Building better web applications for business

Ask the Right Questions Early On Link

When building a Web application, nothing is worse than surprises. Make sure you have all the facts before beginning. Of course, you cannot know what you don’t know. But the trick is to know the right questions to ask before building. Too often, we focus on the wrong types of questions, such as:

• Will this application get internal approval?
• How will person X respond if we take this approach?
• Does this conform to our branding guidelines?
• How will this content be managed internally?

Focusing on these kinds of internal-facing questions may get the project approved faster, but it will lead to a far less effective application. In my experience, four particular questions, if neglected, will cause most problems in the development process:

1. What is the hosting environment?
   When dealing with complex Web applications, knowing the hosting environment is important. Without knowing the environment, you cannot replicate it exactly on your development server, which increases the risk of incompatibilities down the line.
2. How will users be authenticated?
   Most Web applications require users to identify themselves. Realizing late in the game that this authentication has to happen a particular way or be integrated with some legacy system creates all kinds of headaches. Many companies have a central user-authentication system, and your application will probably have to use it.
3. How will data be backed up?
   Web applications often hold valuable data, some of which is confidential. This means that having a solid back-up plan is both business-critical and potentially complicated. By considering from the outset how to handle back-ups, you keep this from becoming a serious problem later in the development process.
4. Is there any legacy data?
   Many new applications will replace existing systems that contain a lot of legacy data. Knowing exactly what this data is and having a plan in place to migrate it to the new system is important.

Learn From experience Link

Every Web application presents unique challenges. Over time, though, you learn from your mistakes and discover the key issues. Whether it is focusing on users’ needs, keeping things simple or asking the right questions, these lessons will be invaluable going forward.

However, there is also an opportunity to learn from one another. Unfortunately, many development teams toil away in isolation within large organizations. Articles like this should stimulate discussion and encourage us to share our experiences — both good and bad — of working on these little-heard-of Web apps.

I hope you will take the time to share your experiences in the comments, so that we can come up with new best practice for developing Web applications in our businesses.