Category: Process

Improving Your Process: Automated Regression Testing with Fake.app

As I’m writing more advanced software, I’m more consistently reflecting on the importance of testing. Specifically automated testing. Humans are far too likely to get lazy and cut corners, and testing is the worst time for that to happen. I’ve been thinking a lot about regression testing lately and how to implement it in my workflow. I thought about writing my own suite, but quickly remembered that it had already been done.

Posted: December 05, 2011

I Went to the Dentist & Here’s What I Learned About Client Work

I recently spent some time at the dentist’s office and through my anxiety, took some notes to compare my experience to our client work. There are a lot of parallels aligning our industry with other service industries, and it’s rare that I get a conscious, extended look from ‘the other side’.

Posted: September 05, 2011

Improving Your Process: WordPress Development Using Xdebug

Programming workflows have always been especially interesting to me. It may be due to the wide spectrum of detail that can be achieved from a workflow, and I’d like to see what’s truly useful and valuable as you go about writing code. Debugging is something I plan on researching further.

Posted: March 28, 2011

Improving Your Process: Work from the Inside Out

Many designers and developers I’ve observed over the years have a particular way of tackling a new project. I approach new projects in a specific way, working from the inside out, in an effort to be as forward thinking as possible on as detailed a level as possible.

Posted: October 04, 2010

Improving Your Process: Effectively Estimating Projects

Estimates are the life blood of our industry. If anyone out there is getting jobs consistently without having to go through an estimation process, you’ve got some dark magic going on that I’d love to know more about. Estimates are a double edged sword though; we need them to get jobs, but the work is non-billable.

Posted: April 12, 2010

Improving Your Process: Establishing Style Guides

I’m becoming increasingly comfortable with the idea that at least some form of style guide, whether on a team or individually, is an extremely important part of the process. It helps with everything from readability to quality control and especially helps a team become that much more cohesive.

Posted: March 29, 2010

Improving Your Process: Faster Front End Development

Time is very important in Web design. Here are a few tips to keep that time to a minimum, allowing for budgeted experimentation and polish.

Posted: June 15, 2009

Improving Your Process: Thinking More About Your CSS

It’s important to constantly improve yourself, even when you’ve become completely comfortable with it. CSS is a simple technology, but putting proper thought behind it can make a stylesheet beautiful.

Posted: June 01, 2009

Improving Your Process: The Browser Gauntlet

Having an effective browser test suite for Web design should be a terribly important part of your process.

Posted: March 09, 2009

Improving Your Process: Project Timeline Development

Project management and timeline development is a very important part of professional Web design.

Posted: March 02, 2009