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The method, published

Five phases.You can stop after any of them.

Strategy, design, build, launch, run. Every phase has a gate at the end of it and produces a document you own, and the fourteen checks a build passes before it goes live are listed here by name.

You can hold a vendor to a list. This is the list, published before you hire us rather than described afterwards.

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The five phases

HUREAL / Material studies

The five phases

What happens,in the order it happens.

Three facts under every phase: how long it runs, which of your people it needs, and what you hold at the end of it. The last one is the one that matters, because it is the thing you keep if you stop there.

  1. 01

    Discovery call. Start with the scope, or start with the evidence.

    Book a discovery call if you know what you want built: a conversation with the people who own the outcome, followed by a written proposal. Request a performance audit if you want the evidence first. The proposal and the audit are yours either way.

    The call is not a pitch. It covers the work as it runs today, what a system could take over first and what stays with your people, the systems involved, and the arithmetic with your numbers rather than ours.

    How long
    One call, then the written proposal. The audit is delivered in days to set business days.
    Your people
    The people who own the outcome.
    You end up with
    A written proposal with a scope, a price, and a timeline you can sign or walk away from, or the audit document, which is yours either way.
  2. 02

    Design. Fixed scope, price, and timeline, signed before any code.

    Not an hourly rate, not a range, and not a change order six weeks in. The number you sign is the number, and the things it does not include are listed next to the things it does, in the same document and in the same type.

    The decisions that are expensive to reverse are made here, while they are still cheap to change: what the build will not do, where a person stays in the loop, which system owns which field, and what the language and accessibility targets are.

    How long
    Set in the signed proposal.
    Your people
    One read of the document, and one conversation about what it excludes.
    You end up with
    A signed scope, price, and date, and a written list of what is not in it.
  3. 03

    Build. In the open, in your accounts.

    Working software on a review schedule agreed at the start, not a reveal at the end. If something is going to be late, you hear it from us in the review, with the new date and the reason, rather than from the calendar.

    The build runs in your own cloud accounts, under your admin access, from the first commit. There is nothing to hand over at the end because nothing was ever held anywhere else.

    How long
    Set in the signed proposal, with the review schedule agreed in it.
    Your people
    One reviewer at each review, plus whoever owns the systems being connected.
    You end up with
    Working software at every review, in your accounts, from the first one.
  4. 04

    Launch. Against a published checklist.

    The same fourteen checks every time, listed by name further down this page rather than summarised as quality assurance. They are run against the finished build, the result is recorded per check, and the record is a deliverable rather than a note in somebody's inbox.

    The last check is not technical. It is your own team signed in to your own accounts, with admin access confirmed, before launch day rather than after it.

    How long
    The checklist runs against the finished build. Fourteen checks, the same fourteen every time.
    Your people
    Your team signs in to your accounts and confirms admin access before launch day.
    You end up with
    A launch record against fourteen named checks, and the accounts already in your name.
  5. 05

    Run. Monthly, and cancellable.

    Improvement, monitoring, content, and reporting. Stop whenever you want. The system stays yours and keeps running, because it was never running anywhere else.

    A small number of changes done properly each month, prioritised from what users actually did rather than from what a roadmap said in January.

    How long
    Monthly, for as long as you want it. Cancellable at any time.
    Your people
    One read of the monthly report, and one call to pick what changes next.
    You end up with
    A written monthly report: what happened, what changed, what it produced, and what did not work.

The gates

A phase endswhen a document exists.

Not when the hours are used up and not when a status call says so. Every phase has one gate, the gate is an artefact rather than an opinion, and you hold a copy of it before the next phase starts.

The gate at the end of each phase
Phase The gate What you hold afterwards
01 Strategy A scope, a price and a date exist as one document, and the people who own the outcome have read it. That document, whether or not you continue.
02 Design What the build will not do is written next to what it will, and both are signed. A signed scope and a written list of exclusions.
03 Build Working software at every review, in your accounts, reviewed by you rather than demonstrated at you. The working build, and a review record with the dates and what changed.
04 Launch All fourteen published checks run against the finished build, with a result recorded against each one. A launch record naming fourteen checks, and admin access already confirmed in your accounts.
05 Run A written report each month: what happened, what changed, what it produced, and what did not work. The report, every month, and the right to stop without losing anything.

Scroll the table sideways to read it.

Two of these gates can be failed by HUREAL rather than by the client, and they are the ones that matter. A review where the software does not work is a review that failed, and it is reported as one with a new date and a reason. A launch check that does not pass stops the launch, which is the only reason to publish the checks by name in the first place.

The launch checklist

Fourteen checks,by name.

Every HUREAL build passes these before it goes live. They are published rather than summarised because a category cannot be audited and a list can.

Every HUREAL build passes these before it goes live

  1. Speed on a mid range phone on a cellular connection. Not on a new phone on office wifi.
  2. Keyboard and screen reader. Every path completed with no mouse, and read aloud end to end.
  3. Contrast and text sizing, checked against the WCAG 2.2 AA standard on the surface we shipped.
  4. Reduced motion, honoured. Anything that moves has a still version that still communicates.
  5. Every language read by a person who writes it, including forms, errors, and automated email.
  6. Forms tested to the inbox and to the CRM, with the acknowledgement received.
  7. Tracking verified end to end, from the click to the recorded conversion to the report.
  8. Redirects mapped from every old URL, so existing search rankings survive the move.
  9. Structured data validated on each page type.
  10. Crawler access checked, for search engines and for AI crawlers.
  11. Security: certificates, headers, dependency versions, admin access review, and rate limits.
  12. Backups taken and a restore actually performed, not just configured.
  13. Error monitoring and alerting live, pointing at a person.
  14. Admin access confirmed in your accounts, with your team signed in before launch day.

You can hold a vendor to a list. Read it before you hire us. Every one of the fourteen is a thing somebody can check on a Tuesday afternoon, which is the only kind of promise worth printing.

Ownership

Yours from the first commit,not at handover.

Seven commitments that are true on day two rather than on the last day, and the record that proves the fourteenth check ran.

  • The domain and the accounts

    Registered and opened in your name, including the developer and platform accounts, rather than in ours and moved later.

  • Admin access from day one

    Not at handover. Your team signs in during the build, not after it.

  • The code, the content and the data

    Yours. There is no licence to renew and no component you rent from us to keep the thing running.

  • Your data is not used to train a model

    And that commitment sits in the contract rather than only on this page.

  • We do not hold your passwords

    Access is granted to a named collaborator account that you can remove yourself, at any time, without calling us.

  • Nothing has to be handed back

    If you stop working with us there is no handover to negotiate, because you already had all of it.

  • Documentation for a developer who has never met us

    Written for the person who picks it up next, not for the person who wrote it.

The launch record, drawn

your-company/launch/record 14 checks, 6 shown

What was run, and what it said

One row per check, with the result and the evidence. Kept whether or not everything passed first time.

  • 01

    Speed on a mid range phone on a cellular connection.

    Passed measured on the page a stranger lands on, not on the homepage.

  • 02

    Keyboard and screen reader, every path, read aloud end to end.

    Passed the booking path and the account path, both with no mouse.

  • 03

    Contrast and text sizing against WCAG 2.2 AA.

    Failed, then fixed two labels on the filter panel measured under the floor. Retested and recorded.

  • 10

    Crawler access, for search engines and for AI crawlers.

    Passed checked per crawler rather than assumed from one file.

  • 12

    Backups taken, and a restore actually performed.

    Failed, then fixed the first restore came back missing uploaded files. Configuration corrected, restore repeated, second attempt recorded.

  • 14

    Admin access confirmed in your accounts.

    Passed your operations lead signed in and removed a test collaborator, before launch day.

This is a designed representation of the artefact, not a record of anybody's launch. Two of the six entries are checks that did not pass first time, because that is what the record is for: a list with nothing but passes on it is a certificate, and a certificate is not evidence that anything was run.

And the price

No number before the scope.A fixed one after it.

Every price is set after the discovery call and written into the proposal you sign, because a number given before the scope is a guess dressed as a quote. The pricing page explains how a price is set, what can change it, and what never does.

What moves the price of a build: how many systems it connects to, how many languages are written natively, whether customers log in, and whether anything has to be migrated. What does not move it: how many pages you want.

How we price, including the sixteen things that move a number

Questions about the method

Questions peopleask about how this runs.

  • What happens if something is going to be late?

    You hear it from us in the review, with the new date and the reason, rather than finding out when the date passes. A review schedule agreed at the start exists precisely so lateness surfaces at a fixed interval instead of at the end.

  • Can we stop partway through?

    Yes, after any of the five phases, and you keep what that phase produced. The scope document is yours after phase one, the signed scope and exclusions after phase two, the working build in your accounts after phase three. Nothing is held back to keep you here, because nothing is held at all.

  • What does built in the open actually mean?

    Working software on a review schedule you agreed before the build, running in your own cloud accounts under your admin access from the first commit. You see it working rather than seeing a progress report about it, and you can sign in and look without asking.

  • What is a gate?

    A named artefact that has to exist, and that somebody on your side has read, before the next phase starts. It is deliberately a small definition: a gate that means a status call has happened is not checkable, and a gate that is a document is.

  • What if a launch check does not pass?

    The launch stops until it does, and the record keeps the failure rather than overwriting it. That is the reason the fourteen are published by name: a check nobody can see you failing is a check nobody has to pass.

  • How much of our time does this take?

    Less than the process it replaces, and the specific hours per phase are being set rather than guessed at, so they are drawn as slots above rather than printed as a number we would have to revise. What is settled is who has to be there: the people who own the outcome in phase one, one reviewer per review in phase three, and your own team signing in before launch day.

  • Do you work with our existing developer or agency?

    Yes, and who owns what is written down so nothing sits in the gap. The usual shape is that HUREAL is brought in for the platform, the connections and the measurement while an in house team keeps the day to day.

  • What happens after launch if we do nothing?

    The system keeps running and it stays yours. The monthly arrangement is improvement, monitoring and reporting, and declining it removes those and nothing else. It is cancellable at any time and it is not a condition of anything that was already built.

Two doors

Two ways to start.Both end with a document you own.

Book a discovery call

The easiest way into phase one. A conversation with the people who own the outcome, then a written proposal with a scope, a price and a timeline you can sign or walk away from.

Book a discovery call

Request a performance audit

The other way into phase one. Twelve dimensions run against what you have and against two comparable companies in your market.

Request a performance audit

Know what you are building? Book a discovery call. Not sure where the problem is? Request the audit. If neither is right for you, we will say so, and tell you what is.

Not ready for either? The demonstration runs in this browser and answers the questions a buyer asks in the first ten minutes of a call, including what this costs and what happens if you stop. No form and no booking.

Hear it work

What every HUREAL engagement commits to, in writing

  • A fixed scope, price and timeline, agreed before any code is written.
  • A working build, reviewed at every phase, running in your own accounts.
  • Full ownership of the code, the content and the data, with admin access from day one.
  • A named contact who is accountable for the work.
A material study photographed in bright daylight. A tall fan of clear turquoise glass fins rises on the right of the frame with a polished pearl silver ribbon curving through it, standing in a shallow film of still water. The left of the frame is empty pale mint.

Published before you hire us.

HUREAL / Material studies