User personas are profiles of the people who will use your new system: who they are, what they want, what challenges they face – and how you have the perfect solution. When you fully understand who your user is, you can build the best product to ensure optimal user flows and user experience

A use case lists the actions or steps a user persona would undertake to achieve their goals using your new feature or system. From this we can develop usability tests of the most common user goals and map the real-world user flow through the system – highlighting any pain points.

A Technology Roadmap contains a complete functional description of the system being developed, including:

• Feature Overview - Overall linear view of all features scoped and their inclusion of the MVP.
• System Components - The core components of the system, such as a mobile app, API, POS. The combination of system components and their interfaces comprise the entire system.
• Required Browser & Devices - A definition of the browsers and devices that will be supported.

A conceptual model that defines the structure, behaviour, and views of a system. An architecture description is a formal description and representation of a system, organised in a way that supports reasoning about the structures and behaviours of the system.

Hunted Hive will detail the recommended technology stack, languages, frameworks and libraries for your project. Our current stack utilises the following:

• Postgres
• Redis
• Python
• AngularJS
• With provisioning in Ansible.

We also have experience with many payment gateway API integrations, including:

• Recurly
• Paypal
• Cheddar getter
• Stripe

A task breakdown is a collaborative spreadsheet that identifies all frontend and backend project components – consisting of epics (more commonly known as features) and tasks, along with their subtasks. Each task is given a description, allocated an activity type and acceptance criteria for testing purposes. Tasks are also given best- and worst-case estimates.

Good project modelling gives you confidence around cost and schedule estimates, while also providing transparency about what we'll need to bring your product to market. In the modelling process, the major functionality of each component is broken down into epics. Next, these epics are broken into tasks. Lastly, the tasks are broken into subtasks as required. Project modelling includes:

• Assumptions
• Overall estimates
• Estimated hours and cost per component
• Estimated hours per epic

You'll be given a detailed development schedule that includes phase details, major milestones and sprint dates. Throughout the development phases, you'll also get regular micro-updates and testing results – generally twice a month. Theme and branding integrations are completed as they are approved and coded, as are minor bug fixes. If you get involved throughout the reviewing and testing process, you'll greatly improve your end result.

Please be advised that once staging and production servers have been set up and the application is running Hunted Hive will issue an Ongoing Maintenance and Support Proposal. This will give you plenty of time to make a decision about how you would like to transition the developed works after the development proposal concludes.

Regardless of the length of sprints, we practice continuous deployment and continuous testing, this allows us to release improvements on a semi-weekly basis, while also providing you with a real product you can test and see evolve with every sprint at your leisure. Often times we release several versions a day. Deployment is separated into the following environments:

• Development - The development environment is used internally for Hunted Hive to develop the system/project.
• Staging - The staging environment is usually set up in the first month of development, and is a place where all parties can test the software.
• Production - The production environment is updated once all elements have been tested and you have provided approval of staging environment.

The SRS is a description of software to be developed. It puts the stakeholders and the software developers on the same page by laying out functional and non-functional requirements on what the software product will do, as well as what it is not expected to do. This document assists with a rigorous assessment of requirements before design can begin and reduces later redesign.

A good SRS will:

• Facilitate reviews
• Describe the scope of work
• Give software designers a reference (i.e. navigation aids, document structure)
• Be a framework for testing primary and secondary use cases
• Link features to customer requirements
• Provide a platform for ongoing refinement (via incomplete specs or questions)
• Ensure reliability, availability, security, maintainability and portability

Once approved, the SRS will set the baseline requirements for determining how project success will be measured. It is the central document the development team will use to estimate project budget.

The branding process starts from the initial client brief which covers all project requirements. Each project stakeholder is then asked to fill out a branding questionnaire. From this questionnaire, Hunted Hive will have an overview of the company, a direction for the branding and an understanding that all stakeholders envision the same desired outcome.

Depending on the size of the project, various logo and branding packages will be recommended. The small and large logo packages are basic packages where the client will receive high resolution and vector formats of the logo created based on responses to the branding questionnaire.

The premium branding package is more comprehensive and includes:

• Brand strategy - brand context, value proposition, brand positioning, brand architecture, brand differences and a mood board
• Brand naming (if required) - including taglines
• Brand essence & key messaging - ideally developed with the assistance of an expert copywriter
• Brand identity- symbol exploration, colour scheme, typography, logo, imagery
• Art direction- defining the design requirements for deliverables
• Style guide- outlining how graphic elements and layout should be implemented across deliverables such as a mobile application and website
• Brand guidelines- outlining how the visual identity should be used
  

We offer service level options to match your specific requirements. At Hunted Hive, we are committed to delivering value tailored to your needs. Over time, we have found some clients are interested in keeping costs low, while others prioritise fast and responsive services.

The User Experience (UX) wireframes are created based on functional requirements and placed in our interactive, online, collaborative prototyping tool – Invision – which allows us to demonstrate how the system will function and determine feasibility.

UX wireframes are basic and unbranded visual representations of the user interface. The wireframes are used to describe the functionality of each page in a system and how users will interact and experience each page.

Using Invision we can hotlink wireframes and mimic the basic functionality and navigation of a website or mobile app. Invision gives your whole team access to the wireframes so they can comment on specific screens and specific elements. This speeds up the feedback and user-testing cycles – we can have a basic interactive prototype working in weeks, not months.

Creating wireframes greatly improves the accuracy and detail of the roadmap. They are a quick and simple way to onboard developers to the project functionality and allow them to quickly identify tasks required.

The User Interface High Fidelity Mockups (UI) are created based on the User Experience (UX) wireframes and placed in Invision – our interactive, online and collaborative prototyping tool. These UI mockups have the branding and design elements for your product/company applied to the wireframes. What you see is exactly how the system will look and feel.

• If completed during the roadmap phase, this step will streamline development upon roadmap completion.
• High fidelity mockups are useful in obtaining additional project funding as potential investors can see how the project will look and function.

User testing finds and resolves issues and areas for improvement. The process should be carried out as early as possible during the development of the project – it is much quicker and cost effective to fix oversights early, rather than once development has started. User testing is typically carried out in three stages:

• UX testing - carried out on the initial UX wireframes
• UI testing - carried out on the initial UI high fidelity mockups
• User code testing - carried out on the staging server before the system is sent to production
  
  

Testing is carried out using a service similar to quant-ux. This gives us an insight into how users interact with the project and provides analytics (including visual heatmaps) to identify any issues.

Fast-tracking means you can speed up the roadmap generation process and allow the project team to focus on the requested roadmap deliverables.

How much does it cost?  

It really depends on how complex your idea is and how much work must be done to minimise the risk of anything going wrong. And so the designs are done in enough detail that the development team can build it. We find that somewhere between 80 and 250 hours of work can be involved. The higher figure typically includes the optional but recommended packages, detailed interactive mockup, and detailed Software Requirements Specification. We will provide a fixed price once we understand more about your needs.

What happens after the roadmap is complete? Can you build it?  

We surely can. That's our bread and butter and we totally geek out on building custom software. We have our own development team or can partner with others to pull off the implementation. We believe that the roadmap process is the ideal way for us to build confidence in each other's abilities. We are confident that you'll be happy to proceed with development on the conclusion of that. At the conclusion of the roadmap process, if we've done our job right, everyone will be agreed on the scope, schedule and budget. The team will have a detailed understanding of the product, so it's logical that we go on to build the solution at that point.

How long does a roadmap take?  

You can expect an average elapsed time to conduct the Technology Roadmap process of approximately 4-6 weeks. This accounts for expected transient delays in the communication between the stakeholders and Hunted Hive.

What is included?  

A complete description of what is included in a technology roadmap is available here. Clients are also able to customise their roadmap plan by incorporating various roadmap add-ons as required.

Have people used these roadmaps before to raise money from grants and investors?  

Absolutely.

I'd like my idea to be private, will you sign an NDA?  

Yes. It's your idea and we want to help you be successful. If you don't have one we can send an electronic version through.