Prepare the finishing touches

The development version contains all the front- and back-end work that the team has produced throughout the project. Now, all that work moves to a client-friendly stage version for review and approval. And from there, it becomes the live version.

Define the stage version

What the stage version looks like and the number of times it’s reviewed depends on three factors: the size of the project, the client’s comfort level with interactive products, and the client’s level of engagement with the project. We use stage to refer to any version of the end product that’s ready for the client to review.

For the sake of simplicity, the diagram of our process in Chapter 5 shows a single, linear path from development to stage version to live version (Figure 5.1). But there doesn’t have to be—and in most cases there shouldn’t be—only one big reveal. The client can monitor progress, and your team can receive intermittent feedback, by reviewing the stage version throughout the project.