Acknowledging that most people won't be a very useful developer at that stage, I always propose a different approach..
I tell the person to sketch out the how a user moves through the app, what they can do where, and how it should work. I even tell them to sketch out something basic with powerpoint.
If they make it through those stages, it does two things: First, it demonstrates that they're relatively serious about the idea. More importantly, it lets them get a bunch of the oddities, inconsistencies, etc figured out before there's code involved. Making radical changes at that point is File->New.
First thing I tell people who ask "how would I get started?" 1) talk to people you think might want to use what you have in mind and see what they think and 2) build it on paper, because no matter who ends up building it, your ability to clearly express what you want in a very literal way is going to be key to getting what you want.
I tell the person to sketch out the how a user moves through the app, what they can do where, and how it should work. I even tell them to sketch out something basic with powerpoint.
If they make it through those stages, it does two things: First, it demonstrates that they're relatively serious about the idea. More importantly, it lets them get a bunch of the oddities, inconsistencies, etc figured out before there's code involved. Making radical changes at that point is File->New.