http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Design/Web-Design/Project-Management A listing of the most recently indexed works about Design and Web Design and Project Management in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Design/Web-Design/Project-Management http://tc.eserver.org/35177.html http://tc.eserver.org/35177.html There’s often an unsettling discrepancy between the stakeholder approved wireframes and visual comps and the actual product in production. What you see in those environments is sometimes a far cry from those polished wireframes and those shiny, pixel-perfect visualizations that were filled with placeholder content (such as lorem ipsum text, dummy copy, and image blocks). What you’re seeing in production environments now holds the real content. The imagery doesn’t support the interactions, is meaningless, useless, or worse, contradictory to the design intent. The copy, headers, and labels are unclear, too long, too short, or simply irrelevant. What happened? http://tc.eserver.org/33640.html http://tc.eserver.org/33640.html Agile is here to stay. The economic difficulties of the past months have finally put waterfall out of its misery; now more than ever, long requirements phases and vaporous up-front documentation aren’t acceptable. Software must be visible and valuable from the start. For many designers, Agile is already a fact of life (and for those less accustomed, some recommended reading follows at the foot of this article). We are reaching the point where we must either acclimatize or risk being bypassed. The good news is that Agile does allow us to still do the things we hold dear—research, develop a vision, and test and improve our designs—we just need new techniques. Now is the time to get real, and prove design can adapt, if we want to stay relevant in these increasingly unreal times. http://tc.eserver.org/33490.html http://tc.eserver.org/33490.html Nearly every company I’ve worked with since becoming a web professional six years ago has lacked an efficient way to decide which things to do first. Put 10 people into a room for an hour, and they’ll surely come up with a wish list a mile long. http://tc.eserver.org/33342.html http://tc.eserver.org/33342.html Most clients are good clients, and some clients are great clients. But some jobs are just never going to work out well. Herewith, a few indicators that a project may be headed to the toilet. http://tc.eserver.org/33279.html http://tc.eserver.org/33279.html Websites change the way an organization communicates with its staff, customers, investors and general public. A change in communication is a major shift for the organization. To effectively implement such a change will take time. You need a five-year plan for your website. http://tc.eserver.org/33162.html http://tc.eserver.org/33162.html Well-managed websites tend to be those that are narrow in their focus. They do a few things really well rather than attempt to do lots and lots of things. http://tc.eserver.org/33058.html http://tc.eserver.org/33058.html When developing intranet releases, intranet teams often find themselves very constrained by both time and resources. The challenge then becomes delivering sufficient content and capabilities to meet business and user expectations, within the project constraints. This briefing introduces a simple approach to scoping a release that takes all of these factors into account. http://tc.eserver.org/32879.html http://tc.eserver.org/32879.html The inaccessibility of web content can have a significant impact on the lives of individuals with disabilities. Many people without disabilities are ignorant of the importance of the issue to those who are directly affected. They are also often ignorant of the tremendous benefit that accessible web content can be. Accessible web sites offer independence to individuals with disabilities that would otherwise not have it. http://tc.eserver.org/32724.html http://tc.eserver.org/32724.html As a designer, do you know where your work really fits in the process of design? If Web design is your business, then you must make certain you are in the right mindset and you use the right process when it comes to your work. You don't want your designs to fail, but, unfortunately, there is a strong chance that they will do exactly that. Lets take a step back for a minute and define what a failing design is, and why it fails. http://tc.eserver.org/32053.html http://tc.eserver.org/32053.html As a freelance web developer, time is money. I use many different tricks to increase my productivity and these are my top selections for saving time. http://tc.eserver.org/31745.html http://tc.eserver.org/31745.html Is the sheer possession of a PMP intended to be the Holy Grail of successful web projects, known to fail at a startling rate, or simply a way to divorce oneself from whatever outcome may result from the web project? http://tc.eserver.org/31508.html http://tc.eserver.org/31508.html We urgently need a quick crash course on web site management; otherwise, connecting with potential customers will become a very tough challenge. Lucky are those who have a unique domain name without the additional baggage of extraneous language, numbers, dashes or slashes. Studies have shown that 90 percent of business names are problematic. These problems are serious issues for achieving higher visibility. http://tc.eserver.org/31507.html http://tc.eserver.org/31507.html Processes evolve. Over time and several redesigns, a few points screamed to be kept in mind: communicate with the client, be scalable, plan to plan, test your assumptions, analyze your current site, and so on. We ran these mini-philosophies by industry leaders and newbies alike. The result? Our collection of things to think about evolved into—drum roll, please—10 EXPERT TIPS TO A SUCCESSFUL REDESIGN. Redesign is happening. Address the need. And stay on track while you do it. http://tc.eserver.org/30441.html http://tc.eserver.org/30441.html How can you convince others that Web investments are a wise decision in a slow economy? http://tc.eserver.org/30166.html http://tc.eserver.org/30166.html Web page projects can be completed in minimal time if you have your team's buy-in. You need a team leader that finds creative ways to energize the team and has excellent organizational and communication skills. Standards, spreadsheets, and databases, and a knowledgeable technical and creative group provide essential tools to success. But, enthusiasm and synergy are the key components that make the project work, with upper management behind you all the way. Completion of the project finds excellent bonuses for a job well done! http://tc.eserver.org/28919.html http://tc.eserver.org/28919.html Bill Wetherell talks with Tom Wailes about how one team at Yahoo! turned the normal design process on its head. Their thoughtful approach was successful, Wails posits, because they worked small and crafty while being inclusive in most useful ways. http://tc.eserver.org/28410.html http://tc.eserver.org/28410.html The single most difficult and important skill for a web designer is: Remembering what you're doing. It is incredibly easy to get bogged down on the surface level of design, pushing boxes and buttons this way and that around the page until it appears to have perfect visual balance. This is: A Complete Waste of Time. Before looking at how to design on screen, let's consider how to think like a successful designer. To be most successful, you've got to know what you're trying to achieve, and take the most direct path to achieve it. http://tc.eserver.org/28411.html http://tc.eserver.org/28411.html As a general rule, designers and developers should avoid trying to be clever, and should concentrate on working smart. http://tc.eserver.org/28359.html http://tc.eserver.org/28359.html It's true: even simple projects get messy. Christina Wodtke comes clean on Swiss Army knives, the writing on the wall, and the untidy glory of the Boxes and Arrows redesign contest. http://tc.eserver.org/28322.html http://tc.eserver.org/28322.html Better planning and a beefed-up style guide may be exactly what you need to avoid markup derangement or, worse, a dysfunctional product. http://tc.eserver.org/27856.html http://tc.eserver.org/27856.html Just how many people does it take to properly manage a website? It depends on the website. Shane Diffily explains how to figure it out. http://tc.eserver.org/27637.html http://tc.eserver.org/27637.html As a client or manager responsible for a web development project you don't need to know anything about how a standards based web site is created. However you do need to know that your project is addressing these five important issues. http://tc.eserver.org/25257.html http://tc.eserver.org/25257.html The use-case model can be a powerful tool for controlling scope throughout a project's life cycle. Because a simplified use-case model can be understood by all project participants, it can also serve as a framework for ongoing collaboration and a visual map of all agreed-upon functionality. Use it to plan, to negotiate, and to prevent scope creep. http://tc.eserver.org/25261.html http://tc.eserver.org/25261.html One of the biggest problems in creating and delivering a site is how to decide, specify, and communicate exactly what we’re building and why. Use cases can help answer these questions by providing a simple, fast means to decide and describe the purpose of your project. In this quick-reading article, Messieurs Carr and Meehan introduce use cases and their, uh, uses. http://tc.eserver.org/24636.html http://tc.eserver.org/24636.html True Web site redesigns focus on much more than visuals. Brink and Regenold's redesign process will help technical communicators rethink a site from the ground up. http://tc.eserver.org/23517.html http://tc.eserver.org/23517.html Lean UI development in Feature Driven Development is achieved through right-first-time implementation of the interaction designer's intent using David Harel's Statechart notation to model the interaction design. http://tc.eserver.org/22970.html http://tc.eserver.org/22970.html Sometimes you don't have the time to sit down and plan out the ideal Web site. Maybe you've just recently been appointed as your organization's webmaster, or have recently been assigned to oversee accessibility operations at your organization, and you discover that your Web site has gaping holes in its accessibility. Rather than panic, you should start with the biggest problems and work your way through the site until you have fixed all of the accessibility errors. After you've 'plugged the holes,' then you can start thinking about a new design, but not until then. This workshop presents a 'fast track to accessibility' that prioritizes your tasks of sorting through and fixing your site's accessibility problems. http://tc.eserver.org/22082.html http://tc.eserver.org/22082.html The intranet team often becomes viewed as a gatekeeper or bottleneck that does little more than say 'no' to business units. The business then reacts by rebelling against this centralised control, or simply working around the intranet team. There is a better way. Intranet teams should instead look to playing a leadership and coaching role in the organisation. These two approaches provide a range of techniques for encouraging organisational change and supporting staff activities. http://tc.eserver.org/22044.html http://tc.eserver.org/22044.html Generating a site plan is an optimal approach to starting your site. http://tc.eserver.org/21770.html http://tc.eserver.org/21770.html A template for providing historical information, available industry research, initial scope, a rough schedule, and implementation plans for the proposed project. It should outline business objectives of the project. It is to be completed by the project requestor – usually a business stakeholder. http://tc.eserver.org/21751.html http://tc.eserver.org/21751.html When resources are limited, the design must be optimized to make the best use of all resources. To account for this complexity, it is important to have a clear understanding of both sides of the design equation—what you have to work with and what you are trying to build. http://tc.eserver.org/21750.html http://tc.eserver.org/21750.html Within most corporations, taking ownership of an intranet is an unglamorous, exhausting, and thankless job for a new intranet manager. But if approached with the same rigor, discipline, and focus as any other business initiative, the task can quickly become much simpler. http://tc.eserver.org/21738.html http://tc.eserver.org/21738.html Diagrams are an essential tool for communicating information architecture and interaction design in Web development teams. This document discusses the considerations in development of such diagrams, outlines a basic symbology for diagramming information architecture and interaction design concepts, and provides guidelines for the use of these elements. http://tc.eserver.org/21727.html http://tc.eserver.org/21727.html First came the primordial soup. Thousands of relatively simple single-celled web sites appeared on the scene, and each one was quickly claimed by a multi-functional organism called a "webmaster." A symbiotic relationship quickly became apparent. Webmaster fed web site. Web site got bigger and more important. So did the role of the webmaster. Life was good. Then, bad things started to happen. The size and complexity and importance of the web sites began to spiral out of control. Mutations started cropping up. Strange new organisms with names like interaction designer, usability engineer, customer experience analyst, and information architect began competing with the webmaster and each other for responsibilities and rewards. Equilibrium had been punctuated and we entered the current era of rapid speciation and specialization. http://tc.eserver.org/21557.html http://tc.eserver.org/21557.html Managing a Web site project typically does not follow any clearly defined methods or standards of practice. Although there is a lot of 'how to build a site' information out there, very little on how to manage a Web project actually exists. But a project site could be just the answer you are looking for. http://tc.eserver.org/21565.html http://tc.eserver.org/21565.html A prototype, both paper and online (and I suggest you build both) is a 'mini' Web site, including content (or content ideas), graphics, multi-media etc., on a smaller scale than the final site. I have found that developing a prototype is a great way to present your ideas to upper management for approval to go 'live.' Also, and more important, an online prototype is an ideal application for user testing to ensure your site's success. http://tc.eserver.org/21206.html http://tc.eserver.org/21206.html Whether you're managing an entire army or an army of one, Pam's project management tips will help you get that site built. http://tc.eserver.org/13763.html http://tc.eserver.org/13763.html Web developers are a tough lot, willing to brave constantly changing technologies, competing “standards,” and tools that are often clumsy and dull. Yet brave as we are, two little words strike fear in the hearts of even the boldest of us, making us consider a change to a less stressful job-air traffic control, perhaps. Scope creep threatens to undermine all our hard work, causing rewrite after rewrite of carefully crafted markup and code. In short, scope creep is evil. That’s the prevailing wisdom. But consider the results of four studies done over the last five years that show that as little as 20% of corporate software projects are successful. Prevailing, it may be, but is it wisdom?