Software Development Models: Waterfall & Whirlpool

The waterfall model is a sequence development process in which the process is flowing steadily downward through five stages. The next phase cannot be started until the previous one has been completed. By doing this it makes each stage a lot more manageable and helps to keep a high standard of work. The waterfall process cannot be fixed once it has started.

The five phases of the model are:

The Whirlpool model only has four phases, it is different to the waterfall model as it allows the designer to deal with more than one phase at once. The whirlpool model works more to identify problems early on and dealt with before they become too expensive.

In Web Design the whirlpool software development is a better model to use as it is easier to go back and forth when designing. With the waterfall process the designer is very limited as once a decision is made it would be very difficult to change your mind on anything. In Web design as things are changing at such a rapid speed it would be foolish for a designer to commit to designing in one particular method (waterfall) as when new codes etc are developed they are limited to the basic things they originally set up using.