Whalespeak

When I’m writing code to add a new feature or change an existing one, I try to listen to the little nagging voices I hear about the details. What I want to do is cover all the necessary parts, consider all the cases I can, and make sure that there are good reasons for the […]

Nice response from Andi Farr to my post about criticism. He raises a good point: Once the work is launched, it’s another story – even if they were to agree with incoming criticism, the prospect of going back to a client to say “we did this wrong” is an uninviting one. I agree that criticism […]

A local web design agency that I used to admire has started to churn out insipid work. It’s made me think about this aversion we have for talking publicly about this kind of thing. I don’t want to name them, and I’d consider it rude if I did, but I don’t know where this politeness […]

Nothing more is required of the pupil, at first, than that he should conscientiously copy what the teacher shows him. – Zen in the Art of Archery, Eugen Herrigel It’s necessary to do the work first. And I’m beginning to think that more than that, it’s necessary to enjoy the work first. The work is […]

In website design, speculative work stems from the idea of the designer as an artist. The idea that each designer has an identifiable style. The idea that the designer approaches each project with the main aim of creating something new, as opposed to building on what has worked well in the past. Also the belief that […]

There’s nothing makes me wince more than hearing that someone is making another web-based to-do list app. There are about a gajillion already and none of them seem able to keep up with my pen and A4 pad. So that said, I’m making a to-do list app. You see it occurred to me that a […]

Why do so many web recruitment ads ask for gurus? CSS gurus, Rails gurus and so on. Gurus are fine, if you can get them, but where are the jobs for beginners? For intermediates? A good indication that someone is using this term too loosely is when it is accompanied by a low salary offer. […]

When companies don’t know how to act, they choose to be “professional”. It’s assumed that we know both what this means and also that it is the correct way to act. When I hear this word, the speaker usually means something else. It’s a lazy word, used when the reasons have not been fully thought […]

You can always beat the big guy. If you’re starting out in a business, there are always some people, some companies that are big names, and it looks like they’ve got all the bases covered. But you have two big advantages. First of all, when you’re small, you’re agile. You can change quicker than the […]

Let your customers go quickly and painlessly. When someone decides that they no longer want your services, it’s usually too late to do anything about it. What you can do, is act professionally and make the process of switching suppliers uncomplicated and swift. A bureaucratic, unhelpful attitude does not reverse a bad opinion, it confirms […]