Our Services and Work Practice

Chapter Three is a full-service open-source consultancy. We're not not only experts at designing great websites and deploying them using open-source tools like Drupal, we're also experts in using the web to achieve real-world results.

Strategy and Consulting

With years of real-world experience in the emerging practice of "organizing without organizations," we know first-hand the value and necessity of effective strategy and clear vision. Our clients get the benefit of this expertise in the form of plans and advice which address their purpose and organization holistically, and which leverage their network to its fullest extent.

Graphic and User Interface Design

We pride ourselves on creating innovative and creative designs that not only look good but also function well and achieve the goals of the site. For sites with ambitious goals, attention to usability and user-experience is key. Our design team works hand in hand with our development team to produce beautiful, usable, friendly websites. More.

Open Source Web Development

We are experienced in all aspects of the modern web development process, from engineering to hosting and quality assurance. We embrace open-source technologies and agile methods in all our projects. More

Expert Services

Beyond the meat and potatoes work of web development, we have in-house expertise on topics like scalability testing, security, jQuery/AJAX, APIs and integrations, memcached and other high-performance architecture, and more. We bring a holistic knowledge of the whole stack, from server hardware to the client browser.

Training and Support

Our commitment to building capacity means imparting the necessary skills, knowledge and vision to clients in order to duplicate our expertise. Ideally we "work ourselves out of a job" within the life-cycle of a project, leave client organizations better off: more informed, more empowered, and more confident.

Process

We get the job done and we get it done right. Our process for delivering successful web projects is based on both industry best practices and years of experience with what happens in the trenches. The basic Chapter Three engagement follows the following arc:

Needs Assessment

Many web projects, even those based on the most worthy ideas and concepts, begin with a handicap because they lack specificity of vision. In our experience, the road to success begins by identifying what success means in such a way that you know if you've gotten there or not. Our consulting and planning services are oriented around measurable deliverables and quantifiable business goals.

Design / Architecting

The design phase is where vital branding and marketing goals are first addressed, and where a site really gets its character. Because of the richness of visual communication, we see the design process as a best-practice place to produce the roadmap for development. Web projects which are based off of a set of full visual compositions (comps), backed by simple layout sketches (wireframes) and a plainly-written list of features (spec) are vastly more likely to be delivered on time, on budget, and succeed in the marketplace than those which are not.

Iterative (Agile) Development

Our projects have multiple stages of development with defined deliverables. We also insist on buy-in and participation from stakeholders. Together these create a cycle in which results are refined, and expertise is transferred. This is a powerful alternative to the laborious "waterfall" method of exhaustive and inflexible requirements planning, and vastly superior to the all too frequet reality of a "fire and forget" process of building a site to match a hasty set of requirements and calling it "done."

Quality Assurance

In a world where everything launches as a beta, the line between "right" and "good enough" can sometimes become blurred into obscurity. We never let the perfect be the enemy of the good, but we also believe in delivering bug-free, scalable, functional products.

Release!

This is where the magic happens. A release cycle is generally intense, as deadline pressure brings straggling stakeholders to the table, as well as forcing additional bugs out of the woodwork. Once the green light is given, we're ready to handle host configuration, deployment and activation directly.

Capacity Building

We are adamant that our clients have the knowledge, tools and practices they need to do their jobs after we are out of the picture. We also angle towards a marketplace and a world where our field is increasingly competitive and crowded. That means building capacity, transferring knowledge, and creating expertise.