Project Architecture Design | How it helps in Choosing the Right Technology for Web and Mobile Application Development
Project architecture design enables project managers to define the concept, characteristics, and behavior of an application or website to meet target audience needs and expectations. This design is a blueprint that outlines how components will flow in the application, what technologies will be used to create the application, and gives all stakeholders a clear view of the functionalities to be developed.
A well-thought-out project architecture design can lead to a seamless user experience while reducing the chances of the application running into any untoward errors.
This article will outline the importance of project architecture design and its influence on choosing appropriate technologies for the various layers involved in the application.
What does a Project Architecture Design Comprise of?
A project architecture design highlights the interactions between the application’s components including its user interface, middleware systems, databases and servers used. This design serves as a “layout” and logically defines the connection between the server and client-side of the application. This high-level structure of a digital product plays an important role in identifying components that influence the reliability, performance, and security of the product. It outlines the components that make up the website/application and the description of their logic. Additionally, the architecture highlights the IT infrastructure, UX/UI components, software and hardware modules of the web application.
A well-planned project architecture can be scaled to handle various loads and adapt to changing business requirements while delivering a fast user experience and reducing development time. Developers can easily integrate new functionalities whenever required, without disrupting the entire structure of the application.
How does a Project Architecture Design help in Identifying Development Technologies and Components?
Web and mobile applications are made up of two primary components: The client-side and server-side. The project architecture design first outlines the functionalities that will be performed on either side and then goes on to identify the technologies that are best suited to create these functionalities.
#1 Programming Languages
The Client-side is also called the frontend and in a web application, the code for this can be written in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and stored within the browser.
The Server-side is the backend that controls the application logic and interactivity and responds to HTTP requests. In a web application server-side code can be written in Java, PHP, Ruby, Python.
In the case of a mobile application, structural and UI & UX components are created using programming languages such as Java, .Net, NodeJS, or Python. These design layouts are then sent for further implementation by programmers in the form of a working web application interface. These UI components also include notification elements, input controls, navigational components, various dashboards, activity tracking tools, and other elements for which the project architecture design can help developers identify appropriate technologies.
#2 Wireframing for Better Visualisation
Wireframes enable developers to experience realistic interactions between various components in the application by mapping the application protocol. A detailed clickable prototype with the help of tools like Invision, Figma, UXPin, Adobe XD helps the developers and other stakeholders visualise the applications design.
#3 Navigation and User Interaction Approach
The project architecture design chalks out the logical interactions that happen between a user and the UI. Seamless navigation is a huge part of a good customer experience. Use this design to finalize elements like:
- Single/ Scroll view
- Stacked navigation bar
- Tab/ Model controller
- Search based
- Gesture driven
Ensuring that your application’s UI is created to keep users engaged and give them an uncluttered experience forms an important part of mobile application infrastructure design.
How to Design Project Architecture in 3 steps
#1 Map out Requirements
Make a list of functional and non-functional requirements that will form the application. Without having these requirements in place from the beginning of your project, developers can run into the risk of using the wrong technologies, emphasizing or creating the wrong requirements, and even end up using an inefficient amount of capital and human resources to finish the project.
At a high level, functional requirements include the actions a user can perform on the application- like creating and editing a profile, viewing a profile, searching items, adding to cart, checkout, payment, etc.
Non-functional requirements include parameters affecting app performance and security. The best way to deal with these requirements is to quantify them like so:
- Performance: How well does your entire application system perform as well as how individual components perform? For instance, time taken to load all the UI/UX elements on the website.
- Scalability: How much is the potential to scale your system as user requirements increase?
- Compliance: How compliant is your application with respect to security/legal parameters?
The above task of quantifying non-functional requirements will give your team a birds-eye view of the effort and resources that may be necessary to optimize these non-functional requirements in the future.
#2 Component Interactions
As you map out your design, think about parameters like project capital, timeline, scope, human resources, training requirements, etc. to come up with technologies/hardware requirements that fit the various iterations of the application. Think about each phase of development as a separate step that would need particular technologies for end-to-end development. Diagram the layers involved in your software project to visualize the entire picture and how each layer or step influences the other layers of the application. This will help you appropriately plan the use of development resources.
#3 MVP/Prototype
Creating a prototype will help you visualize any pitfalls that may have crept in during the project architecture design phase. You will understand what technology stacks work, where loopholes like in the application development and releasing a prototype will get you quick feedback for validating your work and checking if assumptions made in the architecture are valid.
Maintain a revision history to document all the learnings from the prototyping phase to avoid the risk of repeating any mistakes. Documenting design decisions and the changes you make will help the entire team in the long run.
Final Thoughts
The success of a modern web or mobile application is inter-connected to its architecture. Designing a project architecture requires a professional who can understand the limitations and challenges that can accompany the development process. FargoWiz has qualified professionals that can help your business in deciding the best frameworks that can form the basis of your entire project architecture. For more information, send us an email at contact@fargowiz.com or request the below quotation form.
