Website and application design and development requires detailed outlines of what the clients need for their project. Detailed project specifications are essential in order to start working on project(s) so we can adhere to the proposed timeline and deliver what we commit to delivering.
Keep The Lines Of Communication Open
Ensuring that both you and WLIQ are on the same page keeps the overall process of a project moving, which ultimately saves the you money and ensures a smoother work flow. Engaging in meetings, phone calls, and email or IM correspondence throughout different stages of the project can help to reduce the number of revision cycles, alleviates guesswork, and ensures milestones and final deliverables meet expectations. Working with WLIQ is ultimately about teamwork and partnership.
Designing Or Redesigning
Does the project involve designing a new site or will we (the developer) have to work on an existing site?
If you have a website but you want to create a new site, please share the link of the existing site with the developers and/or the links of your competitor’s sites so we can get a better feel of your desired website. Remember: the more detailed and thorough you provide your details, the easier it is for the developers to improve the design and optimize your website.
Expectations
Every website is unique and has different goals and objectives. The more thorough understanding we can get of your expectations, the better. The clearer you can outline your expectations, the easier it is to deliver exactly what you want.
Some expectations may include:
- Displaying products or services
- E-commerce functionality/shopping cart
- Increasing visitors to your website
Key points and the outlined goal of your website helps us define the aspects of your website we should focus on.
- Approval on Ad Hoc quotes is currently required if there is not a TAB agreement in place. Work will only begin after the quote is approved either via email or via the commenting fields in Lariat
- Please be as descriptive as possible on the instructions
- When requesting support, please provide steps to reproduce the issue and expected results, especially when reporting functionality issues. If we cannot reproduce the bug that makes it difficult to resolve
Website Type
Once we have all of the details fleshed out, we can then determine what type of website platform we would recommend.
In this case, you’re requesting we build the site in Shopify. In order to do so, we will need a fair bit of research and development to see if all the required functionality requested can be handled and provided by the platform. Sometimes, custom coding is required and we would need to identify if the platform might limit what we might be required to do.
Structure
How many pages will the site need? Will you require a multilingual option? The project specification document should address all of these factors and more.
For example, an e-commerce site could have hundreds of pages but a corporate site such as a law firm would have only a couple of pages. Adding more pages is of course time consuming, but keep in mind that designing a “simple” four/five-page website can also be time consuming depending on complexities in designs and functionality.
Functionality
We emphasize best practices to make the website functional.
Examples of website functionality:
- Visitor registration with confirmation emails sent to the registered members
- Different categories/sub-categories which open in a dropdown menu
- Filters used to narrow down search options
- Responsive to various platforms/devices/browsers
- *For responsiveness, we would start working on a responsive design from scratch. Again, the more detailed and elaborate you can be to explain your needs to the designer, the better!
Budget
If you have a budget in mind, please be clear about that upfront, so we can try to accommodate it or at the least, manage exceptions. Ultimately, we want to give you the best price quote which accomplishes all of your needs. (For example, an e-commerce site can be designed on Magento and also on Shopify. Shopify will be less expensive than Magento).
Deadline
Every project has a deadline. Please be very clear about what your desired deadline is and we will do our very best to accommodate it and also let you know if it is realistic. A stringent, inflexible timeline, for example, will mean the programmers and designers have to potentially set aside other projects and work on your site exclusively. Ultimately, that type of resource allocation and focus for quicker service means your cost will be higher. This is why providing the information about when your deadline is will help us manage scheduling our team.
In your case, a May deadline is being requested. Assuming we have everything in order to begin, the best case scenario is 3 months from the time we have clear directives, assets and sign offs all in hand with no unscheduled changes in scope of work. The longest we would take a project of this nature would be 6 months.
Additional Information
As a client and owner of a website, it is helpful if you can describe what your site is about, what you want to accomplish with the site and how you envision your website.
Make sure in the requirement document that everything is clear, no typos, no ambiguities.
If your requirements are as organized as possible, it will act as a comprehensive project guide for the designer and programmer who will be focusing on your website.
The benefits you will have with the specification document are:
Time Saving
The project specification report will save time and ultimately your money! We work according to the report and avoid having to constantly call/email you for tedious questions (ie: color scheme, font type, written content, images etc). If you provide these type of points, we can save time and complete the project on time.
Cost Saving
The project specification is essential for us to come up with a customized service plan. We can cut cost wherever possible and make the project more affordable for you.
Better Delivery
If we understand your specific needs, we can deliver exactly what you desire in a timely affordable fashion as it eliminates errors that may be noticed at the testing stage.
Satisfaction
Our goal is for you to get the site you’re dreaming of and have a smile on your face! We aim to foster a long term relationship where you feel confident in reaching out to us for your present needs and any likely needs in the future.
Functional Documentation (Scope Of Work)
Once we have your requirements in hand, we can then flush out a Scope of Work within a functional document:
- Functional specifications documents help to present your idea better to the application development team and to understand it even better yourself. Functional specifications work as the unified document for the common understanding of the project across different team members
- It provides a clear understanding of how the project is supposed to be able to deliver the end-product that meets expectations and the clearer understanding of the end-result, the higher the chances to meet your expectations
- As there are different approaches to the development of the same feature, the entire team needs to have the same vision of every single feature to be able to deliver the correct functional expectations
- There may be a lot of hidden mechanics in the project that can’t be seen from the surface. Usually, such things are discovered after digging deeper. To reveal them, you need to talk about the project in detail. After a careful examination, the hidden mechanics are revealed. If you document it, no one will forget about it along the app development process
- Once the team is on the same wavelength fully armed with project goals, strategy and approach, then an accurate estimate of the scope of work can be made. This document will help to avoid unexpected budget increases
- Functional specifications for an e-commerce website build minimize the time required for the involvement of new team members into the project. Not having a detailed project description, there is a high risk that the development may not go smoothly. Taking into account that many people are supposed to be involved in the development process, there is a risk of misunderstanding some project features. Altogether this may lead to the mess and budget increase
- This will also help in scalability and growth. If the project roadmap is not clear the dev team may build an architecture that’s not scalable enough to support the functionalities needed for growth. What may seem like an easy request to you may require a website’s architecture to be significantly restructured and these changes may be crucial to the project. In some cases, it may even require a full rebuild to scale it
- Quality assurance testing is an important part of any project development. As a QA engineer is a part of the dev team, they need to be on the same wavelength with the entire team. Otherwise, they won’t be able to provide high-quality testing results
We highly recommend starting this website development project with the creation of functional specifications. No matter whether you are a startup or an enterprise company, whether you are going to launch a prototype, an MVP or an entire project at once, the specs need to be created for the whole project. The development team needs to have a clear understanding of the project architecture, its mechanics and logic. With no functional specs, it may be pretty challenging to develop a successful project even for a very experienced application development company.
