What is the iterative design approach & how can it benefit your project?
Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) includes various development and testing methodologies, tools, techniques, and more. Only after combining and implementing special approaches, as well as efforts, a project can be successfully developed.
Iterative design is a part of the Software Development Life Cycle. Today, the web designers at WishDesk explain what iterative design is and how to use the iterative design approach in web development.
What is the iterative design approach?
Iterative design is a special approach based on a cyclic process of prototyping, testing, analyzing, and refining the product. The main principle of the iterative approach is to break down the large project’s workflow into smaller stages and simplify the design process.
Stages of iterative design
The iterative design approach includes 5 stages:
Stage 1: Planning
Any project starts with thorough planning in accordance with the set requirements. In order to define the requirements, user feedback needs to be collected and analyzed.
- Conduct research and discover what elements make a user experience (UX) worse.
- Think of how to improve them and make the website more user-friendly.
- Then, a specialist needs to create a document on the development process which will be presented to web developers. All the processes are agreed with the client.
Stage 2: Analysis and Design
When the planning stage is done, it is time to determine the business logic of the project. Business logic enables communication between the database and the end-users.
Examples of business logic:
- a user must log in to post a comment
- a user must provide an email in order to create an account
During this stage, tasks listing and tasks assignment must be implemented. It is also important to set the timeframes for each task.
Stage 3: Implementation
This stage of the iterative design approach is clear: start the development process based on the set requirements and users’ feedback. Before the beginning of each iteration, the development team negotiates the tasks’ priority and details with the client. All the changes to the code are usually uploaded to the staging site first.
Stage 4: Testing
When the development team is done with coding, it is necessary to perform testing to find and fix all the bugs and errors. Testing the product is not enough, QA engineers should also pay close attention to user documentation and test it as well.
Stage 5: Evaluation
The last step of the iterative design approach is evaluation. Client together with the development team evaluates the prototype and check if all the requirements are met.
If anything is missing, repeat the whole process again.
Benefits of iterative design
The iterative design approach can bring your project some simple benefits when implemented right:
- rapid issue resolution due to the clarity in the development lifecycle
- adaptable to the changes
- better progress visibility
- produces a more polished final product
- less time is spent on documenting
- iterative design is efficient and cost-effective
- improves usability
Implement the design iteration approach with top WishDesk web designers!
Iterative design is a powerful tool you need to use if you want your web project to be successful, as it lets you constantly test and improve the product. Web designers at WishDesk love the iterative design and will gladly share their knowledge during the development of your website. Contact us at any time to discuss the details of your project.