Due to popular demand, hosts Jose Caballer (@josecaballer) and Aure Gimon (@aurepa) take us through an all Sink Or Swim episode! We’ll review and two new sites to see if they pass the Sink Or Swim test, and then dive into how to improve the sites’ form and function. Then the team checks in on HorsePowerCalculators.net, a previous Sink Or Swim contender, to see how they’ve implemented the feedback Aure gave back in Episode 41. After that, Jose and Aure choose one of the sites to redesign the home page live.
Due to popular demand, hosts Jose Caballer (@josecaballer) and Aure Gimon (@aurepa) take us through an all Sink Or Swim episode! We’ll review and two new sites to see if they pass the Sink Or Swim test, and then dive into how to improve the sites’ form and function. Then the team checks in on HorsePowerCalculators.net, a previous Sink Or Swim contender, to see how they’ve implemented the feedback Aure gave back in Episode 41. After that, Jose and Aure choose one of the sites to redesign the home page live.
After developer Jacob Pittassi discovered that there was an issue with the taxonomy of the web site architecture last week, the team switches from development of the individual show page to a parent “network’ page. Watch as host Jose Caballer demonstrates the strengths of developing a site in scrum with members of both the design and devlopment team in the room. Watch the ThisWeekIn Web Design team work through their third sprint of six as they attempt to build a MVP (minimum viable product) of the ThisWeekIn website redesign.
Drupal expert Jacob Pittassi is tasked with converting the Photoshop files designer Aure Gimon prepared last week into a live show page in Drupal, complete with custom graphics and a working Youtube video. Along with Jacob, our host Jose Caballer is joined by two members of the Producer Program: Robert Haydock (@crowdtuner) and Matthew Adonis (@miadonis). Both Robert and Matthew were in town for Groop Skool Session 3 and they’re hear to share their experiences, along with giving a user’s perspective on the site redesign.
Last week we answered the challenge laid down by Tony Wong to build a plan to ship a MVP (minimum viable product) of the ThisWeekIn website redesign in under six hours, and today we start working! Watch as Tony and Jose guide us through the first hour of work: Aure will select a Drupal template from several vendors and Jacob Pittassi will take you through a Drupal 7 install. The goal by the end of today’s episode? Have a basic ThisWeekIn Web Design page with a functional episode ready for viewing!
On episode 39 Tony Wong challenged the ThisWeekIn Web Design team to get to the business of building the minimum viable product of ThisWeekIn’s new website in under six weeks. With the help of designer Aure Gimon and programmer Jacob Pittassi, Jose and Tony will lay the groundwork for this challenging sprint, live for the viewer. This isn’t an episode, this is the team planning for a product with the intention of going live in less than two months. When ThisWeekIn Web Design says “watch us work”, we mean it!
Aure and Ryan take a look at viewer site HorsePowerCalculators.net and redesign the logo and homepage live on the air. Check out the before and after and let us know what you think!
Tony Wong returns to talk one of the hottest topics on the show over the last month, agile development for web design. We discuss the importance of keeping your plans flexible while focusing on the common goal, how to use the twin strategies of ‘chunking’ & prioritization to guarantee an on-time delivery, and explain what the heck the Hexagon of Success actually is.
00:00 Cold Open
01:35 The 99% and independent contractors of the future
02:35 Tony Wong, leading creatives into the future with better product management
03:15 Aure shows his progress on the TWi visual redesign
04:45 Planning the development of the ThisWeekIn redesign
06:25 Tony tells us the amount of planning should be commensurate to time involved designing and the amount of labor
07:30 Tony Wong talks about his previous experience and how to plan projects in a natural & organic ways
10:00 The evolution of mastering agile and “orthodox agile”
11:30 Tony predicts we will have the website done in six episodes
17:30 The See It Cycle and Lean methodology
18:45 How do you sell the idea of working on isolated chunks without planning the entire project?
20:00 You’re making something, not buying anything.
21:05 Envisioning the end
21:39 Chunking out the project, and further segmentation
23:00 The importance of getting what you need versus what you want
24:00 Chunks of work can expose poor design or not needed blue-sky elements
26:30 Sticking to the plan can ruin project management: know the goal & make a flexible plan.
27:00 “Plans are worthless, planning is valuable.”
32:00 A viewer ask how to introduce the idea of flexible planning to a potential client?
34:00 The Hexagon Of Success
36:00 Charging for a small section of work to convince a client into your process
38:00 The importance of not deviating from the goal rather than the plan
40:00 “The plan will always be wrong by the time you get to the end, just go!”
41:30 Aure talks about the benefits of agile and shows more work
43:00 Knowing where to break the system is important
44:30 The importance of asset dedication while working in Scrum
48:00 Minimum viable product
50:00 Team planning versus product planning
52:00 How much would it cost to have an month of Tony’s time?
54:00 Groop Skool #3
59:00 Tony gives away the secret to successfully making your goals
Working in web design requires negotiating with clients, but how do you negotiate when your client is also your boss? Host Jose Caballer discusses this issue with in-house designer (and Groop Skool alumni!) Eric Patrick. Along with co-host Aure Gimon, the team discuss the challenges of integrating a Scrum philosophy amongst an internal design team within an established corporation. Strategies for getting early buy-in from supervisors, maintaining momentum in a challenging environment, and avoiding miscommunication within a team by aligning around user stories are all discussed. Plus Aure designs a tablet interface for ThisWeekIn!
00:00 Open
03:19 Introduction to guest Eric Patrick and co-host Aure Gimon
05:16 Reality Check for the ThisWeekIn redesign
07:00 Talking about Groop Skool with recent alumni Eric
09:00 Jose tries to fight what he calls “diddle-daddle”
10:50 The ThisWeekIn team loves GoToMeeting!
12:00 Eric talks about the challenges for developing and designing in-house
17:30 Shiny object syndrome and how to protect against it.
19:00 Pitching fixed fee, variable scope projects with an agile/scrum philosophy
20:30 Mitigating risk as you pitch projects.
22:45 Dropping in on Aure’s work on the ThisWeekIn main page developed for a tablet.
23:30 Launchpad conference for tablet developers: Jose is going to be there.
28:00 Why you need to read Seth Godin’s Ship It immediately after this episode
31:00 Planning using scrum with index cards and timing out the development process internally
32:30 “I am the world’s laziest designer”: why low-fi project planning tools help keep things fluid and open in a gropu setting
37:00 “You’re just a moderator, learn to listen to your client.”
40:00 Apple develops for the entire lifespan of the product, not the feature set
42:00 Eric talks about how you can only design successfully once you know your user’s stories
45:00 Building user story based off of Aure’s work and our user profiles
47:00 Self-sufficiency as an entrepreneur and as a viewer of ThisWeekIn
49:00 Building a “culture of execution”
54:00 The team riffs on Aure’s prototype design to create more user-based functionality
59:00 Groop Skool discounts for alumni and Producer’s Program members
