Web Application Building Blocks

by Saulius - posted in: Application Architecture

Summary

Below is the collection of the main blocks for building modern web applications.

Each block has links and references to more detailed reading. The purpose of this collection is to illustrate the main focus areas while planning, specifying and building modern web applications.

Application Users / Personas

This is the key starting block for building any web application.

Understanding who is going to be using it, what are be the user personas and what actions will they perform on web application, is very important. Its a prerequisite for all the other building blocks and steps.

You can, of course, start lean, with only a couple of use cases at the beginning. But what's most important is to have a very good understanding of these use cases as it significantly effects chance of building successful web application.

User Interface (UI)

Integration to existing business processes

Integration with external data sources

Data management

Web application hosting

Application Security

Application and infrastructure security is a technical block. It is covered during the technical design, and web application development process.

As an owner, you should be aware of the security risks your web application will have (access security, data security, downtime impact) and technical team should provide you with security risk mitigation options.

If you are building application on existing software as a service platforms, many of them have security risk management inbuilt.

Application Development

Operations

Operation practices and operation cost is important part of using application which was built. They ensure that application is serving the purpose it was build fo and is usable.