The web is frustrating...
2008-08-11
...because I don't like seeing things done in drastically sub-optimal ways. Sure, I can't be bothered to do things perfectly but if there's a big time-saving step I need to have gone at least that far.
So friends want to do this, or that, and they have particular requirements, and they want to do it in a particular way, and they want to do it as a project... And the way they want to do it is, while not bad, really not the best way, but it's their project, so I give them the space I expect on my projects.
Which is more or less earshot. And I don't mean just regular ears-only earshot, I mean that some of my projects stay away from the phone in case they hear advice I didn't ask for; they certainly never read anything.
That makes me a pretty useless person to ask, I suppose. In the past I've offered web space and project help or whatever to various people, who almost without exception have politely declined. I offer because I want to be helpful, but the help generally consists of me using your requirements to make an interesting project I can have a bash at. In that respect it's probably just as well that I don't get many takers, since these imported project briefs will probably lead to efforts that die a death much as do my own projects.
If you've got a project, I can offer some help, but if it's truly your project then the help I offer almost certainly isn't the help you want. (Whether or not it's what you need is another thing: I am actually quite good at some of this stuff...)
Currently I have a few friends working on a web presence for a special-interest club: just your stock "we're here, we do this, contact us, see the calendar, here are some photos" sort of a thing. Some of them want it to be their project, others just want it done, and the 'I'm going to do it as a learn it' approach is becoming an issue.
I'd love to sort them out with an open source CMS (I would link some, but I'd have to have a quick look around again), do some initial configuration, show various people how to post content or edit skins, as appropriate. It's a great answer: it separates design from development from content generation and lets everyone get on with their bit while the site gradually becomes more functional and looks more like they'd hope.
It might be a fair bit of work on my part (some CMSs are like that) but it'd be worth it to get that kind of solution in place.
Instead the politics are taking over, and all the design work will be by the wayside again sooner or later if people intend to maintain an events calendar by hand.
Part of my problem is this: I'm not a web designer. Design has only three main features for me: is it accessible, is it usable, and do I like the way it looks. And the third one I can take or leave. It's not that I don't care if other people like the look of it, I just don't understand whether they're going to. Web development is my thing, but if people want it in static HTML so they can understand it then that's no help, and if I can't convince them of the value of usability or accessibility then suddenly I don't have much to say, regardless of what the project is.
One of the major culprits is Dreamweaver. Call me old-fashioned, but I'm a firm believer that if a tool is designed to simplify or speed up something that can be done by hand, you should learn to do it by hand as well as learning the tool. That way when it does something you didn't expect, you can fix it; when you need to discuss your work with other specialists you've got all the right terminology ready. Lots of my friends, not least my Better Half, are learning Dreamweaver. They're not learning web design as a complete discipline, they're learning Dreamweaver.
And I can't help with that. When the IE box-bug has knocked the pictures out of whack on a gallery page I know various ways of getting around it, but I don't know how to do so in Dreamweaver. Sure, there's the code view, but there's no point me tapping away injecting HTML or CSS into the code view when the project owner doesn't understand it and when I've no idea how Dreamweaver will decide to present it once I'm done.
And it's annoying. Back when most people I knew didn't understand the web and didn't really want to I could do things for them: I still run a couple of successful community sites where I stepped in at the right time to donate some web space and a little expertise. But I can't help these people learn, because they aren't trying to learn what I know. And often I can't help them with the work they actually want to achieve, because they all want to learn how; my speciality is the dark sorcery that fits between the designers and the content generators, and a hobbyist friend who wants to be both and to understand the process end-to-end probably doesn't want to work with me in that capacity.
I don't know, maybe I'll mock something up and use it as a proposal to the club. At the end of the day I should be able to get the support of the people who need the site done, and with luck some or all of those who see it as their project can be visionary enough to realise that even if the site arranges itself they can still design how it looks.
Maybe I shouldn't bother. Maybe I don't play well in a team. The last job was never really teamwork in a proper sense, and I let down the other half of the only worthwhile collaboration I took on (Sorry Pete). Oh, and the Blovel, but kind of so did most other people.
I'm hoping that with proper structure and some like-minded and similarly skilled professionals to learn from that it'll be one of the things I can practice in the new job.
So friends want to do this, or that, and they have particular requirements, and they want to do it in a particular way, and they want to do it as a project... And the way they want to do it is, while not bad, really not the best way, but it's their project, so I give them the space I expect on my projects.
Which is more or less earshot. And I don't mean just regular ears-only earshot, I mean that some of my projects stay away from the phone in case they hear advice I didn't ask for; they certainly never read anything.
That makes me a pretty useless person to ask, I suppose. In the past I've offered web space and project help or whatever to various people, who almost without exception have politely declined. I offer because I want to be helpful, but the help generally consists of me using your requirements to make an interesting project I can have a bash at. In that respect it's probably just as well that I don't get many takers, since these imported project briefs will probably lead to efforts that die a death much as do my own projects.
If you've got a project, I can offer some help, but if it's truly your project then the help I offer almost certainly isn't the help you want. (Whether or not it's what you need is another thing: I am actually quite good at some of this stuff...)
Currently I have a few friends working on a web presence for a special-interest club: just your stock "we're here, we do this, contact us, see the calendar, here are some photos" sort of a thing. Some of them want it to be their project, others just want it done, and the 'I'm going to do it as a learn it' approach is becoming an issue.
I'd love to sort them out with an open source CMS (I would link some, but I'd have to have a quick look around again), do some initial configuration, show various people how to post content or edit skins, as appropriate. It's a great answer: it separates design from development from content generation and lets everyone get on with their bit while the site gradually becomes more functional and looks more like they'd hope.
It might be a fair bit of work on my part (some CMSs are like that) but it'd be worth it to get that kind of solution in place.
Instead the politics are taking over, and all the design work will be by the wayside again sooner or later if people intend to maintain an events calendar by hand.
Part of my problem is this: I'm not a web designer. Design has only three main features for me: is it accessible, is it usable, and do I like the way it looks. And the third one I can take or leave. It's not that I don't care if other people like the look of it, I just don't understand whether they're going to. Web development is my thing, but if people want it in static HTML so they can understand it then that's no help, and if I can't convince them of the value of usability or accessibility then suddenly I don't have much to say, regardless of what the project is.
One of the major culprits is Dreamweaver. Call me old-fashioned, but I'm a firm believer that if a tool is designed to simplify or speed up something that can be done by hand, you should learn to do it by hand as well as learning the tool. That way when it does something you didn't expect, you can fix it; when you need to discuss your work with other specialists you've got all the right terminology ready. Lots of my friends, not least my Better Half, are learning Dreamweaver. They're not learning web design as a complete discipline, they're learning Dreamweaver.
And I can't help with that. When the IE box-bug has knocked the pictures out of whack on a gallery page I know various ways of getting around it, but I don't know how to do so in Dreamweaver. Sure, there's the code view, but there's no point me tapping away injecting HTML or CSS into the code view when the project owner doesn't understand it and when I've no idea how Dreamweaver will decide to present it once I'm done.
And it's annoying. Back when most people I knew didn't understand the web and didn't really want to I could do things for them: I still run a couple of successful community sites where I stepped in at the right time to donate some web space and a little expertise. But I can't help these people learn, because they aren't trying to learn what I know. And often I can't help them with the work they actually want to achieve, because they all want to learn how; my speciality is the dark sorcery that fits between the designers and the content generators, and a hobbyist friend who wants to be both and to understand the process end-to-end probably doesn't want to work with me in that capacity.
I don't know, maybe I'll mock something up and use it as a proposal to the club. At the end of the day I should be able to get the support of the people who need the site done, and with luck some or all of those who see it as their project can be visionary enough to realise that even if the site arranges itself they can still design how it looks.
Maybe I shouldn't bother. Maybe I don't play well in a team. The last job was never really teamwork in a proper sense, and I let down the other half of the only worthwhile collaboration I took on (Sorry Pete). Oh, and the Blovel, but kind of so did most other people.
I'm hoping that with proper structure and some like-minded and similarly skilled professionals to learn from that it'll be one of the things I can practice in the new job.
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