Production includes everything from writing visual and content style guides that document your visual decisions, converting your existing site to your new designs, creating any custom graphics like headers and buttons, and the actual coding of the pages using HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and more.
Attention to Detail
Although this site isn’t really concerned with the nuts and bolts of actually building out your design, building can be a very tricky phase. You’ve got to ensure the site’s behavior is implemented as specified, any visual design choices are followed consistently, and the content ends up where it should be. Production is all about the details. Constantly go back and make sure you’re not deviating from your plans. Production is where the information architecture, interaction design, and visual design of the previous phases can be brought to life.
Working with Your Site Producers
Good communication skills are a must if someone who isn’t you is building the site! It will be a very collaborative process and your design will probably change as production continues. Sometimes elements are sacrificed, and sometimes parts of the design improve. Maybe you just can’t code your page the way your beautiful wireframe specifies, so you need to find the next-best solution, both from the production standpoint but also the interaction design standpoint. Expect a lot of back and forth discussions and make sure you have the flexibility to make changes.