Design Process 14) Functional Spec Time
Once the design is done and it’s time to take a break, right?
Wrong. It doesn’t seem like it, but the step of writing specifications is just as important as the rest of the steps along the road.
Functional Specs, or Specifications, is a document that walks through the various elements of a web page or application and explains what the pieces do and how the Creator intends them to work.
This is particularly helpful when the developer goes to build the pages. It’s also helpful to have when disagreements arise, or to reduce any confusion.
So, it’s great to have, but how does it get written?
Start with the homepage, and start with the basics. What are the colors, what are the fonts used, and what are some of the global elements of the site? How does the navigation work? Call out everything that is necessary for the site to function property on the initial page. That way, your interior pages focus on what makes them unique.
Another method is to create a series of notes or comments within Invision that walks the developer through the various elements, just as they would with a document. The benefit here is that the developer can ask questions and have a dialogue about a specific element to reduce confusion.
However you do it, make sure that the time spent doing it is helpful and that the output is of quality. That will go a long way when your team enters the Build Phase, which is our next step.
Potential Pitfalls
Not doing this almost assures that the development team will make up the answers they have and create something that was not intended by the Creator. It is not ethical to force the development team into a situation where they have to try to figure out what the designer intended and what the behavior is supposed to be. If this happens, the developers usually take the heat, as those outside the process assume that they have done something incorrectly. Functional specs not only ensure the project is built correctly, but also that the QA team has something to test against.