Suppose you are given a requirement: “I want to create a web application for my Coaching institute to help me setup all the instructor profiles, courses and students. I should be able to create a course schedule, assign an instructor to the course and the instructor should get automatic reminders before the course schedule. An Instructor should be able to take student’s attendance online against the course. I should be able to view the progress of all the courses, attendance of instructors and students.”
You, as a Business Analyst, would first elicit all the features/functions that the client needs in the web application.
What should be your next step?
Would you involve a Designer to create hi-fi designs directly based on the requirements?
Or
Would you first prepare low-fi wireframes yourself and once they are finalized, handover them to the designers to create hi-fi designs?
Let’s understand both the approaches to make it clear which one to go for.
Involving designer to create hi-fi designs directly based on the requirements: #
- Designers do not know about your client’s business processes, client requirements and how the users are going to interact with their website / app.
- You have to explain your ideas and client requirements to designers, they create designs, you review them, they keep revising the designs until it satisfies you and then you involve the client to review the designs.
- So, the whole process is very time consuming and simply not effective.
You, as a Business Analyst, prepare wireframes first, finalize it and handover to designers: #
- This sounds good, because you have full understanding and knowledge about your client’s business processes and what the client needs in the website or app.
- It’s a lot easier for you to create wireframes of the website or app, get the client’s feedback, make revisions and finalize it. i.e. get the client’s approval.
- After that, handover the wireframes to the designers so that they can produce hi-fi designs fully aligned with the client’s needs.
Conclusion #
By understanding this situation, it’s clear that a Business Analyst should prepare low-fi wireframes first, get them approved and handover to the designers.
I faced the same situation in one of my projects and it was very cumbersome experience, so I changed the process in such a way that, for any new requirement, a Business analyst should prepare the wirefames first and that worked really well.
If you are an aspiring business analyst or already doing business analysis, and if you want to learn how to create wireframes, take a look at our online comprehensive course to elevate your wirefrmaing skills:
