Breaking Development Conference – Nashville – July 2014
Conference Session: Real World Responsive Web Redesign
Jonathan Stark
This session discussed the RWD/redesign of Entertainment Weekly. I took away more about about project management than RWD but I was more so looking for PM tips.
My Notes:
- RWD Guiding Principles: speed is a feature; progressive enhancement from low device to high; assume low; easier to progressively add features than to degrade gracefully.
- Design: No Big Reveal – Constant feedback during design. Final design is 1 week from last review.
- Big Pieces From Client: we knew all photos, videos, etc. from current site, and challenges before we started design process.
- Advertising is a big challenge for mobile.
- Prioritize Design with typical sticky note voting. Allow 20 seconds for +/- reactions to similar sites or comps/mood boards.
- Set Initial design decisions: e.g. no carousels, progressive content, etc. Now you have a roadmap.
- Did not use Agile or Waterfall but a hybrid, with information architecture, visual, and development in parallel.
- Weekly build and push to dev site. Weekly all hands review with client. Weekly freeze.
- Throw out elements client doesn’t like (e.g. which callout do you not like). Thereby weekly not a sign off.
- Always design and demo in the browser, not comps.
- Emphasize phone view in weeklies.
- Start with small scale elements for review (e.g. and build to footer, then pages).
- JavaScript: “Every script has a cost”
- Consider starting with a site that works without JavaScript.
- Create your own JavaScript library is better for minimum footprint. Don’t go to extremes with JavaScript.
- Help yourself out: Use a common/single bug tracker; lots of screen shots for bug documentation with re-creating; we used multiple trackers – should have learned GIT better; automate deployment.
“Communication Trumps Process!”
~Jonathan Stark
