Web Project Roles and Responsibilities

It is always a good idea for youthful and enthusiastic individuals know the different roles and responsibilities of the industry that they are entering. I've always believed that one of the main problems this industry has is the general immaturity that is a result of such a young industry. Bright individuals whom are involved in Internet technologies tend to be promoted quickly, and there is a large turn over of staff in most high tech companies. What does this result in? Well in a majority of cases this has meant that project managers and are inexperienced and developers very new to the industry. This is not the case today, in the last year I have witnessed a great maturity in the market place and a great number of additional positions created to ensure quality and efficient development of web projects.

Below I briefly describe a number of new positions that have appeared over the last couple of years. In some cases many of these roles are the responsibility of one person in other cases the role may be the responsibility of a number of people.

Internet and Business Analyst

The Internet and business analyst will define the purpose of the site. They will produce a document outlining primary goals, target markets and business objectives in order to achieve a high level of satisfaction. The Business analyst will identify areas of the business that are affected as a result of online integration and at a basic level tasks that the web site should support.
Internet and business analysts are responsible for the ultimate success of the website in realistic business terms, for example increase sales, market penetration or brand repositioning.
Business analyst will have current knowledge of case studies concerning successful and unsuccessful website, intranets and extranets. They will be expert in online business opportunities.
The business analyst produces documentation that defines the scope of a website, any organisational constraints and identifies area which of a business that are effected by the website.

User Experience Engineer

The user experience engineer works with the target audience to define user profiles for the web site. By carrying out numerous tasks that aid to define critical user interface elements the user experience engineer defines design and usability features that are required to support an enjoyable user experience.
User experience engineers will have expert knowledge in user analysis and user experience validation techniques. They validate the user experience by defining user goals, task flows and measuring these against site goals.
But what is the user experience? The user experience is the interaction a customer has with the business. This includes browsing the website, making an online purchase to fulfilling the order; it is everything they see, click and read. Consumers will explain their experience in terms of ease of use and how they feel during interaction.
User experience engineers produce documentation that outlines end user goals, tasks that support these goals and task performance measurements.

Information Architect

The information architect chunks information into digestible pieces that require no supporting information to make sense. They employ classification and categorisation techniques to organise information into logical and target specific elements.
Information architects are responsible for the design of information and information relationships, search model design and site structure. They are expert in content analysis and classification design.
The information architect produces documentation that specifies content types, attributes and relationships. They also outline content categories and categorisation rules to ensure maintainable content structure.
Interface Designer
An interface designer will transform task flows into design requirements. Interface designers require documentation from user experience engineers to form visual layout definitions for a web site.
The interface designer will deliver a style guide containing information such as fonts, images sizes and templates for each content page type.

System Architect

The systems architect is responsible for the development of a hardware and software solution for the client and project at hand. They produce system integration documents that explain the relationships between different systems required to operate the project. They are also responsible for security design both at a networking level and at a software level.
Web developers to code systems that meet the requirements of the client use documents produced by system architects.

Content Manager

In some large website is necessary to manage content to ensure timeliness and accuracy. Content may originate from a number of differing sources some content may already exist while other content will need to be created specifically for the web site while other content will need to be modified so that it works better in the online environment.
The content manger will create a content schedule document which serves as a map for the development team so that they know when and in what form to expect content to arrive. Knowing this information is essential to deliver web projects online and in budget.
The person or people responsible for content management will interface with clients on a regular basis, they may also be responsible for the conversion of documents between the client and developers.

Content Creator

The content creator is the person or persons responsible for the development of content to be delivered online. In most cases this will be the client, however in other cases there may be a role created to massage the content delivered by the client into a more web friendly form.
Documents that are produced by content creators take the form of database records, word processor documents and spreadsheets.

Website Developer

And finally the web developer/s, who are responsible for actually building the website. In the old days web developers did every thing, not very well a Jack of all trades one might say. Today the web developer concentrates on using online technologies to produce online content. They use a number of technologies and documentation produced by system architects, user experience designers, business analysts, content managers and content creators to build websites.
Web developers use server side technologies to retrieve information from a database, word processing document or spreadsheet and client side technologies to present that information in a web viewable form.