Once you know who your users are and what they will be doing, you will need to figure out how it will be done in a general sense. This does not include what your program will actually look like, however. In a personal finance application, one of the user's primary tasks will be entering in transactions. The user will need to type in the data for each transaction or download them from their bank over the Internet. You need to know this kind of information for each task the user will have to perform, common or otherwise.

The actual implementation is determined last, which is why it has not been discussed until now. This is where the general usage of the application is determined. For example, the user will have a form to enter transactions into an account. The form should have text fields for each of the different kinds of data, such as the payee, the amount, and the check number. Somewhere nearby, the user will be able to see a list of all the transactions in the current account. Because this is where the actual building of the look of the program takes place, it is crucial at this point in development to know and understand what makes software truly easy to use, so this is what we will examine next. Note that what technologies will be used to actually create the program have not even been mentioned yet. For your audience, technology is merely the means to an end -- a tool -- and not the goal itself.