For small shop owners introducing the online product, the design feature is a simple step by choosing among the appropriate tools on the market. You just walk into sites, talk with people, try the software, and agree on signing up if it matches your expectations and the printing technology.
For large companies, it does not work like that. Large portals implement various types of non-standard user stories like choosing between various decoration types, having a preliminary registration, offer a large number of products and their variations, and lots more. Implementing an online custom design solution for such companies requires a tailored approach and a proper guidance process.
Having over ten years of experience in working with decoration industry companies, we have adopted an easy process, coined by Spotify once - Think It, Build It, Ship It, Tweak It. The four phases of the project allow us to align it with the agile process we use and allow the customer to join our team and work out the solution with the best cost-effectiveness. This article would give a brief look at the above phases and how they work.
Think It. From the very first contacts with our clients, we thrive on understanding what their business is and what problem they are trying to solve with our tool. This comes in the form of company background, desired user stories, problem descriptions, and business goals. Once we have defined a set of initial scope that has to be covered, our team comes up with initial demos and prototypes.
Build It. Once signed up, the team now works more closely with the client team to compile a set of custom user stories, test cases for them, and respective performance requirements. Each set of this scope is estimated by the team, so that client is always aware of the scope and related cost of the project. The team then plans the sprints accordingly and delivers demos regularly to ensure the project is on track and aligned to customer expectations.
Ship It. Closely to project finish, when around 90% of the scope complete, we encourage the client to commence internal acceptance testing and alpha test for the users. At this time, both our team and client decide when exactly the product should be released and published to the broad audience.
Tweak It. The project itself isn’t finished with the final release. During the support period, the team stays focused on any performance issues, scope gaps, and common fixes to be brushed up for the post-release period. At the same time, both client and team continue to work on further updates, dictated by business needs, thus contributing to overall online product designer value for end-user.
The above approach, put into the Agile/Scrum methodology we use, provides firm results, and is always controllable. For a large company to implement the online design and jump into the market, what could be better?
Contact us if you need consulting services for your web-to-print business.