Jeremy Keith has written a post about evolution of web sites/apps and how it doesn’t relate to the frequent “websites as buildings” mental model. After all, he argues, once a building is built that’s it, right? Except that’s not entirely true. If it were then then there would be half as many ‘home improvement’ shows on the TV.

Besides upkeep and refurbishment there’s also extensions – anything from adding a conservatory to the back of your house, through extra teaching space at the local comprehensive to entire wings being added to existing hospitals.Of course, none of these additions would have been added in the original plans – usually because at the time there wouldn’t have been funding for them. But, the possibility of future extension is usually considered at some level.

So, how does this relate back to designing and building web sites/apps? Well, any changes to a building will be a series of incremental changes – and that’s something that’s the same. The most important thing is knowing what you need to build now, while still allowing for the changes that may or may not happen later.