Decoding Technical Ecommerce Development Language

“Artificial intelligence (AI) technology allows computers and machines to simulate human intelligence and problem-solving tasks.” - Investopedia

We can use AI for client projects, such as our email integration proof of concept for TELUS, using OpenAI’s large language model, ChatGPT.

Application Program Interfaces, or APIs, enable two or more software components to communicate using a set of definitions and protocols. 

Learn more in our article, Understanding APIs in a Decoupled Environment.

Organizations can use efficient, cost-effective, intelligent digital automation systems to optimize workflows. Automation aims to remove highly repetitive and time-consuming tasks to improve efficiency and reduce manual labour.

Read How Automation Helps Manufacturers Prepare for Disruption for more info.

Product Backlogs are items the scrum team can do within one sprint and are deemed ready for selection in a sprint planning event. Backlog refinement is an ongoing activity to add details, such as a description, order, and size.” - Scrum.org

Having a healthy backlog of issues within Jira, with detailed descriptions, ensures that your project is able to keep moving forward each sprint. Without items in the backlog, project velocity may slow due to a lack of pre-organized work available for the team.

“Continuous integration (CI) is the practice of automating the integration of code changes from multiple contributors into a single software project.” - Atlassian

“Continuous deployment (CD) is a software release process that uses automated testing to validate if changes to a codebase are correct and stable for immediate autonomous deployment to a production environment.” - Atlassian

Watch this video for another take on CI & CD

When you create content workflows, content creators are given the license to innovate. Clearly defined roles and permission allow for creative license while maintaining your brand’s voice and styling.

• Ensures brand guidelines are front and centre.
• Delivers consistent and timely content.
• Improves timelines and reduces human error.
• Allows your content creators to develop and publish content live on your site without the help of IT.
• Enables teams to work simultaneously, reducing bottlenecks.

Modern content management systems, such as Drupal, allow you to set up policies, roles, responsibilities, and processes that guide, direct and control how your CMS is used to accomplish your business’s goals. This system is brought to life by a content workflow tool in the backend of your enterprise tech setup.

“The customer journey is a series of steps — starting with brand awareness before a person is even a customer — that leads to a purchase and eventual customer loyalty. Businesses use the customer journey to better understand their customers' experience, with the goal of optimizing that experience at every touchpoint.” - Adobe Experience Cloud

Data can be a powerful tool, but what if you don't own your data? How does not owning your data affect how you can use it? Our experts can look at how your data is stored, what information your company controls and how to best configure your tech stack to make sure you are getting the most out of the data you have.

Learn more about Data Management

Data fetching is the process of grabbing data from a database and making it available to an application. Tuning how an application fetches data is one of the biggest factors in determining its performance.

In our development accelerator, Gesso, data fetching is contained in its own layer, rendering the data from your various systems for display on your website’s front end.

For more information on the different layers in Gesso, check out Anatomy of a Headless Ecommerce Accelerator Framework.

At Acro, "deliverables" has a different definition depending on where you are at in your project's process.

During Discovery & Strategy, these are often take-away artifacts, such as information and systems architecture documents, user personas, user stories, project canvases, and development roadmaps, that your teams can use, reuse, and dissect to ensure that your project plan is 100% correct and fits your needs at every turn.

During development, "deliverables" refers to the specific tasks or issues to be completed by the end of a sprint.

“A design system is a complete set of standards intended to manage design at scale using reusable components and patterns.” - Nielsen Norman Group

Using a design system is quickly becoming the gold standard for modern web development. The consistency and visibility a well-thought-out design system brings are invaluable for marketers, developers, and brand stakeholders.

Learn more: What Is A Design System?

“DevOps combines development (Dev) and operations (Ops) to increase the efficiency, speed, and security of software development and delivery compared to traditional processes. A more nimble software development lifecycle results in a competitive advantage for businesses and their customers.” - GitLab

At Acro, our DevOps specialists flex in and out of projects as Subject Matter Experts, or SMEs, ensuring your project is set up for success and that launches go smoothly. 

“An epic is a large body of work that can be broken down into a number of smaller stories, or sometimes called “Issues” in Jira. Epics often encompass multiple teams on multiple projects and can even be tracked on multiple boards. Epics are almost always delivered over a set of sprints.” - Atlassian

“Fidelity: the degree to which an electronic device (as a record player, radio, or television) correctly reproduces its effect (as sound or a picture).” - Merriam-Webster

At Acro, you will hear fidelity used alongside prototypes and low-, mid- or high-fidelity prototypes. Learn more from our CXO, Jason Poole, in his article Prototyping Fidelity in Website Development.

Nearly every web development project starts with an Information Architecture.

Even with existing sites, the organization of the site is likely to undergo modifications or updates. This is an opportunity for all the stakeholders to provide their input and get on board with the organization before moving into the creative and development phases, where fundamental changes to the site’s organization can negatively impact the timeline and budget.

The Information Architecture (IA) typically consists of user stories, sitemap diagrams, and sometimes simple wireframe prototypes. This document is the blueprint for the site, what content makes up the site and how it's organized, all tied back to research and understanding user motivations and business objectives

• Web Analytics Review
• Competitor Reference & Review
• Content Inventory
• User Journeys
• Sitemap Diagram
• Catalogue Architecture

“Kanban is a popular framework used to implement Agile and DevOps software development. It requires real-time communication of capacity and full transparency of work. Work items are represented visually on a kanban board, allowing team members to see the state of every piece of work at any time.” - Atlassian

Microservices serve as a connection between major online features that operate independently from one another. These systems and platforms progressively improve customer experience and operations when correctly connected through microservices.

Combined integration through microservices increases the effectiveness of these architectural building blocks. At Acro Commerce, we help our clients find the architecture that works best for their business, now and in the future.

Learn more: Microservices

Middleware primarily facilitates communication across different services and acts as an interpreter between other technologies and protocols. Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) function as conduits for the connected systems, facilitating data transfer, improving functionality, and reducing manual data entry or swivel chair processes.

In other words, the mediation layer allows the platforms to run independently, where data passes through the frontend to each respective backend system. 

For more information on the different layers in Gesso, check out Anatomy of a Headless Ecommerce Accelerator Framework.

In ecommerce development, migration can be described as moving data from one platform that is no longer suitable to another that meets your needs better. 

Learn more: What Ecommerce Data Migration Really Means.

Note: migration in this context does not refer to content migration, such as the information on your static web pages, but refers to the data contained when moving from one commerce platform to another, such as product descriptions, SKU and customer account data.

“Project milestones in Agile are key points of progress or completion within iterative cycles. Milestones are intricately tied to delivering incremental value to customers throughout a project lifecycle.

For instance, in an Agile software development project, milestones may encompass the following:

• Completion of the first sprint
• Delivering a set of functional features to customers
• Obtaining user acceptance testing and approval for a specific iteration
• Integrating a new module into the existing system
• Unlike traditional approaches, milestones in Agile depend on the Agile framework used. For example, in Scrum, a milestone could be the delivery of a feature set or the end of a sprint.

In Kanban, it could be the completion of a deliverable in accordance with the delivery planning meeting or the achievement of a project roadmap item. Otherwise, a main Kanban objective is continuous delivery of work with incremental delivery of value.” - Motion

“A minimum viable product (MVP) is a version of a product with just enough features to be usable by early customers who can then provide feedback for future product development.” - Wikipedia

Building and launching an MVP allows for faster, iterative development. By launching a base version of your site, we can fast follow with feature and functionality improvements, while getting your site up and generating revenue faster.

“Scrum poker, also known as “planning poker” and “pointing poker,” is a gamified technique that development teams use to guess the effort of project management tasks. These estimations are based on the entire group’s input and consensus, making them more engaging and accurate than other methods. To help gauge the number of story points for the relevant tasks, teams use planning poker cards, which are similar to poker cards.” - Atlassian

“A proof of concept aims to demonstrate project viability to product teams, clients, and other stakeholders. A POC may uncover flaws, leading the company to revise or abandon a project. In other cases, a POC can confirm the likelihood of project success, providing evidence of viability for development.” - Atlassian

At Acro, proof of concept is important for testing unknown or unproven functionality and determining whether it works before investing further in the project.

Also known as the front end, Gesso’s presentation layer is the culmination of the data from the API-connected systems passing through the middleware, data fetching and the design system components. The data is translated, treated, and ready to be presented to the end user in various ways: a website, an app, an IoT-connected device, or another content delivery method.

For more information on the different layers in Gesso, check out Anatomy of a Headless Ecommerce Accelerator Framework.

A Project Canvas is a macro view of the project which outlines the purpose of the project, how we will measure the project's success, the supporting milestones, who are the team members/stakeholders, and any project risks or constraints.

The fundamental purpose of Project Canvas is to confirm with the client our team’s understanding of the project's primary goals, bring transparency to any initial concerns or constraints, and clarify the next steps in the project.

When we talk about project management at Acro, we refer to our agile/SCRUM project management process that maximizes time and customer investment. Your project management team will include:

• Project Manager — to ensure developers are moving tickets across the board and managing the development on a granular level.
• Account Manager — to help align business objectives and ensure development satisfies those requirements while ensuring everyone is communicating clearly throughout the project.
• Product Owner — to keep the project on task and validate that the stories and issues appropriately satisfy the business objectives outlined by the client. 

For more information, check out our Project Management page.

A prototype is an initial mockup showing what the final product (website) might look like and how it will function. Prototypes can be designed as low-fidelity wireframes, or as high-fidelity designs showing the intended look and feel of the final build. 

A prototype can be built to allow project teams and customers to experience specific page flows and functionality before going into full development. It’s relatively low-cost and allows for plenty of iterations and pivoting. Typically, we use the User Stories outlined in the IA to guide the development of the prototype—rarely is there a need to mock up an entire website. UX designers need to work closely with engineers to ensure the system can be built effectively.

“Retrospectives are a brief, dedicated period at the end of each sprint (for some teams, a bit less often) for the team to reflect on how they are doing and to find ways to improve.” - Mountain Goat Software

It’s important to keep in mind the purpose of your retrospective. While this can obviously vary from team to team, good goals for a Scrum Team retrospective are:

• Improve project processes and outcomes
• Celebrate individual and team wins
• Create strong collaborative relationships, no matter how dispersed

A critical piece of a project’s toolbox, a development roadmap, is a high-level visual representation of development or planning over a period of time. It captures expected timelines for project milestones and is used as a point of reference once a development project has begun. Roadmaps are also used, in part, as an accountability tool to keep the project on track and ensure client and development team alignment.

“Scrum is one of the agile methodologies designed to guide teams in the iterative and incremental delivery of a product. Often referred to as “an agile project management framework,” its focus is on the use of an empirical process that allows teams to respond rapidly, efficiently, and effectively to change.“ - Project Management Institute

“Scrum sprints - A sprint is a short, time-boxed period when a scrum team works to complete a set amount of work. Sprints are at the very heart of scrum and agile methodologies, and getting sprints right will help your agile team ship better software with fewer headaches.

“With scrum, a product is built in a series of iterations called sprints that break down big, complex projects into bite-sized pieces," said Megan Cook, Head of Product for Jira at Atlassian.  

"Sprints make projects more manageable, allow teams to ship high-quality work faster and more frequently, and give them more flexibility to adapt to change." - Atlassian

“Sprint planning is an event in Scrum that kicks off the sprint. Sprint planning aims to define what can be delivered in the sprint and how that work will be achieved. Sprint planning is done in collaboration with the whole scrum team.” - Atlassian

A staple Scrum ceremony, spring planning sets up the tasks and expected deliverables for the upcoming sprint. Teams review the items to be worked on and ensure that the sprint goal can be met. This collaboration is a good time to raise concerns or ask investigative questions regarding a ticket and make sure that everyone has the bandwidth to complete the given work on time.

A stakeholder is anyone who has significant input into a project’s requirements and helps guide the project outcome.
Examples of stakeholders from a client perspective would be:

• Directors of Sales, Marketing or IT
• Business owners
• C-Suite
• Other influential members of the company

“Stories are short descriptions of a small piece of desired functionality written from the user’s perspective.” - Scaled Agile Framework ®

Story writing is the act of bringing all of the information collected in the IA, user stories, and ideal user journey information to create the tickets it will take to get the development work done to build your project outcome.

A technical architecture (TA) is a system blueprint of the arrangement, interaction, and interdependence of all software elements. At Acro Commerce, “TA” is an umbrella term that captures a sub-set of deliverables which capture the design and documentation of the individual software components.

Each project gets its own unique TA so that all team members understand the project’s foundation. When the technical architecture is communicated clearly, it becomes a foundation upon which the team can build. It also facilitates reference, training, and change management. Our TA is presented via Confluence to help ensure transparency and collaboration: this way, business leaders and technical leaders alike can work together to manage the product’s underlying systems and promote its long-term health and viability. Each page of the TA outlines technical details in an approachable way, which ultimately will spur future improvements and capabilities that produce long-term success.

A TA is part of a project's Discovery and Strategy (D&S) phase. A D&S includes research, planning, and prototyping to define the ideal outcomes for both customer and business workflows.

Included in the Technical Architecture document:

• System Overview - including system diagram, system components and API requirements
• Data Models - outlines the data of the new site and describes how the current site will translate it into a new structure
• Workflows are any steps a user takes in the application to achieve a certain outcome. We want to document these in detail to ensure we understand the site's core functionality and outcomes. 
• Roles & Permissions—Define the various user types and permissions needed (e.g., administrators, stakeholders, PO, etc.). These roles and permissions are not exhaustive and can change over time to best suit the application's features.
• Detailed breakdown of the systems in the proposed new architecture, such as commerce platform, content management system and ERP systems.
• Potential custom functionality that may need to be developed for the project
• A technical audit, security plan, performance plan, end-to-end testing plans, alternative approaches, and so much more that is essential to a successful planning document that guides every step of a development project.

The TA is a dynamic, living document that must be updated per system changes.

Users is a catchall term for the people who will get value out of a development project's outcome.

Most projects will require a user persona for a customer, or end user. This persona can often be split into two stages in the customer’s journey: a New User and a Returning User, but it could be expanded to include different roles, depending on the type of site and expected audience, i.e., B2C, B2B, D2C.

• With the New User persona, it’s good to focus on overcoming any issues around vendor trust or familiarity with a type of product. ie: establishing our client as a reputable vendor and/or providing educational material for potential customers conducting research
• For the Returning User persona, the focus can be shifted to the wants and needs of someone who is familiar with the site and product but now wants to access additional features. 

Another important user to include on each project is the role of a Site Administrator. This user could be represented as a single person whose needs cover a variety of actual roles within the client’s organization or could be broken up into multiple personas, i.e., Ecommerce manager, Customer Service, Sales, Marketing, Accounting, etc.

User Personas are created to illustrate the different types of users that are expected to interact with a product, such as a website. 

Each User Persona is given a name, profile picture, age, and occupation to establish a sense of identity and help the project team develop empathy for each user as an individual. 

A quote can also be included to help sum up the user’s overall goal and establish a sense of personality.

Next, we identify the user’s goals for visiting the site (what they’re trying to achieve) and their frustrations (what they’d like to avoid).

This helps us determine what features are most important to each type of user, allowing us to keep in mind who we’re designing/building functionality for and what its intended purpose is. 

“A user story is the smallest unit of work in an agile framework. It’s an end goal, not a feature, expressed from the software user’s perspective.
A user story is an informal, general explanation of a software feature written from the perspective of the end-user or customer. 
The purpose of a user story is to articulate how a piece of work will deliver a particular value back to the customer. Note that "customers" don't have to be external end users in the traditional sense. They can also be internal customers or colleagues within your organization who depend on your team.” - Atlassian

User Stories describe a type of user, what they want and why. Each User Story helps to create a simplified description of a requirement.

 User Story is generally presented following a standard format…

“As a   who   I want to    what    because    why    .”

For each User Persona, we’ll want to include as many user stories as are required to address each of that user’s goals and frustrations. 

Note: while our software teams also use user stories as a common practice for creating issues during development, the user stories presented in our IA document can remain more high-level, establishing broad wants/needs for each User Persona that will help to inform the project team as they flesh out the more granular features and functions that will be developed. 

User Stories written to accompany User Personas in the IA are used to kickstart a project for the client and development team. They provide some broad strokes to begin story writing, which is a good first step to helping clients understand the process if they’re new to it.