Navigating the Riskiest Aspects of Web Application and Digital Product Development

In today’s digital era, web applications have become the lifeblood of businesses worldwide, driving everything from customer engagement to internal operations. But web application and digital product development is a complex endeavor fraught with risks and “unknowns.” Identifying these potential pitfalls can help businesses and developers alike navigate the path to a successful web application.

Having lead product design at our agency for 15 years at our agency POWER SHIFTER Digital, I thought I’d share the eight riskiest aspects of web application development that require your close attention. My goal is to help those embarking on the journey of creating a digital product or web app for the first time some reality checks to cut through the blue sky thinking at the onset of the project. Having lead product design at our agency for 15 years, I thought I’d share the eight riskiest aspects of web application development that require your close attention.

Requirements Gathering and Management

Solidifying the foundation of any successful project begins with detailed gathering and management of requirements. That does not mean going back to the old ways of building out hundreds or pages of requirements, but you should do a good amount of gathering. Enough for an MVP is recomeneded.

Misinterpretation, incomplete, or volatile requirements can trigger a chain reaction — delays, inflated costs, and even project derailment. Stakeholders play a pivotal role, articulating their expectations and desired outcomes lucidly. Equally vital is the app designer and developers’ role in transmuting these requirements into well defined technical road map. Agile methodologies, such as Scrum and Kanban, provide an efficient safety net for fluctuating requirements, promoting flexibility and responsiveness through their iterative approach to development.

Integration with Third-Party Services

Web applications and digital products frequently rely on third-party services or APIs to provide essential features. These can range from payment processing services like Stripe or PayPal, social media integration for streamlined user registration via Facebook or Google, to geolocation services such as Google Maps for location-based functionalities.

While these integrations offer robust capabilities and save significant development time, they also introduce an element of uncertainty. Here’s a closer look at the potential challenges.

API Changes — Third-party services can and do change their APIs. For example, they might deprecate certain features, modify data formats, or introduce new authentication mechanisms. These changes can break functionality in your application if not promptly addressed. Twitter, for instance, has a history of making substantial changes to its API, which has impacted many dependent applications in the past.

Service Outages — Third-party services can suffer outages. When AWS experienced a major outage in 2017, it affected numerous businesses, including large corporations like Netflix and Airbnb, causing disruption to their operations. If your application relies heavily on a third-party service, an outage can lead to a poor user experience or even render your application non-functional for the outage duration.

Service Discontinuation — In some cases, services may shut down entirely. A prominent example is the Google+ API, which was discontinued when Google decided to shut down Google+ for consumers, impacting all applications that used this service for user authentication.

Given these uncertainties, it’s critical to have contingency plans in place. This might involve maintaining flexibility in your application architecture to replace services if needed, having backup services in mind, or even developing in-house capabilities for critical functions. Active monitoring of these services for changes, deprecations, and availability should be an integral part of your operational procedures. It’s also crucial to stay informed about the service provider’s updates, which usually come in the form of API change logs or direct communications.

By considering these potential challenges, you can make more informed decisions about which third-party services to use and how to manage the associated risks effectively.

User Experience and Design

The cornerstone of any successful web application or digital product project is a comprehensive understanding and adept management of requirements. This doesn’t only encompass the technical needs but also the user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design aspects of the project. Ambiguous, incomplete, or rapidly changing requirements can trigger a cascade of delays, budget overruns, and can even risk project failure.

Stakeholders must articulate their needs with clarity, including the expectations from the UX and UI perspectives. For instance, what kind of user interactions are they envisioning? What aesthetic are they aiming for? How should the application ‘feel’ to the user? Concurrently, developers and designers need to work in harmony to translate these needs into tangible technical and design specifications.

UX and UI designers face their own set of challenges, such as ensuring the design’s intuitiveness, creating visually engaging interfaces, and crafting experiences that align with user expectations. They have to consider elements such as navigation simplicity, visual hierarchy, responsiveness, and accessibility. These elements should be mapped out during the discovery, and definition phases to ensure a smoother development process.

Again, agile methodologies, like Scrum, Kanban, and Design Thinking can be instrumental in managing evolving requirements by adopting an iterative, feedback-driven approach to both development and design. Regular stakeholder feedback and user testing can help detect and rectify any misalignments in understanding or execution early, saving time and resources. By integrating UX/UI design considerations into the heart of requirement gathering and management, you set the stage for an application that not only works well but also delivers a remarkable user experience.

User Behavior

One of the biggest “unknowns” in web application and digital product development is user behavior. Despite extensive user research and user testing, it’s impossible to predict with certainty how users will interact with your application. Will they find it intuitive? Will they use features in ways you hadn’t anticipated? User experience (UX) design principles and continual user feedback can guide development and help mitigate these risks.

Security

In an era of increasing cyber threats, security is a constant concern. New vulnerabilities and attack vectors are continually being discovered, and data breaches can result in significant financial and reputational damage. Secure development practices, regular security audits, and staying abreast of current threats are essential for mitigating security risks. Many stakeholders don’t take into account the level of effort it takes to both plan, and execute the safety measures needed.

Performance Under Load

Web applications must perform well under a variety of conditions, including high user load. It’s challenging to predict how systems will behave under extreme load or in other unusual situations without extensive load testing. Developers should build performance testing into their development and deployment processes to ensure the application can handle real-world usage.

Technology Choices

The choice of technology, framework, or platform for your application has significant long-term impacts. Selecting the wrong technology can lead to difficulties in maintenance, scalability issues, and potentially the need for a costly and time-consuming rewrite. Before committing to a technology stack, consider factors like the nature of your project, the skills of your development team, the technology’s community and support, its performance characteristics, and its suitability for your specific use case.

Importance of Accessibility

Web accessibility is not just about compliance with laws and guidelines; it’s about ensuring equal access to digital resources. Around 15% of the world’s population live with some form of disability. If a web application is not designed and developed with accessibility in mind, it excludes a significant portion of the user base.

Moreover, focusing on accessibility can benefit all users, not just those with disabilities. Many accessibility principles align with general best practices for design and development, leading to more usable and effective applications. For instance, good contrast improves readability for everyone, not just for users with visual impairments.

Additionally, accessibility can have legal and financial implications. Many countries have laws requiring digital accessibility, and failure to comply can lead to legal action. Furthermore, accessible websites can lead to broader market reach, improved SEO, and a positive brand image.

Challenges in Making Applications Accessible

Despite its importance, creating accessible web applications can be complex and challenging:

1. Understanding Accessibility Standards — he Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is the most widely accepted set of guidelines for web accessibility. However, it’s extensive and can be difficult to understand and implement.
2. Diverse User Needs — People have a wide range of disabilities, including visual, auditory, cognitive, and motor impairments. Designing an application that caters to all these needs can be daunting.
3. Testing Accessibility — Automated testing tools can catch some issues but not all. Manual testing is required for comprehensive accessibility testing, and this can be time-consuming.
4. Keeping Up with Changing Guidelines and Technologies — As technology evolves, so do accessibility standards and assistive technologies. Keeping up with these changes can be challenging.
5. Training and Awareness — Often, designers and developers are not adequately trained in accessibility, and they may not fully understand its importance.

To overcome these challenges, it’s essential to incorporate accessibility from the outset of a project. This includes incorporating accessibility in the design phase, using semantic HTML, providing alternative text for images, ensuring sufficient color contrast, designing for keyboard-only use, and more. Regular accessibility testing should be a part of the development process, and user feedback should be used to continuously improve accessibility.

So, while these risk areas present real challenges, they can be effectively managed with proper planning, the right methodologies, and a proactive approach. By understanding and addressing these risks, businesses can improve the success rate of their web application and digital product projects and ultimately deliver a product that stands out in the ever-competitive digital landscape.