Agile development was made for tough economic times, but does not fit comfortably into the research-heavy, iteration-focused process designers trust to deliver user- and brand-based sites. How can we update our thinking and methods to take advantage of what agile offers?
Topic: Business
Writing Content that Works for a Living
Most web copy is still being written by people who aren’t writers and don’t have time. The good news? Anyone who touches copy can make a difference by insisting that every chunk of text on the site do something concrete.
Working From Home: The Readers Respond
We asked. Our gentle readers answered. In Web Dev Notes No. 263 we inquired how you walk the blurry line when you work from home. Here are your secrets—how to balance work and family, maintain energy and focus, get things done, and above all, how to remember the love.
Where Our Standards Went Wrong
To validate or not to validate; that is the question. Web Dev Notes’s own Ethan Marcotte helps us to re-examine our approach to standards advocacy and how we can better educate our clients on the benefits of web standards.
The Survey, 2008
Calling all designers, developers, information architects, project managers, writers, editors, marketers, and everyone else who makes websites. It is time once again to pool our information so as to begin sketching a true picture of the way our profession is practiced worldwide.
How Do You Walk the Line Between Work and Home? Share Your Best Practices With ALA
Tell us how you overcome isolation, distractions, and temptation. How you deal with kids and deadlines. How you walk the blurry line between work and home. Share your best practices on working from home so we can present them in an upcoming issue of Web Dev Notes.
Walking the Line When You Work from Home
Working from home as a freelance contractor or remote employee can be a great thing, particularly if you live alone. But what if you have a spouse and/or children at home with you while you work? Every work environment offers distractions, but those who work from home with their families face a unique set of issues—and need equally unique ways of dealing with them.
Collaborate and Connect with Subversion
Managing subcontractors and distributed projects is easy and fun. No wait, that’s a lie. Luckily, a good version control may be just what you need to keep your projects on track.
Why Did You Hire Me?
Landing a new job or client is difficult in this economic climate. Undelivered contractual promises and work environment shortcomings can transform that challenge into a long-term nightmare. Keith LaFerriere shows how to get paid what you’re worth; how to fight for control of your projects using management tools corporate cultures respect (even if they don’t understand your work); and how to tell when it’s time to jump ship.
The Cure for Content-Delay Syndrome
Clients love to write copy. Well, they love to plan to write it, anyhow. On most web design projects, content is the last thing to be considered (and almost always the last thing to be delivered). We’ll spend hours, weeks, even months, doing user scenarios, site maps, wireframes, designs, schemas, and specifications—but content? It’s a disrespected line item in a schedule: “final content delivered.” Pepi Ronalds proposes a solution to this constant cause of project delays.
