GIVEN THAT YOU’RE READING the introduction to a Wrox book about Ektron, you likely have (or will soon have) some level of technical responsibility for a website powered by the Ektron Framework. Maybe you’re tasked with the duty of maintaining an existing site and are looking for information to help make that process more effi cient; or maybe you’re developing a new site and are in need of deep technical information, best practices, and step-by-step guidance showing how to build a website from the ground-up using the Ektron framework. Whichever it is, you are involved in a Web project of some form, and you’ve most likely picked up this book to gain some level of technical competency with the Ektron Framework.

This book will cover the Ektron Framework in great technical depth, covering step-by-step instructions, best practices, and tips and tricks, in a way that is useful for someone needing to build a new website, maintain an existing one, or something in the middle. The book goes beyond the basics of technical competency with the Ektron platform, however, and helps you gain a solid understanding of how to achieve success with your Ektron Web projects. From a developer’s standpoint, becoming technically profi cient in Ektron is a prerequisite for this success; but when all is said and done, your project’s success depends on more than just your knowledge of how to get the latest gadget on your website.

What makes a Web project successful? Far too often, Web projects begin without the proper preparation work in place to ensure their success. Web projects can fail for a great number of reasons, but most often, they break down when they fail to follow a standardized and proven methodology. A methodology is a defi ned set of repeatable steps that can better guarantee a successful outcome. Following a methodology ensures that the result of your project is aligned to the needs of the business, addresses all of the components of the site’s user experience and is a technically solid solution, able to scale and perform in a way that supports your organization’s objectives. It also helps the team to understand whether or not success has been achieved because it compares the project’s progress against the milestones and success metrics established during project planning.

Although this type of planning may sound unimportant to a developer “just” trying to build a website, it’s important to understand what makes a Web project successful; even if some of the responsibilities aren’t a part of your day-to-day job description, the ultimate responsibility for a Web project’s success typically falls on the laps of those closest to it. This book was written to provide Web developers and technical project managers with the overarching knowledge needed to achieve success with their Ektron Web projects — including information on both technology and methodology.

The approach taken in this book is to fi rst cover Ektron’s recommended project discovery process, discussing the methodology employed by Ektron Professional Services, and learning about the documentation generated as part of this process, all of which ensures a successful Web project. This process stems from ten years of experience during which the Ektron professional services team developed over 1,000 successful websites for its customers. Over this time, the team not only developed a comprehensive website design methodology, but also enhanced and optimized that methodology to service the specifi c considerations unique to implementing an Ektron powered website.