How to develop a fast loading website

One of the most important aspects for any website is the loading time.  No matter how flashy your graphics is or how interesting your content is, if it doesn’t appear to the visitor in a speedy manner, it’s unlikely they’ll ever see any of it.  Below we’ve outlined some helpful tips to ensure that your website will load in a blink of an eye and keep your viewers in place!

1.    Optimize, optimize, optimize.

In the event that your pages have more than five images displayed on them, you will want to optimize the images for the Internet. This essentially means using a mode of compression to make the images smaller and load faster.  Many commercial websites use this technique to great effect – how do you think Facebook loads so quickly?  A good rule of thumb is to use GIF files as much as possible at lower optimizations when it comes to the graphics on your page. As far as photographs are concerned, highly compressed JPGS are good.  PNG files tend to take up a lot of space, and don’t go anywhere near a bitmap!

2.    Physical distance still matters in the virtual age.

If your web host is farther than forty miles away from where you live, you might want to look into getting a new host.  You can figure out where your web host is located by doing a simple ping test.  If the ping test shows that your web host is on the other side of the planet, you might want to consider hosting elsewhere.  The closer they are to you, the faster your load times will be.

3.    Is your web host’s equipment cheap?

These days, it seems as though you can get your website hosted for less than pennies on the dollar.  In general this would be seen as a good thing for those of us who don’t have hundreds of dollars a month to spend on hosting, but it could also be affecting your load times.  Cheaper companies often use cheaper equipment, which means that your visitors might have to wait longer for your pages to load.  Remember: you get what you pay for.  This applies to web hosts, as well.  Weigh the cost of web hosting against how much traffic your website gets – if you’re having thousands of visitors per day, it might be worth it to upgrade to a more expensive web host that utilizes better equipment.

4.    Cache it.

Want to get your website to load quick as a blink for your repeat visitors?  Enable PHP caching. This will instruct the browser to load the website once and then store away the images and everything else for later retrieval.  This way there’s only one time that the visitor has to wait for the Internet to produce the images.

5.    Is your bandwidth slow?

Most large hosts have multiple bandwidth providers in order to handle a lot of traffic.  You can check to see how fast your own bandwidth is by performing a trace route test.  Once you’ve done that, check to see if your provider is linked up with companies such as Sprint, Level (3) Communications, AT&T, MCI-Verizon or Mizma.  If it is, your bandwidth has a good chance of being fast – but many of the smaller web hosts can’t afford to partner with these companies.  How important this is to you depends on the size of your website.  If you’re running a larger page, you might want to consider moving to a web host that works with one of the above companies.  This will go a long way toward ensuring that your pages load reliably and quickly for many visitors!

6.    Keep your CSS files small.

If your CSS is over 75KB in size, it could be dragging your user’s experience down.  If you run a smaller website, be sure to keep it below this number.  However, if you have a bigger website with lots of pages with a lot of graphics and code, it might be necessary to exceed this amount. Should this be the case, be sure to monitor your website regularly and remove pieces of code that you no longer use regularly.  It may also be worth your time and money to pay a web designer to go through and edit your CSS to help you trim the fat, particularly if you are running a larger operation.

7.    How are your databases optimized?

Poorly optimized databases can slow your website down.  If you’re not sure how to do this, simply run a Google search on database optimization for the lowdown.  There’s literally hundreds of ways to make sure that your databases are optimized for maximum performance.

8.    Cool down the hotlinking.

The term “hotlinking” refers to when another website uses your website as a server for files.  For example, if you have a video file embedded on your website and another website embeds the same file yet uses your source code, that website is hotlinking.  This means that the second website is using your bandwidth to play that file.  Hotlinking takes up enormous amounts of a website’s bandwith and can really slow down your load time.  In order to eliminate hotlinking, you can check if social networking websites, such as MySpace, show up in your referral files or if a certain file is being served more often than the page that the file is located on.  If you notice hotlinking, you can usually access hotlinking protection through the control panels of your web host. If not, you may need to take the file down.

9.    Use less JavaScript code and compress it!

Simpler code always leads to faster page loads.  One way to get your page’s JavaScript up to code is to remove the comments and compress it – this essentially takes out the line breaks and makes your JavaScript into one long sentence.  However, if you are not an experienced JavaScript user, this could make your code harder to read, so be sure that you know what you’re doing before you use it.  If you’re not confident in your abilities to read JavaScript without comments or line breaks, keep them in.  It’s a giant headache to undo JavaScript compression once it’s done!

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Developing a Mobile Compatible Website

There are various approaches in addressing website's mobile compatibility. They differ by amount of development efforts involved and, subsequently, command different price ranges.

3 ways of mobile implementations:

·         Simply make sure that a website looks acceptable on mobile devices (smart phones and tablets).

In this case, all that the developer has to do is to check whether the website layout and functionality works properly on mobile devices. For example, potential incompatibility issues between desktop and mobile devices could arise from:

o       Flash (not available on iOS; spotty on Android platforms);

o       Layout (make sure that it scales properly for smart phones and tablets);

o       addressing limitations and specifics of touch-based interface (for example, there is no "mouse     over" on mobile devices, but users are used to use "swipe");

o        Advanced JavaScript functionality (lately JavaScript on mobile platforms is a very much standard compliant, but still, if desktop website uses some non-trivial Javascript, you better make sure that it also works on targeted mobile platforms).

NOTE: if custom JavaScript functionality was implemented using industry standard frameworks (like jQuery, etc...) chances that it will work on mobiles are rather high. However, if it's home-bred solution your mileage may vary.
 

·         In WordPress there is a very popular plugin:WPtouch Pro. It is a WordPress plugin that adds easily configrable themes for mobile devices. WPtouch Pro is also a theming framework for creating mobile themes.

Basically, you install WPtouch Pro plugin and via it's admin interface configure the mobile version of the website.

Sounds like a sensible way to create a mobile version of the website, isn't it? However, there is an important issue that must be addressed. The above approach works for blogs and websites with simple architecture. Web analytics reports and research are showing different behavior patterns for mobile visitors vs. desktop. Therefore, giving a mobile user a desktop experience may result in bounces and decreased conversion, if any. Hence, comes the 3rd way of mobile implementation.
 

·         Providing a mobile-optimized experience for the visitor.

It is generally accepted that mobile visitors are on the go, so they consume information in smaller amounts, looking for different things compare to desktop users and may access website many times vs. one single visit. To create a truly mobile-optimized experience you have to spend time on studying visitors' behavior and identify mobile website goals, thus developing a mobile website built on this knowledge and utilizing mobile-specific touch-based interface, but not simply replicating the desktop version.

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Must have features for your e-commerce website

There are various approaches you can take when designing a online store. However, you might notice that effective e-commerce websites have certain features that are absolutely critical to the shopper’s online experience.

We will look at these common features that you will find in almost all e-commerce websites.

Product Navigation

Perhaps the most important component of an e-commerce website is its navigation system.

Good website navigation is essential for any site, but much more so for e-commerce websites. Users need to have the ability to browse through different categories and products quickly through an intuitive navigation system. Investing in the information architecture of an e-commerce website is paramount in the site’s success.

Search Box

Having a clear and well-positioned search box is crucial to an e-commerce web site. The ability to search an e-commerce website is very important because many online buyers have a specific item that they are looking for. A search box is a powerful site feature that will improve findability and navigability.

Often, search boxes in e-commerce stores are in very prominent positions, high up in the layout, enticing the user to search the site for the product they want to buy.

Shopping Cart

A shopping cart is almost always present in e-commerce stores. The shopping cart is usually the first screen in a checkout process. Products in the user’s shopping cart are typically displayed in a table/matrix format.

Its purpose is to display the items that the user has decided to purchase. It’s a highly functional feature that gives you a summary of the things you’re buying.

Common elements of shopping cart pages are:

·         Product name

·         Short product description (if the product name needs further explanation)

·         Product’s price

·         Total cost of products in the shopping cart

·         Product image thumbnail that displays a preview of the item

·         Quantity box that allows users to modify the number of items they want to purchase

Featured Products

Often, e-commerce stores have certain products they want to highlight. These products are often found on the front page of the site. These products are usually items that are on sale/clearance or new items that have recently been added to the inventory.

There are many ways to put featured products on center stage. A popular method is to have an image slideshow at the top of the home page’s layout.

Product View Filtering and Sorting

When displaying a category of products or a list of search query results, having the ability to filter or sort products can greatly enhance the ability of the user to find exactly what he or she is looking for.

Product Images

The main disadvantage of e-commerce websites when compared to traditional physical retail stores is that websites can’t give shoppers the ability to touch and see products.

Thus, images of the products being sold must be included and displayed in an enticing way. Images must be big enough to see details and features of a product.

These are the most important features in an e-commerce website. If you feel anything has been missed out please leave your comments.

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Make your website Search Engine Friendly

The best way to get people to your website is to make sure it's search engine optimized. This can be a tricky balancing act between writing engaging content and ensuring that the Google spiders can find you. But here are a few tips to help you get it right.

Keyword Research

Choosing the right keywords means you can target people who are searching for your product or services. That should be your starting point before you even start writing. First consider who you're targeting and where your potential audience is — are they mainly in one country or spread around the globe?

Once you have a list of potential keywords you can use tools such as Google AdWords Keyword tool or Wordtracker to choose the best ones to use. As well as using keywords in your copy, don't forget to slip them into title tags, meta descriptions, heading tags, alt text, internal links and more.

There's no firm rule for the optimum "keyword density", or number of times to include words in your text. Of course it will depend on the words or phrases chosen, and the length of the text. As a rough guide, make sure they're in the page title or subtitle, and two or three more times on the page.

Good keyword research is the basis of any strong SEO campaign and it will also provide excellent foundations for expanding your website later.

Target Search Engines

Google is the world's most popular search engine, and the main target for most SEO efforts. But it's not the market leader everywhere.

If you're looking for readers or customers in China, then Baidu is the most popular search engine, while Yandex dominates in Russia. The Japanese still love Yahoo! while South Koreans prefer Naver. Many of these tips will apply across all search engines. But it's worth taking time to research the nuances of the main ones when targeting specific countries.

Good Content

Search engines may not be able to distinguish good writing, but human readers definitely can. Creating high-quality, well-researched content is the secret to hooking users once they've found your site, and keeping them coming back. Don't underestimate the importance of thoroughly checking spelling and grammar.

A clear, easy-to-read layout, with clever use of videos and images will help make the right impression. You'll need to have a system in place to keep your pages fresh and regularly updated. Search engines, as well as readers, prefer websites with fresh, unique content.

If you choose to translate your website for international users, don't rely on automated translation tools. They might be useful for understanding the gist of text, but they're not yet a match for human writers. It's worth paying native-speaking translators to ensure your text is fluent, readable, and error-free.

Choose the Right Domain Name

Ideally your website domain name should be short, memorable and include one or more of your keywords. However, the best ones get snapped up quickly and you might have to pay quite a bit to get hold of one of them. In this case, don't shoehorn in keywords to the detriment of your website name. Stuffing your url with keywords will make it harder to remember, less user-friendly and more prone to typing errors.

If you're considering globalizing your business, snap up those top level domain names. For example, if you use the .com address now, think about the .jp, .fr and .cn addresses too.

This is the most effective approach for SEO. But if you feel it's too expensive or time-consuming at this stage, you can create sub-directories or sub-domains as part of your main site.

Keep the Design Simple

It's best to keep the design of your website simple, well-ordered and easy to navigate. Frustrated users will often give up if they can't find the information they're looking for. Consider your color schemes carefully. Avoid bright backgrounds, or yellow or pink text that's hard on the eyes.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) keeps the design separate from the content of your website, which means you have greater flexibility. If you decide to localize your content later you won't need to redesign it from scratch.

Unicode UTF-8 is also a great tool as it caters for over 90 different scripts, so globalizing your content will be much easier later on if it's encoded properly from the start.

Social Media

Social media is becoming an increasingly important part of SEO. The Google algorithm is taking more account of social media links now — meaning you should too. It's worth developing a strong social media presence, and making sure your content is shareable.

Add Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn buttons to your blog posts. And use all three (and more) to spread the word about your website. Of course, social media is all about building relationships, so get chatting and sharing with other users in your field.

SEO is an ongoing process and you won't get results overnight. It can take a lot of work to climb the search engine rankings – and regular effort to stay there. But the payoffs can be huge, as you can reach a growing, global readership.

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Importance of having testimonials on your website

We’ve all been there.

You find a website that you like and you’re thinking, “I might want to do business with them.”

But you want to make sure they’re kosher, that the product or service they are selling does what they says it does. You want verification. You want the recommendation that “word of mouth” gives.

And the only way you can do that on a website is by checking the testimonials(if the website has any). If they have testimonials from past customers, that is generally a good sign.

But how real are these testimonials? Are they genuine recommendations or fake ones made up by the website creator?

To be fair, you can usually tell a real one from a fake one. There is something about the way people write. Real satisfied customers speak as if they mean it. They are happy with what they have bought from that website and they want others to know that they are dealing with a reputable company and that the product or service they are selling is a reliable one.

In the old days, faking testimonials was a cheap way of creating good feedback for your product – but these days it doesn’t work. You can usually spot a false one a mile away. Why? Because it will be laden full of “sales pitch” words which smack of being written professionally (or unprofessionally) by a copywriter. You can just smell it.

So don’t try it! Fake testimonials can leave your business badly damaged. It turns people off. They just won’t believe what they are reading. They will leave your site in droves.

But there is no doubt genuine testimonials vouching for the excellence of your product is one of the best marketing tools you have at your disposal. It’s the power of testimony and it speaks louder than any other marketing tool you can possess…if utilized properly.

Here are some simple prerequisites to establishing a good selection of testimonials from satisfied customers:

• Always ask permission to use a customer’s comments. Get it in writing, and keep it in your files.
• Always ensure they are okay if you include their identifying details and ensure they know exactly what you are going to include
• Ask the person giving you a testimonial if you can use their signature
• Better still get them to submit a photograph of themselves (a real face to go with the name adds so much more to the words)
• Sometimes it is better to be selective and choose the most relevant and best parts of a customer’s testimony rather than publish it in full
• Even better still – ask them to send a “talking head” video of them giving their testimonial (video testimonials are proving a real killer addition in overall business marketing strategies)
• In addition to a dedicated testimonial page, pepper your website with the testimonials in strategic places

Getting feedback to build your testimonial file is a standard practice all website owners should adopt.  It just adds so much to the credibility and marketability of your business that it is well worth spending time accumulating them.

How are you using testimonials in your business?

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How to choose your WordPress Developer

WordPress is an easy to use platform. This is the main reason for its popularity amongst bloggers and small business owners. It can be easily customized according to your needs and many of its enhanced features and functionalities are often just a click away.

However, customizing your website can be a daunting and time consuming process and with so many wordpress developers, it can be downright frustrating to choose the best one for your project.

Hiring the right development team is key to achieving the best website to suit your business needs. But how do you know which one is right for you?

Here are some keys points to consider when hiring the right wordpress developer

1.  Portfolio

A WordPress developer’s portfolio is worth studying. Before hiring one, look at the past projects he’s undertaken. This will help you understand his level of skills and expertise. It also gives you a glimpse of his style and if it ties in well with yours. A developer’s style and level of expertise is reflected on his projects. Additionally, the number of projects he’s completed will translate to the level of knowledge, experience and efficiency you’ll get.

2.  Reputation

Hire a WordPress developer from a reputable company. You can rest assure that you’ll be receiving the best level of services at affordable ratesin a short span of time when you deal with developers from credible companies. Besides, they have their good name to upkeep and your satisfaction matters to them.

3.  Services

Once you’ve found a reputable professional, go through what services they include. It is better to be clear rather to stay in confusion and risk misunderstanding in what particular services, charges and any extra charges for additional services the company entitles you to. Finding out how they operate is also key. How you’ll be communicating with each other, how often, if there is a fixed process that they follow, a timeline that they follow by and will there be more than one person involved in your WordPress development, are just some of the operational details you might want to know about.

4.  Cost

Cost is also an essential factor and will determine just how far you can go with the customization of your WordPress website. Most companies offer packagesbut we all know that no one person is the same nor have the same needs. So although you initially pay for a set price of a particular package, be aware of any additional charges that may occur when additional customization is done to further suit your needs.

5.  Contract

Having things written in black and white is also important these days. A contract not only protects you but also the company from related issues that may arise later on. Make sure you read your contract thoroughly and make adjustments where you’re not happy. By going through the terms and conditions you’ll find out, amongst other things, what your rights are over the content of the website. Ideally, you’ll want full rights over everything.

In a nutshell, when looking for the right WordPress developer, it’s important to consider their skill set, credibility, services offered, package cost and your rights.

One more thing, which is worth including is support and training. The best WordPress developers will offer training and support in the maintenance and upkeep of your website to ensure that it will continue to perform at its best.

Hire the right wordpress developer and you’ll be on the road to success in no time!

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Advantages of using Prestashop

Prestashop is a widely acknowledged open source e-commerce solution that is powered by PHP, MySQL and Smarty Template Engine. Since it is an open source solution, you need not pay anything to purchase it. Its code is easy to modify and customize to suit the unique requirements of your business. Prestashop was officially introduced in 2007 and has been growing steadily, thanks to its community of dedicated PrestaShop developers. Installing Prestashop is not an issue as it installs within seconds, due to its small size, 2.2 MB. 

You just need to spend on the e-commerce developmentpart and you can have a dynamic online store through which you can sell thousands of products right from pins to electronic items. Advantages of using PrestaShop are immense. This extraordinary e-commerce platform is famous for its brilliant interface. It is extremely creative and user friendly. Customers are guided throughout the store from this interface. Prestashop has wide verity of themes that customers can select from. Free themes are available for Prestashop web store and one can also modify them as per the requirement. 

Why should one use Prestashop for online shopping cart?

·         The default PrestaShop installation provides a lot of things needed to maintain a shopping cart website such as product catalogue, stocks, shipping, orders, customers, newsletters, coupon and codes. Also there are more free and commercial add-ons available for adding extra features.

·         In order to boost customer satisfaction and loyalty, PrestaShop offers a number of features such as gift vouchers, coupons, ability to provide feedback and comments, quantity discounts and much more.

·         Next, PrestaShop supports wide range of international languages and currencies allowing you to sell to a global customer.

·         You can also run customized affiliate programs with Prestashop and also get detailed statistics regarding them to measure their performance.

·         Talking about the security of Prestashop, it is laden with impressive security features that protect your online store from hackers and other malicious software. Some of the amazing security features offered are ability to set up security permissions for users, maintenance mode, in compliance with PCI & SSL, e-mail header injections blocked, helps you block repeated attempts to recover passwords etc.

·         Further, PrestaShop allows online merchants to alter the theme of their site without affecting its structure and the information contained in the back office.

·         The built in SEO features of Prestashop allow you to gain maximum visibility on search engines. Some of these features include URL re-write options, a dedicated URL for every product, Google sitemap integration, auto generated site map, automatic robot.txt and .htaccess files etc. It also helps reduce duplicate content with Canonical URL feature.

Mentioned above were some of the prominent PrestaShop advantages. Apart from these, there are many more features and advantages that Prestashop shopping cart software offers to online merchants. It is undoubtedly the best e-commerce solution for small and medium sized enterprises.

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Why FAQ Page is so important for your website?

FAQ page represents one of the most important pages in a website. Nowhere else does a visitor so deliberately indicate that they want to know the details of your product or service.

Are you guilty of neglecting this important page? A page, when given the proper attention, can actually boost your conversions and more importantly your SALES!

Well if you are guilty of neglecting this aspect, then here is the short answer:

You can improve your FAQ pages by

·         Streamlining navigation through questions

·         Prioritizing clarity over precision in language

·         Connecting the answers in FAQs to other steps in the sales funnel so that no visitor goes uncaptured.

But as we all know, the devil is in the details. So let’s go over how you can improve your FAQ pages for more sales and conversions, while making your customers happy in the process!

Make Navigation Through Your Questions and Answers Frictionless.

Most FAQ pages fail simply because they are hard to use. People expect to ask questions and get immediate gratification. In a retail store, a user can glance at signage, read product labeling, or flag down a salesperson to hassle. Replicating this ease of information access is a competitive advantage. Here are three ways your application can be as easy to navigate as possible:

1.    Batch questions together by category to increase efficiency and answer user questions before users even realize they need to ask.

When it comes to the UX for FAQs, users’ sole goal is to get the answer to their questions. Finding exactly where a company addresses a given question can be a major snag in this process.

By batching questions together by category, such as “Pricing and Payment”, “Accounts”, or “API”, with large headlines for each category, the design presents information in an easily understood, systematic manner. This increases efficiency for the visitor. Also, if the visitor discovers a question that they may have forgotten to check for, you prevent future uncertainty and bolster trust that your product’s support will be comprehensive.

2.    Group questions together at the top of a page for easy scanning; duplicate them with answers further down.

Some applications provide answers immediately below where the question is asked. In doing so, it becomes hard to quickly see which questions are answered and whether there is a specific response for the question you have in mind because the page gets cluttered very quickly.

By duplicating the question content, first with a list of questions at the top of the FAQs page and secondly with the full question text paired with the answer, an application prevents friction to finding the question you already had in mind.

3.    Provide permanent and specific URLs for returning to the exact place where a question is answered.

It’s likely that someone reading your FAQs page is doing important evaluative research on your product. They will need to record and share their findings with others.

As a result, merely having one, uniform FAQs URL is insufficient. Instead, by linking to div elements with the “#” followed by the element’s ID, you can provide visitors with an easy copy and paste URL to share as needed.

Prioritize Clarity in Your Answers’ Language over Excessive Precision.

One of the most common struggles with FAQ pages is the desire to answer everything, and do so with excruciating detail. The rationale is that this approach ensures a user will have his question answered somewhere. Being extremely precise also helps ensure that your answer is “technically right”.

But FAQ pages very quickly can become boring and hard to process using this approach. Avoiding this as much as possible will encourage users to actually read your answers and engage in a way that makes them more informed about your product, and therefore, more likely to buy.

Your answers will only raise more questions. Use these questions as opportunities to plug a prospect into the rest of your funnel.

The FAQs page should never be a black hole.  UX designers should aim to connect FAQs with unique next steps to usher a visitor into the sales funnel.

A Short Summary of Tips for Improving FAQs

·         Label questions with higher level category names

·         Place questions together near the top of the page

·         Tailor URLs for individual questions

·         Simplify your language even it means leaving out certain details

·         Provide options to take action from within the question modules

FAQ pages are increasingly falling to the wayside in favor of ‘Features’ pages, explanatory landing pages, and comprehensive videos. Nevertheless, users will always need a straightforward repository for all of the detailed questions they may have. Knowing how to make that experience pleasant while filling the sales funnel will be increasingly critical as users grow more discriminate of web application feature sets. Applying these techniques to your FAQs page will transform visitor attention into qualified leads.

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Requirements and Specifications - Part III

Flow or Logic Diagram

Flow diagrams define the end-user’s paths through the site and site functionality. A flow diagram for an e-commerce site would detail the sequence of pages necessary to gather the information required by the e-commerce application in order to complete an order.

Logic diagrams describe the order that logic decisions are made during the transmission, gathering, or testing of data. So for example, upon submission of a form, information may be reviewed by the system for field completeness before being reviewed for algorithmic accuracy; in other words, the system may verify that required fields have in fact been completed before verifying that the format of the email address is correct or the credit card number is an algorithmically valid number. 

System Architecture Diagram

A system architecture diagram illustrates the way the system hardware and software must be configured, and the way the database tables should be defined and laid out.

Prototypes and Mock-ups

A prototype is a model of the system delivered in the medium of the system. For example, a web site prototype would be delivered as a web site, using the standard web protocols, so that it could be interacted with in the same medium as the project’s product. Prototypes don’t have to be fully functioning, they merely have to be illustrative of what the product should look and feel like. In contrast, a mock-up is a representation in a different medium. A web site mock-up might be a paper representation of what the pages should look like.

Prototypes and mock-ups are important tools for defining the visual design, but they can be problematic from a quality assurance and testing point of view because they are a representation of a designer’s idea of what the product should look and feel like. The issue is not that the designer’s may design incorrectly, but that the prototype or mock-up will become the de facto design by virtue of being a representation. The danger is that the design will become final before it has been approved; this is known as “premature concretization” or “premature crispness of representation”, where a sample becomes the final design without a formal decision. If you have every tried to get page element removed from a design, you have an idea what this problem is like. The value of prototypes is that they provide a visual dimension to the written requirements and specifications; they are both a proof of concept and the designers’ sketchpad wrapped up in one package.

Technical Specifications

Technical specifications are typically written the by developers and coders, and describe how they will implement the project. The developers work from the functional specifications, and translate the functions into their actual coding practices and methodologies.

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Requirements & Specifications - Part II

The following list describes the various kinds documents that belong to the body of requirements and specifications document. All are not mandatory for each and every software project, but they do provide important information to the developers, designers and engineers tasked with implementing a project and to the quality assurance people and testers responsible for evaluating the implementation of the project. These topics may also be combined as sections of larger and inclusive requirements and specifications documents.

User Requirements

User requirements typically describe the needs, goals, and tasks of the user. The word, “typically” is used here because often these user requirements don’t reflect the actual person who will be using the software; projects are often tailored to the needs of the project requester, and not the end-user of the software. User requirements are usually defined after the completion of task analysis, the examination of the tasks and goals of the end-user.

System Requirements

The term system requirements has two meanings. First, it can refer to the requirements that describe the capabilities of the system with which, through which, and on which the product will function.

Second, it can refer to the requirements that describe the product itself, with the meaning that the product is a system.

There are two categories of system requirements. Functional requirements specify what the system must do. User requirements specify the acceptable level of user performance and satisfaction with the system.

Functional Requirements

Functional requirements describe what the software or web site is supposed to do by defining functions and high-level logic.

In many cases, if the user requirements are written for the requestor and not the end-user, the user requirements are combined with the functional requirements; this is common within companies that have a strong Information Technology department that is tasked with doing the work.

Functional Specifications

Functional specifications describe the necessary functions at the level of units and components; these specifications are typically used to build the system exclusive of the user interface.

With respect to a web site, a unit is the design for a specific page or category of page, and the functional specification would detail the functional elements of that page or page type. For example, the design for the page may require the following functions: email submission form, search form, context-sensitive navigation elements, logic to drop and/or read a client-side cookie, etc. These aren’t “look” issues so much as they are “functionality” issues. A component is a set of page states or closely related forms of a page. For example, a component might include a page that has a submission form, the acknowledgement page (i.e., “thanks for submitting”), and the various error states (i.e., “you must include your email address”, “you must fill in all required fields”, etc.).

The functional specifications document might have implications about the design of the user interface, but these implications are typically superceded by a formal design specification and/or prototype.

Design Specifications

The design specifications address the “look and feel” of the interface, with rules for the display of global and particular elements.

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