Jacquard: a methodology for Web publishing

Learn about Jacquard, a software development methodology specialized for Web projects, and especially for Web development among diverse teams. Jacquard looks to align the work and goals of business interest personnel, Web designers, programmers, project managers, database analysts, and more. Learn about the core principles of Jacquard, and follow an example of its use in communication between a user experience team and a programmer team.

The great thing about the Web is its diversity. You can develop and manage a Web site with a seemingly endless array of tools and techniques. But this can be a headache for the interplay between the different people who have to contribute to a site. User Experience (UX) experts and Web designers try to make the visual elements as attractive, and ideally, as accessible as possible. Programmers and database experts feed the design with dynamic data that forms the meat of the site. Project Managers and line-of-business personnel (I call these "the business interest") worry about the costs, schedule, and overall value of the result. Such functional sub-teams have to work closely together to make the project work, but the difference in perspective can make it hard to collaborate closely without good standards for communication. Successful teams do manage to invent ad-hoc standards for exchange and communication, but other information disciplines have developed industry standards that help improve efficiency in such situations, and Web development teams could benefit from the same.

I have a long background in software and data architecture, focusing on Web-based and Web-like systems. In this experience I've seen—and sometimes created—various approaches to the integration of the work products of Web teams. The spectrum runs from traditional enterprise methodologies such as Rational Process, to adaptations of agile methodologies such as Extreme Programming and Scrum. But I think Web development is unique enough to merit its own methodology. I've been developing such a methodology, which I call Jacquard, after the man some people consider the first computer programmer. Joseph Marie Jacquard created a device which could be affixed to looms, which used a pattern of holes, much like early computer punched cards, to direct the textile design. The connection between art and technology that led to this pioneering development in informatics is still alive and well in the area of Web development, and is thus a fitting metaphor for systems that weave sites through the efforts of diverse teams.

What should a Web development methodology feel like?

The Web is in many ways different from any information platform before it, and this suggests a fresh approach to development and teamwork. In general it makes sense to look outward to the Web, and not inward and backward to traditional methodologies, to find what works. Lightweight, agile process mirrors the basic nature of the Web, and so does focusing on the data, and how data is organized for sharing. The specific application or database implementation is not as important, nor are the tools you choose to use. This mirrors the Web, which builds on sharing data, and does not require uniformity of implementations. As such, implementation independence is one of the core principles of Jacquard.

Another principle is support for decentralized communication. The Web works well across geographical boundaries, and with the increase of off-shore outsourcing and flexible work arrangements, it's useful to learn lessons on decentralization and rich communication. The Web is such a rich information space that some philosophically consider it a realm of its own which parallels, and sometimes intersects, our own real world—the idea of "cyberspace." Paying attention to where idioms on the Web draw from real-world concepts and phenomena is important to usability, and so Jacquard's principle of conceptual alignment encourages you to take care to express the concepts behind your Web project, and to make that clear expression the foundation for communication on the project. This is the principle that I explore most fully in this article. Many of the other principles are shared with other agile development methodologies, such as frequent iteration.

Putting Jacquard to work

Let's say you are a snowboard manufacturer, Fluffy Boards, and you are developing a promotional site for a new model of board, called the Cumulus. The idea of Jacquard is to take a real-world scenario and simulate it in the presentation and behavior of your Web site. The business interest personnel for the snowboard articulate the scenario for the site, and the data architect captures the most key concepts, such as:

�� * product
�� * endorsement
�� * customer
�� * customer review
�� * media
�� * media review
�� * recommended reseller
�� * featured reseller
�� * specification

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/web/library/wa-jacquard/