
Anyway, my point is that content may be viable a lot longer than the underlying technology of the web site. So, that's just something else to factor in: the "it gets the job done" factor versus "meets or exceeds current customer expectations" factor.
The life-cycle will also be affected by technology changes.
Those changes also come in the form of standards. What was the life cycle of the vernerable table, now being replaced by CSS layout.
It really was very simple. None of the modern flashy stuff the braggarts thought was so important. He hadn't touched the site in five years. But it kept sending him very nice checks every month.
So, while maintenance and updating are important for many sites, stability and familiarity are also important. I would hope you teach your students that updates should have a reason behind them, and that some form of measurement and tracking of results is very important.
Readers do not like change in the basic format.
Google, for example, is as cutting edge as you can get. And they seldom make changes to their format. (They just made a major change for the first time in over a couple of years.)
The web site style needs to be stable so that when you get to the site, you know that you are there.
WedmasterWorld's format and graphics are far from cutting edge and hasn't been changed in a long time. Do we, us hip cutting edge webmasters, care? Nah.
But the content changes minute by minute, which makes it a really fun place to just hang.
Good design on the web is first and foremost about ease of use. What makes for ease of use? Uh, gotta go, I think I hear my mother calling me...
However, in the past few years at least, web technology has been changing, and a site which is 5+ years old will probably need at least a few changes.
While it is true that if you write good valid code in the first place, it will stand you in good stead, there are good reasons why some sites need to be redeveloped after a time. For example people are now moving static HTML sites over to database driven ones, and we are using css more widely as browser support improves. Maybe these necessary changes will settle down as the web grows older.
With regard to content, obviously there are some sites which need products to be updated and changed on a daily basis. Other sites which do not require constant updating should, IMHO get regular updates anyway as this keeps readers and SE spiders coming back for more, and demonstrates that the site is not 'dead'.
Helen.
But on sites that are doing well making money I'm very careful to avoid updating for the sake of updating. I only add content. Very seldom change layout or navigation, even if some new idea looks better.
I have one site that has stagnated. It still gets traffic from the search engines, but no money. So I guess its life cycle has come to an end. Time to rebuild, but for a good reason. It ain't workin'. It was online for six years, did ok, I updated it with new technology one year ago, and it went south for the winter.
I would remind students that there isn't really any standard approach to life cycle other than going online, ramping up traffic, and trying to keep it there or grow it. When and why to update depends upon the nature of the site and its present performance and potential. Monitoring and measurement are the keys.
Whereas there are those who might call that cheating, there are also those who think it's simply smart since there are millions of people out there who look FIRST at when a page was updated, instead of worrying about the content ITSELF....
And (slightly belatedly) welcome to WebmasterWorld, maccer01!
