BlogmyQuery – BMQ

For too many projects, there comes a time when every action taken, every decision and sacrifice made, is spurred on by pressure to finish. Tempers seem to shrink along with the available days, talk about “high standards� gives way to “good enough,� and people realize that deadlines are aptly named. During the last-minute crunch, someone may well wonder, how did it come to this? Could it have been prevented? Every Web project has deadlines. But not every designer or developer deals with them the same way.

[By the way, did you know we have a free Email Newsletter? Subscribe now and get fresh short tips and tricks in your inbox!]

What Causes A Deadline To Break?

Because a deadline marks the end of a project, everyone involved in the project must understand the deadline’s role. Most projects follow a schedule or have an estimated date by which they must be completed. The concept is simple then: when the work takes longer than expected, deadlines get missed.

A deadline is the end point of a time estimate, making it a known quantity. But how long will the work actually take to get done?

Of course, projects can be more complicated in their details. Unexpected technical problems and unanticipated changes will affect the amount of work required. Sometimes other tasks take priority. Sometimes the time estimate wasn’t considered carefully enough.

Whatever the cause, too much work needs to be done in the available time. That’s the problem, but not the challenge.

Rate Deadlines By Severity Of Consequences

The hardest deadlines are tied to events that cannot be moved, such as a date promised to the public, an upcoming trade show or a date stipulated in a contract. Retailers know that their holiday sales must end at Christmas, and theater owners can expect movie-goers to be upset if a 1:00 pm showing doesn’t start until 2:00. Likewise, if a website is tied to a time-sensitive event, its relevance is lost once the event has passed. Hard deadlines have clear consequences when missed.

Deadlines exist for a reason. The severity of the trouble caused by missing them increases dramatically after they have passed.

Deadlines tied to less public events are no less real, but a project will soldier on if the deadline slips. Company-imposed target dates, for example, rely less on public demand than on the temperament of managers. Meetings routinely start 10 minutes late because “something came up.�

The softest deadlines lack teeth or are set at some vague point in the future. That’s not always bad: not every missed deadline will cause a life-or-death crisis. But the same methods of solving the crisis apply. There are many strategies for handling a last-minute crisis. Most involve planning, setting priorities and knowing one’s limits.

Strategies For Preventing Deadline Crises

The beginning of a project is a great time to prevent problems later on.

The first solution is both obvious and difficult: do not take on a project that cannot be completed in the given time. Declining paid work requires discipline and confidence, but if the deadline is impossible, then the project may not be worth the money. Money cannot replace time.

Because deadlines with consequences are taken more seriously, keep a written list of definitive reasons why certain tasks must be completed by a given date. Losing money, customers and other assets create real incentives to work.

Schedule deadlines as specific tasks, not the ends of phases. Rather than “Content will be completed by 4 April 2010,� state “Review the content over lunch on 4 April 2010.� This ties the deadline to an event at which results must be shown. Mini-deadlines tied to specific events are more powerful than general statements.

Making up for minor time discrepancies during the course of a project is easier than facing a big shortfall when no time is left.

Plan For Unpleasant Surprises

Incentive may not be the problem, though. Unexpected problems cause many people to break deadlines. Their unpredictability make these problems hard to plan for, and good intentions don’t help you see the future. The key is to recognize that, whatever their nature, problems will likely occur.

If everything seems accounted for in the project plan, then invent a problem. Keep it realistic: “reshoot staff photos� is more likely than “spontaneous server combustion,� but it doesn’t really matter. The point is to create extra time to allow for a deadline crisis. One rule of thumb is to add between half and all of a project’s expected duration. That is, increase the full time that has been budgeted by between 50 to 100% to allow for surprises.

A plan of time estimates for major tasks in a project could look something like this:

Being conservative, let’s take half of 70, which is 35. Now we invent a problem: say, having to retype all content from print-outs. Is 35 hours for that ridiculous? Perhaps. But obstacles are unexpected by nature, and they always steal time from an otherwise ideal budget.

Scheduling for unknowns is hard, but acknowledging that extra time is required will better align estimates with reality.

A line item needs to be added to the budget. It could be “Time to make changes� or “Allowance for unknowns.� The description isn’t as important as the fact that you have planned for surprises.

Is half of the original budget too much? It may drive cheaper clients away, but overestimating and finishing under the deadline is better than the alternative.

Mitigate A Deadline’s Threat By Adding Other Deadlines

Implement mini-deadlines within a project’s timeline. Mini-deadlines minimize last-minute problems by serving as checkpoints to gauge how far off track the schedule is, if at all, at certain phases.

1. Start
   While the project is fresh in everyone’s mind, a schedule for the other phases should be set.
2. First quarter
   Everyone involved should have a sense of whether they can work together. Work begins, and the pristine project on paper comes up against the sticky details of reality.
3. Halfway point
   The bulk of the work happens here. If you doubled your estimate to account for surprises, you would actually be aiming to launch the project right now.
4. Third quarter
   If everyone pushed to launch by the halfway point, then almost everything should be done by now. But it rarely is.
5. Deadline
   Launch the project.
6. Review
   Win or lose, everyone should ask what should have happened at each phase of the project? What should have been done to meet each mini-deadline along the way?

Notice that mini-deadlines are based on time, not task. Tasks have a way of expanding, of taking up more time than planned, which mini-deadlines should prevent. Think of a mini-deadline as a chance to review the project’s timeline. While this approach may not entirely stave off a deadline crisis, it gives you opportunities to catch and correct problems along the way.

Plan Sacrifices In Advance

Every project has absolute requirements, which are essentially the reasons the project exists at all or the problems it is designed to solve. But many also have supplemental requirements. If a project requires A, B and C, then by all means include D, E and F, but only with the understanding that they might have to wait.

For example, a newsletter is an important marketing tool for an e-commerce website, but less important than an easy-to-use cart and secure log-in page. Likewise, the top priority for a photo gallery should be to present photos. If the deadline is looming and the AJAX is buggy, then perhaps the blog should wait.

Marking certain features as secondary provides relief when things go wrong. These features don’t need to be cut, but their deadlines should be later than those of the core project.

Practice

Measure the rate at which you work by timing how long you take to perform various tasks. You want to figure out how much time you need to comfortably perform each task, not how fast you can get it done.

For example, the schedule might allow for 30 minutes to create a favicon. But in reality, it consumes 8 hours.

Wait a minute. Eight hours for a measly 16×16-pixel graphic? Isn’t that… excessive?

That’s not the point. You’re not learning the rate at which you work so that you can gasp in embarrassment at the result. Workflow efficiency can be improved later. The question is, how much time are you comfortable with right now? In this case, it’s 8 hours.

Deadlines aren’t the problem. Problems arise when the work outweighs the allotted time. Learning how long you take to accomplish certain tasks is the best way to set a realistic schedule.

Conclusion

Not every deadline drama can be prevented, but even the worst can be dealt with professionally. Prepare for surprises, break up large tasks into manageable segments and prioritize. It’s a matter of respect: deadlines mean business. Do you?

How do you prevent deadline emergencies? What’s the worst problem you’ve faced under time pressure? What’s your greatest solution? Share your story in the comments below.

(al)

© Ben Gremillion for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | Post a comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
Post tags: deadlines, timing, Workflow

When we have one few too many clients, we panic and begin to cut corners to squeeze in as many clients as we can into our schedule, and we end up working nights and weekends with buggy results. What if there is a way to save time and still manage the same amount of clients if not more?

Creating modular components is a step closer to reaching that goal, you can have 10, 20, 30, or even 40% if not more complete already with just several minutes of piece work.

How Does Developing With Modularity in Mind Work?

Developing with modularity in mind means everything that you can develop that can work on its own without the requirement of being laced with its parent to function properly. For example, let us say a client needs a content management system developed in PHP. Off the top, we already know we will need to develop a pagination system, a MySQL Class, and a template system.

An advanced pagination system can take few hours to perfect, a good well equipped MySQL class can take an hour or two, and a full-fledged template system can take several hours if not a few days to get it right. However, if these components are developed to be modular, you will only spend the time developing them once, and only several minutes integrating them into any other project, saving you hours and days of work.

To provide a real world example; a recent client I had needed a system that displays his inventory from his database. I quickly grabbed my already developed pagination class and MySQL class, restructured the provided MySQL tables, and retrieved the inventory paginated. The entire project took me thirty minutes to complete where it would have taken me several hours to complete if I had to start from scratch.

Therefore, spending the time to develop quality modular components increases your productivity and saves you time. Additionally, reinventing the “wheel” is always an action unnecessary and unneeded, thus being able to copy and paste modular components into many of your projects is a lifesaver.

How to Develop Modular Components

Developing modular components is all about the structural design, keeping it unattached to a specific project you are developing. The first step in creating a modular component is to think modular. Let us look at glue, it is a substance that mends and works on many items you need it for, however, it does not need your items to properly function as it functions alone. This is exactly how modularity works and the way these components should be developed.

In order to help grip this concept better, we will do a run down on a modular component as well as have it available for download free at the end of this article to have a go at it yourself.

The modular component we will be looking at is an advanced PHP MySQL Class, which makes connecting to a database and running queries easy. Let’s look at the constructor of this class:

    function __construct($db_host, $db_user, $db_pass, $db_name, $db_prefix)
    {
       //define 'em all!
       $this->host   = $db_host;
       $this->user   = $db_user;
       $this->pass   = $db_pass;
       $this->name   = $db_name;
       $this->prefix = $db_prefix;
    }
            

The constructor in this case gathers all the necessary information so that the methods of this class properly function.
Therefore, allowing the component to work seamlessly with your project while keeping the component separate and modular.

In order to understand how this class works, we will look at a couple of its methods starting with the connect method.

    protected function connect()
    {
       $this->db = mysql_connect($this->host, $this->user, $this->pass) or die(mysql_error()."".$this->db);
           //check if we have connected, otherwise run this function again

       if(!$this->db)
    {
       $this->connect();
                    }

         //since we're connected, let's select the db
            else
    {
       $this->db = mysql_select_db($this->name, $this->db) or die(mysql_error()."".$this->db);
           return $this->db;
                    }
                }
            

As shown above, the connect method is a protected method that creates a connection with MySQL and selects the database. The reason it is inaccessible outside of this class is that this method runs automatically by other methods within the class; hence, you do not need to call it. Another method we will look at is the select method, which builds a select query based on the information you provide via its parameters:

    public function select($table, $fields="*", $conditions=0, $options=array())
    {
           //check if we have a db connection
      if(!$this->db)
    {
      $this->connect();
                    }

    $query = "SELECT ".$fields." FROM ".$this->db_prefix.$table."";
       if($conditions !=0)
     {
    $query .= " WHERE ".$conditions;
                    }    

       if(isset($options['order_by']))
     {

     $query .= " ORDER BY ".$options['order_by']."";
       if(isset($options['order_dir']))

      {
     $query .= " ".strtoupper($options['order_dir']);
                        }
                    }
        if(isset($options['limit_start']) && isset($options['limit']))
      {
     $query .= " LIMIT".$options['limit_start'].",".$options['limit'];
                    }

        elseif(isset($options['limit']))
      {
     $query .= " LIMIT ".$options['limit'];
                    }

        if(!$this->db)
      {
     $this->connect();
                    }

       return $this->query($query);
                }

While it may seem to be easier to build the query yourself, this method retains the integrity of your system and keeps your projects tidy, and as a bonus, it makes creating queries for your client a lot easier when they modify their script. Additionally, integrating security measures within these methods means that those security measures will be applied to all the queries you run, good for filling in the gaps that you may have missed.

Download the MySQL Class

This MySQL Class is for demonstration and learning purposes only. Click to Download.

This post showcases the beauty of digital painting portraits. As an art lover, I always admire and enjoy painting portraits as they require more skills and time. Capturing male beauty and emotions in a portrait is a very difficult task that requires talent and skills. For this session, we have compiled a list of 30 stunning and beautiful examples of male digital portraits in which you can see the male beauty in the form of photo realism or in other abstract forms.

Beautiful Digital Portraits of Men

Jimi Hendrix – Digital Series

Digital Painting – Kanye West

Ryan Adams Digital Painting

The Mad Scientist

Classic wind

The utterly charming mr. depp

Gerard Butler Digital Painting

Ewan McGregor

Scream your heart out

CG Takeshi Kaneshiro

Tom

Will Smith Digital Painting

Josh Holloway

Commissioned Portrait: Carlo

Portraits

Portraits 3

Keith Harkin

Fei Lun Hai: Aaron Yan

Josh

Jared Leto

Tom Lefroy

Lord of Acid

Portrait ( Digital )

Gaius Baltar

Cory by Blegh

Ed Westwick

Portraits

Portraits-in-black

James Marsden portrait

When people hear about ‘usability testing,’ many things come to mind—eye-tracking cameras, big HCI labs, a long testing process, a lot of expenses, and maybe a little confusion as well. Even at this stage in the proverbial game, usability testing isn’t so well understood, and misconceptions abound.

While it’s true that when doing usability testing there are several stumbling blocks that can impede your progress (lack of funding, lack of time, lack of motivation, and especially lack of testers), there are also many ways to get around these issues. There may even be reasons why they’re no longer valid in today’s Internet world.

Today I will address these issues and give you some advice based on my own experience in conducting usability tests. With any luck, it will help you design and develop a more usable world.

High cost

In the past, usability testing meant getting people into labs, arranging testing sessions, utilizing eye-tracking cameras, and so on; clearly, high costs to go along with that. Times have changed, and the Internet has heralded a new generation of usability testing solutions. Some online services out there do charge a packet, there are other services out there that charge significantly less and are very affordable for any kind of project. The service I’m involved with (IntuitionHQ.com) only charges $US9 a test, which is affordable by most anyone’s standard. There are many low cost options out there, so price really doesn’t need to keep you away from testing your site, designs, and UI. In fact, investing in usability can generate a handsome return as you develop superior, more usable designs and the happier clients and users that come with that.

Costs vary based on requirements. There is something for everyone.

“If the user can’t find it, it doesn’t exist.” —HFI Button

Lack of time

With modern methods, you can get results in minutes, not months.

With regards to lack of time, this may have been a problem in the past. If you wanted to get people in for lab testing sessions, the time requirements were immense. The Internet has changed all that too, as there are all kinds of remote usability testing services out there, with a huge range of different features depending on your requirements. Depending on the feature sets you require, and time frame for your project, you can find a number of options to fulfill your needs. Again, looking at IntuitionHQ, setting up a test takes just a few minutes depending on the tasks you include, and you can easily get results back in no time.

There are many different kinds of remote testing solutions depending on your own unique requirements for testing. See what fits for you and run with it—you won’t regret it, and you’ll end up saving time by having less micro-management from clients.

“Pay attention to what users do, not what they say.” —Jakob Nielsen

Lack of motivation

There are usually several reasons for lack of motivation—people don’t think their clients or users care about usability, they think their designs already work flawlessly, they don’t understand the testing process, or they can’t see the benefits that come from testing. Well, it’s safe to say: if you’re reading this, you probably don’t hold this opinion, but bear in mind all of the positives that testing can produce:

• Your designs can be validated;
• Any potential usability issues can be picked up;
• Your clients can be involved in the process without being over-involved;
• Your clients can better see the value of your service;
• You can avoid design-by-committee;
• Testing can be sold as an added value service to clients and can help sell your service and designs.

These are just a few of the points to consider. Of course, there are many more reasons why you should be pro-usability testing. See my previous article for more on this.

“Design is so critical it should be on the agenda of every meeting in every single department.” —Tom Peters

Lack of testers

Testers are obviously crucial to conducting any usability test (I challenge you to conduct a test without them). There are two things to consider when finding testers.

Crowd source with the power of the Internet.

First is the oft quoted number from Jakob Nielsen about picking up 85% of usability issues with just 5 testers. There is a really great explanation of this at MeasuringUsability.com. The basic premise is that according to statistical analysis, a small number of users will pick up the vast majority of usability issues, and the cost for testing with more than 5 users isn’t worth it (at least generally speaking) to find the last 15% of usability issues. Well, this is obviously dependent on the kind of tests you are performing (and the costs for getting people to help you test), but it’s nice to keep some sort of number in mind so you know when you start receiving useful information.

Second is the testing method and timeframe for the project. If you were bringing people into a lab, 5 people may be enough. With heatmap tracking (à la IntuitionHQ), larger numbers will produce more concrete evidence of issues and help you to track them sooner. Some sites can also provide you with testers, but when looking at their methods I get back to both the cost issue and self-selecting samples again. It seems to me if you can control and distribute the test yourself, you will end up with a broader range of feedback from a wider audience. So, how to distribute your tests?

Distributing tests

Social media—the perfect medium for distributing tests.

Ok, with all that out of the way, and assuming you have your tests set up, the next step is getting it out to the people. How you choose to approach this may depend on the site you are designing and what the objectives are. These are some steps that have worked for us:

1. Clients: Clients almost always want to see what they are paying for and to feel like they have at least some say in the design process. They are enthusiastic about the project (or at least they should be), and if you can involve them (especially without taking up too much of your time), you should do it. Send them tests and get their feedback—they are probably in the right demographic of the market for the site since they are the ones who are trying to sell it.

2. Stakeholders: These can be investors of the sites, current users, or anyone else with an interest in the site. Again, they are the perfect demographic for finding issues with the site; after all, if they have difficulties, you know something probably needs changing. You can get them involved in a number of different ways—sending the link out via email or on the RSS feed, having a link on the body of the site (if redesigning), asking the client to distribute it to friends, family, or other people interested in the site (this of course depends on the kind of site, the client etc.)—you are only limited by your imagination.

3. Social Media: In this day and age, they are so many people on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn et al that you’d have to be living in a Faraday cage to miss them. Make the most of this resource; get out there and share your tests with your friends and followers—people love to see what others are working on and to be able to contribute to the process. It generates talk around the brand too, demonstrating that they put extra thought into design and usability.

4. Forums: Yes, forums do still exist, and in fact, a large number of people still frequent them. You can find a million and one different design and development forums, but you can also find ones more specific to the genre of the site you are testing (fashion forums for a fashion site, camera forums for camera sites, etc). Whatever the case may be, this is another great way to generate feedback.

5. Surveys: We often see people who are redeveloping their sites run surveys to gather feedback. While you are pulling in this information, why not throw in a usability test as well? It’s just as easy to complete as a survey, and can tie in very nicely with other feedback you are pulling in.

To sum things up

Hopefully these suggestions will give you some ideas on why you should integrate usability testing into your design process, and how you can get it out there when you’re ready to go.

If you have any questions about usability testing, or this article, be sure to let me know in the comments section. I’m really happy to help if I can.

Mastering Photoshop for Web Design is the third book in our eBook series, and it’s definitely the best eBook we’ve published so far. It was written from scratch by our regular writer Thomas Giannattasio, exclusively for Smashing Magazine and its readers. We are very proud of the result, in particular because of the high quality of tips, ideas and techniques that Thomas — who is a deep expert in Adobe Photoshop — presents in his book.

Mastering Photoshop is written for advanced and intermediate designers who want to brush up on their workflow and improve their Photoshop skills. The eBook contains 178 pages, explaining fundamental techniques that Web designers need to know to produce high-quality work in Photoshop. You won’t find any generic step-by-step tutorials or learn random effects. You will gain a profound understanding of what you can do with Photoshop and how to use it effectively in your work.

All chapters have undergone a careful technical review by well-known designer, illustrator and speaker Elliot Jay Stocks. The book was proofread by our regular proofreader Andrew Lobo, and it has an attractive layout. The PDF can be printed and read on all devices.

The Author

Thomas Giannattasio is an interactive designer who resides in the Washington DC metro area. He specializes in Web design and front-end development, particularly art direction, website design and application design, and has 14 years of experience. Thomas cares strongly about typography, simplicity and user experience. He works as a senior designer for a global marketing firm and freelances under the name attasi.

Thomas’ articles on Smashing Magazine prove his expertise in Photoshop: The Ails of Typographic Anti-Aliasing and Unknown Photoshop Tricks and Time-Savers are two of the most useful Photoshop-related articles that Smashing Magazine has published over the years.

The Expert’s Opinion

“Photoshop is a powerful tool, and although the basics can be easy to grasp, mastering the application can be extremely difficult. This is where Mastering Photoshop comes in: it takes readers through the app in depth and relates all tasks back to the creative process. There’s much to learn in here, for beginners and experts alike.”

— Elliot Jay Stocks, designer, illustrator and speaker

The eBook, in PDF format, is ideal for archiving, for armchair or mobile reading (including the iPad and iPhone via iBooks and other apps) and of course for printing. You can order your copy of Mastering Photoshop for just $19,90 (or €16.95 if you live in the EU) starting now and exclusively in our Smashing Shop.

The book contains eight chapters:

1. Color Management
   Colors can appear lighter or darker, more or less saturated, cooler or warmer, or just plain wrong depending on the user’s environment. This can be quite a problem, especially with a client’s brand-specific colors. As Web designers, our responsibility is to ensure that the experiences we craft are as true to the original as possible.
2. Paths
   While Illustrator’s vector tools are much more powerful, Photoshop’s benefit lies in its ability to blend vector and raster data together seamlessly. Because Photoshop documents are based on a pixel grid, the path tools in Photoshop make them superior to Illustrator for designing on-screen media.
3. Layer Styles
   Layer Styles are essential to creating flexible and non-degradable documents, because they’re separated from the layer’s actual content. In this chapter, we’ll cover how to create great-looking and reusable styles. We’ll also cover some unique effects and non-typical uses that help to consolidate excess layers.
4. Brushes
   Mastering the digital brush is by no means easy. It carries the same difficulties as the sable brush hidden at the bottom of your art bin. In fact, the difficulty is multiplied by the disconnect between the hand and monitor. Developing Photoshop brush skill takes time, but it is well worth the effort.
5. Typography
   While the majority of type on the Web is rendered by HTML, Photoshop is still necessary to handle treatment beyond the grasp of CSS. In this chapter, we’ll explore Photoshop’s type tools and discover ways to maximize the software’s typesetting capabilities.
6. Photography
   A photograph — especially of the human face — immediately draws the user’s attention and can be used to direct eye flow to important areas of the page. Placing a large photograph above the fold is a common way to provide an entry point to the content. Because photographs are high above other elements in the hierarchy, they need to be handled with care and precision.
7. Exporting
   Once you’ve polished every last pixel, it’s time to get your work into the browser. This is a pretty straightforward process, but properly optimizing your images is crucial. You need to maintain a balance between clarity and download speed. This requires multiple formats, varying levels of compression and other optimization techniques. In this chapter, we’ll explore the workflow of exporting images via the “Save for Web and Devices� dialog.
8. Summary

Sample Chapter and Screenshots

You can download the Chapter 4, Brushes (4.7 Mb, PDF) for free. Please consider buying the eBook if you find it useful or helpful.

Large view

Large view

Large view

Motivation behind the book

In the foreword, Thomas describes his motivation:

“This book was written in the hope of filling a gap — a gap that has existed for as long as designers have been using Photoshop for Web design; a gap that we so often fill with tutorials focused on the latest trends and on
inspiration galleries that are quickly browsed and forgotten; a gap that is growing as quickly as our technologies. It’s a gap of foundation.

The fast pace of the Internet has focused us on the latest and greatest techniques, which typically have a lifespan of only a few months. Rarely do we focus on the fundamentals — the principles that outlive the trends. Unfortunately, the principles often appeal to us less than the shiny and new.

Photoshop tutorials offer quick results. They hold our hands step by step until something incredible appears, but they rarely explain in depth the principles that allow us to create something unique and incredible of our own. If you’re a beginner, I hope this book gives you the comprehension you need to bring your ideas to life. If you’re a veteran, I hope it unveils some of the mysteries that have always boggled you.”

The book is not protected by DRM and is available exclusively in the Smashing Shop. Please respect our work and the hard effort of our writer. If you received this book from a source other than the Smashing Shop, please support us by purchasing your copy in our online store.

Thank you.

© Vitaly Friedman for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | Post a comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
Post tags: ebook, mastering, photoshop, smashing