Functional Web Specification

Ineffective functional specification for Web projects such as Web sites

, Intranets or Portals contribute largely to delays, higher costs or in applications that do not match the expectations. Independent if the Web site, Intranet or Portal is custom developed or built on packaged software such as Web-, enterprise content management or portal software, the functional specification sets the foundation for project delays and higher costs. To limit delays and unexpected investments during the development process, the following pitfalls should be avoided:

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Too vague or incomplete functional specification: This is the most common mistake that companies do. Everything that is ambiguously or not specified at all, developers do not implement or implement in a different way of what site owners want. This relates primarily to Web features that are considered as common user expectations. For example, HTML title tags, which are used to bookmark Web pages. The Web steering committee may specify that each page contains a page title, but does not specify that HTML Title tags needs to be implemented as well. Web developers therefore may do not implement HTML Title tags or implement them in a way, which differs from site owners' visions. There are other examples such as error handling on online forms or the definition of ALT texts for images to comply with the disability act section 508. These examples look like details but in practice, if developers need to modify hundreds or even thousands of pages, it amounts to several man-days or even man-weeks. Especially, the corrections for images as business owners need first to define the image names prior that Web developers can implement the ATL texts. Ambiguous functional specification can result due to the lack of internal or external missing usability skills. In this case, a one-day usability best practice workshop transfers the necessary or at least basic usability skills to the Web team. It is recommended, even for companies that have usability skills or rely on the subcontractor's skill set, that an external and neutral consultant reviews the functional specification. Especially, as such reviews relate to marginal spending as compared to the total Web investments (e.g. about $10 K - $15 K dollars for a review).

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Future site enhancement not identified or not communicated: It is crucial that the Web committee identifies at least the major future site enhancements and communicates them to the development team. In the best case, the development team knows the roadmap for the coming three years. Such an approach allows the development team to anticipate implementation choices to host future site enhancements. It is more cost effective on mid- or long-term to invest more in the beginning and to build a flexible solution. If Web teams do not know or even ignore future enhancements, the risk for higher investment increases (e.g. adding new functionality in the future results in partially or at worst in totally rebuilding existing functionality). Looking at the financial delta for a flexible solution versus a solution just satisfying the current requirements, the flexible solution has proven to be more cost-effective in practice from a mid- and long-term perspective.

Functional Web Specification

By: Justin Brown

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