Why do software design?

Other software development companies get your sign-off on the discovery process and jump right into building your solution, which can be risky. They don’t take the time to ensure the proposed solution is right for your highly specific business needs. 

By ignoring this crucial step, they often deliver a piece of software that “works” but doesn’t solve your business problems. That leaves you with less money and the same problems going unsolved.

Before we write a single line of code, we use the software design process to think through every aspect of the proposed solution. Plans on paper always look great, but the design phase lets us test this elaborate blueprint we’ve built so we can answer three critical questions:
Steelhead Software treats software design as a separate step because we see it as a money-saving opportunity that adds value to your software investment. 

Taking the time to answer these questions and pivot as needed is an intentional part of our process. We’re not order-takers who just build to spec without consideration for your needs. We are your software partner and want to intentionally design your project to solve your immediate problems, help you meet business goals, and propel your business forward. 

What is the software design process?

During the software design process of your project, you can expect a well-structured schedule of sprint reviews every two weeks. During sprint reviews, our team will perform some show and tell about the current progress. We will also ask questions to help us dial in the software design even further. Some of these questions will be about your plans for launching the finished product. It’s crucial for us to know your launch day expectations as early as possible so that we can account for and plan for them during the design and build phases.

Part of the sprint review process is to finalize software design decisions, and we will request that you sign-off on those choices. Doing so keeps everyone on the same page and further supports our collaborative process.

Amidst the software design process, we may need to schedule additional on-site visits and user interviews to ensure we are on the right design path to meet your goals. It’s important to have these additional meetings and on-site visits for several reasons.

We don’t know what we don’t know
‍Until we see your current processes and begin running through how the proposed software solution will change them, we don’t know with 100% certainty if it will make the right changes or all the changes you need. Taking this extra time in the design phase lets us test those unknowns so that we can build better solutions truly bespoke to your business processes.

‍We need input from your actual users
‍If we’re building software solutions to make users’ lives better, easier, and more efficient, then we’ll need their insights. After all, they’re the ones who will be using this software, so gaining their input and early buy-in is essential to getting the most ROI on this software project. Additionally, when we see how they perform daily duties, we can more intentionally design the software to optimize and streamline their regular business tasks.

‍We want to protect you from risk
‍Testing our proposed software solution on-site with real users makes it easier for us to spot potential problems way ahead of time. In the design phase, pivoting is easy and cheap because we haven’t started the build. These visits will add more time to the project, but these visits can save you hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars.