I am working in a large enterprise involved in large scale web projects.
We have a large eCommerce website that is custom developed in Java.
Each page in the website has different dependencies (other pages that it interacts with) that we need to document/be aware of.
What we are looking to do is build up some way of documenting or creating a sitemap style website that we can add each page onto and list its dependancies. Once this is completed, page its dependencies (other pages it interacts with) can easily be seen, so we know that if we change page X - it could effect page Y.
We should also easily be able to update the site structure in this tool/document/site/prototype quickly and it maintain dependancies/relationships in the document.
What is the best way of doing this? Surely this is a common scenario in enterprises that will of been solved with a tool already…
I just need to find out what it is and how its done.
I’ve worked with many large web projects and I’ve never seen that technique. Why not just write quick UI mockup using HTML? You can fake the data by just hard coding the values in the table, copy the menu system for each HTML file, and etc… This is just to definite the UI requirements. To me, this catches all the “gotchas”. The phrase “one picture means thousand words” is really true. In the documentation, you make a screenshot and give it a UI requirement details.
What you really want is an automated integration test suite that tests the behavior of the system, including these inter-page dependencies. You then run that after every change to confirm you don’t have regressions.
I have done some research on the applications suggested but these seam to be testing focused.
The main objective is to have a representation of different pages - where we can state information/document functionality of page sections - but also, make associations with other functionality/page dependancies.
I am imaginging it to look something similar to how you would map database relationships in a GUI - we should link dependacies of different interlinked pages - or parts of functionality so that, in 3 years do the line. If we want to change functionality or page X - we can easily see that in looking at the software, the functionality used or page dependancies so if we change X - it could effect pages Y and Z - or the functionality in pages A,B and C.
Hope this makes sense.
(Please see picture attached of a GUI mapping table relationships - I am thinking something along these lines!) But dont know if anything is available…