There are many reasons why a web site should be redesigned. Being stale is one, as is following a rebranding of the organisation it serves. Catching up with user habits and new technologies is yet another.
The arrival of a new iteration of the Bootstrap framework from Twitter, which reached version 3.1.4 a couple of weeks ago, coincided (coincidentally) with the launch of the latest version of the BBC's web site. Being one of the most visited online destinations in the world, and also being an organisation who generally try to 'do the right thing' when it comes to its publications, this is worth looking at in more detail.
While not linked, the two changes are connected in that both revolve around responsiveness. For quite a while, mobile users of the BBC web site had been redirected to a responsive version, and I have been using this regularly. I should also add that I use it instead of the BBC News app on my iPhone.
I suggest you start with Robin Pembrooke's blog piece entitled BBC News: a single web solution for everyone (One web to rule them all, perhaps). This links onwards to further background information. You should also read the comments: they do seem somewhat unhappy, but this could just be following the basic rule of comments that people complain (which allows specifics) rather than praise (which is more general). Personally I find the layout a bit large on a desktop screen, with some images not only over-sized but even over-stretched (a problem with responsive sizing of images), but on the whole I am happy to continue using it.
The image problem, whereby an image is set to fill a particular cell of the layout and so changes its displayed size dynamically, is a symptom of the increasing reliance on JavaScript to manage the layout based on things such as window width. This runs counter to the older guideline that you should tell the browser how large something is before it renders the page. This can be bad enough on a desktop but on a phone it can be really irritating as things you start reading suddenly disappear below the fold as the browser inserts an image further up the page. For the latest kit with fast processors and download speeds this will be disguised by the speed at which the page is put together but a slow connection or a slower browser can make this build process very evident. (I should add that this isn't a problem I've seen on the BBC site.)
If you can, then, see how your responsive pages render on slower systems.
Of course, sites don't always have to keep revamping themselves if they just work from the start. I regularly use the MacInTouch web site and this doesn't appear to have changed ever. No images, no advertising banners (apart from a funding plea), but plenty of useful content.
Update 1st April: After getting on for a lifetime, MacInTouch changed their design today! Were they listening? It's still simple though ... and hopefully not an 'April Fool' prank.
Update 2nd April: It was an 'April Fool' prank. Ah well ... back to the spaghetti tree harvest.
Tuesday, 31 March 2015
Monday, 2 March 2015
Access and accessibility in digital: Issues in vogue for the UK
I started off looking up some present trends in digital accessibility but ended with some surprising stats on the UK’s lack of basic digital access that upstaged ‘accessibility’ somewhat.
So, I’ll try to blend the key points from both salient issues although it may involve a bit of leap-frogging on your part. But if you’re part of digital already, that’s par for the course, right?
I’m sure that many of us will do a double take at the focused, hard-nosed approach taken by none other than the Lords Select Committee on Digital Skills. They published their Report, Make or Break: The UK’s Digital Future, on Feb 17th. It actually is easy to read, hard-hitting and sounds sensible. Yes, quite a shock. Suddenly what all of us in digital have all been saying for years has reached a crescendo of warning bells for the UK. Am-Az-Ing! If I just throw out a few tasters from the report, you’ll see what I mean.
So here’s the counterpart about ‘accessibility’ of sites. Once people are accessing sites, they need to be easy and straightforward to use. Again, some stats worth noting are:
‘Better Connected’, is a report about the accessibility of council web sites that has been done annually for 17 years. There was a massive dip in performance in 2013 that the report’s originators, Soctim, put down to the poor testing of mobile sites. Soctim uses people with disabilities to test the sites. Many might not understand the range of disabilities that can cause problems with sites such as dyslexia, learning difficulties and poor vision. The Digital Accessibility Centre has a good resources page with some free testing that you might find useful.
This is a larger blog than usual but you can see why. I hope.
So, I’ll try to blend the key points from both salient issues although it may involve a bit of leap-frogging on your part. But if you’re part of digital already, that’s par for the course, right?
I’m sure that many of us will do a double take at the focused, hard-nosed approach taken by none other than the Lords Select Committee on Digital Skills. They published their Report, Make or Break: The UK’s Digital Future, on Feb 17th. It actually is easy to read, hard-hitting and sounds sensible. Yes, quite a shock. Suddenly what all of us in digital have all been saying for years has reached a crescendo of warning bells for the UK. Am-Az-Ing! If I just throw out a few tasters from the report, you’ll see what I mean.
- A report by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research in 2013, meanwhile, found that the size of the digital economy was almost double official estimates.... Digital technology is pervasive across all aspects of life, so much so that the ‘digital economy’ is becoming synonymous with the national economy.
- Digital skills (the skills needed to interact with digital technologies) are now necessary life skills. ... It is not acceptable for any group to be excluded from access to digital technologies.
- All of this will require universal access to the internet to engage with vital public and personal services. That is why we conclude that the Government should define the internet as a utility service, available for all to access and use.
- The new digital age offers huge opportunities as well as significant risks; it can make the UK, or break it.
- Access to digital technologies
- 49. Objective 1: The population as a whole has unimpeded access to digital technology.
- 50. This includes:
- facilitation of universal internet access: the internet is viewed as a utility; and
- removing ‘not-spots’ in urban areas
- A digital divide persists in the UK, with some six million citizens never having used the internet and 9.5 million lacking adequate digital skills, partly because they have been "poorly served at school", the report warns.
So here’s the counterpart about ‘accessibility’ of sites. Once people are accessing sites, they need to be easy and straightforward to use. Again, some stats worth noting are:
- the UK’s 12 million disabled people have a spending power of £120 billion
- accessible sites are 35% more usable by everyone whether they have special access needs or not
‘Better Connected’, is a report about the accessibility of council web sites that has been done annually for 17 years. There was a massive dip in performance in 2013 that the report’s originators, Soctim, put down to the poor testing of mobile sites. Soctim uses people with disabilities to test the sites. Many might not understand the range of disabilities that can cause problems with sites such as dyslexia, learning difficulties and poor vision. The Digital Accessibility Centre has a good resources page with some free testing that you might find useful.
This is a larger blog than usual but you can see why. I hope.
Wednesday, 11 February 2015
‘Searching for unicorns’: good Digital Project Managers
I liked this description although it seems to suggest that good digital project managers are elusive!
As the role expands with the number of electronic communication channels increasing, the basics of good project management don’t change although the emphasis on what the flavour of the month is does.
What is happening to the role? Well, the number of jobs for digital project managers is increasing as are their salaries. That’s the good news. Defining the specialities within the role that are needed for emerging social media, marketing, e-learning, platforms, and so on, is challenging for those seeking ‘the unicorn’. Many digital project managers have just dealt with an expanding role as it happened not realising that they were specialising. Many and varied channels were just part of the job. This expansion of the role explains why the search for new people often gets divided into Senior, Middleweight and Junior Digital Project Managers. The quote about unicorns comes from Adam Edgerton’s The Successful Digital PM Part 1 (6 May 2013) and is part of a 5 part analysis of the role.
There’s no better way of keeping up-to-date on what’s happening than getting other people to define and collate trends. Now DPM UK 2015 was a recent two day conference just for Digital PMs. Did you miss it? Keep an eye out for next year’s. They don’t give a summary yet although they say it’s coming, but Sarah Clarke gives a succinct account of the conference in the White October blog (6 February 2015). It appears that the current flavour for digital project management emphasises people management. And why not? So the snippet of advice from Sarah learnt from the conference is: ‘We’re all humans trying to do our best. Sometimes we mess up. Admit it, deal with it, move on.’
Luckily for us, someone is finally analysing strategic trends in the UK digital sector. These types of reports are good news for us because they show we are beginning to be taken seriously enough to influence UK performance. The Tech Nation Report looks at cluster growth of technology firms and how they affect a region. Scroll down the page to reach some highlights out of the report. Danny Palmer in Computing, The technology sector is thriving across the UK (6 February 2015), extracts some facts from the report. He cites 1.46 million people working in the digital industries with 74% outside London. There are some conflicting opinions about whether there is a skills shortage in the sector or not in and accompanying this article, but the report itself states one million jobs were advertised last year and by 2020 there will be a 5.4% growth (above average) in the sector.
Seen any unicorns recently?
As the role expands with the number of electronic communication channels increasing, the basics of good project management don’t change although the emphasis on what the flavour of the month is does.
What is happening to the role? Well, the number of jobs for digital project managers is increasing as are their salaries. That’s the good news. Defining the specialities within the role that are needed for emerging social media, marketing, e-learning, platforms, and so on, is challenging for those seeking ‘the unicorn’. Many digital project managers have just dealt with an expanding role as it happened not realising that they were specialising. Many and varied channels were just part of the job. This expansion of the role explains why the search for new people often gets divided into Senior, Middleweight and Junior Digital Project Managers. The quote about unicorns comes from Adam Edgerton’s The Successful Digital PM Part 1 (6 May 2013) and is part of a 5 part analysis of the role.
There’s no better way of keeping up-to-date on what’s happening than getting other people to define and collate trends. Now DPM UK 2015 was a recent two day conference just for Digital PMs. Did you miss it? Keep an eye out for next year’s. They don’t give a summary yet although they say it’s coming, but Sarah Clarke gives a succinct account of the conference in the White October blog (6 February 2015). It appears that the current flavour for digital project management emphasises people management. And why not? So the snippet of advice from Sarah learnt from the conference is: ‘We’re all humans trying to do our best. Sometimes we mess up. Admit it, deal with it, move on.’
Luckily for us, someone is finally analysing strategic trends in the UK digital sector. These types of reports are good news for us because they show we are beginning to be taken seriously enough to influence UK performance. The Tech Nation Report looks at cluster growth of technology firms and how they affect a region. Scroll down the page to reach some highlights out of the report. Danny Palmer in Computing, The technology sector is thriving across the UK (6 February 2015), extracts some facts from the report. He cites 1.46 million people working in the digital industries with 74% outside London. There are some conflicting opinions about whether there is a skills shortage in the sector or not in and accompanying this article, but the report itself states one million jobs were advertised last year and by 2020 there will be a 5.4% growth (above average) in the sector.
Seen any unicorns recently?
Thursday, 29 January 2015
Accuracy and meaning
My eye was caught this morning by two unrelated news items but which have in common the ideas of accuracy and meaning. How can a seemingly small change be significant?
In some ways my first isn't a small change: the BBC Arabic Service have said they will not describe an act as terrorism or a person as a terrorist. Instead the terminology will be more specific, such as bomber or attacker or gunman. There's an interesting analysis of this by Memphis Barker in the Independent. Apparently this stance is already reflected in the BBC's editorial guidelines which say that the BBC "does not ban the use of the word. However, we do ask that careful thought is given to its use by a BBC voice."
The word itself is interesting in that it derives from the French terrorisme which specifically referred to the then French government's reign of terror.
That said, use of the word, and by extension any emotive word, needs to be carefully considered, especially if it has connotations beyond its literal meaning. Such risk can be exacerbated when working out pithy and attractive headings for web pages (and stories in newspapers), and avoidance of such problems is part of the skill of the newspaper sub-editor. If you're writing for a blog or web site then you will also be taking on that role. If you're an organisation like the BBC then communicating with 'your voice' is also a factor. Are your clients big enough to think this way too?
My second example is something to strike fear into the hearts of anyone running databases: can a small error be catastrophic?
In recording data about companies that had been wound up, the UK companies registrar, Companies House, accidentally failed to notice a letter 'S' in a company name that should not have been there. Taylor & Sons Ltd had not gone into liquidation, it was Taylor & Son Ltd. As this Guardian piece explains, that single letter cost Taylor & Sons dear ... it really did go out of business ... and now, even though they corrected the mistake after three days, Companies House have to carry the can to the tune of what is likely to be several million pounds.
This kind of error can be caused during data prep, when the data is input, or during processing or data retrieval. From your company point of view, it would probably be covered by professional indemnity insurance, should there be a financial liability. Sometimes, however, it might just be embarrassing. In the BBC Domesday Project, an inadvertent error made the UK seem to be highly radioactive. Fortunately it was noticed before publication and fixed by a software engineer doing the data equivalent of a high wire act to correct a single byte of data.
In some ways my first isn't a small change: the BBC Arabic Service have said they will not describe an act as terrorism or a person as a terrorist. Instead the terminology will be more specific, such as bomber or attacker or gunman. There's an interesting analysis of this by Memphis Barker in the Independent. Apparently this stance is already reflected in the BBC's editorial guidelines which say that the BBC "does not ban the use of the word. However, we do ask that careful thought is given to its use by a BBC voice."
The word itself is interesting in that it derives from the French terrorisme which specifically referred to the then French government's reign of terror.
That said, use of the word, and by extension any emotive word, needs to be carefully considered, especially if it has connotations beyond its literal meaning. Such risk can be exacerbated when working out pithy and attractive headings for web pages (and stories in newspapers), and avoidance of such problems is part of the skill of the newspaper sub-editor. If you're writing for a blog or web site then you will also be taking on that role. If you're an organisation like the BBC then communicating with 'your voice' is also a factor. Are your clients big enough to think this way too?
My second example is something to strike fear into the hearts of anyone running databases: can a small error be catastrophic?
In recording data about companies that had been wound up, the UK companies registrar, Companies House, accidentally failed to notice a letter 'S' in a company name that should not have been there. Taylor & Sons Ltd had not gone into liquidation, it was Taylor & Son Ltd. As this Guardian piece explains, that single letter cost Taylor & Sons dear ... it really did go out of business ... and now, even though they corrected the mistake after three days, Companies House have to carry the can to the tune of what is likely to be several million pounds.
This kind of error can be caused during data prep, when the data is input, or during processing or data retrieval. From your company point of view, it would probably be covered by professional indemnity insurance, should there be a financial liability. Sometimes, however, it might just be embarrassing. In the BBC Domesday Project, an inadvertent error made the UK seem to be highly radioactive. Fortunately it was noticed before publication and fixed by a software engineer doing the data equivalent of a high wire act to correct a single byte of data.
Wednesday, 21 January 2015
Children and social media sites
This is a bit of a nightmare for parents and has been for several years. Are you a parent? Do you know what sites your children are using? What data are they sharing? Does it include data about you? Are the sites offering inappropriate content – sexual, self-harm, bullying or violent among others? Did you know that the number of children receiving hurtful cyber-bullying messages rose from 8 to 12% in the last 4 years.
This issue is so sensitive that parents feel vulnerable. It is hard to find out about privacy settings, safety information, where and what to report. It’s all very well, you might say, we’re not dealing directly with this issue. It’s another side of ‘tech’. Well, have you considered advising your clients (where parents might shop/seek information etc.) that they might include a ‘parent’s social media guide’ or the equivalent on their sites? This wins on all fronts – moral, social responsibility, ethical, good branding association, positive thinking and the rest. Yes, you might have to research the topic to do it justice and make sure the information is updated regularly on the client’s site by whatever means agreed, but, worth considering, don’t you think?
With all this in mind, here are a few links to get you started.
This issue is so sensitive that parents feel vulnerable. It is hard to find out about privacy settings, safety information, where and what to report. It’s all very well, you might say, we’re not dealing directly with this issue. It’s another side of ‘tech’. Well, have you considered advising your clients (where parents might shop/seek information etc.) that they might include a ‘parent’s social media guide’ or the equivalent on their sites? This wins on all fronts – moral, social responsibility, ethical, good branding association, positive thinking and the rest. Yes, you might have to research the topic to do it justice and make sure the information is updated regularly on the client’s site by whatever means agreed, but, worth considering, don’t you think?
With all this in mind, here are a few links to get you started.
- The NSPCC Report: A Parent’s Guide to being Share Aware 2015
- Sophie Livingston’s blog about The NSPCC’s report 9 January 2015
- The EU Kids Online Report 2014, from the LSE Media and Communications Department.
- Our social media heroes 2014, at Sheknows, Claire Gillespie’s blog, 24 December 2014
Friday, 9 January 2015
Back to basics: controlling your digital projects
Moan, moan, moan. Yes, it’s the January blues time and the last thing you and your team may want to hear is ‘back to basics’! It’s a nasty fact though that a festive break allows time not just for you and your team to recharge your think-tanks but for your clients and stakeholders to recharge theirs also. We know what that means – lots of new ideas and changes suggested to the project! Changes mean disruption to time, cost and quality. Panic is allowed – quietly. You have put in the controls, haven’t you? It’s time to remind all that changes and even improvements are possible but at a new schedule and cost.
Estimating any time implications and therefore costs of changes is always problematic. But Ben Aston gives a really good tip about ‘question when questioning’, meaning that when your team members come back to you with an estimate about what the changes will cost, you question them as to how they reached that figure. Together you’ll find that you revise the figure to be more accurate by recognising where some gaps in thinking have occurred. This is good training for your team member and yourself because both of you will work in the refining process and learn along the way from each other. You’ll find Ben’s other tips useful too.
See Ben Aston’s, Creating timing plans: a summary (December 12 2014)
Paul Spencer has a down-to-earth approach to project management. His tips may not be specific to digital projects but common sense is common sense. The tip I like best is a reminder that defining the scope of a project is not just about what you will achieve but also what you will not do. That’s equally important to define or your clients will push the boundaries quite happily at your expense. If you want a humourous motivator for an individual team member, or, just yourself, take a look at his animation at the Digital Doctorate for Bristol Graduate school. It’s about moving a vision or an idea to fruition which is like taking a digital project through its cycle.
And, in the spirit of New Year and being positive, what about championing yourself and your fellow digital project managers. It is true that few appreciate the difference you really make to projects. You do have skills and expertise that set you apart from the others in the team. Many of them really wouldn’t want your role even though they might moan about you – openly or not!
If you feel your role isn’t appreciated spread a little of Paul Boag’s Be proud of your digital project managers’ around. Do you agree that there should be a Digital Project Manager of the Year award as an incentive for people to recognise your value? What else would you suggest?
Happy New Year.
Estimating any time implications and therefore costs of changes is always problematic. But Ben Aston gives a really good tip about ‘question when questioning’, meaning that when your team members come back to you with an estimate about what the changes will cost, you question them as to how they reached that figure. Together you’ll find that you revise the figure to be more accurate by recognising where some gaps in thinking have occurred. This is good training for your team member and yourself because both of you will work in the refining process and learn along the way from each other. You’ll find Ben’s other tips useful too.
See Ben Aston’s, Creating timing plans: a summary (December 12 2014)
Paul Spencer has a down-to-earth approach to project management. His tips may not be specific to digital projects but common sense is common sense. The tip I like best is a reminder that defining the scope of a project is not just about what you will achieve but also what you will not do. That’s equally important to define or your clients will push the boundaries quite happily at your expense. If you want a humourous motivator for an individual team member, or, just yourself, take a look at his animation at the Digital Doctorate for Bristol Graduate school. It’s about moving a vision or an idea to fruition which is like taking a digital project through its cycle.
And, in the spirit of New Year and being positive, what about championing yourself and your fellow digital project managers. It is true that few appreciate the difference you really make to projects. You do have skills and expertise that set you apart from the others in the team. Many of them really wouldn’t want your role even though they might moan about you – openly or not!
If you feel your role isn’t appreciated spread a little of Paul Boag’s Be proud of your digital project managers’ around. Do you agree that there should be a Digital Project Manager of the Year award as an incentive for people to recognise your value? What else would you suggest?
Happy New Year.
Thursday, 18 December 2014
Online retail and Christmas shopping: what’s occurring?
General Questions
Are you at the panic buying stage yet? Have you bought the majority of your own presents online? Do you expect better bargains online or in a shop? Do you like the traditional experience, look and feel approach, of high-street shopping? Do you research online but buy offline based on your research?
Professional Questions
Did you appraise your online retail clients of what was necessary for their online shopping sites to make the most of the November, December and January online shopping frenzies? Have your online retail clients been caught out with low stock, inadequate delivery mechanisms, off-putting customer service reputation, uncompetitive offers, and the rest? Are you and your colleagues running round like headless chickens to fire-fight glitches with online code and/or load-testing? Are all your online retail sites working well in the frenzy so that you can enjoy the Christmas spirit?
These are fundamental questions for now and the answers reflect what is happening with consumers. It’s important to remember you are also one of them. Your experience with online sites matters although you need to take your ‘expertise’ into account as possibly being ahead of trend perhaps. It’s wise to take on advice so see, Catching the Christmas Trade: 10 Tips for Online Shops, by Frank Breuss at Digital Marketing Magazine (4 December 2014).
With online shopping increasing 20% year on year but with Black Friday now out-performing even the Christmas rush, it’s a hard, competitive market. (See the Telegraph’s story reporting John Lewis Stores 17 December 2014).
There’s a lot to think about at a manic time for most. If you’re a stats person and you have clients across the retail sectors you might like to keep up with more general reports of ecommerce at ReportLinker.com
Happy shopping experiences – whether online or off!
Friday, 5 December 2014
Virtual teams and collaborative working
The communications landscape for all businesses has changed significantly since the electronic revolution. Our sector, iMedia, might well have been first to use collaborative working in a virtual world with cross-functional teams, but now this has spread into general business. We might have more experience of what it means, but we aren’t known for refining and sharing these insights. With us it has been more like the rest of our environment – try, refine and move forward.
It’s refreshing then to find that the virtual team dynamic is being analysed as part of general management and business. And, just because we have the experience, it doesn’t mean we can’t learn from others observations.
With this as the premise, here are a few links to some team analysis that may prove useful for your company – even yourself.
Pam Jones, 17 November 2014, Ashridge Business School, makes the point that although communication might be technology driven, it is ‘... the human aspect of communication that requires attention’. She offers 4 building blocks refined from top-performing team leaders. These are:
‘Compass’ is a business whose job is to optimise team working. Hey! Yes, they exist! ‘Compass’ place the emphasis on choosing the right tools and techniques to suit the virtual team in question, but first they decide HOW the team need to work together. Then they choose the tools etc. They give six suggestions on how to optimise team working.
The Guardian’s Small Business Network blog, Successful remote collaboration: tips from those in the know 24th April 2014, takes a different angle. It recognises that remote collaboration allows many forms of meetings to take place thereby cutting travel costs and the time needed. Both mean saving money. This blog mentions technological tools that are available to help such as: SKYPE, Google Hangouts, Pop-up Office, Evernote Business, and Elance, among others. Their tips relate more to keeping the data shared between teams secure by auditing devices and data that will be shared. They take for granted that your company/clients are working openly through the cloud.
It’s a shame we may not have passed on our experiences. Such is the truth for many entrepreneurs. But you’re never too old to learn. (Don’t even think of quoting, ‘You can’t teach and old dog...’ back at us!)
It’s refreshing then to find that the virtual team dynamic is being analysed as part of general management and business. And, just because we have the experience, it doesn’t mean we can’t learn from others observations.
With this as the premise, here are a few links to some team analysis that may prove useful for your company – even yourself.
Pam Jones, 17 November 2014, Ashridge Business School, makes the point that although communication might be technology driven, it is ‘... the human aspect of communication that requires attention’. She offers 4 building blocks refined from top-performing team leaders. These are:
- Develop a clear communication strategy.
- Develop a network of shared responsibility.
- Building trust and belonging.
- Growing and learning together.
‘Compass’ is a business whose job is to optimise team working. Hey! Yes, they exist! ‘Compass’ place the emphasis on choosing the right tools and techniques to suit the virtual team in question, but first they decide HOW the team need to work together. Then they choose the tools etc. They give six suggestions on how to optimise team working.
The Guardian’s Small Business Network blog, Successful remote collaboration: tips from those in the know 24th April 2014, takes a different angle. It recognises that remote collaboration allows many forms of meetings to take place thereby cutting travel costs and the time needed. Both mean saving money. This blog mentions technological tools that are available to help such as: SKYPE, Google Hangouts, Pop-up Office, Evernote Business, and Elance, among others. Their tips relate more to keeping the data shared between teams secure by auditing devices and data that will be shared. They take for granted that your company/clients are working openly through the cloud.
It’s a shame we may not have passed on our experiences. Such is the truth for many entrepreneurs. But you’re never too old to learn. (Don’t even think of quoting, ‘You can’t teach and old dog...’ back at us!)
Friday, 21 November 2014
Gone phishing!
I fear it's a fact of life that if you receive email you will receive junk mail of various types, ranging from the harmless but irritating to the downright dangerous: click at your peril!
Such things are very worrying for email users, because it can be very difficult to tell some of them from genuine emails. A sad but typical example has been documented by the BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones, who managed to avoid falling victim to a PayPal payment scam while he was auctioning in aid of the Children in Need charity.
As a recipient you should be able to detect such things by carefully checking any links in the email. (Ideally you shouldn't click on links in emails but, hey, this is the real world.) Usually, by hovering your pointer over a link you should be able to detect the actual address to which it goes, not what the visible text says. If you are more adept you can explore what are called the long headers of a mail to see where it really came from and how it got to you. But some emails are sent legitimately from web servers or other addresses that may not have what is called a mail exchange (MX) record.
I am not a fan of HTML emails but they are here to stay with all the potential for trouble from hidden links and tracking images. I feel it's rather like insisting that telephone calls are sung, not spoken, just because it's nicer. With a text email, it's up to the mail client whether any link text is turned into a real clickable link ... usually triggered by an 'http://'.
Why is this relevant to us as developers and producers of interactive media? I think we need to think carefully about how our clients communicate when using emails to contact their customers, especially if they are asking for information. Our clients are not all banks (or PayPal) so the chances of a scammer sending out emails purporting to be from our clients are slim ... but do their emails always seem to be clearly from them?
Let me give an example. You may use a third party to manage a mailing list for a newsletter. Have you checked to see how those emails actually arrive? The 'Reply to' header may show your domain but the real sender address will be the third party company. The unsubscribe links may be to the third party company. All this is completely above board and I only mention it because there are genuine instances where some of the basic sanity checks on scam emails will fail with the genuine article. To ameliorate this you could be up front about it and say that your mailing list is handled by another company, which will explain the different email domain.
PayPal and eBay have a good technique. They always address you by name whereas phishing emails tend to start Dear customer or even Dear friend. The UK National Savings will send you an email telling you that you need to log onto your online account and read a new message: not particularly friendly but very safe. It's useful to see what other organisations do to help keep their customers safe online. Definitely something that's well worth doing and, coincidentally, good for business.
Such things are very worrying for email users, because it can be very difficult to tell some of them from genuine emails. A sad but typical example has been documented by the BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones, who managed to avoid falling victim to a PayPal payment scam while he was auctioning in aid of the Children in Need charity.
As a recipient you should be able to detect such things by carefully checking any links in the email. (Ideally you shouldn't click on links in emails but, hey, this is the real world.) Usually, by hovering your pointer over a link you should be able to detect the actual address to which it goes, not what the visible text says. If you are more adept you can explore what are called the long headers of a mail to see where it really came from and how it got to you. But some emails are sent legitimately from web servers or other addresses that may not have what is called a mail exchange (MX) record.
I am not a fan of HTML emails but they are here to stay with all the potential for trouble from hidden links and tracking images. I feel it's rather like insisting that telephone calls are sung, not spoken, just because it's nicer. With a text email, it's up to the mail client whether any link text is turned into a real clickable link ... usually triggered by an 'http://'.
Why is this relevant to us as developers and producers of interactive media? I think we need to think carefully about how our clients communicate when using emails to contact their customers, especially if they are asking for information. Our clients are not all banks (or PayPal) so the chances of a scammer sending out emails purporting to be from our clients are slim ... but do their emails always seem to be clearly from them?
Let me give an example. You may use a third party to manage a mailing list for a newsletter. Have you checked to see how those emails actually arrive? The 'Reply to' header may show your domain but the real sender address will be the third party company. The unsubscribe links may be to the third party company. All this is completely above board and I only mention it because there are genuine instances where some of the basic sanity checks on scam emails will fail with the genuine article. To ameliorate this you could be up front about it and say that your mailing list is handled by another company, which will explain the different email domain.
PayPal and eBay have a good technique. They always address you by name whereas phishing emails tend to start Dear customer or even Dear friend. The UK National Savings will send you an email telling you that you need to log onto your online account and read a new message: not particularly friendly but very safe. It's useful to see what other organisations do to help keep their customers safe online. Definitely something that's well worth doing and, coincidentally, good for business.
Monday, 10 November 2014
Digital Usability and Return on Investment
It’s been a while since we looked at this issue - September 2013 - and as in every digital sector, it has moved on leaps and bounds.
UX (User Experience) is now understood as a fundamental business concern for digital. Previously it had been a ‘take it or leave it’ addition. It was hard to identify in quantifiable terms how UX added to business benefits. This has changed too. It’s a discipline that has grown in knowledge that has been tied to business key performance indicators (KPIs). This is what has driven its recognition as a core component of any type of digital communication.
So, this discipline now has its own sets of awards covering various facets of communication. For example, UKUX Awards 29th October 2014 awarded in the following categories: Best Entertainment, Best Student Project, Best Not for Profit, Best Public Sector, Best Effects on Business Goals, Best Innovation, Best Learning or Education Experience, Best Information, Best Transactional Experience, Best Windows Phone App, Best User Experience, For more details of the winners and an explanation of why they won, see www.bunnyfoot.com.
It’s as well to note that a website or other digital applications may well not be able to show such business benefits straight away. It’s often in the refinement of the user experience in use that tightens up the experience and releases the business potential. This means ongoing observation. Will your customers pay for this? Do you have the expertise? Do you recommend that this happens? If you are not a usability company then these are questions you need to ask.
You also need to appreciate that the different digital offerings need different tests to demonstrate where they are not meeting customer expectations and what to do about this. There isn’t a one way solution! If you read Lee Duddell’s account of ‘5 Tips to Improve Mobile UX’ (20 June 2014) in ‘What Users Do’, you’ll see what we mean.
If you want to do some in-depth self-improvement (Professional Development?), there’s a one hour webinar, ‘How to Measure the ROI of User Experience’ by Dr. Susan Weinschenk, at ‘Userzoom’.
This is a field of expertise and unless it is our field of expertise, we can only appreciate whether our companies should be aware of the benefits it can bring, whether we are covering it with experts, and/or whether we have a duty to inform our customers about it. Yes, there’s so much to consider in projects, we know.
UX (User Experience) is now understood as a fundamental business concern for digital. Previously it had been a ‘take it or leave it’ addition. It was hard to identify in quantifiable terms how UX added to business benefits. This has changed too. It’s a discipline that has grown in knowledge that has been tied to business key performance indicators (KPIs). This is what has driven its recognition as a core component of any type of digital communication.
So, this discipline now has its own sets of awards covering various facets of communication. For example, UKUX Awards 29th October 2014 awarded in the following categories: Best Entertainment, Best Student Project, Best Not for Profit, Best Public Sector, Best Effects on Business Goals, Best Innovation, Best Learning or Education Experience, Best Information, Best Transactional Experience, Best Windows Phone App, Best User Experience, For more details of the winners and an explanation of why they won, see www.bunnyfoot.com.
It’s as well to note that a website or other digital applications may well not be able to show such business benefits straight away. It’s often in the refinement of the user experience in use that tightens up the experience and releases the business potential. This means ongoing observation. Will your customers pay for this? Do you have the expertise? Do you recommend that this happens? If you are not a usability company then these are questions you need to ask.
You also need to appreciate that the different digital offerings need different tests to demonstrate where they are not meeting customer expectations and what to do about this. There isn’t a one way solution! If you read Lee Duddell’s account of ‘5 Tips to Improve Mobile UX’ (20 June 2014) in ‘What Users Do’, you’ll see what we mean.
If you want to do some in-depth self-improvement (Professional Development?), there’s a one hour webinar, ‘How to Measure the ROI of User Experience’ by Dr. Susan Weinschenk, at ‘Userzoom’.
This is a field of expertise and unless it is our field of expertise, we can only appreciate whether our companies should be aware of the benefits it can bring, whether we are covering it with experts, and/or whether we have a duty to inform our customers about it. Yes, there’s so much to consider in projects, we know.
Tuesday, 28 October 2014
Training is the first to go ...
Once upon a time we used to hold training courses based on our book. Sometimes we'd do it for a single company, who'd provide enough people and a venue, and sometimes they were open to anyone. It was a fairly modest affair but even that stopped when the recession hit. So we don't offer it any more although we now have an online course providing an introduction to managing a digital interactive project.
With this in mind I was pleased to hear about the initiative by BIMA and TIGA, trade bodies for the digital creative industries, asking for the government to introduce tax breaks for small companies to invest in their talent by training it. To quote the BIMA blog:
There have been tax initiatives to help research and development for a while now, and they presumably provide a model. The basic idea is that for every pound you spend on whatever the scheme applies to, you can claim more than that amount against tax. For example, to quote HM Revenue and Customs ...
This makes such a scheme attractive financially to a company. Clearly there will be strings attached. For example, in R&D, any intellectual property from the R&D has to belong to the company. With training you might find that it is a condition that anyone trained remains employed with the company for a certain time, so that both the employee and the company benefit from the training. As a slight aside, it has been suggested that training costs should be treated as a capital cost rather than expenditure, since the benefit can be seen to last well beyond the immediate period. At the moment, since as a small company you can offset 100% of capital costs (up to a limit) that wouldn't necessarily be a problem, but the revenue have said that such an interpretation would be 'difficult to imagine'. (See the document linked below.)
For the company, any tax relief will ameliorate the double whammy that (superficially) training staff has: you lose productive staff time and you have to pay for it. But training, especially if the courses include people from outside the immediate working environment, has additional benefits; bringing people together. It's the same with conferences: the time spent socialising is as important as the time spent in sessions.
A final hope, from me for obvious reasons, would be that online training would be eligible for tax relief as well as face-to-face training. This would be by no means a given, based on past experience, but for many activities such as programming, online training can be particularly productive.
As a final note, you should read this document from the revenue:
[PS: Full disclosure ... I used to be Chair of BIMA]
With this in mind I was pleased to hear about the initiative by BIMA and TIGA, trade bodies for the digital creative industries, asking for the government to introduce tax breaks for small companies to invest in their talent by training it. To quote the BIMA blog:
We believe the launch of a pilot SME Training Tax Relief (TTR) scheme to promote skills, training, and productivity is vital to support the future of the creative industries, a sector worth £71.4 billion a year to the UK economy.How might such a thing work? After all, what your company spends on its business can be offset against tax already can't it?
There have been tax initiatives to help research and development for a while now, and they presumably provide a model. The basic idea is that for every pound you spend on whatever the scheme applies to, you can claim more than that amount against tax. For example, to quote HM Revenue and Customs ...
The tax relief on allowable R&D costs incurred on or after 1 April 2012 is 225% - that is, for each £100 of qualifying costs, your company or organisation could have its Corporation Tax profits reduced by an additional £125 on top of the £100 spent.There is a similar arrangement should you be making an accounting loss during that particular financial year.
This makes such a scheme attractive financially to a company. Clearly there will be strings attached. For example, in R&D, any intellectual property from the R&D has to belong to the company. With training you might find that it is a condition that anyone trained remains employed with the company for a certain time, so that both the employee and the company benefit from the training. As a slight aside, it has been suggested that training costs should be treated as a capital cost rather than expenditure, since the benefit can be seen to last well beyond the immediate period. At the moment, since as a small company you can offset 100% of capital costs (up to a limit) that wouldn't necessarily be a problem, but the revenue have said that such an interpretation would be 'difficult to imagine'. (See the document linked below.)
For the company, any tax relief will ameliorate the double whammy that (superficially) training staff has: you lose productive staff time and you have to pay for it. But training, especially if the courses include people from outside the immediate working environment, has additional benefits; bringing people together. It's the same with conferences: the time spent socialising is as important as the time spent in sessions.
A final hope, from me for obvious reasons, would be that online training would be eligible for tax relief as well as face-to-face training. This would be by no means a given, based on past experience, but for many activities such as programming, online training can be particularly productive.
As a final note, you should read this document from the revenue:
Sometimes, the government gets suggestions that employers should be given tax relief for the costs of training their employees. That surprises us, since except in cases where the employee has some link with the employer outside the employment itself, the disallowance of expenditure by an employer on staff training and development will be extremely unusual indeed.See ... even the tax man says you should go for it!
[PS: Full disclosure ... I used to be Chair of BIMA]
Friday, 17 October 2014
Digital marketing and user understanding getting together
Apart from the blurring of digital roles like programmer, designer, and project manager, the blurring of digital marketing and usability specialists occurs but has not been recognised. The overlap comes from the interest in the users’ reactions to products and services that are offered electronically. Traditionally both professionals have employed concept testing to assess the reactions of potential users to an idea, new product or service. However, the market researchers keep a strong eye on the market conditions while the usability experts are biased towards the immediate user experience with the technology process. Both have merit, of course. Imagine a new product that the market seemed to want but it returns a poor result because of technology difficulties in users trying to buy it.
It comes back to the emphasis on which concept is being tested: the type of product or service, or how the user gets information and access to the product and service. We can see that the traditional approach to marketing and concept testing has a rounded approach covering the product, the packaging, the branding and the proposed advertising. [www.decisionanalyst.com]
More than this, the concept testing needs to take account of: the users’ needs for particular solutions, the clarity of the presentation of the item, whether the users are prepared to pay for the proposed new solution, how to move past the hypothetical to real responses. [www.circle-research.com]
So, concept testing covers far more than you imagined? Quite right. But companies are expecting a blend of skills and experience in the job descriptions they are drawing up, such as a Senior Digital User Researcher.
You know these skills are in demand when a technological solution is offered to cover them; see the description of various online tools that are designed to test concepts at Decisionanalyst.com.
The user perspective is noted much more strongly than it used to be. They are more vocal after all, and technology provides a means for them to voice opinions. How is your company dealing with this shift? Do you partner with a marketing/usability company that offers complimentary skillsets to yourselves that will serve your client-base? Are you conscious of the blending of usability and marketing insights? If you have a partnership, is there a bias towards the core skillset that might be limiting the research?
Searching questions for many iMedia development companies, I’d imagine.
It comes back to the emphasis on which concept is being tested: the type of product or service, or how the user gets information and access to the product and service. We can see that the traditional approach to marketing and concept testing has a rounded approach covering the product, the packaging, the branding and the proposed advertising. [www.decisionanalyst.com]
More than this, the concept testing needs to take account of: the users’ needs for particular solutions, the clarity of the presentation of the item, whether the users are prepared to pay for the proposed new solution, how to move past the hypothetical to real responses. [www.circle-research.com]
So, concept testing covers far more than you imagined? Quite right. But companies are expecting a blend of skills and experience in the job descriptions they are drawing up, such as a Senior Digital User Researcher.
You know these skills are in demand when a technological solution is offered to cover them; see the description of various online tools that are designed to test concepts at Decisionanalyst.com.
The user perspective is noted much more strongly than it used to be. They are more vocal after all, and technology provides a means for them to voice opinions. How is your company dealing with this shift? Do you partner with a marketing/usability company that offers complimentary skillsets to yourselves that will serve your client-base? Are you conscious of the blending of usability and marketing insights? If you have a partnership, is there a bias towards the core skillset that might be limiting the research?
Searching questions for many iMedia development companies, I’d imagine.
Wednesday, 8 October 2014
What’s in a name? Are you missing out on recognition and funding?
We often come back to the thorny problem of what this whole industry (is it even defined as an industry?) is called. Multimedia, Interactive Media, Digital, Digital Media, Mobile Communications and so on. Then the pieces of whatever it is – digital marketing, games, animation, digital effects, digital data, social media, e-learning, front-end, back-end, digital graphics, ?????. Where do they fit?
You may well react with a, ‘what the hell does it matter?’ attitude because there’s so much to try to keep up with that this seems nit-picking. But, if the government doesn’t recognise you and keep statistics on you, they won’t apportion any of their money to you. That’s the fundamental problem. Government makes decisions on where to place investment as a result of stats collected according to definitions of ‘industries’ and their contribution to the economy: data that is gathered adhering to data codes of standards. Now, if their definition of an industry sector is non-inclusive, businesses not defined in their definitions don’t get a look in.
Do you define yourself within the ‘creative industries’? Do you know what they are? Finally people are recognising that we in digital are contributing significantly to the UK’s economy. In fact, the DCMS (Department for Media, Culture and Sport) cited some key figures in January where the creative industries value added growth of 15.6% between 2008-2012 was almost three times the 5.4% of the economy as a whole. More encouraging, employment rose far faster in our sector – almost 8:1 ahead of the general employment growth.
The traditional definition of ‘creative industries’ included film, television, writers, artists, musicians, theatre and even antiques, but with the rise of cgi, digital effects, animation, digital games and so on, exactly what constitutes ‘creative industries’ has been under scrutiny (hurray!). The DCMS gave some credence to the wider ‘creative economy’ where the official figures state that 1 in 12 jobs in 2012 were in it and that IT, software and computer services account for 31% of employment within this.
Oliver and Ohlbaum Associates did some research for Google in December 2013 where they used a redefined stance on ‘creative industries’: The Internet and the Creative Industries: measuring growth within a changing sector ecology. Here the wider digital value chain is recognised as ‘enabling industries’ that serve the digital creative chain. Their research recognises variances of definition of ‘creative industries’ across Europe as well as realising that the contribution to a country’s economy might be from global recognition of worth as well as a country’s GDP. They give a strong recommendation on behalf of SMEs and sole traders so that their contribution is recognised in future as they have been poorly represented so far. They warn that if the influence of the internet on the traditional creative industries is ignored then the measurement indicators for these industries might well report a decline while the opposite is true. There are some great graphics used in this report and it’s worth scanning if you have the interest.
It’ll come as no surprise then that, with such a rapid growth of employment, a skills shortage is recognised: don’t we know that. The Landing organised an interesting panel event in Greater Manchester to look at this specifically.
But there are several initiatives that it’d be good to know about – namely, thecreativeindustries.co.uk, and NESTA - an innovation charity that has funding opportunities for ‘creative’ businesses, among others. Things are finally moving in a positive direction. Keep shouting!
You may well react with a, ‘what the hell does it matter?’ attitude because there’s so much to try to keep up with that this seems nit-picking. But, if the government doesn’t recognise you and keep statistics on you, they won’t apportion any of their money to you. That’s the fundamental problem. Government makes decisions on where to place investment as a result of stats collected according to definitions of ‘industries’ and their contribution to the economy: data that is gathered adhering to data codes of standards. Now, if their definition of an industry sector is non-inclusive, businesses not defined in their definitions don’t get a look in.
Do you define yourself within the ‘creative industries’? Do you know what they are? Finally people are recognising that we in digital are contributing significantly to the UK’s economy. In fact, the DCMS (Department for Media, Culture and Sport) cited some key figures in January where the creative industries value added growth of 15.6% between 2008-2012 was almost three times the 5.4% of the economy as a whole. More encouraging, employment rose far faster in our sector – almost 8:1 ahead of the general employment growth.
The traditional definition of ‘creative industries’ included film, television, writers, artists, musicians, theatre and even antiques, but with the rise of cgi, digital effects, animation, digital games and so on, exactly what constitutes ‘creative industries’ has been under scrutiny (hurray!). The DCMS gave some credence to the wider ‘creative economy’ where the official figures state that 1 in 12 jobs in 2012 were in it and that IT, software and computer services account for 31% of employment within this.
Oliver and Ohlbaum Associates did some research for Google in December 2013 where they used a redefined stance on ‘creative industries’: The Internet and the Creative Industries: measuring growth within a changing sector ecology. Here the wider digital value chain is recognised as ‘enabling industries’ that serve the digital creative chain. Their research recognises variances of definition of ‘creative industries’ across Europe as well as realising that the contribution to a country’s economy might be from global recognition of worth as well as a country’s GDP. They give a strong recommendation on behalf of SMEs and sole traders so that their contribution is recognised in future as they have been poorly represented so far. They warn that if the influence of the internet on the traditional creative industries is ignored then the measurement indicators for these industries might well report a decline while the opposite is true. There are some great graphics used in this report and it’s worth scanning if you have the interest.
It’ll come as no surprise then that, with such a rapid growth of employment, a skills shortage is recognised: don’t we know that. The Landing organised an interesting panel event in Greater Manchester to look at this specifically.
But there are several initiatives that it’d be good to know about – namely, thecreativeindustries.co.uk, and NESTA - an innovation charity that has funding opportunities for ‘creative’ businesses, among others. Things are finally moving in a positive direction. Keep shouting!
Monday, 29 September 2014
Risk management - a conflict for iMedia companies
Trying to get a snapshot of risk management in digital development proved difficult and confusing. I was looking to find information about specific risks in project development but they didn’t surface; what did is actually more strategic and thought-provoking.
There is a complete spectrum of risks for tech companies ranging from lack of innovation to the higher risk of insolvency because of not managing financial risks. It’s a minefield. You find examples of larger companies valuing the smaller entrepreneurial risk-taking tech companies because they themselves are too big and slow to evolve business solutions that suit the fast-changing consumer environment. They appreciate the iterative progress/test cycle and user-lead style projects that give faster results. Hence the Accelerator Centre in West London where 11 tech companies have been selected by Barclays Bank and Techstars to invent future financial services. Another such partnership is Centrica and Hive where ‘normal management structures don’t apply’. General Electric (GE) outsource innovation including offering open competitions for ways to improve their products. Get more information on these from the BBC Business News (9 September 2014).
So from risk takers and their culture to the more traditional ‘control risks or else’ cultures. R3 – an insolvency trade body – has reported that tech firms are at higher risk of insolvency because of their failure to ‘factor in the full costs of development or assess the competition’. Apparently tech firms in the North-East are most vulnerable which explains the news item in the Lancashire Evening Post, Tech Sector has high number of firms at risk (29 September 2014).
The key word from the last paragraph was ‘cultures’. The ‘soft risks’ or ‘culture’ of a company are beginning to get serious recognition as a possible financial drain – a hard risk factor! The Dialogue blog (16 September 2014) Soft risk: how culture can fail business, by Richard Finn, gives interesting examples of where a culture misaligned with business purpose has had serious consequences. This is BIG, since he calls for senior management to create a new senior management position (non-executive director) and committee to manage soft risks! How does your company’s culture line up? Richard cites six consequences of a ‘bad’ culture as: business under-achievement, poor products, poor service, damaged investor sentiment, reputation destruction, and talent flight. Well, I’m sure no company wants those.
We’ll end with a conundrum. As I said, this risk assessment seems to follow a circular path. Enter the larger tech company that is targeting bespoke development companies in the government sector: KnowledgeKube from Mercato Solutions. They cite bespoke solutions as costing more and taking more time to develop. They offer a platform and services approach that will drive down costs and give government departments more control. It sells itself on being able to ‘remove the risk associated with bespoke development.’
So you see the conflict between the start of this blog where innovation and risk-taking are valued and this last example where bespoke development is itself risky and to be avoided.
There is a complete spectrum of risks for tech companies ranging from lack of innovation to the higher risk of insolvency because of not managing financial risks. It’s a minefield. You find examples of larger companies valuing the smaller entrepreneurial risk-taking tech companies because they themselves are too big and slow to evolve business solutions that suit the fast-changing consumer environment. They appreciate the iterative progress/test cycle and user-lead style projects that give faster results. Hence the Accelerator Centre in West London where 11 tech companies have been selected by Barclays Bank and Techstars to invent future financial services. Another such partnership is Centrica and Hive where ‘normal management structures don’t apply’. General Electric (GE) outsource innovation including offering open competitions for ways to improve their products. Get more information on these from the BBC Business News (9 September 2014).
So from risk takers and their culture to the more traditional ‘control risks or else’ cultures. R3 – an insolvency trade body – has reported that tech firms are at higher risk of insolvency because of their failure to ‘factor in the full costs of development or assess the competition’. Apparently tech firms in the North-East are most vulnerable which explains the news item in the Lancashire Evening Post, Tech Sector has high number of firms at risk (29 September 2014).
The key word from the last paragraph was ‘cultures’. The ‘soft risks’ or ‘culture’ of a company are beginning to get serious recognition as a possible financial drain – a hard risk factor! The Dialogue blog (16 September 2014) Soft risk: how culture can fail business, by Richard Finn, gives interesting examples of where a culture misaligned with business purpose has had serious consequences. This is BIG, since he calls for senior management to create a new senior management position (non-executive director) and committee to manage soft risks! How does your company’s culture line up? Richard cites six consequences of a ‘bad’ culture as: business under-achievement, poor products, poor service, damaged investor sentiment, reputation destruction, and talent flight. Well, I’m sure no company wants those.
We’ll end with a conundrum. As I said, this risk assessment seems to follow a circular path. Enter the larger tech company that is targeting bespoke development companies in the government sector: KnowledgeKube from Mercato Solutions. They cite bespoke solutions as costing more and taking more time to develop. They offer a platform and services approach that will drive down costs and give government departments more control. It sells itself on being able to ‘remove the risk associated with bespoke development.’
So you see the conflict between the start of this blog where innovation and risk-taking are valued and this last example where bespoke development is itself risky and to be avoided.
Friday, 19 September 2014
Lolcats and the lexicon of being online
When we put together the various editions of our book, one of the things we included was a glossary. Abbreviations, acronyms and slang terms are a part of any subject and can often be used by specialists as a shorthand. Unfortunately, if you don't know the shorthand then this can make it impossible to understand a subject that you actually may be able to follow were you to speak the language. Hence glossaries.
Our glossary is getting a little elderly now, although it should still be useful.
An altogether more up-to-date and wide-ranging glossary was recently published by the Guardian, modestly called The ultimate internet glossary. It goes from 4chan to Zoopla (or is it Zynga) and includes lots of cats.
What is it about cats? It has been jokingly suggested that problems with the internet could be fixed if they took all the cats off it. This lets me mention Henri le chat noir and lolcats.com, en passant. (Wasn't Lolcats a song by the Cure? That's a QTWTAIN by the way.)
As with all things in life you can Google glossaries. They range from the technical (from pc.net and Matisse Enzer) to the basic but undoubtedly useful (such as this glossary for 'older adults' from the American National Institute on Ageing).
If you feel like contributing to the daunting task of keeping such a thing up to date then there is a Wikipedia glossary, however at the time of writing it is somewhat poor IMHO and in need of TLC.
TTFN
Our glossary is getting a little elderly now, although it should still be useful.
An altogether more up-to-date and wide-ranging glossary was recently published by the Guardian, modestly called The ultimate internet glossary. It goes from 4chan to Zoopla (or is it Zynga) and includes lots of cats.
What is it about cats? It has been jokingly suggested that problems with the internet could be fixed if they took all the cats off it. This lets me mention Henri le chat noir and lolcats.com, en passant. (Wasn't Lolcats a song by the Cure? That's a QTWTAIN by the way.)
As with all things in life you can Google glossaries. They range from the technical (from pc.net and Matisse Enzer) to the basic but undoubtedly useful (such as this glossary for 'older adults' from the American National Institute on Ageing).
If you feel like contributing to the daunting task of keeping such a thing up to date then there is a Wikipedia glossary, however at the time of writing it is somewhat poor IMHO and in need of TLC.
TTFN
Friday, 12 September 2014
Pointing the finger – blame and risks in digital project management
There are many aspects during a digital project that do not go according to plan; even if you had one. Project Management is about control but, particularly in digital projects, your clients and your team can often seem to conspire against the progress of the project. Your management, on the other hand, are meant to be there supporting you. If this isn’t the case, you’re in trouble. Are you in a company that has an attitude of ‘sacrificial accountability’?
It is common that if and when things go wrong, someone takes the blame and resigns from his/her post. I think that most people view this as acceptable when it is clear who has had the overall accountability during the time that the problems brewed and blew up. But looking for the sacrificial lamb is another thing entirely as John Linwood, ex BBC, found out. He was Chief Technology Officer for the BBC when the plug was pulled on a £100m Digital Media Initiative project. He took the BBC to a tribunal for firing him and won because they believed that the Senior Management were dodging the blame and placing it on Linwood.
John Gough in Avoiding Blame for Botched Projects, (undated 2014), summarises the Linwood story and points to internal company politics as a driver. We all know company politics and how it can invidiously dominate decision-making. How’s your company for this?
The risk of being sacked as the accountable one is real but companies are beginning to understand that they need to get on top of risks before they cause trouble. Enter the Digital Risk Officer. Have you heard of them or seen a job advert for one? You may well find you have to relate to them in your client companies. Apparently, these people will be hot news in 2015 according to Gartner research 2014 . Now this is in response to security issues and technology as companies realise that with the plethora of technology-driven channels of communication and the increasing use of them by the public at large, that the risks of service failures increase. It will be interesting to see if these officers are increasingly used as easy target sacrificial lambs by their companies when things go wrong! But if you meet them as part of the client-mix, you can be sure that they’ll make strong demands of you making your job more accountable too.
Now you’re in the mindset of blame, perhaps you need to become aware of a nasty blow coming from an unseen upper-cut! This has crept in from the side of a legal ruling about blame in a service contract. The original case was about pipes and little to do with digital project management. (See, The Best Practice Group, Your Service Provider’s Duty to Warn, by Alan Watton (23 January 2012) But as the ruling can be generalised to all service contracts, we need to take note. The judgement found that the contractor (expert) should have warned the client about the possible risks in the project because they as the experts were in the position to know the possible impact on the clients while the clients as non-experts – and the very reason for using the contractors – were not in the position to understand the impact.
The key concept is ‘a duty to warn’ about the risks pre-contract and during the life of the project and exists independently of written clauses. You have to account for what your advice does and does not cover. You have to be clear in writing about what your advice does not cover and what your proposed solution does not cover including any possible consequential impacts. Well, that’s a tall order in our uncertain digital world. You need to throw this concept to the legal bods who draw up your contracts as service providers. Now if you are too small to have a legal section, check if the templates you use for contracts cover this angle and raise any queries with your management.
You’ll probably do a lot of ‘warning’ without realising it. So, for example, if you recommend that your client should do some pilot testing with users to check the system out and assess its impact on the project objectives pointing out to them the pros and cons of this, then you are warning them of the possible negative effects/risks. If they take the decision not to do this, they accept responsibility and accountability. Likewise, you’ll probably be recommending various types of testing from stability to security, for example. You can indicate the pros and cons of all of them, so if the client chooses to ignore your advice - because of lack of budget maybe - then you have fulfilled the ‘duty of warning’ principle.
Blame is not a nice topic in any field. Better to be prepared though.
It is common that if and when things go wrong, someone takes the blame and resigns from his/her post. I think that most people view this as acceptable when it is clear who has had the overall accountability during the time that the problems brewed and blew up. But looking for the sacrificial lamb is another thing entirely as John Linwood, ex BBC, found out. He was Chief Technology Officer for the BBC when the plug was pulled on a £100m Digital Media Initiative project. He took the BBC to a tribunal for firing him and won because they believed that the Senior Management were dodging the blame and placing it on Linwood.
John Gough in Avoiding Blame for Botched Projects, (undated 2014), summarises the Linwood story and points to internal company politics as a driver. We all know company politics and how it can invidiously dominate decision-making. How’s your company for this?
The risk of being sacked as the accountable one is real but companies are beginning to understand that they need to get on top of risks before they cause trouble. Enter the Digital Risk Officer. Have you heard of them or seen a job advert for one? You may well find you have to relate to them in your client companies. Apparently, these people will be hot news in 2015 according to Gartner research 2014 . Now this is in response to security issues and technology as companies realise that with the plethora of technology-driven channels of communication and the increasing use of them by the public at large, that the risks of service failures increase. It will be interesting to see if these officers are increasingly used as easy target sacrificial lambs by their companies when things go wrong! But if you meet them as part of the client-mix, you can be sure that they’ll make strong demands of you making your job more accountable too.
Now you’re in the mindset of blame, perhaps you need to become aware of a nasty blow coming from an unseen upper-cut! This has crept in from the side of a legal ruling about blame in a service contract. The original case was about pipes and little to do with digital project management. (See, The Best Practice Group, Your Service Provider’s Duty to Warn, by Alan Watton (23 January 2012) But as the ruling can be generalised to all service contracts, we need to take note. The judgement found that the contractor (expert) should have warned the client about the possible risks in the project because they as the experts were in the position to know the possible impact on the clients while the clients as non-experts – and the very reason for using the contractors – were not in the position to understand the impact.
The key concept is ‘a duty to warn’ about the risks pre-contract and during the life of the project and exists independently of written clauses. You have to account for what your advice does and does not cover. You have to be clear in writing about what your advice does not cover and what your proposed solution does not cover including any possible consequential impacts. Well, that’s a tall order in our uncertain digital world. You need to throw this concept to the legal bods who draw up your contracts as service providers. Now if you are too small to have a legal section, check if the templates you use for contracts cover this angle and raise any queries with your management.
You’ll probably do a lot of ‘warning’ without realising it. So, for example, if you recommend that your client should do some pilot testing with users to check the system out and assess its impact on the project objectives pointing out to them the pros and cons of this, then you are warning them of the possible negative effects/risks. If they take the decision not to do this, they accept responsibility and accountability. Likewise, you’ll probably be recommending various types of testing from stability to security, for example. You can indicate the pros and cons of all of them, so if the client chooses to ignore your advice - because of lack of budget maybe - then you have fulfilled the ‘duty of warning’ principle.
Blame is not a nice topic in any field. Better to be prepared though.
Friday, 29 August 2014
Prince2 and its relevance for iMedia now
Who would believe that it’s more than 25 years since Prince2 started making an impact on project management. Its original success, arising out of a commitment to train project managers from the IT sector, has helped turn project management into a recognised profession. That’s what we owe it. And, it recognises that as the project environment changes, its practices need to adapt. The present lot of project managers have more access to technology through social media as well as conventional media and they are deploying these to communicate with their global teams, stakeholders and management. This is a far cry from 25 years ago. This implies recognition of the expansion of the team, the cultural differences, the importance of managing stakeholders and communication with management. The role of project manager has changed with the times and now encompasses more upper management and business strategy, as well as the day-to-day projects.
Prince2.com celebrated its 25th birthday on 15th August 2013 with a review of Project Management: Past, Present and Future, by James Hancock. He recognises the changes that technology has brought for the profession and that Project Managers utilise more technology now. But, just like the book, Project Management circa 2025 (2009) edited by David Cleland and Bopaya Bidanda, they all seem to miss out the role of project managers with digital (iMedia ) projects. The chapters in this book address the financial services sector, space exploration, Pacific, European, Indian and Arabic geographical areas, and give attention to the changing role for team management, competencies for project managers, and the impact of cultural and social issues.
No consideration is given to the developers of digital pathways that lead to the changes in the general project management role. Maybe this is because general project management is all about controlling risk factors in the general projects while digital project managers are risk takers themselves by the nature of the type of projects they manage. They still try to control as many risks as possible but when you are pushing the envelope there’s no safety net! General project managers would struggle with the black holes faced by digital project managers. They work from being able to predict the likelihood of risk from previous experience that has been codified from other projects. As an analogy if you have built one house, although there will be variations, a second house has many of the same processes. But digital project management can be like designing new bricks as you build the house. Fundamentals are different and unknown. Now this gives an edge to digital project management that will affect the competencies needed as well as the management skills.
What would you look for in a digital project manager? Maybe you’d agree with Access’s definition of, The Top 10 Skills You Need to be a Super Digital Project Manager – but maybe not as the role spans such a wide set of skills depending on the digital sector. It’ll make you think though, and the first three words, ‘Dark art, witchcraft, science’, are far removed from a traditional project management role and reflect the differences I have been trying to highlight.
The applicability of Prince2 to iMedia is something I've thought long and hard about. You can read more in a white paper on the ATSF web site.
This discussion in no way undermines the strengths of using Prince2 methods and processes. It is versatile enough to employ as needed to fit a project and many digital project managers now have this qualification. All this blog is doing is highlighting some differences in digital project management that can affect Prince2’s use in such projects. Any hints and tips for using Prince2 in digital projects would be fantastic – thanks.
Prince2.com celebrated its 25th birthday on 15th August 2013 with a review of Project Management: Past, Present and Future, by James Hancock. He recognises the changes that technology has brought for the profession and that Project Managers utilise more technology now. But, just like the book, Project Management circa 2025 (2009) edited by David Cleland and Bopaya Bidanda, they all seem to miss out the role of project managers with digital (iMedia ) projects. The chapters in this book address the financial services sector, space exploration, Pacific, European, Indian and Arabic geographical areas, and give attention to the changing role for team management, competencies for project managers, and the impact of cultural and social issues.
No consideration is given to the developers of digital pathways that lead to the changes in the general project management role. Maybe this is because general project management is all about controlling risk factors in the general projects while digital project managers are risk takers themselves by the nature of the type of projects they manage. They still try to control as many risks as possible but when you are pushing the envelope there’s no safety net! General project managers would struggle with the black holes faced by digital project managers. They work from being able to predict the likelihood of risk from previous experience that has been codified from other projects. As an analogy if you have built one house, although there will be variations, a second house has many of the same processes. But digital project management can be like designing new bricks as you build the house. Fundamentals are different and unknown. Now this gives an edge to digital project management that will affect the competencies needed as well as the management skills.
What would you look for in a digital project manager? Maybe you’d agree with Access’s definition of, The Top 10 Skills You Need to be a Super Digital Project Manager – but maybe not as the role spans such a wide set of skills depending on the digital sector. It’ll make you think though, and the first three words, ‘Dark art, witchcraft, science’, are far removed from a traditional project management role and reflect the differences I have been trying to highlight.
The applicability of Prince2 to iMedia is something I've thought long and hard about. You can read more in a white paper on the ATSF web site.
This discussion in no way undermines the strengths of using Prince2 methods and processes. It is versatile enough to employ as needed to fit a project and many digital project managers now have this qualification. All this blog is doing is highlighting some differences in digital project management that can affect Prince2’s use in such projects. Any hints and tips for using Prince2 in digital projects would be fantastic – thanks.
Wednesday, 13 August 2014
Stakeholder Analysis - don’t forget it’s a continual process
At the scoping stage, you’ve done your initial analysis with the matrices and communication results for all the people who might influence the course of the project. Fantastic. Yes, it does help greatly. But, so many forget that this arrangement is dynamic. Various stakeholders emerge as the most important at different stages of the project. Don’t be caught out. Quite often you just need to flag yourself to ask the dominant stakeholders for a forthcoming phase if they want to be kept informed differently. They’ll appreciate the heads-up and the acknowledgement of their increased status for the phase, while you retain the good will ... and control.
The dynamic nature of stakeholder analysis and communication is neglected at the peril of the project. This factor is not really given the attention it deserves yet, even though stakeholder analysis is cited in many top project management jobs. There are a few who show the wisdom of experience and we should try and learn from them even if they are general project managers rather than digital project managers.
Take for example Omar Muhammad and Abid Mustafa in Managing stakeholders – going beyond conventional wisdom, Project Smart (27 October 2013).
They are experienced in delivering complex projects in the telecommunications industry. This means they are closer to iMedia projects than many. You need to take a view on what they say as to whether your own projects are as complex, but, I’m sure you’ll recognise several of the stakeholder issues they mention.
The first issue they address is the difference between a stakeholder’s motives and expectations. This happens quite frequently. Do you recognise someone blocking progress but you can’t identify who because all the stakeholders appear positive to your face? The article writers warn about different agendas shown in levels of management meetings where you might be excluded. The second issue addressed is ‘Not all stakeholders are equal’, and the writers suggest your team adapts their management style appropriately. The third issue is, revolving alliances. This explains that you become part of a shifting set of alliances between the stakeholders that happens over the course of the project. I reckon the underlying message is, ‘Don’t make enemies’ as you may need the stakeholder’s support in an alliance later!
Finally, Omar and Abid give some hints and tips on ‘picking the right fight’. It’s a shame that they don’t define what ‘acceptable levels of behaviour’ are for stakeholders. But this sounds similar to conflict resolution techniques that we covered in our team management courses. There, you agree boundaries of acceptable behaviour for your team at the beginning of the project that can then be used if a team member becomes so problematic that his/her behaviour is having a negative impact on the project. This is an extension of conflict resolution techniques for stakeholders where you pre-empt difficulties by instituting boundaries of behaviour. Essentially Omar and Abid recommend that you only pick the battles with stakeholders that you can win. Good luck with that!
Otherwise there are some free resources that can help you over specific stakeholder problems. Take a look at free-management – ebooks.com and their range. We’ll focus on the stakeholder one now. The book covers how to identify stakeholders, plan their management, manage their engagement, and control their engagement.
I can imagine that if you are only involved in the short, sharp end of iMedia projects that all this seems unnecessary fuss and a lot of time and effort. Those of you that have to juggle several stakeholders, possibly internationally, will appreciate the insights. Hope they help.
The dynamic nature of stakeholder analysis and communication is neglected at the peril of the project. This factor is not really given the attention it deserves yet, even though stakeholder analysis is cited in many top project management jobs. There are a few who show the wisdom of experience and we should try and learn from them even if they are general project managers rather than digital project managers.
Take for example Omar Muhammad and Abid Mustafa in Managing stakeholders – going beyond conventional wisdom, Project Smart (27 October 2013).
They are experienced in delivering complex projects in the telecommunications industry. This means they are closer to iMedia projects than many. You need to take a view on what they say as to whether your own projects are as complex, but, I’m sure you’ll recognise several of the stakeholder issues they mention.
The first issue they address is the difference between a stakeholder’s motives and expectations. This happens quite frequently. Do you recognise someone blocking progress but you can’t identify who because all the stakeholders appear positive to your face? The article writers warn about different agendas shown in levels of management meetings where you might be excluded. The second issue addressed is ‘Not all stakeholders are equal’, and the writers suggest your team adapts their management style appropriately. The third issue is, revolving alliances. This explains that you become part of a shifting set of alliances between the stakeholders that happens over the course of the project. I reckon the underlying message is, ‘Don’t make enemies’ as you may need the stakeholder’s support in an alliance later!
Finally, Omar and Abid give some hints and tips on ‘picking the right fight’. It’s a shame that they don’t define what ‘acceptable levels of behaviour’ are for stakeholders. But this sounds similar to conflict resolution techniques that we covered in our team management courses. There, you agree boundaries of acceptable behaviour for your team at the beginning of the project that can then be used if a team member becomes so problematic that his/her behaviour is having a negative impact on the project. This is an extension of conflict resolution techniques for stakeholders where you pre-empt difficulties by instituting boundaries of behaviour. Essentially Omar and Abid recommend that you only pick the battles with stakeholders that you can win. Good luck with that!
Otherwise there are some free resources that can help you over specific stakeholder problems. Take a look at free-management – ebooks.com and their range. We’ll focus on the stakeholder one now. The book covers how to identify stakeholders, plan their management, manage their engagement, and control their engagement.
I can imagine that if you are only involved in the short, sharp end of iMedia projects that all this seems unnecessary fuss and a lot of time and effort. Those of you that have to juggle several stakeholders, possibly internationally, will appreciate the insights. Hope they help.
Friday, 25 July 2014
iMedia Project Scoping – getting it right
Project scoping for an interactive media project is such a minefield. There are so many ways of approaching this sensitive area that trying to be definitive is asking for trouble. But, scoping a project can only be avoided at huge cost so it has to be done. Now exactly how your company decides to do this, and why, are the crucial questions. Then, do you think they are getting it right, or, could the process be improved – helping you along the way?
We were reminded about scoping recently when we had to complete a 16 page Law Society questionnaire when we were selling our house. As we hadn’t sold for over 15 years, this form was pretty daunting. And, it is a ‘live’ form that grows a few times a year every year! For those lucky ones that are staying put, this form covers the following areas in varying detail: Boundaries, Disputes and Complaints, Notices and Proposals, Alterations, planning and building control, Guarantees and Warranties, Insurance, Environmental Matters, Rights and informal arrangements, Parking, Other charges, Occupiers, Services, Connections to utilities and services, and Transaction information.
This document forms part of the contract of sale, just as a scoping document forms part of the service contract agreement between you and your client. It is highly detailed because the solicitors have to address all aspects in order to act in your best interests (and limit their liability in any disputes arising over the sale). Did you know, for example, that there’s a question about Japanese Knotweed and whether you’ve had the house tested for Radon? Because both of these have featured in legal dispute cases, the questions have been added in. When legal cases are undertaken concerning houses, the law society monitors them and adds extra questions to their form according to the outcomes. So a centralised body does the monitoring and updating for lawyers – at a cost, we have to explain. In iMedia, we don’t have this luxury – yet.
Well, you can pay for scoping templates in iMedia such as found at econsultancy. £450 for Scope Statement for Web Projects or access some free, for example, Mashable’s Free Contract Templates . Will they help? This is the difficulty. Only you know what suits your market, your kind of clients and your way of working.
That’s why Kyle Racki’s approach seems to work. She’s pretty convinced that detailed scoping at the beginning of a project puts clients off. She prefers to try to sell her company and its capabilities first – avoiding time-wasters upfront, we are compelled to point out. Then once she has the business she then drills down refining the detail as in a scoping sense, we believe. See Kyle’s, Getting Started Writing Business Proposals, at proposify 3 July 2014).
Dominic St-Pierre, Improve your Web Design Projects with a Good Project Scope (8 July 2014) at Six Revisions, lists eight key areas to cover: What type of website will I be building for you?, When do you need to have this website completed?, What is your budget for the project?, Who is the typical user of your website?, What goals do you want to achieve with this project?, What types of content will be used in this project?, Can you show me examples of websites you like and don’t like?, What’s the message you are trying to convey with your website. Dominic does a great job with tips for ‘Project Creep’. Nice graphic. He also does well to point out what he calls ‘Negative Scope’ or what you are not going to provide!
Matt Heron in How to write a scope doc for a web project (16 October 2013) at The Phuse reinforces that it depends on the questions you ask whether you cover the best options in scoping. He lists five main areas to cover: What’s the goal of the project?, What’s the scope of the project?, What are the deliverables?, What are the requirements?, Who is providing what? Who is responsible for what?
Only you can decide exactly what works for you. And you can’t become complacent. Just as the Law Society frequently updates their questionnaire by studying the equivalent of lessons learnt from the courts, you need to update your process for scoping a project according to your experiences.
We were reminded about scoping recently when we had to complete a 16 page Law Society questionnaire when we were selling our house. As we hadn’t sold for over 15 years, this form was pretty daunting. And, it is a ‘live’ form that grows a few times a year every year! For those lucky ones that are staying put, this form covers the following areas in varying detail: Boundaries, Disputes and Complaints, Notices and Proposals, Alterations, planning and building control, Guarantees and Warranties, Insurance, Environmental Matters, Rights and informal arrangements, Parking, Other charges, Occupiers, Services, Connections to utilities and services, and Transaction information.
This document forms part of the contract of sale, just as a scoping document forms part of the service contract agreement between you and your client. It is highly detailed because the solicitors have to address all aspects in order to act in your best interests (and limit their liability in any disputes arising over the sale). Did you know, for example, that there’s a question about Japanese Knotweed and whether you’ve had the house tested for Radon? Because both of these have featured in legal dispute cases, the questions have been added in. When legal cases are undertaken concerning houses, the law society monitors them and adds extra questions to their form according to the outcomes. So a centralised body does the monitoring and updating for lawyers – at a cost, we have to explain. In iMedia, we don’t have this luxury – yet.
Well, you can pay for scoping templates in iMedia such as found at econsultancy. £450 for Scope Statement for Web Projects or access some free, for example, Mashable’s Free Contract Templates . Will they help? This is the difficulty. Only you know what suits your market, your kind of clients and your way of working.
That’s why Kyle Racki’s approach seems to work. She’s pretty convinced that detailed scoping at the beginning of a project puts clients off. She prefers to try to sell her company and its capabilities first – avoiding time-wasters upfront, we are compelled to point out. Then once she has the business she then drills down refining the detail as in a scoping sense, we believe. See Kyle’s, Getting Started Writing Business Proposals, at proposify 3 July 2014).
Dominic St-Pierre, Improve your Web Design Projects with a Good Project Scope (8 July 2014) at Six Revisions, lists eight key areas to cover: What type of website will I be building for you?, When do you need to have this website completed?, What is your budget for the project?, Who is the typical user of your website?, What goals do you want to achieve with this project?, What types of content will be used in this project?, Can you show me examples of websites you like and don’t like?, What’s the message you are trying to convey with your website. Dominic does a great job with tips for ‘Project Creep’. Nice graphic. He also does well to point out what he calls ‘Negative Scope’ or what you are not going to provide!
Matt Heron in How to write a scope doc for a web project (16 October 2013) at The Phuse reinforces that it depends on the questions you ask whether you cover the best options in scoping. He lists five main areas to cover: What’s the goal of the project?, What’s the scope of the project?, What are the deliverables?, What are the requirements?, Who is providing what? Who is responsible for what?
Only you can decide exactly what works for you. And you can’t become complacent. Just as the Law Society frequently updates their questionnaire by studying the equivalent of lessons learnt from the courts, you need to update your process for scoping a project according to your experiences.
Saturday, 19 July 2014
How do you know a successful project?
The answer lies in what your tests will show at the end of a project. This implies that you defined what was necessary to achieve at the beginning of the project, of course. In our Chapter 9 on testing and archiving, Managing Interactive Media: Project Management for Web and Digital Media, we summarise that there are three main areas of testing.
There doesn’t seem to be one way of describing the business needs of a project. You’ll come across such terms as ‘risk assessment’, ‘requirements’, ‘project specification’, and so on. But we’ve seen that clients are not so hot on defining their requirements, mainly because they don’t understand precisely what iMedia can do for their business. Worse, they may think they do and be clear on what they want even though you know that so much more might be achieved. This is the dilemma of working in an unstable, evolving field. This is why you can get round some of this confusion by asking what their general business needs are and then explaining how an iMedia project can serve these core business needs. Clients do know their business, but are quite often just not able to extrapolate what a combination of business and iMedia can offer. You can be the intermediaries.
Pete Tong in his blog for ayrmer (20 June 2014), makes it clear that lining up with business needs is key to success. This company expounds a ‘well-formed outcomes’ process. This means that you know enough from the beginning to define the outcomes you’ll achieve and ones that will satisfy the clients.
Duncan Haughey, Projectsmart, in Requirements Gathering 101, gives 10 rules for success and number 4 is ‘Ensure that requirements are specific, realistic and measurable’. Now, ‘ measurable’ means you can test for them and demonstrate achievement or not!
Obviously our emphasis on the user (Number 2 in paragraph 1) lines up with all the aspects of usability testing. (See other appropriate blogs here on Usability.) Then technically (Number 3 in paragraph 1), we’d all agree on the reliability and robustness criteria. (See other blogs here on Testing). So we’re not trying to define what tests you should carry out; it’s more of a reminder of the big picture for all projects. Are you addressing all these facets in ways that both you and your clients are satisfied with the results?
- The project meets the business needs of the clients.
- The project allows the user to access and complete relevant tasks.
- The project is robust and reliable.
There doesn’t seem to be one way of describing the business needs of a project. You’ll come across such terms as ‘risk assessment’, ‘requirements’, ‘project specification’, and so on. But we’ve seen that clients are not so hot on defining their requirements, mainly because they don’t understand precisely what iMedia can do for their business. Worse, they may think they do and be clear on what they want even though you know that so much more might be achieved. This is the dilemma of working in an unstable, evolving field. This is why you can get round some of this confusion by asking what their general business needs are and then explaining how an iMedia project can serve these core business needs. Clients do know their business, but are quite often just not able to extrapolate what a combination of business and iMedia can offer. You can be the intermediaries.
Pete Tong in his blog for ayrmer (20 June 2014), makes it clear that lining up with business needs is key to success. This company expounds a ‘well-formed outcomes’ process. This means that you know enough from the beginning to define the outcomes you’ll achieve and ones that will satisfy the clients.
Duncan Haughey, Projectsmart, in Requirements Gathering 101, gives 10 rules for success and number 4 is ‘Ensure that requirements are specific, realistic and measurable’. Now, ‘ measurable’ means you can test for them and demonstrate achievement or not!
Obviously our emphasis on the user (Number 2 in paragraph 1) lines up with all the aspects of usability testing. (See other appropriate blogs here on Usability.) Then technically (Number 3 in paragraph 1), we’d all agree on the reliability and robustness criteria. (See other blogs here on Testing). So we’re not trying to define what tests you should carry out; it’s more of a reminder of the big picture for all projects. Are you addressing all these facets in ways that both you and your clients are satisfied with the results?
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