Benefits of waterfall design in user interface design

Because the waterfall design process happens sequentially it is a great method for user interface designers that are linear thinkers. More broadly speaking the waterfall design process helps UI designers in making sure that all components of a user interface design are  exhaustively conceived and analyzed. This way errors in a user interface design are also easier to spot as the waterfall design process moves along.

Problems with waterfall design in UI design

The saying goes that one’s biggest strength can also be one’s biggest weakness. The same can be said when using the waterfall design process to create user interface designs. The one way traffic inherent to the method can be a constraining way of creating user interface designs. The lack of flexibility can prove to be counter-intuitive for some user interface designers. Paying too much attention to the various steps can lead a UI designer to loose sight of the bigger picture. This can result in having to spend more time to go through the steps again in order to change things and solve other UI design and usability issues.

Waterfall design method lesson: know your team, know your method

The decision to use the waterfall method when developing a user interface design boils down to the makeup of your UI design team. For UI design teams that prefer to work in a more free-form way naturally the waterfall design process might be more problematic than for a UI design team that prefers to compartmentalize their workflow and work linearly. Knowing the psychological makeup of your team goes a long way in helping one determine the best user interface design methodology to use.

What is waterfall design and how does it relate to user interface design?

Waterfall Design is a methodology used by user interface designers during software development or more precisely during user interface design. The name waterfall design comes from the imagery of water flowing from the top into a waterfall until reaching the rest of the river down below. Just as the direction of dear old H20 in a waterfall can only be one way, waterfall design is a process that happens sequentially. So when creating a UI design using the waterfall design methodology one has to first complete a phase in order to go on to the next. In the rest of this blog I shall briefly overview the process with the 2nd part of the blog showing some of the ways user interface designers can implement it in their projects.

How does the waterfall design process work in UI design?

The waterfall design process dates all the way back to 1970 to a director from the Lockheed Software Technology Center named Winston W. Royce. Back then he did not coin the term waterfall design but, nevertheless, he published an article detailing the various phases that user interface designers would use in the waterfall design process. The seven phases are as follows:

1.    Requirements specification: In order to know what is required of a user interface design it is necessary to create a set of use cases detailing the interactions users will have with it.

2.    Design: At this stage UI designs create the overarching supra-structure of the user interface design to house and facilitate the use cases of the future software or website.

3.    Construction: After deciding on the look and information architecture of the UI design the actual coding begins.

4.    Integration: Here user interface designers ensure that the different parts of the user interface design are consistent and functional throughout.

5.    Testing/ debugging: A user interface design may look good but more importantly it has to be usable. Conducting usability tests helps ensure this.

6.    Installation: At this stage the final version of the UI design is implemented.

7.    Maintenance: Just as with anything man-made maintenance is key, this applies not just to the user interface design but also in terms of customer support.

Each of the successive steps is meant to build upon the last one to contribute to the overall goal. Waterfall design is rigid in a sense in that it’s either the waterfall design way or the proverbial highway. In the 2nd part of the blog I shall go into the benefits and drawbacks of waterfall design when it comes to user interface design.