Process

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Thursday, September 27th, 2007

I hope the main things we took away from the process training is this:

Prototyping is the Anti-Waterfall

Doing development and design iteratively has distinct advantages over the traditional waterfall approach. It creates a high-quality plan while keeping the client heavily involved and able to make needed changes. I hope that this iterative approach can be used more and more as we learn about it.

Progressive Enhancement

If we can get to the point where we’re think about what needs to be there rather than how it should look (or act), I think we’re winning the battle. For HTML-based applications, its content -> structure/markup -> presentation -> behavior. For some of our more interactive Flash applications, we need to think about what functions are needed, then organize them and give them context, then decide how they should look.

For HTMLers, I’d ask they maintain separation between these layers (no inline styles or JS, good semantic markup). Font tags and tables can sometimes be the result of not progressively enhancing something. Any of you Flash guys have some best-practices on how layering can work well in Flash/Flex applications?

The Process is not a One Man Show

This has two main facets: first of all, I don’t want to become the process-police. I want as much feedback as I can on how things should work so we can test things out and continually become better at we do. Please check out the (temporary) Process Wiki and send me a note. Thanks to those who have reviewed things thus far. This has got to be a community effort, or it won’t work.

Secondly, I hope we can start to involve the many roles we have here at mediaRAIN in more parts of the process. If we have a designer, developer, and business manager providing some input (however small) at every stage in the process, none of our applications will ugly, unstable, or unprofitable. The more we can break down any walls between these groups, the better.

That said, here’s the Process wiki page. Those of you who have found my Process easter egg have been rewarded. Best of luck to the rest of you.

Archive for September, 2007

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Inspiration and Information : Our Favorite Feeds

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Monday, September 24th, 2007

This morning while perusing my daily feeds I found a diagnostic stylesheet (CSS) I will probably use, a link to a very funny Chuck Norris video, and learned how to restyle a Window’s login screen. All of this took less than ten minutes. My morning routine of reviewing the latest and greatest in my world of front-end web development is one that I find absolutely essential. Without news feeds these skills and valuable insights would have been lost to me and I would be force to rely on my much-less-informed cubical buddies who also may, or may not, have learned these same lessons and/or have seen humorous Chuck Norris videos. The point is that what is current is only available to those in the current. The feed current. It was an anology. You know… like the blogosphere is a current. yeah..

What follows is a current list of our favorite field-related feeds, aggregated and consumed by the creative folks at mediaRAIN. The list includes sources of inspiration for designers, bags of tricks for CSS gurus, utility belts of power for our PHP developers, and fountains of wisdom for our Flash-related experts. Share, read, celebrate, create. (Perhaps we’ll follow up this post with one which lists all our favorite bedtime stories.)

Design Inspiration

Design, CSS, HTML, Standards, Information Architecture

  • A List Apart – A List Apart Magazine explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on web standards and best practices.
    » feed
  • Andy Budd Blogography – Web design issues an in particular css, web standards, user centered design, information-architecture and running a s successful web project.
    » feed
  • zeldman.com – Web design news & info.
    » feed
  • SimpleBits – A collection of design work and publications, reported by a popular notebook that covers standards-compliant web design, technology and life.
    » feed
  • meyerweb.com – CSS, front-end tools, plugins, hacks.
    » feed
  • Digital Web Magazine – Digital Web Magazine is an online magazine intended for professional web designers, web developers and information architects.
    » feed
  • ABriefMessage.com – A Brief Message features design opinions expressed in short form.
    » feed
  • boxesandarrows – Boxes and Arrows is devoted to the practice, innovation, and discussion of design; including graphic design, interaction design, information architecture and the design of business.
    » feed
  • Signal vs. Noise – This is Signal vs. Noise, a weblog by 37signals about design, business, experience, simplicity, the web, culture, and more.
    » feed
  • Coudal Partners – An ongoing experiment in web publishing, design and commerce.
    » feed

PHP/CakePHP

JavaScript

Flex, Flash, Air, Actionscript

Misc.

  • FreelanceSwitch – Community & Resource for freelancers of all varieties – designers, writers programmers, illustrators, photographers …
    » feed
  • Pixelsurgeon – A digest of the creative, strange and interesting from the internet.
    » feed
  • The Web Standards Project – A grassroots coalition fighting for standards which ensure simple, affordable access to web technologies for all.
    » feed

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Contract Killers

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Tuesday, September 18th, 2007

I just read a great article by Andy Budd that talks about an alternative approach to bidding out projects. called “Target-Scope.” It looks like a great idea (it might be akin to what the ZenPrint estimates were like). What do you think about an approach like this?

http://www.digital-web.com/articles/contract_killers/ 

And how do we approach clients so that the discovery phase is a win for both of us?

Archive for September, 2007

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The Three Rings of Perceived Value

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Thursday, September 13th, 2007

Three frings of perceived value: basic product, support systems, enhanced servicesIf you want a copy of Andrew’s slides for reference, you can download them by clicking here.Thanks for everyone’s input: I suppose a parting question would be: what are your ideas for enhanced services that mediaRAIN can provide?

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Penner Tweens and the like

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Monday, September 10th, 2007

http://www.mosessupposes.com/Fuse/This little resource is a package of penner tweens and other effects all controlled through your actions. Create that oh so trendy bounce effect in your flash animations, stack effects or order them so that one starts when the other finishes. It also allows you to create custom tweens. The action script is pretty easy to use and understand too.

Archive for September, 2007

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