While teaching us proper UML (Unified Modeling Language) for diagram creation, our analysis and design class tasked us with developing a full design document in a waterfall design process.

The first step was to decide on a unique idea that had practical application in the real world. In a group of four, we each had unique ideas. It was difficult to come to a consensus on which idea to pursue. Ultimately we decided on a pet fitness application that had many design opportunities and could potentially be pitched to Banfield*.

 

Throughout the quarter, we had to make individual design choices for the group project. Keeping everyone up to date on every design consideration we made turned into our biggest challenge. Despite us constantly updating the documentation and describing each figure, little details were easily lost.

 

We were taught through experience how difficult the waterfall design process is to tackle to not only prepare us, but to also give us an appreciation of iterative software development.