Making of a Web App: Sales Team Collaboration Software

It’s difficult to talk about web application design in this Making of a Web App series without first describing the application. Other designers have hidden their plans while sharing their process by offering vague design decisions and small, blurry screenshots. The results are less than satisfactory so in this series we’ll share the details of the actual application. Here it is: in Making of a Web app, we are building sales team collaboration software. Here is some context as to why.

1. I have a need for making the most of sales opportunities. This means I can be my own use-case and user which comes in handy when making user-driven design decisions.

2. Others have a need for simple sales team collaboration software. According to an Aberdeen research study, fifty-nine (59) percent of respondents indicated that developing a well defined sales lifecycle is their number one priority. Users I have talked with have tried other lifecycle products and found them too complex, making them too difficult to explain or start using.

3. It’s what I know. I can leverage years of marketing and sales support experience to design a great product. And again, I can make quick design decisions without constantly consulting back to experts. Finally, we can leverage lessons learned from LeadsOnRails. Whether this new application is LeadsOnRails v2.0 or is a seperate app has not yet been decided.

Isn’t the Market Crowded?

There are dozens or hundreds or CRM, sales, lead management, etc. apps out there. Without going into the full business case here I can summarize our difference in one word: simplicity.

Most users simply want to see the big picture while also understanding the specific task they need to complete next. The big picture helps members of sales teams collaborate with one another. The focus on the next task to complete helps ensure business gets done.

Isn’t the ‘Simplicity’ Market Crowded?

There are dozens of applications that claim simplicity. Yet many of those do so by leaving out features that are important to sales teams. We aim to retain simplicity without moving toward generality.

Simplicity Starts with Focus

To design an application with a focus on simplicity, it is important to understand the single activity the application is meant to support. “Sales team collaboration” is the activity that this app will support. There will be lots of tasks that an application can perform. Yet each one of those tasks should be in support of the one activity – “sales team collaboration”.

But What Exactly Does it Do?

Now that we have a high level idea of the application and have narrowed the purpose of our application down to a single phrase, it’s time to determine the simplest set of features required. Let’s get to know our users better first though. That is the subject of the next blog entry.

Making of a Web App: Introduction

Synap Software is designing a web application and in the flavor of Bare Naked App, I am documenting the experience from idea through design and deployment. Starting at the point where the idea and market has been selected and the technology choices have been made, this series will follow the design and development of the application.

Web Application Design

I enjoy the web application design process and have been devouring everything I can on the topic of going back to the basics of application design.

Note that in this series “design” includes visual design yet more importantly also includes feature selection, modeling, navigation, help, error handling, and all other facets of user interaction. For instance, here, here and here are a couple previous comments on design.

Design Inspiration

• Robert Hoekman Jr.’s Designing the Obvious, A Common Sense Approach to Web Application Design has inspired a fresh look at this project. Robert’s blog is here.

• The highly regarded Don’t Make Me Think, A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug.

• Readers of 37signals’ Getting Real will recognize some of the Getting Real approaches in this project.

• Ian Landsman shares valuable advice in his writeup on 10 Tips for Moving From Programmer to Entrepreneur.

This series will quickly reveal a general theme of simplicity. Two good reads on simplicity are:

• The Laws of Simplicity; Design, Technology, Business, Life by John Maeda. See his blog for more info,

• Less is More: How Great Companies Use Productivity as a Competitive Tool in Business by Jason Jennings. (Jennings is author and co-author of several best sellers including It’s Not the Big That Eat the Small…It’s the Fast That Eat the Slow: How to Use Speed as a Competitive Tool in Business .)

These books have at least one thing in common: they are not step-by-step manuals on how to design a great web application or to compete on simplicity. They share general concepts to help one recognize a well-designed product, process, or application. They help you see the “there” there. Yet they do not talk in detail about “how to get there” because everyone’s specifics are so different. In this series I’ll share the path we took with no presumption that it is the right path for readers.

Now it’s time to start. If you want to easily follow along, you can subscribe by email here.