Creating Digital Products: The Development Process

From brief to finished product

A digital product is not just made, it is developed through a set of clear stages. Follow them well and you build the right thing; skip them and you waste effort on the wrong one. This module works through the development cycle: - Analysis: working out exactly what is needed, and who for.\n- Design: planning the structure and look before building anything.\n- Development: building the product itself.\n- Testing and evaluation: checking it works, then judging it against the brief.\n\nThe most important idea is that these stages form a loop, not a straight line. Testing and review often send you back to improve an earlier stage, and each turn of the loop makes the product better.

Words for the development process

Five terms you need before you use them. Learn what each one means.

Match each stage to what happens in it

Analysis against evaluation

The cycle opens with analysis and closes with evaluation. They sit at opposite ends, and a common exam slip is to muddle them.

Which stage is this?

A team runs their nearly finished app over and over, spotting faults and fixing each one before release. Which stage is this?

• Testing
• Analysis
• Design
• Evaluation

Tap the two things done in the analysis stage

Tap the TWO tasks that belong to the analysis stage.

• Identifying who the product is for, the target audience
• Working out the requirements from the brief
• Fixing faults found in the finished product
• Judging the finished product against the brief at the end

Why the process is a loop, not a line

It is tempting to picture development as a straight march from start to finish. In practice it turns back on itself again and again, and that is a strength, not a failure. When testing turns up a fault, you go back and change the design or the build, then test once more. A prototype is refined over several rounds before it is right. And a final evaluation feeds straight into the next version of the product. So expect to revisit earlier stages. A team that loops back to fix what testing revealed ends up with a far better product than one that ploughs straight on regardless.

Pick the true facts about the process

Select the TWO statements that are true.

• Testing can send a team back to fix the design or the development
• A good evaluation judges the product against the original brief
• Analysis is done only after the product is completely finished
• A prototype must always be the final, perfect version

Order the development process

Put the stages of developing a digital product in the order they usually run.

• Analyse the brief and work out the requirements
• Design the structure and look of the product
• Develop the product and build its parts
• Test it against the requirements
• Evaluate the finished product against the brief

One app, start to finish

Follow how one student built a simple quiz app for a local club, from the first idea to the finished thing. Working it out: she read the club request carefully, listed exactly what the app had to do, and noted who would use it. Planning it: she sketched the screens and how they linked together before writing a single line. Building it: she made the app screen by screen, saving a rough working version early so she could try ideas out. Trying it out: she ran it over and over, spotting a button that did nothing and a score that counted wrong, and put each one right. Looking back: at the end she checked the app against the club original request and noted two things she would improve next time. Each stage fed the next, and when trying it out found a fault, she happily went back a step to fix it.

Complete the development process facts

Working out the requirements and audience from the brief is the _____ stage. Planning the structure and look before building is the _____ stage. Trying the product to find and fix faults is _____. Judging the finished product against the brief is _____.

Build a development-process point

Choose the words that complete this statement about a well-made product.

The development process run

Five questions on the development process. Three lives.

Guide the project

Read each moment in a project and choose the best advice, then think about why.

• A team starts building an app straight away, before working out what the client actually needs. What is the problem?
• Testing reveals a serious fault in a nearly finished product. What should the team do?
• A finished product works, but a review shows it does not do what the client brief asked for. What does this tell you?

Explain the development process for a digital product

A student in the year below does not understand how a digital product is developed. Explain the process using what this module has covered.

• Explain what happens in the analysis stage
• Explain the difference between design and development
• Explain why testing matters and what it checks
• Explain what evaluation judges the product against
• Finish by explaining why the process is a cycle rather than a straight line