May
18
2008
1

Self-Inflicted Undue Pressure

I’ve been speaking to several colleagues lately within the web design community, and I’ve come to a harsh realization. I think that as a whole, our industry creates it’s own self-inflicted pressure with deadlines and customer relations.

Granted, some customers can come into the relationship wanting the impossible, but often, with a little enlightenment, customers can grasp how Rome cannot be built within a week. But I feel often, instead of investing in this conversation, we instead push ourselves to build things quicker, faster, and cheaper.

Sometimes we can just have a simple conversation with our clients, and often they’ll be totally accepting of our need for more time to create the desired product. Many times when I talk to a client, they themselves are not prepared for the product to be finished, they don’t have the content ready yet, they still need to gather all their product photos, etc.

Why do we tend to forgo these honest conversations that can strengthen our client relations and really give us a better working relationship in the long run? Is it our need for deadlines? Perhaps our procrastinative nature drives us to seek this adrenaline rush that is the last-minute push? Maybe a way to curb our creative natures that drive us to constantly expand the scope of possibilities for the project?

This issue has always frustrated me, why push ourselves to slam something out when there’s always more time to work? Sure, things have to get done, but does the quality of work have to suffer? We quit trying to achieve the best possible, and start undercutting to hit some date that really isn’t anything more than a spec of time in the span of the universe.

So I thought I’d toss it out there and see what you guys thought, why do we do this to ourselves?

Jan
18
2008
0

Links of the Week Vol. 4

Coke has made a great interactive game area called The Happiness Factory, where you enter into employment at Coke as four different types of alien like workers. Check it out!

If one of your new years resolutions is to be happier at work, check out these 25 ways you can improve your mood at work.

Virginia is passing laws against DWT (driving while texting), apparently a new state trend, in 2007 Washington, New Jersey and our very own city of Phoenix passed laws against DWT.

Interesting Daily Design Workout by one designer to continue to flex his design muscle. Each day he produces a new design every day within 30-60 minutes and keeps a nice lil calendar of his work so we can share his daily design.

One hundred people from the ages one to one hundred playing the drums.

Inspiring post by Seth Godin regarding the passionate worker and his hobby job. Definitely captures how I feel about what I do.

If you like short cartoon silliness, check out Glumpers, these lil blobs are funny!

Looking for your 32 pieces of flair? Check out Prickie.com for awesome designer buttons for your fetish.

Do you think you know what great web design looks like? Hone your skills at CommandShift3, it’s like Hot or Not, but for websites.

Does your new years resolution have something to do with better health? If so check out a Cambridge University study on four steps to increase your lifespan by 14 years!

Bringing bad design to justice. It’s the design police!

Dec
11
2007
1

CSS Continued…

CSS is easy enough to start to learn, but it really takes some practice to master and understand the beautiful efficiency it provides. These techniques of efficiency separate the apprentices from the masters in the art of CSS. Now that I know what I know now, I wish someone would have told me these secrets from the beginning. The longer you practice great CSS techniques, the better you’ll be at it, so I’m giving you a head start with my first blog series: CSS Continued…

So listen closely Grasshoppa. ;)

Nov
25
2007
1

Blue Beanie Day: Celebrate Web Standards

Celebrate web standards by donning a blue beanie Monday, November 25 and while you’re at it, take a picture and post it to the flickr group. This event was brainstormed by Facebook group formed around Designing With Web Standards. The book was written by Jeffrey Zeldman who is well known for his and talks around the world regarding standards compliance. See his two cents on the event.

Nov
05
2007
0

Refresh Phoenix: Blueprint CSS

Come on over to Inza Coffee House tomorrow night to join me and the crew of Refresh Phoenix as we discuss Blueprint CSS.

Blueprint is a CSS framework by Olav Bjorkoy, which “aims to cut down on your CSS development time.” Matt Heidemann & Matt Gist from Integrum Technologies will talk about their recent work with Blueprint. They’ll show examples of the framework and a project they recently used it with.

See ya there!

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