Web Development

SITUATION

Refactoring a website is an elastic process with extremely variable scope depending on the components that need to be updated. Sometime a site needs minor UI tweaks, and sometimes the only way to achieve the desired effect is a complete back-end and front-end overhaul. However, most of the time there is a middle ground. NBC Universal had ambitious goals for its media hub site, Media Village. However, NBC wanted to give the site an entirely new look while continuing to use their existing content management system and web-service architecture.

NBC set an aggressive schedule for this project, so they needed to partner with a team that had solid expertise in agile development methods and a firm understanding of the project agenda. In addition, they wanted a team that could work effectively with offshore developers.

SOLUTION

NBC chose to partner with Digital Foundry because of our implementation expertise and our ability to deliver on an aggressive timeline. In order to make sure that the project went smoothly, we created a clear implementation plan. As the project progressed, we made adjustments to the implementation plan to address changing requirements. This approach made it easy to refine and build on feature sets as new features were requested along the way. We also kept in close communication with the client's development teams, both on and offshore, to ensure that the internal deliverables were ready on time. The open lines of communication provided assurance that the project dependencies were well aligned and that the expected development efficiency was realized.

Digital Foundry worked with the project stakeholders as well as the on and offshore development teams to reskin the entire front-end of the Media Village website. We looked at every aspect of the site, from the user experience to the CSS, and created a new look and feel driven by the existing CMS and supported by existing web services. Our experience with agile development methodologies gave our client the level of visibility and communication necessary to make the refactoring project a success.

RESULTS

Through close collaboration with our client and their development teams, we helped our clients:

• Integrate an existing content management system: Digital Foundry project leads ensured that the company's existing CMS and information architecture mapped to the desired changes and made modifications where needed in order to gain efficiency for the new site.
• Maintain flexibility: By using the agile development methodology, we were able to adjust and refine features for the site on a sprint-by-sprint basis in order to meet the changing needs of the stakeholders.
• Implement an architectural refactor: In addition to the UI redesign, we also worked with the offshore development team to refactor the system architecture so that our clients would experience significant improvements with the site's performance.