Overview

As Aurora Commerce do not deal with 'Design' work, it is very important that the difference between 'Design' and 'Development' work is clearly understood and agreed upon by all parties.
To this end, this document is intended to outline for you the Agency and also the Client, what is to be considered 'Design' or 'Development' work and how you can go about identifying which your task is, utilising a series of simple questions.

Glossary of Terms

Before we begin, please see the following list of terms used in this document (and throughout the Aurora documentation) to describe different aspects of Aurora and it's systems:

• Aurora Core: This refers to anything that is common to ALL instances of Aurora and belongs to Aurora Commerce. This includes anything in the Back-end and most scripts driving the Front-end (not the Front-end templates).
• Aurora Demo: This refers to the globally accessible demonstration website that Aurora Commerce provide and can be found here: https://demo.auroracommerce.com/
• Back-end: This refers to the administration area of Aurora, which is any Page, Code or System found in or controlled by the "/aurora/" section of your site.
• Front-end: This refers to the customer facing area of your website, i.e. the website in general, which your customers can see.
• Templates: These are files (usually HTML, but can also include some images, JavaScript and CSS) that control how your site looks and is structured. Back-end Templates refer to the 'look' of the pages in the '/aurora/' section and belong editing wise to Aurora Commerce while Front-end templates refer to the 'look' of the main customer facing website and editing wise belong to you and your Agency.

Telling the difference

What is Design work

Design issues will always be related to the Front-end of the website, i.e. not within the Aurora Back-end interface. If the issue/work lies within the Aurora Back-end, then none of the following apply as it is definitely not 'Design' work.

• All Front-end browser specific issues/work, e.g. pages not displaying properly in Internet Explorer.
• All Front-end CSS/HTML/JavaScript/Image issues/work.
• Front-end look and feel, layout, colours, text and links.
• Front-end content pages, including banners/landing pages and email content.

What is Development work

• The entire Aurora Back-end (including scripts and Back-end templates).
• The functional behaviour of the Front-end (meaning the scripts but not the Front-end templates).
• Server issues/upgrades/information.
• Order processing/refunding/returns/fraud checks.
• The creation of new functionality that is beyond Front-end presentation.

How to decide?

In most cases, you can ask yourself these following questions and they should lead you to the correct conclusion. If the answer to ANY of the questions below is "Yes", then stop as you have your answer.

1. Is the issue/work related to images, text or any other presentation of data shown on the Front-end? If yes: Design
2. Is the issue/work related to any file in the '/templates/' directory? If yes: Design
3. Is the issue/work related to a section in the Back-end? If yes: Development
4. Is the issue/work related to the server, e.g. site downtime, services running, etc? If yes: Development
5. Is the issue/work related to or does the issue/work require an Aurora Update? If yes: Development
6. Is the issue/work related to a data feed? If yes: Development

These questions are of course intended as a guide and there may be exceptions to these rules at times, but these should not be common. If your issue/work does not fit into any of these categories, please try to ask yourself this final question before referring it for assessment:

• Do we have access to the files that need to be changed?

If the answer to this question is "Yes", then it is most likely that this work would not be considered 'Development' by Aurora Commerce.