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Web ReDesign 2.0, Workflow That Works

Submitted by Alexander Allen on Sat, 2009-05-09 16:08
Recently I was commenting that I don't feel that User Stories, XP or Scrum would work completely for web development and design projects, and that another methodology was needed for designing user interfaces. Here's the deal, Mike Cohn says on Chapter 16, User Stories Applied for Agile Software Development that "It is important to understand the potential risks in pursuing an agile story-based approach for an application with a significant or important user interface." He even goes on to admit that "It has been pointed out that agile methods largely ignore issues of designing the user interface". He doesn't let readers that were looking for a methodology that covers both web development and user interface design without an alternative, instead he cites Larry Constantine's suggestion of using "agile usage-centered design" as a solution, which is driven by essential use cases or task cases rather than user stories. An index card addict, Mike recommends replacing essential use cases with user stories, devising a story-based variation of Agile Usage-Centered Design in 8 easy simple steps:
  1. Perform user role modeling.
  2. Trawl for high-level user stories.
  3. Prioritize stories.
  4. Refine high- and medium-priority stories.
  5. Organize stories into groups.
  6. Create a paper prototype.
  7. Refine the prototype.
  8. Start programming.
So basically what happened is that I read around 200 pages about a particular Agile Software Development technique and only a bullet list of "user interface design management", but If I read a whole book about software development management and then some more, why settle with a bullet list for user interface design? User interface design itself is a very serious and complex field, and it deserves the same attention that software development does. Like Joel Spolsky of Fog Creek Software says in his podcast show, creating some loose paper prototypes for a web site design project is simply not enough. There needs to be site maps, wire frames, user scenarios, graphic templates prior coding, quality control activities, and then some more. Kelly Goto and Emily Cotler's Web ReDesign 2.0 is a solid choice for those that had stumbled with my same problem of needing something more than just user roles and index cards for designing a web site. Unlike UP, Scrum and XP, which at the moment are very popular project management "frameworks" or methodologies, Kelly and Emily's book is mostly about the "Core Process", a project management framework composed of 5 steps:
  1. Define the project.
  2. Develop site structure.
  3. Design visual interface.
  4. Build and integrate.
  5. Launch and beyond.
      6. Each of these 5 steps are explained in detail in the book in individual chapters, where they are broken down into logical sub sections. What is most funny is that on the third page of the book's introduction the authors state that the book "is not a step-by-step workflow for back-end implementation ... backend development needs its own, totally separate workflow, a whole book unto itself", where "Backend" refers to everything behind the front-end or graphic user interface. Simply, don't use Kelly and Emily's Core Process for Web Development, whether that is JavaScript, database or PHP, JSP, ASP... Thanks Mike for covering me in that department =) I will also be checking out soon Joel's User Interface Design for Programmers after I finish reading Web ReDesign 2.0 to see how Joel's suggestions compare to Kelly and Emily's.
      You can find more books written by Joel Spolsky at http://joelonsoftware.com/BuytheBooks.html Read more info and reviews about the Web ReDesign 2.0 book: