We have learned a LOT over the last ten years and one of them is that there’s no substitution for great web development.

First and foremost Rapport is a design firm – we want everything to look great and communicate how it’s intended to. There are tools that let designers build websites, but when you want to do something complicated, you really need great back-end web development so it’s stable, well tested, thought out, a progressive solution and lasts a few years.

Test, Test, Test

We have to remember we are talking about someone’s business, and there’s no worse feeling than discovering a site just promoted isn’t working right. Especially if it’s on a Friday afternoon and no one can help for days! Good back-end web development is tested thoroughly across common browsers. It needs to be thoroughly tested again once moved live from the test servers to its live environment.

Go Open Source With Big Communities

When I say stable, I mean two things. One, the solution isn’t so jerry-rigged with bubblegum and duct tape that it will break the moment the server hiccups. And two, that it’s not built on some obscure system that can’t be broadly supported. What if the developer disappears or can’t figure something out and there’s no help? We often do custom back-ends, but built on common platforms.

What if I Said You Could…

Marketers and clients often have ideas on what they want to happen from the user’s perspective, and what they want it to look like. If that can be clearly expressed, good web developers are up on the latest technology and will probably have ideas to achieve what you want and more, in ways you couldn’t imagine. Great back-end web development is staying current and solving problems. They really understand the possibilities and how it will work in complex situations.

I Need a New What?

If you let another developer look beneath the hood, they will probably tell you it’s obsolete and not done right. It probably is obsolete a few months after launch – the nature of rapidly developing technology. Plus, there’s more than one way to skin a cat and each web developer would do it differently. But a well-developed site should last about five years. Learn when it’s time for a new one here.

Design vs Back-end

I’ve always believed there should be a separation of the front-end design and web development – done by two entirely different kinds of thinkers. Good back-end web development becomes the backbone of or the springboard for creative and let’s our imaginations soar!