Verification vs Validation Testing: Key Differences

If your website has existed for a long time, this is a reason to think about redesigning it. The fact is that web development trends are constantly changing, and the things that attracted users around five years ago may seem high and dry today. 

In particular, several years ago, the independent web resource GoodFirms conducted a survey among designers to find the reasons why users leave their websites. It turns out that about 40% of respondents were sure that this was due to the outdated design. Do you need to look for more explanations as to why you need a redesign? If you don’t, this article is for you. 

What Is a Website Redesign?

Website redesign is a modernization that involves changes in the design, content, and functionality of a specific web resource. There may be not only a change in color scheme but also in the website’s structure, which also implies a certain optimization of the HTML code.

Redesign can be done every two years, or less often, every three or four years. However, when the appearance of your website remains the same for five years or more, your users are likely to begin to believe that your business is idle and, therefore, will likely choose a more successful competitor.

Why Is a Site Redesign Important?

Let's imagine that when you launched your website first, it generally satisfied its visitors. However, after a few years, its traffic began to gradually decline, although the quality of your service and/or goods did not decrease. Most likely, the problem is that your website’s design is outdated. Although this may seem to be the only reason why you need a redesign, there are several other reasons that also lead to it:

• You are going to migrate your website to a new engine;
• Despite regularly taking SEO measures, your website is not ranking well in search engines;
• You are planning to expand your audience reach and scale your business;
• Your company has rebranded, and now, this should apply to your website as well;
• You are entering a new market;
• Your product range or the concept of its promotion has completely changed.

Why You Need a Website Redesign Project Plan

In general, there are many goals that you can achieve through a redesign. The benefits of website redesign include improving the user experience, rebranding, increasing reputation, optimizing traffic indicators, conversions, etc., involving the website in marketing campaigns, and so on. 

At the same time, whatever goal you pursue, its achievement must be consistent, and each step must be justified from the point of view of business and available resources. Otherwise, you will act chaotically, and the result of these actions will most likely not live up to your desires. To prevent this from happening, you actually need a project plan for website redesign.

How to Redesign a Website: Applying Key Principles for Success

Now, it's time to find out what five sequential phases the correct redesign strategy includes. 

Setting Clear Objectives

Any well-thought-out project plan for website redesign implies matching goals and needs to redesign tasks to be completed.

Understanding the Need for Redesign

At the very beginning, you will need to correctly identify the reasons for the redesign. For example, this could be an outdated design, a not-mobile-friendly user experience, the functionality update and complicated website structure related to it, etc. You need to describe all these reasons as precisely as possible to make it easier for your team of designers (and possibly developers) to decide on the scope of work.

Defining Your Goals

Once the reasons are clear, you can define SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals. Special cases of such goals may be increasing traffic, achieving better conversion rates, improving user experience, etc.

Research and Preparation

At this stage, you will have to complete more complex tasks that will lay a solid foundation for your team's further work. They will also help you understand how competitive your website is at the moment and which aspects of it have the highest priority.  

Analyzing the Current Website

Your website is probably already connected to some analytics system where you can evaluate the dynamics of its traffic, conversion rates, abandoned carts, and so on. Thus, you have to collect this data, evaluate its changes for better or worse over the last year, and compare these changes with seasonal and local trends in your niche to get the most objective assessment of your website.

Competitor Analysis

You will also have to analyze the websites of your main competitors to understand in what they are good at and what needs optimization. Through this analysis, you will be able to prioritize the tasks that your technical team will have to deal with.

Target Audience Identification

Refine your audience data – this is especially important if you're looking to enter new markets or scale your online business. However, even if your goals are less ambitious, you'll still need to refresh information about your potential customers – their demographics, pain points, goals, needs, etc.

Content Audit

Finally, you should conduct a global content audit – for this, you'll probably need the help of SEO experts. Specifically, if your website's main problem is low search engine rankings, it's likely due to poor-quality content that will need to be optimized or replaced with a new one.

Planning and Strategy Development

Actually, you are left with the last steps before you hand over your website rebuild project to your technical team.

Site Structure and Navigation

Based on the key indicators of your website displayed in the analytics, you will be able to determine which of your website’s navigation elements and structure components need to be changed.

Visual Design Considerations

If your current website seems visually outdated, you will need to identify relevant examples from your competitors and indicate which graphical aspects of their websites you like the most.

Technical Requirements

If you find that your website's performance is suffering or, for example, the website itself is not fully displayed on some mobile devices, optimizing these aspects will require the participation of web developers.

SEO and Content Strategy

If the problem is the poor quality of the content (lack of necessary keywords in the texts, low-quality images, outdated data, etc.), you will need to involve SEO specialists in the project as well.

The Design and Development Process

Now, it’s the practical part of your website redesign roadmap, which requires the involvement of technical specialists and the designers themselves.

Wireframing and Prototyping

Now that the project is in the hands of the designers, they can start creating wireframes according to your requirements for the updated version of the website. As your requirements become more detailed, they will build prototypes based on these wireframes.

Design Mockups

An intermediate stage between the development of wireframes and prototypes can be the creation of mockups. Essentially, these are medium-fidelity sketches of your project that, like wireframes, schematically demonstrate the main components of the website but already have a pre-defined color palette and some graphic objects. Typically, this intermediate stage is necessary for websites with a complex and/or non-trivial structure.

Development and Coding

If your site requires migration to a new CMS or you have discovered problems in the previous stages that can only be solved through changes in its program code, you will have to involve developers to eliminate these bottlenecks.

Testing and Quality Assurance

And, of course, don’t forget to staff your project team with quality assurance specialists who will check if the updated version of your website works correctly before it goes public.

Launch and Post-Launch Strategy

Finally, you can begin preparing for the website relaunch.

Preparing for Launch

If your updated website looks the way you like and all the inconsistencies have been ironed out, it makes sense to check its effectiveness on the representatives of its target audience. This way, you may get additional insights about optimization that can still be implemented before your website’s launch.

Launching the Website

Now, developers can upload a new version of the website to the hosting. It may require you to choose a new hosting provider or a new tariff plan from the old one – this makes sense if you plan to expand the reach of your audience.

Post-Launch Activities

This stage will last exactly until the next redesign. In particular, you will have to monitor the analytics of your update to see whether the new key indicators meet your original business requirements. You will also need to constantly work on your website's SEO by regularly uploading new, relevant content.

Conclusion

We hope that in this article, we have helped you understand how to website revamp, and now, you can begin this procedure as consciously as possible. If you are looking for specialists ready to take on not only the planning task but also the implementation of your redesign project, feel free to contact us, and our team will bring your most ambitious goals to life within your budget and timeline.

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In recent years, mental health has taken center stage globally. Currently, approximately 792M people globally have mental issues and lack access to traditional therapy due to financial constraints or societal stigma. The best way to solve the issue — is to go digital. That is where mental health app development comes into play. It cuts costs and makes mental health available to everybody around the globe. 

As to the market, in 2024 alone, the app market saw expansion to approximately $7.38B. In a decade, forecasts promise growth up to nearly 10% annually, scorching $17.52B. 

If you are ready to build a new solution — now is the perfect time to start. Below, we will explain how to develop a mental health app, share standout mental health app ideas, and highlight key factors to keep in mind.

Why mental health apps are in demand

Even though people have faced mental disorders throughout the entire history, only in recent years solving these problems become normal and generally accepted. And it won’t stop. Let’s numbers speak louder — according to 2019 alone, the global capitalization for the global antidepressant market was estimated at $11.67B. By 2027, the market promises to grow to a record $18.29B. 

Of course, depression is not the only issue. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there is a growing tendency for PTSD, anxiety, and OCD (due to economic instability, military conflicts, pandemics, as well as personal problems). 

Additionally, the fast-paced world daily brings panic attacks, triggers, and burnout (prevalent among doctors, teachers, and IT workers). Youngsters are prone to issues, too; among the most “popular” — are low self-esteem and social isolation.

Financial constraints and a lack of free time put hefty pressure on those who need a traditional approach to addressing mental problems. Then, an in-person visit to a psychologist or psychiatrist becomes a real luxury. But what if there is a more efficient, accessible alternative? That’s where developing your mental health app comes in.

Business and monetization models of mental health applications

For mental health app development, the following monetization models have proven to be the most profitable:

• Fee for the services of real psychologists.
  According to this model, the application acts as a platform, connecting users with professional psychologists, coaches, or therapists (similar to a marketplace with reviews, ratings, cost of services, and other attributes). In this case, the application earns the commission from each transaction (usually 15-30%).
• Subscription-based model.
  This model has a fixed fee for regular access to content and/or services for a certain period (month, year, etc.). If your app has diverse content and functions, offer multiple pricing models. This lets users pick a plan that suits their needs best.
• Freemium.
  These models give free access to basic functionality, with particular features to be paid. Usually, there are personalized recommendations, access to exclusive courses, advanced progress analytics, etc.
• One-time purchase.
  This model involves a one-time purchase of the application, after which the user has access to all its functionality.
• In-app purchases.
  Here, the basic functionality is available for free, but additional materials or services are paid (personalized plans, unique selections of tracks for meditation, etc.).
• Ad-supported model.
  In this case, app is free but includes built-in advertising (banners, videos, native advertising, etc.). At the same time, to improve the user experience, you can offer an option to turn off ads for an extra fee.
• B2B model.
  This model translates into you selling licenses to companies with internal programs to support employee mental health.
• Selling merch.
  This model focused on branded wellness merchandise promotion via scented candles, self-improvement guides, and mindfulness notebooks.

Top mental health apps on the market

Now, let's explore the most popular mental health apps. Perhaps they'll give you extra inspiration for your mental health app development project.

Headspace

Endorsed by the editors of the New York Times and 2.8 million users globally, Headspace is a product of the mental health company of the same name. Its core functionality includes meditations dedicated to improving sleep quality, relaxation, and cultivating mindfulness. They also offer courses on meditation, managing borderline emotional states, and more. Moreover, the platform has scientifically proven results in stress reduction and a user-friendly interface.

Calm

The Calm app is loved for high-quality content and a simple and intuitive interface. by 4.5 million (2023). And it is rightfully so. This app spins everything, from meditation sessions and effective breathing exercises to audio programs that are good for falling asleep faster. As for monetization, there is a free version with limited access.  Full access to functionals is only available with a paid subscription.

BetterHelp

BetterHelp has over 2 million users and connects with licensed therapists via text, phone, and video. Patients must pay a fee to continue their subscription and can also volunteer to donate to others. This app goes far beyond mood issues. It covers complex disorders and symptoms, such as clinical depression and PTSD.

Talkspace

Talkspace provides online therapy with licensed therapists through a tiered subscription model (with health insurance coverage). Moreover, this app is ideal for managing medication treatment and has many formats for direct communication with psychotherapists (including cases of emergencies).

Moodfit

Founded in 2018, Moodfit has become the top mood assistant for more than a million people worldwide. It has personalization options, customized mood data analysis through visualization tools, and mood-improving recommendations. In addition, the app has cognitive-behavioral therapy exercises as a handy and entertaining way to deal with mental issues. 

Woebot

Woebot is a free AI-driven bot founded by Dr. Alison in 2017.  It is based on text format and has cognitive behavioral therapy methods. Initially, this software was intended for youngsters in college and graduate school, but today, people of all ages use it.

Sanvello

Sanvello, created by Dale Beermann and Chris Goettel, provides evidence-based CBT techniques and tools to support mental well-being. Since 2015, the app has offered free features and premium content through subscription or insurance.

Key components of a mental health app

Let's determine what mental health app features should be included by default.

Registration/authentication/authorization system 

The main functionality of this system includes two types of registration: full-fledged, with the user’s email, and fast, through social networks (this is implemented through the OAuth 2.0 protocol, which is suitable for integration with Google, Apple, and Facebook). 

For better protection of user data, use two-factor authentication and store hashed passwords. This can be done, for example, using bcrypt. Additionally, allow password recovery via email or SMS and register log-in/logout events for a data security audit.

User profile

Include the functionality for adding, saving, and changing personal information (name, age, mental health goals), maintaining the user’s activity history (exercise completed, courses, sessions with psychologists, etc.), and privacy settings (public/anonymous profile). Typically, profile data is stored in a relational database (PostgreSQL/MySQL); it is also necessary to set a clear separation between public and private user data.

Home screen and navigation

The home screen should feature a clickable menu, allowing users to update content based on their settings. You can also add push notifications (for example, using Firebase Cloud Messaging). As for the menu, place meditations, psychological tests, stretching, and yoga exercises in text, video, and/or audio format. You can also include real-time communication with specialists via text, voice, and video chats.

Use cloud platforms such as AWS S3 to ensure scalable content storage. If your application is media-rich — add media streaming via HLS. 

Finally, localize content for users from different regions if you plan to maximize your target audience. 

In-app payment system

If you plan to monetize your app through subscription payments or in-app purchases, integrate App Store and Google Play to process payments via the In-App Purchase API. You can deploy the web version via Stripe. Once everything is ready, provide access control based on the paid features.

Analytics and recommendations

Place functionality for tracking user progress and boosting their motivation (e.g., mood changes) and recommendations based on analytics. The latter makes sense to implement using machine learning models (e.g., based on TensorFlow).

What to consider before creating a mental health app?

The basic functionality of a mental health app goes far beyond making it popular and profitable. Therefore, to maximize your chances of success, consider the following factors before creating a mental health app.

Competitive environment

Usually, it involves the user interface, content accessibility, and the quality of the exercises/recommendations. Notably, the Calm application (sleep stories) and BetterHelp (online chat with therapists) are prime examples of such. 

Analysis of bad ratings — matters too. In particular, users usually complain about the high subscription costs, lack of personalization, navigation problems, and negative experiences with customer support service. You can use it to make a competitive feature. 

Target audience

Your target audience — above all. This can be young people (18-35 years old) who need an effective solution for stress management and improving sleep quality. Or the elderly might be searching for a more convenient professional in-home/palliative care format. Finally, it could be corporate clients who want to implement programs for the mental support of their employees. 

Ultimately, user needs may vary. Based on the insights, determine the preferred content format (e.g., meditation, CBT, DBT, video sessions) and presentation style.

Regulatory requirements and user data privacy

The most common and comprehensive regulations are GDPR and HIPAA regulations, which govern the processing of personal data and medical information. To comply with them under the mental health app development process, you must implement data encryption (via SSL/TLS) and ensure transparent privacy policies.

Marketing strategy

To attract a broad user base, create a unique selling proposition. This can be achieved through AI diagnostics, integration with wearable devices via IoT, or simply offering a lower price than competitors. Next, point out the comprehensive marketing strategy. Select the right promotion channels: social media, partnerships with therapists, or advertising through user reviews. is essential for developing a comprehensive marketing strategy. Additionally, to retain users — regularly update content. 

Testing and feedback

It’s better to subject an app with a diverse target audience to beta testing. To do so, find the first users who could be your potential consumers, gather feedback, and optimize the app based on their input.

Financial costs and ROI

Finally, estimate the project budget. It should include development, marketing, updates, customer support, and infrastructure maintenance. Given the costs, you must also estimate how long it will take till your project is profitable. It might be useful for future investors.

What are the main phases of mental health app development?

Now that you have so many insights at hand, you can start the mental health app development process. Let's find out how this happens in practice.

Ideation 

First, define the problem. It is the mental health issues that trouble your audience and their goals. Obviously, your app should cover it. The solution might vary. It could reduce stress, help with sleep, or heal depression. Moreover, in the very first stage — conduct a competitive analysis. This will help identify niche leaders, find the target audience, and formulate a USP.

Planning 

At this stage of the mental health app development process, you will already have enough information to determine the main functionality of your teletherapy application. Select a technology stack (or at least decide whether it will be a native or cross-platform solution), and clarify the business model. Based on this, you can calculate an approximate project budget.

Design 

From now on, your mental health app developers can start creating prototypes and gradually turn them into a full-fledged design. Note that to develop mental health apps, you must use WCAG 2.0 guidelines, which ensure all users can access the app's functionality. Once the mental health app design is complete, test usability with real users to refine the navigation.

Development 

The mental health app development process is divided into frontend and backend. The first includes the implementation of the user part of the software, and the second – everything that happens on the server side. As individual modules are ready, your mental health app developers will need to perform unit and integration testing to prevent difficult-to-fix bugs in the future.

Testing 

Once the entire codebase is ready, QA specialists and testers will create test cases to ensure each function works correctly and the app performs well under high user load. This testing also ensures that all user actions within the app are secure and protect their privacy.

Release

Now that testing is complete, and all detected bugs are fixed, you can publish the application in the App Store and/or Google Play (your development team will first need to check whether it meets all platform requirements). After publishing, you can launch an advertising campaign to attract the first users, as well as set up tracking tools like Google Analytics and Amplitude to analyze user behavior.

Post-release support

At this mental health app development stage, you must check your application's speed and stability regularly. You will also need to update/expand its functionality once in a while and optimize what already exists based on feedback from real users. An equally important point is ensuring compatibility with newer versions of iOS/Android.

Challenges in mental health app development

Various challenges can arise during the mental health app development process. Let’s analyze them:

• Compliance with regulations.
  Mental health apps often handle and maintain personal information, including medical data, which imposes obligations on you as a developer to implement GDPR, CCPA, or HIPAA compliance.
• Balance between personalization and privacy. 

While personalization — is a key feature of these apps, it sometimes conflicts with privacy requirements. To address this, implement advanced mechanisms for anonymizing user data, which will reduce the need to send sensitive information to the server.

• Evidence base.
  The content provided by your app must be scientifically sound and effective for users. To do this, you should either accompany all your treatment plans with individual recommendations from real therapists or initially use approaches with proven effectiveness.
• User retention.
  Many users abandon apps after a few days of use, so your app may need additional retention mechanics (such as gamification and adaptive push notifications) that won’t make users feel guilty or overwhelmed.
• Monetization efficiency.
  Most users search for free or cheap health-related apps. At this point, you need to figure out the balance between user accessibility and the financial sustainability of your software.

How much do developers charge to build a mental health application?

The budget for developing a mental health app development depends on its complexity. So, we can't give exact numbers without first discussing your idea with your development team. But the approximate price ranges from:

• $140K for a teletherapy app.  
• $70K for a simple mood-tracking app with self-monitoring features.

Back-end features, like a database and admin panel, are often overlooked in cost estimates. Developers typically include these in the overall pricing for mental health applications.

If you want to get an estimate of your project, please contact us. 

Mental health app design: Best practices

Now, let's analyze several mental health apps (some of which have already been presented to you above) whose design has pleasantly surprised us. Maybe they will help you think better through your mental health app development process. 

Headspace

This app is praised for its simple and minimalistic interface, with bright illustrations and smooth animations that literally "nudge" users to meditate with its help. It is also adapted for beginners and is generally perceived as intuitive. This approach to design minimizes anxiety in users and motivates them to meditate regularly.

Calm

The aesthetics of the Calm app lie primarily in the author's images of nature, a soft color scheme, and smooth animations. Together, they create an atmosphere of relaxation  - that’s what you need to reduce stress. The app also stands out from its competitors with its "sleep stories" that help people with high anxiety fall asleep faster. 

Reflectly

Reflectly's unique design uses artificial intelligence to offer a personalized experience. A clear, user-friendly interface, dynamic prompts, and mood analytics complement this. Together, these features make the app an ideal choice for audiences of all ages.

Daylio

Daylio's intuitive interface is accompanied by simple icons for tracking the user’s mood and activity. Moreover, all these application elements are easy. Developers ensured that performing target actions doesn’t take too long. The application also has a built-in report generator with visualization elements so that users can monitor their progress.

Happify

The Happify app has a gamified interface. It simplifies and informalises the process of improving the psycho-emotional state. The gamification principles here are based on scientific methods to improve mood. So, it does not add to users' cognitive load.

Mental health app ideas to succeed in 2025

In this section, let’s look through the most viral mental health app development ideas so you can pinpoint your project to success:

• Integration of AI.
  AI assistants can help analyze moods and behavior patterns, give personalized recommendations on how to improve well-being, and remind them of any regular upcoming activities, like a daily mood rate system.
• Social interaction.
  This can be implemented via in-app groups of users with similar mental problems where they could share their healing experiences and receive mutual support.
• Integration with wearable devices.
  Through the IoT, you can analyze heart rate, assess stress levels, determine sleep quality, and create a common mental health map.
• AR and VR tools integration.
  It might be useful for relaxation (to enhance the immersion effect).
• "Instant help".
  Through the screen for quick access to ready-made materials and an online chat with a psychotherapist.
• Content specially adapted for children and adolescents.
  For example, these could be games for managing emotions or recommendations for teenagers on dealing with anxiety and stress;
• B2B solutions for companies.
  in particular, these could be psychotherapeutic assistance to prevent burnout.

Highlights of our experience in delivering healthcare solutions

Finally, we'd like to share our experience developing a mental health app. A client approached us to expand their services to the web, specifically to support small businesses recovering from the recession caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The objective was to create a platform to attract a target audience seeking health-related products and services.

For this project, we assembled a team of ten specialists. We chose Ionic and Vue.js for the frontend tech stack, with Laravel for the backend. The result was an online platform featuring a simplified login process, the ability to schedule and reschedule meetings between clients and trainers, an intuitive search for events and classes, role-based access, and an integrated payment system for online payments (covering group and individual courses, as well as event participation). We also implemented live session connections via Google Meet and Zoom. The solution was complemented by a clean, minimalist design with a calming color scheme, ensuring a pleasant and user-friendly experience.

If you want to learn more about this project, please follow this link.

Final thoughts

With this comprehensive guide, you can confidently start looking for specialists who would bring your idea to life. Don’t go any further, as you are already in the right place! Just fill out this form, and our mental health app development team will contact you as soon as possible!

Hey, are you here to find a solution for a consolidated and easy-to-access “home” for your business information, which is usually transferred from different places, often unrelated to each other? Then, you probably need to think about creating a digital space where it will be integrated, cleaned, structured, and stored accordingly, for further use in your regular business operations. But what is this space? Let’s find it out right now.

What Is Data Warehousing?

In a nutshell, it is a repository where your business data comes from disparate sources, where it is brought to the proper quality, and where it is stored, providing individuals with the appropriate rights with easy and fast access to it. Typically, such repositories serve as one of the central components in automated analytical solutions, but, as practice shows, the range of their application can be much wider.

Key Components of a Data Warehouse

In general, its main components are considered to be the following:

• Sources, from which structured and unstructured information comes – these can be third-party databases, tables, systems, applications, etc.;
• Data Extraction, Transformation, and Loading (ETL) tools, which define scenarios for extracting, transforming, and loading the information;
• Data warehouse database, which is the main repository (usually in the form of a database management system, DBMS) with already prepared, i.e., cleaned and structured data, that can be used for analytics, reporting, and other business tasks without additional manipulation;
• Metadata repository, which includes the permissible data types and the rules according to which this data will be used;
• Query and reporting tools, which define algorithms for fast and unified access to data, as well as its analysis;
• Data mart, a subset of the data warehouse that is used for individual business tasks (this can imply, for example, marketing data warehouse design) which formation occurs either directly through the collection from disparate sources or pre-preparing within a consolidated space.

Core Principles of Data Warehouse Design

Now, let's talk about the main data warehouse design principles:

• A clear definition of business requirements and goals, as well as metrics that allow you to objectively assess the degree of their achievement;
• Understanding how information is integrated from multiple sources and what should be the unified format after its transformation;
• Choosing the right type of data modeling – these can be star schemas, snowflake schemas, fact tables, and so on;
• Choosing the right methods and data warehouse software to ensure the quality and consistency of information, in particular, the methods of cleansing, validation, and supplementing of data;
• Planning, scaling, and managing the performance through various methods of indexing, partitioning, compression, etc.;
• Choosing the right tools for metadata management to simplify and improve access to the information;
• Ensuring security and access based on policies and rules (usually, this is achieved through the implementation of advanced encryption algorithms, the introduction of access policies for different user groups, as well as providing reliable authentication and authorization methods);
• Implementing end-to-end monitoring for ensuring data quality and security, performance of processes occurring within the data warehouse, and so on.

Steps in Data Warehouse Design

In this section, we invite you to consider the key steps leading to a successful and agile data warehouse design.

Requirement Gathering

According to the principles to design a data warehouse we defined above, the key to effective data warehouse design is to gather business requirements and clear business goals that it should fulfill. It is also important to identify the requirements for security, scalability, and performance of the repository.

Data Modeling

This is not yet a practical stage, but it still requires the participation of specialists – in particular, it implies the identification of entities, their attributes, as well as possible relationships between them. After this, the most suitable type of DBMS implementation needs to be selected – for example, in the form of tables, columns, indexing, etc. After this, you have to make sure that the selected type performs all the tasks assigned to it according to the predetermined requirements.

ETL Process Design

We have already explained above what the ETL process means, and this stage actually involves choosing the right tools and scenarios for their use.

In particular, you will need to define methods for extracting information from disparate sources (these can be database queries, API calls, file transfers, etc.), methods for bringing data to a single format and ensuring its proper quality (since you will most likely have to deal with big data, there may be many inconsistencies), methods for aggregating data to create complex information structures, automation methods for bulk loading of data (this can be full or incremental loading, and so on) with the usage of temporary storage areas, methods for detecting and eliminating data errors, as well as methods for checking data for completeness and accuracy.

Database Schema Design

There are several well-known data warehouse design patterns, such as:

• Star, which has a fact table at its center and dimension tables associated with it around it;
• Snowflake, which is a more complex Star and also implies additional dimension tables that surround each base dimension table;
• Galaxy, which contains two fact tables and the dimension tables between them.

Data Integration

Now, you can start integrating the data using the previously defined ETL tools and technologies. At this step, you need to make sure that everything works as intended, and the data is transformed into the required unified format.

Data Storage Solutions

At this stage, you need to choose specific data storage solutions according to your requirements for the expected data volume, performance, scalability, and cost. Usually, the choice is made between relational databases, columnar databases, data lakes, and cloud data warehouse solutions.

Data Presentation Layer

Finally, to design data warehouse, you will need to understand what your data presentation layer will be – the layer at which end users will be able to seamlessly access the data and use it to solve specific business problems. This includes developing interfaces, dashboards, reports, and various data visualization tools.

Conclusion

Now that you have a clear guide to data warehouse design, you can begin implementing it with a full understanding of the principles and stages on which it is based. If you would like to delegate this comprehensive task to seasoned data warehouse development specialists, just contact us.