project steps in web application design/programming
web-applications
Solution
Okay, you've created a great spec. Now it's time to expand that "description" into functional user interface mockups.
Why?
A spec says what an app "should" do. It can even be very detailed about it. But complete user interfaces say exactly what an app "really does". After all, do users really care what is under the hood?
In our experience, we find that projects that have the user interface designed and refined (valid html for example) BEFORE the functionality is applied go together several times faster and more efficient than the others.
- A spec can only contain a small percentage of the actual details that you run into when implementing an application.
- A functional User Interface can cover nearly all of the actual details that you run into when implementaing an application, at a fraction of the time of actually making it work.
Once the client/stakeholder is pleased with the UI, then it is a quick route to plugging in the functionality.
And a functional UI is not a small job. Maybe even 20-40% of the work could be spend doing that.
--
All that being said, don't waste time making everything pretty -- just focus on highly usable interfaces. A graphics person can come by later and make it pretty while you are busy making it work.
Problem
I'm looking to start working on a web application and I'm almost done with the functional specification: Where do I go now? - Do I begin work on creating the html and css? - Do I begin creating the backend body of code? (setting up serverside email validation and database data-entry functions) - Do I begin working on the client side scripting? (javascript/jquery) - Do I begin working on the database structure? Is there a best-practice order to these things? Thanks!