If you are a website owner or a website designer, you can benefit greatly from the MoSCoW analysis approach. With this approach, both sides can take advantage of this concept since it helps everyone to find common ground, while also staying on the same page throughout the entire project. Thankfully, this concept is relatively to easy to understand and to use when this information is documented well and communicated effectively between everyone that has a stake in a website’s development.
Having said that, in a nutshell, this analysis gives the website owner an opportunity to relay their vision to the web designer and their team in clearly understandable sectors or phases. In this part of the planning of a website, the developers will know exactly how to design and breakdown the deliverables. Therefore, it is very important that clients have this part of the process completed and ready for the design team, even before meetings.
MoSCoW
Must Have • Should Have • Could Have • Won’t Have
Must Have
With the use of this acronym, everyone can see their website project in a manner that helps them to determine which parts of the design elements are the highest priority. For instance, when a company supplies a web designer with their requirements for their site, they should start the prioritization process by listing all of their Must Haves First. For instance, when a website is designed, the developers will need to know what they must do to put up or enhance a site. Usually, the first thing that must be completed on any website is the User interface, which is the graphical presentation of the site. If the UI is designed correctly, visitors to the site can navigate easily from one web page to the next and will also have an overall good user experience. Therefore, when a website owner is talking about its development, one of the must-haves is the completion of a good user interface.
Should Have and Could Have
Once the completion of the user interface is complete (Must Have), the website owner and designers can begin to consider the ‘should have’ features. Should haves are also a high priority after the Must Haves are added to the design since they are the next step in the entire project’s completion. In fact, it is at this step that the website can be launched live to the consumer and is available to make money. Therefore, to expedite the ROI on a company’s site, the company’s reps may recommend deploying the site without any of the Could Have deliverables (desired features but not necessary).
Won’t Have
When web owners and web designers collaborate on what needs to be done, they will also review the won’t have list. The won’t have list will not make it to the design or development process for one or more reasons. For instance, both the design team and the web owners do not see the value in delivering these features.
