2004 October - Matt Heerema : Web Design

Archive for October, 2004

If Architects Had To Work Like Web Designers…

I’ve seen this in a few places around the Web and in E-mail forwards. It’s a fun caricature of the frustrations of working with some clients.

Note: I’ve never had a client that has looked like this (except for various University committees…)

Dear Mr. Architect:

Please design and build me a house. I am not quite sure of what I need, so you should use your discretion. My house should have somewhere between two and forty-five bedrooms. Just make sure the plans are such that the bedrooms can be easily added or deleted. When you bring the blueprints to me, I will make the final decision of what I want. Also, bring me the cost breakdown for each configuration so that I can arbitrarily pick one.

Keep in mind that the house I ultimately choose must cost less than the one I am currently living in. Make sure, however, that you correct all the deficiencies that exist in my current house (the floor of my kitchen vibrates when I walk across it, and the walls don’t have nearly enough insulation in them).

As you design, also keep in mind that I want to keep yearly maintenance costs as low as possible. This should mean the incorporation of extra-cost features like aluminum, vinyl, or composite siding. (If you choose not to specify aluminum, be prepared to explain your decision in detail.)

Please take care that modern design practices and the latest materials are used in construction of the house, as I want it to be a showplace for the most up-to-date ideas and methods. Be alerted, however, that kitchen should be designed to accommodate, among other things, my 1952 Gibson refrigerator.

To insure that you are building the correct house for our entire family, make certain that you contact each of our children, and also our in-laws. My mother-in-law will have very strong feelings about how the house should be designed, since she visits us at least once a year. Make sure that you weigh all of these options carefully and come to the right decision. I, however, retain the right to overrule any choices that you make.

Please don’t bother me with small details right now. Your job is to develop the overall plans for the house: get the big picture. At this time, for example, it is not appropriate to be choosing the color of the carpet.

However, keep in mind that my wife likes blue.

Also, do not worry at this time about acquiring the resources to build the house itself. Your first priority is to develop detailed plans and specifications. Once I approve these plans, however, I would expect the house to be under roof within 48 hours.

While you are designing this house specifically for me, keep in mind that sooner or later I will have to sell it to someone else. It therefore should have appeal to a wide variety of potential buyers. Please make sure before you finalize the plans that there is a consensus of the population in my area that they like the features this house has. I advise you to run up and look at my neighbor’s house he constructed last year. We like it a great deal. It has many features that we would also like in our new home, particularly the 75-foot swimming pool. With careful engineering, I believe that you can design this into our new house without impacting the final cost.

Please prepare a complete set of blueprints. It is not necessary at this time to do the real design, since they will be used only for construction bids. Be advised, however, that you will be held accountable for any increase of construction costs as a result of later design changes.

You must be thrilled to be working on as an interesting project as this! To be able to use the latest techniques and materials and to be given such freedom in your designs is something that can’t happen very often. Contact me as soon as possible with your complete ideas and plans.

PS: My wife has just told me that she disagrees with many of the instructions I’ve given you in this letter. As architect, it is your responsibility to resolve these differences. I have tried in the past and have been unable to accomplish this. If you can’t handle this responsibility, I will have to find another architect.

PPS: Perhaps what I need is not a house at all, but a travel trailer. Please advise me as soon as possible if this is the case..

6 Comments

Posted October 20th, 2004 in Web Design by Matt

Amazon.com Wishlist

This may seem completely self serving, but I assure you it isn’t :)

My birthday is about a month away. To get a general idea of what I’m interested in, you can check out: Matt Heerema’s Amazon.com Wish List.

Amazon.com Gift Certificates are always good too.

Man, you can get anything there!

Leave a comment with a link to your wish list. It’s fun seeing the kind of things people are interested in.

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Posted October 13th, 2004 in Everything Else by Matt

The Path to Enlightenment (or How I Became and Elitist Web Design Nazi)

I Have been developing Web pages for almost 5 years now (we are coming up on my anniversary). Today I did some looking back to how I got here.

I spent the first three and a half years in relative naivet�, basically learning the rudimentary basics of HTML syntax (by using WYSIWYG programs); learning which programs to use and which not to use; learning various scripting languages; and learning project coordination and management. But in the last year or so, I have really taken off in my skill and understanding of Web development. I was reflecting today on how I got there.

It all started when friend of mine pointed me toward Web Design guru Jeffery Zeldman. I learned from him that it was okay to say “To Hell With Bad Browsers“. It was around this same time that I discovered A Dao of Web Design, that is, a new (the correct) way of creating Web pages.

Along the way I picked up A Roadmap to Standards and somewhere in there discovered an unbridled hostility towards Internet Explorer, the only “modern” browser on the planet that did not seem to be aware of my new found insight.

I followed the Roadmap to Web Design School and bought a Web Design Bible. I found several other preachers extoling the values of Developing with Web standards. They all seemed to be in agreement, and so I knew I was on the right track.

To cool my unbridled hostility, I spend copious amounts of time in the Zen Garden, observing the wonders of CSS and Standards-oriented design.

But perhaps the most important thing I have learned is that this new method of design is not simply a philosophy, a religion, or a preference, but it has very real Business Value as well.

Join me on the quest towards a faster, more comprehensible Web.

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Posted October 7th, 2004 in Web Design by Matt

PHP Newbie Mistakes

I definitely found this article useful. I’m a PHP hack. I’ve been coding with it for a few years, I make it work well, but I’ve never been that technically excellent with it.

PHPitfalls: Five Beginner Mistakes to Avoid from Digital Web.

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Posted October 7th, 2004 in External Link by Matt

Giving and Recieving Criticism

UIWeb had an interesting article about giving and receiving criticism. This looks to be useful in many areas besides Web design as well.

Synopsis:

Assumptions bad critics make

There is one universal and objective measure of how good and bad anything is.
That the critic is in sole possession of the skill in making these measurements.
Anyone that doesn’t possess this skill (including the creator of the work) is an idiot and should be ridiculed.
That valid criticisms can and should always be resolved.

How to give critical feedback