Executionists, Inc.

We’re proud to announce some of our recently launched projects!

Studio DNA Salon
www.studiodnasalon.com
November, 2007

The Million Lights Project
www.millionlightsproject.org
November, 2007

The Festival of New American Musicals
www.lafestival.org
November, 2007

Discrimination Attorney
www.discriminationattorney.com
October, 2007

The Safe Sippy
www.thesafesippy.com
September, 2007

As a project manager at Executionists, Inc., I view website development in three phases: pre-production, production, and post-production. (Can you tell we’re Los Angeles-based?) The quality of the pre-production phase will generally establish how quickly a client’s site will be completed. Clients love to help, sometimes to the detriment of the project (see: Executionists Take on Dogbert). However, this is the stage of the process where client input is crucial and greatly appreciated.

Meaning: content, content, content. The most important way a client can help us help them is by being prepared with content for all sections of the website. During our initial meeting with a client, we will establish a content checklist, complete with a listing of all the approved navigation within the site. While we do our job designing the site based on this navigation, we expect the client to do their job by providing all content that will eventually be placed on our neatly designed pages.

The consequences of not having content ready or sending it to the web designer in pieces could be significant both for the client’s pocketbook and the development timeline. It takes more time to put the content on the site piece by piece than all at once. Additions of new content after the site design has begun can lead to issues with navigation and page layout.

It’s also important for me to note that we, are not copywriters. Nor are we grammatical experts. When the client does have all content ready to go, we strongly recommend hiring a professional editor/proofreader (we can recommend some). In grade school we learn that editing is the most important part of writing. Don’t give a web developer any content that is less than web-ready. The more typos and misspellings there are, the more it eats into the budget originally established for design and technical development.

Want more information about pre-production? See our Kick-off Questions. If you can answer all of these, content writing will be easier. All that’s left to do is to have us make your website.
Julie Dwyer
Project Manager

Illustration: Dave Abston (www.graphicsbydave.com)

Scope Creep (also called requirement creep, feature creep, and sometimes kitchen sink syndrome) in project management refers to uncontrolled changes in a project’s scope. This phenomenon can occur when the scope of a project is not properly defined, documented, or controlled. It is generally considered a negative occurrence to be avoided.

Typically, the scope increase consists of either new products or new features of already approved product designs, without corresponding increases in resources, schedule, or budget. As a result, the project team risks drifting away from its original purpose and scope on unplanned additions. As the scope of a project grows, more tasks must be completed within the budget and schedule originally designed for a smaller set of tasks. Thus Scope Creep can also result in a project team overrunning its original budget and schedule. If budget or schedule are increased along with scope, the change is usually considered an acceptable addition to the project, and the term ‘Scope Creep’ not used.

Scope Creep can also be thought of as a process of trial and error for clients to discover what they really want…

Symptoms
• Projects that have been going on for a long time
• Clients who are picky and tend to change their minds often
• Scattered content and pieces for the website

Scope Creep Example
We took on a OS Commerce shopping cart project about a year ago. In my opinion, the client is one of the sweetest clients I’ve ever dealt with. The initial projections looked profitable; the budget and scope were optimistic. We all thought it was going to be a great addition to our portfolio. However as the project progressed, things started to change, and before you know it, we were over budget! What happened?

She found her own graphic designer, so our initial comps went to the graveyard…
A new photo shoot came around, we waited for a month…
The simple “portfolio” became a Flash portfolio with it’s own Scope Creep issues…
Content edits kept changing due to time sensitive information/press pieces…

Just when we thought we could wrap things up, the client became frustrated with the look and feel of the shopping cart. The graphic designer came back with a complete redesign of the cart including new headers, styles, color palettes and additional images that required detailed cropping and instructions. Mega Scope Creep alert! We became very aware that the project was slowly draining our resources.

When faced with this scenario, we can ask ourselves 2 questions: 1) What could we have done to prevent this from happening? 2) How can we make this a win-win situation? We informed the client of the issue and tried to wrap up the website with one final round of changes. The client understood that we were trying our best to deliver the shopping cart that she had envisioned. As of this writing the project still isn’t complete but we remain optimistic that it will launch soon.

The reality is that in this industry, some amount of scope creep is inevitable. It’s not only a process of trial and error for clients to discover what they really want, it’s also a process of learning how we as designers/developers can mitigate similar situations in the future. As a project manager, I definitely learned a valuable lesson: always be aware of the budget, set client expectations and clearly define the scope ahead of time!

-Temy Gu
Project Manager

For all of our competition: please follow this Dogbert tech support scenario (credit to, Scott Adams).

Tech: Help desk, what’s your issue?
Caller: My computer won’t….
Tech: Shut up and reboot.
Caller: Hey! It worked!
Tech: Shut up and hang up. (My call time is improving!)

However, I believe that dealing with problem customers is an art form that should be handled with tact and duplicity diplomacy.

It has been my experience that allowing a client to have access to the hosting control panel before the site is finished and goes live, can continually cause problems. There can be miscommunications which slow down the process or can potentially stop it altogether.

Just the other day, a client changed the FTP password without relating it to me. Unfortunately, this becomes a problem for your web designer when he/she wants to go in and continue building your website. I politely asked the client to please refrain from making any changes during development and instead ask me to do so for them.

The fact of the matter is that I don’t want clients to feel I am prohibiting their involvement in the development process or taking control of the hosting account they are paying for. However, a clients’ help and involvement in technical development generally slows down the process. In order to streamline development, it is best to keep all technical parts of the project in the hands of your technical developer. (Kids, keep your hands and feet in the car at all times during the ride.)

While it would be easiest to imitate Dogbert’s behavior, keep in mind that clients usually just want to help. Paradoxically, their “help” can make the web designer’s job harder. Let the developer do everything and the client will have helped in the easiest way possible.

Phil Cady
Technical Director
“If a pretty picture and cheap sentiment is enough to motivate you, you have a very easy job. One that will be done by robots in the future.”

So you’ve spent XX amount of hours of your time or paid someone $X to do it for you and now you are the proud owner of a blog. (Lucky you! Congratulations!)

Now the real work begins, because no matter how eloquent and topical we think we are, making a commitment to write blog content on a regular basis is… well… a commitment. In our office, we had the bright idea to rotate blog writing duties among our staff of talented project managers, designers and coders, but here it is “blog deadline” and nothing’s been submitted by the designated blogger. So here I am, stuck with the posting duties again.

Don’t get me wrong, a blog has been a valuable asset to our online presence. In our experience, benefits of updating your blog include:

1) Increased exposure for your company on the web, adding credibility.
2) Improved SEO power! If you search for “executionists” on the web you’ll see many of the results come from our blog.
3) A chance to showcase a personal side to your company and its employees.
4) Opportunities to showcase your witty and extremely clever rhetoric on topical issues plaguing your industry today.
5) A place to have a dialog/network with your Blog readers by responding to their comments on your posts.

In conclusion, a blog is a helpful, fun and powerful marketing tool, but take heed of our warning: it takes time and concerted effort. Not much, but effort nonetheless. Hope you read, enjoy, and take to heart this week’s valuable insight.

We are proud to announce that we are the recipient of a 2007 WebAward for
Outstanding Achievement in Website Development
presented by the Web Marketing Association!

Our award was presented in recognition of our work on the Christopher Laue Productions site.

Christopher Laue
Executionists, Inc.
Events Standard of Excellence

Creative Director: Richard Parr
Senior Designer: Kaoru Wood
Flash Designer: Conrad Julian
Project Manager: Temy Gu

Our overall scores:

We are thrilled and grateful to be recognized!

Here are some key issues to think about when commissioning a web design company to make or remake your website.

1. What is your intended launch date for the new site?

2. What shortcomings existed with the previous site?

3. What are the main reasons you are redesigning your site (new business model, outdated site, expanded services, different audience)?

4. What are your primary online business objectives with the site redesign? (Examples include increased sales, marketing/branding awareness) Please discuss both long- and short-term goals.

5. Describe a typical site visitor. How often are they online, and what do they generally use the web for? Give basic demographics: age, occupation, income level.

6. What is the primary “action” the site visitor should take when coming to your site?

7. What are the key reasons why the target audience chooses your company’s products and/or services (cost, service, value)?

8. Use a few adjectives to describe how your site visitor should perceive the new site.

9. How does your company differentiate itself from competitors? Do you think your current audience differentiates you from your competition? Please list competitor URLs.

10. List the URLs of any sites you find compelling. What specifically do you like about these sites?

11. Will this site use existing content from the previous site? If so, what is the source, who is responsible for approval? If not, will you be creating content in-house or using an outside provider?

12. What is the basic structure of the content, and how is it organized? Is it a complete overhaul of the previous site or an expansion? Do you already have a sitemap or outline for the proposed redesign?

13. What is your target platform and browser? Are there specific technologies (Flash, AJAX, JavaScript, DHTML, etc.) that you would like to use in the site?

14. Briefly, what are your short-term marketing plans (specifically, for the site redesign and the 6 to 12 months following launch)?

If you can quickly and succinctly answer all of these questions, you’re well on your way to creating a great website. Knowing your target audience and exactly how you wish your site to function will help us help you expand your business.

What is a Content Management System? (CMS) If you’ve ever had a Myspace page, a personal Yahoo!, My MSN or iGoogle page, a membership to a dating site or used eBay, then you’ve used a CMS.

My MSN Myspace

CMS allows a person untrained in web development and coding to upload/edit content on a website. It makes it easy for the average Joe/Jill to manage their online stuff.

We are often asked to build CMS for websites. But here’s the bad news… No matter how “easy” the CMS is designed, it’s still work for the end user. It takes time and focus to log onto an online CMS, prepare your content, text and graphics, and upload it to the system.

Many clients initially think they have the time to do the CMS on their site but usually run into problems like: forgetting username and password, writing crappy text, unable to optimize images correctly, etc. Many times these clients come back to the developer to ask them to manage the content for their site.

So the client pays $X,000 for a CMS and ends up paying a developer $X,000 to make the edits.

We always caution our clients before building a CMS. They need to realistically think about the ongoing site maintenance tasks and determine if the added cost of the CMS and the manpower on their side is worth it instead of paying their developer for edits on an as-needed basis.

Starting in 1997 with a whimsical Felderman and Keating website, Executionists kicked off a successful decade of designing for architectural construction firms. We’ve won several design awards for these projects, including a Realcomm Digital Media Award for Best Website and Macromedia Shocked Site of the Day.

Since then we’ve launched more sites, with the numbers constantly growing. Here are a couple of our most recent projects…

Felderman Keatinge + Associates
(www.fkadesign.com)
Launched 2007

Pinnacle Contracting Corporation
(www.pincon.com)
Launched 2007

SAA
Currently in progress
Launch TBA

We love print designers! I designed print for 10 years myself and have great respect for those talented and brave enough to make it their profession.

BUT… though it may seem convenient to have your print designer design your new website, be forewarned here are some of the inherent differences between print and web designers that we’ve experienced.

1) Print designers typically don’t understand efficient navigation and website usability issues.

An key goal of online design is moving prospective visitors through the site in the most efficient and intuitive manner possible. In print design there is little need to move visitors through multiple pages except in a linear, one-dimensional way.

A print designer may be good at capturing and presenting site navigation in a design but the real usability of that navigation may not reflect best-practices developed from experience designing for the online environment.

2) Print designers tend to create graphics that can only be updated through hands-on Photoshop work, not through a combination of more expedient HTML and graphic elements.

Print designers tend to develop collaged images that are well designed, but because they are unified image and text they are basically one graphic. These page graphics are often slow to download. Utilizing a combination of system text and judicious graphics is a more web-friendly approach because they are easier to update and better for search engine results.

3) Many print designers design for an 8.5 x 11″ printed page which often does not translate well to browser specifications.

The majority of browsers use the current screen resolution standard of at least 1024 x 768. In non-web design speak, 14.2 x 10.67″.. a completely different format than 8.5 x 11″. Getting graphics in 8.5 x 11 format from a client is a sure indication that they were developed by a print designer.

What this means is that your developer will have to redo the page layout to make it optimal for web-browsing and the screen resolution.

The bottom line is… if you hire your print designer for your new website design, the potential is that you’ll end up spending more money and more time when your web designer has to redo it. If you love your print designer and want to use them for your website, call your web developer and introduce them early on. This way you can combine their experience and get a better end result.