Lo-Fidelity, Progressive, Website/Software Development

Developing Products in High-Fidelity

I've seen websites and software unfold in a variety of positions of the years. The lessons that I've learned from those experiences have taught me that there are good ways and bad ways to develop products. Developing products in high-fidelity is one of the best ways to waste time, effort and money. Especially in an agile environment where the MO is quick delivery for validation. Validation. That's the sketchy part where everything can change in an instant.

Developing products in high-fidelity is one of the best ways to waste time, effort and money.

Shifting Sands

The major problem spending huge amounts of effort into perfecting every pixel is that things can and will change. It's happened countless times on dozens of projects. You spend hours and hours perfecting your DOM structure and your CSS classes and the whole thing gets dumped out the window. Every product has features/components and each of those components mature over time, settle-in and solidify. Great caution should be given to the maturity of a feature before it's fully dressed and presented.

Fully-Baked Features

Features that are developed in low-fidelity, delivered and then validated can then be dressed-to-impress. You run a much lower risk of waste and there is even an added benefit to the client-relationship. By making the client wait to see features fully-designed, you help them to focus on the functional value of the feature. You give them something to think about and something look forward to. You assure them that you're using their money wisely and the entire project runs more smoothly.

Start from scratch. Follow the process. Validate your assumptions. Work efficiently. Make clients happy.

Andre Dickson is a Web Developer with 9 years of experience and is currently working on fun and interesting projects in the Pittsburgh area.