I'm fortunate to be write software for a living. I look at every friction point between an idea in a person's head, and the expression of that idea in working software. I like to reduce Transaction Costs. - http://userwww.sfsu.edu/ibec/papers/8.pdf Problem Building software can be difficult. Where does software come from? What goes into building software? The Process Stickies, Mockups, Brainstorming Sessions, a Founder or Founding-team's Visions. A mandate to solve a problem. An opportunity to enhance people's lives. Artifacts Personas to Specs Framing a problem to be solved. Take the user's perspective. Design for the User's perspective. Don't Make me Think. Content Inventory to Data Model A Content Inventory is a list of items that may be represented by the system. People, Accounts, Cars, Widgets. Items listed in the Content Inventory become modeled in the Data Model. Generally, software objects are persisted in a database, and the data in the database is modeled in some fashion, in order to be CRUD'd (Create, Read, Update, Delete) - the four main operations that can be performed on data. Use Cases to Workflows Mockups to Screen Designs Data Model + Workflows + Screen Designs + Specs + = Working Software