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Handpicked News For Internet Developers - Since 1999 |
Archives For Project Mgmt
Creating a Site Design Plan
Interestingly enough, most of the sites I work on don't have the goal of "making lots of money." Most of my sites are communication sites, so the goals become a little more complicated. I try to take what the client wants to do and put it in a few sentences of goals, like "cut down on phone calls about the posted schedules," "let users know how to get a personal trainer," and "present a sophisticated portfolio."
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12 New Proposal Packs from ProposalKit.com
ProposalPack.com has released 12 new packs. The Proposal Packs are designed for use by virtually any business. You could be a web site developer looking for new business, an accounting firm proposing a solution to a prospective client for payroll and accounting services, a telecommunications supplier proposing a PBX phone system solution to a prospective client or a lawn care company pitching your services to a local condo complex.
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Contractor or Scapegoat? Keys to Successful Contracting
The contractor is *not* always to blame for project failure, despite what the project manager may say. Georgina looks at why the contractor is the perfect scapegoat - and what they can do to protect themselves.
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What's the Problem?
Tim Meehan Freud asked, "What does a user really want?" Ten-plus years into web development, we still don't know. 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.
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Web Design Proposals and Contracts
"Business proposal materials to assist you in creating project proposals for virtually any business. Land more clients, save time and improve your bottom line."
That's the line ProposalKit.com uses anyways. Me and Jeremy ordered it and were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of stuff we got for the price.
Without question, this package is worth the money! However, there were a couple of things we wish were better though. . .
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Makovision Is Back Online
Welcome back to Makovision.com. The reasons Makovision was offline are too numerous to mention, but we are glad to be back up.
If you have never received the Makovision "Cutting Thru The Crap" Newsletter, you may want to sign up now.
With a leaner, CSS-based design (though not 100% standards compliant yet), and our always up-to-date RSS Feeds, our focus will be much more on providing the news Makovision users were always accustomed to receiving. I don't think Makovision users ever felt like they were trying to be sold something. This will not change.
Thanks for sticking around,
Don Makoviney
Makovision.com
Web Development Contracts, Templates, Documents
Just a couple notes on ProposalKit.com:
Yes, they have continually been updating the ProposalKit.com package with new material, they add on average over 100 pages each year. So its a lot of stuff to try to organize and give people ways to find what's in there. They just added about 80 new pages of material last month, and they are adding over 20 new contracts (probably about 50+ pages of material) end of this month.
Regarding the SitePoint product. That is considered a complimentary product to Proposal Kit. SitePoint actually plugs ProposalKit.com as well as their own product. The ProposalKit.com stuff is almost completely focused on giving you the pre-written templates for proposals and contracts, ProposalKit.com is pretty light on "how to run your business" information.
The SitePoint product is very lite on pre-written documents (what they have is about equivalent to what Proposal Kit 1.0 was back in 1997.Their focus is mostly on the "how to run your business" information, how to deal with clients, etc. and they happen to throw in some documents.
The 2 products work best together.
Try out the stuff at ProposalKit.com
Using Wireframes
Strange Systems at Strange Systems. When presented with site design prototypes (or mockups), users, clients and designers alike tend to focus more on visual elements of a prototype rather than the proposed function, structure or content of the page. A wireframe attempts to separate the look and feel of the site from the way it works and reads by presenting a stripped down, simplified version of the page devoid of all distractions.
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Why someone should be in charge of your website
Gerry McGovern at New Thinking.
If your website is important to your business it needs to be managed professionally. Unfortunately, websites are often designed and managed by committees. Everyone is in charge which means that nobody has control. This results in content that is of uneven style, tone and quality, and an information architecture that is muddled and inconsistent.
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Web design: 'A camel is a horse designed by committee'
Adrian Porter at netimperative.com. (via LucDesk) Web sites need to be designed. All too often web sites are in the hands of techies who neither care for, nor understand the value of good design. This is not to decry techies - but the web does not belong to them. ... Good design, well engineered, makes a site feel welcoming. It makes a site easy to get around. It makes it a pleasurable experience, a quick one - and an easy one. Good design puts on visitors - and keeps them.
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Designers vs. Programmers, Calling a Truce
Molly E. Holzschlag at WebTechniques. But, for now, hybrid personalities seem to be rare. When I meet someone who isn't intimidated by either programming or design, it's usually someone who got started in the online industry very early. This is because most businesses structure the workflow in a way that limits employees. Giving employees a rigid job structure may make it easier to find the right person to blame when something goes wrong, but it's not conducive to producing the best end product.
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GoLive vs. Dreamweaver
GoLive vs. Dreamweaver Doesn't Matter Anymore!
Yes, it's true. Since Adobe acquired Macromedia they now just offer Studio 8 for web design studios.
Personally, my recommendation has always been Dreamweaver. It looks like now Adobe agrees.
You can buy the entire Studio 8 Suite, or you can buy them individually. Direct from Adobe (with complete specifications) See below:
Buy items like Dreamweaver or Fireworks or Flash Individually. Direct from Adobe (with complete specifications):
Older Reviews and Articles of Older Versions of Dreamweaver and GoLive.
GoLive versus Dreamweaver Article at DDJ.com
Professional visual authoring tools should have a clean interface, multimedia capabilities, advanced site management for multiple users, support for server side scripting, and more. There are two biggies who meet these needs: Adobe GoLive and Macromedia Dreamweaver. Continue Reading "GoLive vs. Dreamweaver"
Battle Of The WYSIWIGS at Digital Web Magazine
Just as Flash MX has matured into an interactive application development tool, so has Dreamweaver MX. Full support for dynamic forms and server objects covers ColdFusion, ASP, ASP.NET, JSP and PHP. Server code libraries, additional tag editors and a database panel aid in coding these languages. Supposedly you can build web-based applications and database tools in Dreamweaver with relative ease, although I haven't tried to do this yet.
GoLive also provides development tools for other technologies, but the support is not quite as diverse as Dreamweaver's. Of course, you won't find support for Macromedia's proprietary ColdFusion development, but that may not bother many. GoLive provides code libraries for ASP, JSP and PHP, and it provides panel control.
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Continue reading"GoLive vs. Dreamweaver"
