Technical Design
Ideally, you will have involved some members of the technical team in development of your concept. By participating in the process, they will have had the opportunity to raise any concerns about implementing the site’s functions as described. In the technical design process, programmers, software engineers, database administrators, or other technical personnel decide how to implement technologies that will realize the goals of the functional design.
The technical brief starts with the technologies you can anticipate on the client side (that is, on your users’ computers). The sorts of questions you should be asking include the following:
1. What kind of computers and browser software will they be using?
2. What browser software and versions are common?
3. Will they be using dial-up access or a high-bandwidth connection?
4. Do they use plug-ins and are they able to install them?
Server logs or specialized software can collect some of this information. Other data you might extrapolate from market research or contact with your own customers.
For example, one of our clients is a major airline, with an intranet for which they specify a common browser, screen resolution, and plug-ins for all computers in the company. This situation simplifies development because the browser is a known quantity. We can therefore incorporate a wide range of functionality on the client side because we know exactly what resources the user has. Other sites are made for viewing over the World Wide Web, where users might have virtually any type and version of browser, and little to no ability to install plug-ins themselves. A website developed for such a site should be kept simple and flexible in its design.
The technical team should look at the functional specification from a strategic point of view. For example, depending on the complexity of the site and the business objectives, a sensible strategy may be to plan for some enhancements after the launch. Regardless, the nature of websites is that they require updating. What distinguishes a Web project from media like print publishing or video production is that there is virtually no end to the product development cycle. The time to consider maintenance issues for the site is early on, in the technical planning phase, not after the site is launched. For instance, when planning a database-driven site, you may want to develop ‘administrator’ tools that will make it easier for nontechnical people to import new content into the database.
The technical specification speaks to the techies and engineers developing the site and documents their planning. The first decision is what platform and server software to use for the site. The development of the site from prototype on out should take place on a Web server with the same operating system and server software as the final live site. The server should be accessible to members of the development team but not to the general public. This server is referred to as the development environment. The server that hosts the live site is called the production environment.
The technological specification addresses what technologies to use for delivering the functional requirements, such as Java, Perl, Active Server Pages, Cold Fusion, or digital certificates, and how they will work. For example, in a database-driven site, the technical team may decide that since the site will be hosted on a Windows 2000 server, the appropriate database technology to use is Microsoft SQL-Server with Active Server Pages. To implement this technology, they will need to design the database(s) and query functions appropriately. Depending on the complexity of the technology and the various software applications involved, the technical team may need to get up to speed on the application programming interfaces (APIs) necessary to integrate functions. They may plan some feasibility testing to determine if desired features are doable within the budget and available technology.
To continue with the example of Campus Posters, Inc., the technical specification might include such items as the following:
* A large portion of the customer base, on-campus students, will be accessing the site
using smaller monitors from laptops or iMacs in the library or student center.
* The host server will run on a Windows 2000 platform.
* The Web server will be Microsoft IIS.
* The database will be Microsoft SQL-Server.
* The e-commerce module will be Microsoft 2000 Commerce server.
* Credit card verification will be done online.
Technical specifications are likely to change during the development process. More details would be added to specify how it is all supposed to work. As a project manager, you should encourage the development of detailed technical specifications throughout the process. If the project suffers a change of personnel in midstream, your new engineers will benefit greatly from a current and detailed technical specification.