Requirements & Drupal: Planning for Successful Projects

Requirements & Drupal: Planning for Successful September 13, 2012

Projects

R.J. Townsend, Manager, Drupal Solutions - NavigationArts
Jon Riekse, Director of Business Analysis - NavigationArts

NavigationArts: Market Position
• NavigationArts is unique in the web space. We combine best practices in User Experience
Design and Technology Consulting, excelling where these practices overlap.

• Comprehensive user-centered design
methodology that aligns business goals
with user needs, creating user
experiences that drive enterprise value

• Best-in-class technology and software
development skills that deliver the user
experience through rich front-end
development, configuration of complex
interaction functionality, and integration
of enterprise applications and data

2 (703) 584 – 8949 www.navigationarts.com @navigationarts

Agenda
• Requirements Overview

• Requirement Types & Samples

• Translating Requirements to Specification / Development

• Requirement Activities

• Drupal Requirements

• The Business Analyst & Drupal

• Functional Re-use

• Requirements & Contributing back to the Open Source Community


Requirements: What are they good for?

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Requirements: The Case Against
• We don’t have the time or budget to document requirements

• Seems like too much paperwork, let’s build something already!

• Our project is too small to necessitate requirements

• Our project is too large to necessitate requirements (we will never know
everything until we start developing)

• We use agile

• We like to change our minds


Requirements: The Case For
• Taking planning seriously, adding some formality, mitigating risk – meeting
the formality of your clients/stakeholders

• Doesn’t assume we are all talking about the same thing or speaking
the same language, leaves a paper trail (and not just a cluttered inbox)

• Describing and agreeing to the end state before it’s done (for clients or your
internal business teams), documenting scope for budget/resources

• Agreement to the outcome - how do we know when we’re done?

• Managing change - being on the same page as your project
sponsors/clients


Requirements Overview
• A requirement is a description of what the website will do.

• A requirement can consist of a text description or a visual representation
(annotated wireframe, design, model, diagram) – whatever it takes to get
the point across.

• A requirements document is a collection of consistent requirements – can
describe the same thing a few different ways to ensure understanding

• The goal of requirements is to describe as precisely as possible what is to
be built, giving more attention to the most complex aspects, where the
highest level or risk can occur (using your time wisely)

• Defines the boundaries of the website/system. Helps avoid scope creep.


Sample Model: Integration Diagram


Warning: Abstraction Ahead
• Talking abstract concepts about an abstract
system – using language

• A picture is worth…a lot

• Know your audience, and your risks

• Avoid documenting the documentation – when you have
documentation to reference other documentation you are starting
down a slippery slope

• Use common sense, trust your intuition over the ‘correct’ way to
document requirements

• Keep it grounded, at the end of the day if it doesn’t make the product
better it wasn’t worth it. Quality Assurance starts with this work.

Types of Requirements


Business Requirements
• Aligning the business goals to the project

• Very useful for prioritizing functionality and defining phased approaches

• ‘How do you envision success for the project and how is it measured?’

• Drupal: The value of Open Source Technology

• Drupal: Leveraging all available modules/code

• Higher Ed examples: More applicants, updating the brand, more
efficiency/easier maintenance, SEO based redesign, increased level of
satisfaction of prospects through the enrollment process. Measure with #
of qualified applicants, rejection rates, analytics (# of unique visitors, time
on site, decreased bounce rates), run a recurring survey.


User Requirements
• The User Experience (UX) – aligned to the business goals of your
organization

• Think from the outside in, empathize with your website visitor’s point of view

• Defining your audience segments, their needs/concerns, what tasks do
they need to complete

• ‘What relationship does your organization have with your visitor segments
(donors, members, investors, consumers, partners)?’

• Informing your Information Architecture / Sitemap / Taxonomy

• Going from the analog to the digital, eventually into roles & permissions


Higher Ed User Segmentation Example
• Alumni
• Prospective Student – Undergraduate
(18-22) • Donor
• Transfer Student – Undergraduate (18-
22) • Parents of Prospective
Student (18-22)
• Prospective Student –Undergraduate
(22+) (9 credit) • Current Faculty

• Prospective Student – Graduate – Full • Prospective Faculty
Time
• Prospective Student – Graduate – Part • General Public
Time
• Current Student
• Prospective Student - Non-Accredited
Adult Learner • Industry
Executives/Corporations
• Prospective Student - Online
• International Students

Use Cases Sample: Add SharePoint Service
Goal Name Add SharePoint Service to User

Level (Business or System) Business

Primary Actor(s) Customer Administrator

Trigger Customer Administrator wants to add the SharePoint service to
an existing user.

Pre-conditions • Customer Administrator has purchased SharePoint.
• Customer Administrator is logged in to the System and has an
active session.
• At least one non-resource type mailbox has been created in
the System.

Pre-conditions Use Case # 18. Authentication

Post-conditions SharePoint service added to user.

Normal Case Steps 1. Customer Administrator navigates to the 'Users’ area of the
portal.
2. Customer Administrator selects a link to ‘View All Users’.
3. Customer Administrator selects the End User they want to
add the SharePoint service to.
…


Functional Requirement Sample – High Level


Functional Requirement Legends


Functional Requirement Sample – Detail Level


SJU Functional Annotation Example


Tech / Non Functional Requirements (NFRs)
• Be afraid, be very afraid

• Performance requirements – baselines, internet connection speeds,
geographies

• Availability requirements

• Security requirements – keeping Drupal patched! SQL injections, cross
site scripting, hosting infrastructure security, vulnerability assessments

• Capacity requirements

• Analytics

• Compliance

• A bucket for anything you want other technical stakeholders to review

Device/Browser Support
• Mobile and tablet requirements are causing a paradigm shift in how we
think and plan for website projects. Prototyping with a framework like
Drupal is critical.

• It is almost always in the client’s interest to receive modern, maintainable
code that is not ‘hacked’ for older browsers. But verify this is the case (for
example an internal site where users have to use IE7)

• Step 1: review current analytics, figure out what the %’s are, look at
mobile/tablets, factor into initial planning

The website shall support the following browsers, rendering full functionality and visual aspects:
• IE 8.0, 9.0
• Firefox 3.x, 4.x, 5.x
• Chrome’s Latest Stable Version
• Safari 5.x, iOS 3.x, iOS 4.x
• Webkit Android 2.x


Progressive Enhancement / Responsive Design
• The employed CSS3 techniques shall be employed as progressive
enhancement, providing the richest experience to modern browsers, while
still making an effort to accommodate older, less capable browsers.

• Take screenshots of your websites in IE7 – show no drop shadows, no
rounded corners and give your clients a piece of mind ‘that it won’t be that
bad’.

• Responsive Design

• Leverage any docs on
drupal.org


Aligning Requirements to Drupal Functionality

• Communicating to the client the benefits of open source

• Code available

• Re-using code is going to reduce time/budget to implement

• Finding the right module (80-20 rule)

• But customizing when needed

• Contributing back to the community

Translating Requirements to Specification / Dev

• Requires a thorough understanding of the client, documentation (SOW,
wireframes, functional req’s, etc), and how Drupal works

• CMS spec maps out requirements to modules / technical components

• Most, if not all, of your spec document / dev plan should be determined by
the time requirements are approved

• Your spec document should provide framework for how the site will be built

• CMS Spec compliments photoshop design files and requirements
document


Translating Requirements to Specification / Dev

• Our CMS spec documents usually include the following:

List of all content types, fields, views, contexts, panels, blocks, theme, etc.,
naming conventions for each, and required config settings (pathauto, etc)

Deployment architecture

Required modules (core, contrib, custom, features) and high-level config
settings for each

Naming conventions

Our CMS spec is used in conjunction with PSD files and requirements
docs; it does not live by itself.

NMWA Example CMS Spec


Requirement Activities

Gathering Requirements

•Talking to the right people at the right time

•Analyzing the right artifacts / analytics

•Ask the same question different ways to ensure understanding especially
with non-technical audiences.

•Prioritizing requirements and resolving contradictions

•Rinse and repeat

Documenting Requirements – writing it down

Managing Requirements – updating and change control

Elicitation: Moving the conversation forward
• Do not avoid ‘how’ when appropriate. There are many levels of what ->
how -> what -> how.

• Do not try to stay at the same level of abstraction. If workflow cannot be
defined early, but a 3rd party API integration is confirmed, document as
much detail as possible, as early as possible.

• Work forwards and backwards, what do we need to know to build the
website

• Use your brain and experience to realize if you are making too early an
implementation assumption, but don’t let it scare you from moving the
conversation forward.


Drupal Specific Requirements – Workflow Simple

• Define more granular permissions. For example, if there are authors who
can only change certain sections of the website

• Define email copy


Workflow Advanced


Structured vs. Unstructured Content
• Has significant implications to the maintenance of the website

• Need to know your content managers: do they know HTML, CSS, how
technical savvy are they?

• Avoid misunderstanding on how the CMS backend will work

• Structured data can take more effort, but can ease the maintenance burden
and offer more front end interactivity.

• Rules for structured data: what fields are included, sort orders for list,
min/max # of elements, descriptions of empty results, and controls for
paging or filtering larger sets of data

• Unstructured is harder to maintain, but can offer some flexibility without
making coding/config changes.

WYSIWYG vs. Plain Text
• Corresponds to structured / unstructured data

• Is really the crux of the User Experience of the back end


CKEditor Customization
• Re-use when possible, even for training documentation


Taxonomy


Block Configuration & Reusability
• Identify re-usable blocks in initial visuals (low fidelity wireframes).

• Need to think about modularity early


D6 to D7 Migrations
• Functional Analysis: what has to stay, what has to be added, what is
deprecated.

• Content type inventory

• Custom module inventory

• Functional to D7 module mapping

• Content migration strategy


The Business Analyst & Drupal

• Strategic: creatively figure out how to help projects succeed. Strategy and
ideation is fun – but this has to be grounded in technical reality

• Helps to have a development background (and to know Drupal, even from a
power user standpoint)

• Helps to be an extrovert, likes to communicate and explain technical
concepts to non-technical people

• Has to be flexible!!

• Runs logic/system interference with the business stakeholders for the
development lead and resources

• Is often a system thinking vs. purely visual thinkers – likes to think about
patterns

Functional Reuse for Client Services

• The BA and Drupal Lead should know what the development teams are
working on

• They should connect the dots between various projects

• Help put reusable functionality in front of other clients

• Be familiar with the technical LOE

• Always talk with the developers post-mortem, what worked, what took too
much time, what was abstracted for reuse

• Don’t reinvent the wheel

• Establish a functional library in your organization if you are dealing with
multiple projects, establish process for updating

Contributing Back

• Requirements & Contributing back to the Open Source Community

• Visual examples

• The community can contribute with documentation and examples, not just
code.

• Requirements section on Drupal.org?


Q&A
• Open Floor

Connect with NavArts
Call: (703) 584 – 8949
Tweet: @navigationarts
Email: sales@navigationarts.com
Visit: www.navigationarts.com


Requirements & Drupal: Planning for Successful Projects

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