1. Reduce your big idea to “Version 1.0”.
Dream the big dream of everything your site/service/company might be some day, and write it all down.But then think of the bare minimum that would make you happy, and people would find useful. What are the three most essential features? What is the most essential feature?Call this Version 1.0. Save the rest for later. No need to even tell people about the rest unless they’re really really interested.A programmer is much more likely to say, “I can do that!” to this simple version.Your goal here is just to get Version 1.0 built. That, alone, will be a huge accomplishment. Everything below is describing only Version 1.0.
2. Write a simple overview of what it does.
Again, remember: only describe Version 1.0. Stop there. The big version is written down somewhere else.Leave off all details that the programmer doesn’t need to know.For example: If you want to sell videos, you don’t need to say what’s in the videos. Just “sell downloadable and streamable video files.” If you want the site to translate ancient Arabic poetry to Spanish to increase global tolerance, just say, “Translate paragraphs from Arabic to Spanish.”Be succinct. Programmers love that.Include people in a story, using the terms you use.For example: “A company creates an account, then creates a new project with a title and description. In the project, they upload multiple documents to be translated. Each document has a from-language, to-language, and a name. The system counts how many words are in each document. When the company marks the project as ready, it is announced to the translators. The announcement shows how many documents, how many words, and a price. The translator rejects or approves. They log in to translate the documents, one at a time, marking each finished when done, which sends the file back to the company for review.”
From this, the programmer will look for nouns and verbs, so start to think in those terms to help you communicate better. A programmer would see: Company, Project, Document, Translation, Translator, etc.
3. Write a detailed walk-through of every click.
Close your eyes and imagine yourself using the site.Describe every thing you can click on the first page.What happens when you click it? Exactly what did the system do? What happens next?Start to think in IF-THEN branches. For example: “If it’s a new user, it takes them to this welcome page.” “If they’ve been here before, it takes them to their account page.” “If it asks for a number, but they type a word, send them back to the same page but with a message.”In a text file, write down every thing you know this Version 1.0 needs to do. Every click. Every action. A long list of small simple things.
Start to think of the exact wording of what you want it to say, but save that somewhere else. Don’t clutter this list with wording.The goal is to keep this long list of actions very clear and simple, so that a programmer can see it, and see that each step is easy. For them it should be like eating chips, not an elephant.
4. Explore wireframes to allow repeat patterns to be used.
From this information key factors have been highlighted, these including:
- What are the three most essential features?
- What is the most essential feature?
- The target audience is irrelevant to the app developer, they cannot change only develop.
- Simple over view of what the programme does
- Detailed walk through of every click
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