Nothing can postpone a site launch more effectively, delay developers more thoroughly, and destroy designers' original intentions more completely than featuritis.

From the Wikipedia article for Feature Creep (or featuritis):

Feature creep is the rapid expanding of features in a product such as computer software. Extra features go beyond the basic function of the product and so can result in over-complication, or "featuritis", rather than simple design.

When we build your website, Message Agency works really hard to deliver a well designed, functional product. Especially for large, complicated sites, the design and development process may seem to last an eternity from the client's perspective. Web development shares commonalities with traditional construction, but progress can sometimes be less tangible on the web. This is among the reasons that so many of our projects are broken into discrete phases. When each phase is completed, a workable product is delivered and put to use immediately. Simultaneously, further development can begin building on the completed component.

During each phase of development, we visit and revisit the design and the information architecture until we know it by heart. Sometimes Message Agency or the client will identify deficiencies in the design, and our teams will respond by improving them. We might decide that a simple UI element behaves erratically or unexpectedly, or we might decide that a monolithic content type should be broken into components. We might run into a problem that requires us to undo or redo part of a "completed" phase; we might run into a problem that requires us to make adjustments to future phases.

These adjustments represent improvements to existing interfaces, streamlining of planned workflows, clarification of presentation, etc. These changes, though sometimes departures from the original design, should not be confused with new features. We don't need to revisit the information architecture, for example, to add shortcuts in the administrative navigation. We have built an flexible menu management interface to handle changes like this. By contrast, building an easy to use, ad-hoc administrative query and reporting tool might present be significantly more challenging.

When we review projects with clients, we compare the original designs with what has actually been built. We help the client compare expectations with outcomes. Where there are discrepancies between these, we try our best to address them within scope and budget. The review process is one of the final steps before launching a site, and adding new features is tantamount to pressing the reset button.