How to manage front-end project to save time and achieve the highest quality?

In the times of constant business evolution, every company seeks a way of improving the efficiency of their processes.

Delivering numerous complete front-end projects enabled us to develop a completely original approach to creating and extending such solutions.

Our workflow helps customers minimize resource consumption, as we help them to achieve their goals effectively and efficiently.

Today we want to walk you through our approach and the rationale behind it.

If you are committed to modifying your front-end or are planning a new application with a modern interface, you are in the right place.

What defines a front-end project?

Firstly though, we should take a closer look at what we mean by the “front-end project”.

Front-end is the part of the software that is the first contact point with a user. Behind it, you can find a spectrum of frameworks/ languages, including, e.g.:

• SAP GUI,
• SAPUI5,
• SAP Fiori,
• AngularJS,
• React JS.

The comfort of end-users is a crucial aspect of creating the feel of modern apps. Currently, it’s a very competitive market with a lot of high-quality solutions.

You can notice the progress in this area by asking yourself: “when was the last time I’ve read a software manual for an app?”. I’m almost sure you don’t even remember when was it.

The reason for it is simple. User experience specialists are the ones who know how your brain processes information and how to design self-explanatory front-end layers.

The question we’re trying to answer here is: “What is going on the backstage? How to achieve this effect?”.

Let’s take a look at a simple case study, to tell the difference at first glance.

Customer needs and altering front-end [case study]

Let’s assume that a company needs a switch from SAP GUI based solution to SAP Fiori-like application.

The only requirements we get from a customer is to cover functionalities of SE16 transaction. Developers prepare a solution that is 1:1 clone of this process. Afterward, customer issues multiple change requests like layout color, setting default parameters, limiting table range and many more.

It means that a rough specification of the client did not meet their final expectations. Moreover, those challenges require investing a lot of time and money.

Our approach to front-end process

Step 1: Business workshops

Our journey with building new or rebuilding existing solution starts with the business workshops. During sessions organized together with the customer, we obtain valuable information about the current process and business requirements towards the expected solution.

This phase helps us to understand the overall direction and business goals of the project.

We build an image of upcoming challenges and make a checklist of possible difficulties that will be useful during following parts of the process.

Step 2: Let’s work on UX

As a next step, we organize UX workshops. A set of meetings between UX designers and key-users of new solution are crucial to defining layout and interactions in the application.

These workshops are user-oriented. They help to gather ideas and features expected not by management, but by actual users.

During such meetings, our user experience specialists are following proven methods such as design thinking to get the most out of the project.

The visible result of the workshops is a layout project in the form of a clickable and interactive mockup of potential application.

This allows our customer to see how the application will look like and how will it work.

It is also the best moment to implement necessary changes, and correct all non-satisfying elements. At this stadium, it’s easy to make such changes in comparison to implementing them in an already developed product.

After a few reworks, the customer accepts the layouts, and we can start with the actual development.

Step 3: Estimation and planning

Getting a close understanding of the business process and users’ expectations during the workshop phase is crucial for successful execution.

However, there is another essential outcome that helps the whole project in its later phases. Accepted mockups are a valuable piece of requirements. Due to this fact, we can accurately estimate and propose a detailed plan in an easy and satisfying for both sides way.

Having so much information, our technical experts can choose the right technologies to plan front-end architecture tailored to customer’s needs.

Our process – why?

Our approach might seem to be time-consuming and complicated. Actually, it turns out that that it helps to save a lot of time in development and testing phases.

Thanks to the precise requirements, both customer and development teams have a clear overview of the project aim.

It helps to meet the customer expectations in the best, less stressful and effective way.