How Software Gets Built
The people part: how ideas become products, and how teams avoid chaos.
Hour 1 — The lifecycle
- The SDLC: idea → requirements → design → build → test → ship → maintain
- Waterfall vs Agile — and what "Agile Scrum" actually looks like day to day (sprints, standups, backlogs)
- Version control: Git and GitHub as "track changes for code" — branches, commits, pull requests
- Where designers plug in: handoff is dead, collaboration is continuous
- Exercise: Exercise - SDLC Stage MappingExercise - SDLC Stage Mapping
Walk a feature through the lifecycle
Map a hypothetical product feature through the stages of a chosen software development lifecycle (e.g., Agile Scrum), and locate the designer's role at each st... — map a hypothetical product feature through a chosen lifecycle
Hour 2 — Final project kickoff
- Project - Final ProjectProject - Final Project
See also: Grading · Lecture 10
Brief
In teams of up to 3, take a product idea from concept to a working, deployed web application that a stranger could use — built primarily by directing ... briefing - Form teams (up to 3), pitch topics, get approval
- Set up: GitHub repo, deployment target, project plan with 2 sprints
Homework
- Submit your one-page project proposal before Studio 1