Once you're at this stage of the game in your project, it's time to make sure that the site you've designed so carefully actually works - and that means you should try to break it.

As you may discover, what you see with your browser is not necessarily what another will see with hers. Standards in the world of web design are a moving target, and what works well for one platform may be a disaster in another. So it's crucial that the design firm have expertise in making your design work seamlessly for users of IE, Netscape and AOL - on Macintosh and Windows platforms - and in a variety of resolutions and screen sizes.

If you are using JavaScript, you'll need to be sure that it works for everyone - and in the event that it doesn't for some reason, that there is some alternative method of navigation for the 'No-JS' user, as well.

Test every form, every script, every database interface - enlist everyone you know to test, test and test it again in your staging environment, well before you decide to move to production. Don't cut the testing stage short - good time spent here will pay dividends at launch time.