Posted by Andy Dingley on 09/26/07 16:06

On 25 Sep, 15:36, Daan <daanst...@gmail.com> wrote:
> A question for the regulars / experts in this group: what does your
> implementation process look like?

I work with several processes, depending on the client.


Work with a "web dezyner" who wears trainers and glasses far more
fashionable than anything I own. They provide a Photoshop PSD that
looks good 1. At one resolution, 2. For perfect vision, 3. On a Mac
display.

I then code this, and bludgeon the design until it can be persuaded to
look approximately like the original (sometimes I simply lie and swap
the old PSDs for new screenshots. They never notice...). I try to
achieve this with the least compromise for accessibilty, validity and
general good working practices. None of these are rewarded in the
typical world of "design", because they're simply not understood.

Then we spend the final hours (often very many hours) breaking both
the design and the implementation to meet the last minute
requirements: more ads on the page until it's unreadable. Sponsor's
official colour schema of octarine and tetragrammaton. Making a font
_exactly_ a bit bigger than 10 pixels, and a bit less than 11 pixels.
And that old favourite, making it render perfectly and identically on
the CEO's only two browsers, IE5/Mac and NS4.


Secondly I work in Java shops. Why use two lines of CSS when a 100
lines of JSP will do the job instead? After all, "web design doesn't
really count as proper coding" so why learn about worthless trivia
like accessibility, standards-validity and cross-platform support.
After all, the contract specifies "IE6 only", so if the customer
suffers an IE7 auto-update in the future and the site crashes, that's
their fault.


Sometimes I even work in the charitable sector, where a well-meaning
semi-retired polytechnic lecturer with a ripped-off copy of
FrontPlague can destroy a well-designed site because: they've infinite
9-5 time to spend on it (drinking their part-time employer's coffee
between lectures), when you're trying to scratch a few hours after
midnight, when you can. You can't even mention this, because "we
mustn't upset the volunteers".

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