In my previous article, staying focus on the main goal of the site is paramount. It keeps the site cohesive and development on track. So how do you determine the goal of the main site? Well, you might not know exactly. You might have an idea of what you want the site to do, but we don’t have it nailed down. This is where feedback comes.
In some of my previous web development jobs, months were spent developing a requirement document that outlined what the site was suppose to do. Then another several months were spent developing the site based on the specification. This hardly ever worked. The main reason being is that the user of the site was never given a chance to provide their feedback. Instead, you had several folks from management to developers making assumptions about the user. There’s nothing wrong with making some initial assumptions about the users of a site. However, you want to get something out in front of the user as soon as possible to determine if those assumptions are correct.
Once you get feedback from the user, you can turn around and make those necessary changes to the site and get it back out in front of the users again. This process, known as an iterative process or release early release often, should continue for the duration of the project.
Another good read on this subject is The Hardest Lessons for Startups To Learn by Paul Graham.