A Case Study on Developing a Classroom Web Application Using Behavior-Driven Development

Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) is a software design methodology which bridges the developer-client gap by evolving software through communication between the two sides and shaping it to the goals of shareholders. As a recently published iterative development strategy, BDD is slowly being adopted as a software practice in a wide range of domains. We study the applicability of BDD to designing Narwhal, a classroom drawing application that mimics a combination of PowerPoint slides and whiteboard. Through this case study, we employ junior and senior seminar students as clients and view the effects of BDD on Narwhal’s evolution over a three-month period. We conclude with a discussion on the general applicability of BDD to the design of classroom tools following lessons learned from this case study.