How to Identify what you want from the application?

The first step in the planning phase is to identify exactly why you’re developing your application and what you want from it. For example, your main purpose might be to

• Collect names and addresses from users so that you can develop a customer list
• Deliver information about your products to users, as in a customer catalog
• Sell products online
• Provide technical support to people who already own your product

After you clearly identify the general purpose of your application, make a list of exactly what you want that application to do. For instance, if your goal is to develop a database of customer names and addresses for marketing purposes, the application’s list of required tasks is fairly short:

• Provide a form for customers to fill out
• Store the customer information in a database

If your goal is to sell products online, the list is a little longer:

• Provide information about your products to the customer
• Motivate the customer to buy the product
• Provide a way for the customer to order the product online
• Provide a method for the customer to pay for the product online
• Validate the payment so you know that you’ll actually get the money
• Send the order to the person responsible for filling the order and sending the product to the customer.

At this point in the planning process, the tasks that you want your application to perform are still pretty general. You can accomplish each of these tasks in many different ways. So now you need to examine the tasks closely and detail exactly how the application will accomplish them. For instance, if your goal is to sell products online, you might expand the preceding list like this:

• Provide information about products to the customer.
• Display a list of product categories. Each category is a link.
• When the customer clicks a category link, the list of products in that category is displayed. Each product name is a link.
• When a customer clicks a product link, the description of the product is displayed.
• Motivate the customer to buy the product.
• Provide well-written descriptions of the products that communicate their obviously superior qualities.
• Use flattering pictures of the products.
• Make color product brochures available online.
• Offer quantity discounts.
• Provide a way for customers to order the product online.
• Provide a button that customers can click to indicate their intention to buy the product.
• Provide a form that collects necessary information about the product the customer is ordering, such as size and color.
• Provide forms for customers to enter shipping and billing addresses.
• Compute and display the total cost for all items in the order.
• Compute and display the shipping costs.
• Compute and display the sales tax.
• Provide a method for customers to pay for the product online.
• Provide a button that customers can click to pay with a credit card.
• Display a form that collects customers’ credit card information.
• Validate the payment so you know that you’ll actually get the money. The usual method is to send the customer’s credit card information to a credit card processing service.
• Send the order to the person responsible for filling the order and sending the product to the customer.

E-mailing order information to the shipping department should do it. At this point, you should have a fairly clear idea of what you want from your Web database application. However, this doesn’t mean that your goals can’t change. In fact, your goals are likely to change as you develop your Web database application and discover new possibilities. At the onset of the project, start with as comprehensive a plan as possible to keep you focused.