Topic: Project Management
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Use Cases Part II: Taming Scope
The use-case model can be a powerful tool for controlling scope throughout a project’s life cycle. Because a simplified use-case model can be understood by all project participants, it can also serve as a framework for ongoing collaboration and a visual map of all agreed-upon functionality. Use it to plan, to negotiate, and to prevent scope creep.
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A Standards-Compliant Publishing Tool for the Rest of Us?
Publishing with web standards is not for experts alone. A new tool hopes to make it easier for anyone. ALA interviews Six Apart’s Anil Dash about his company’s easy-to-use, standards-compliant publishing tool, TypePad.
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In Defense of Scope Creep
Scope creep seems inevitable. Our attempts to gather our clients’ requirements early on often seems a futile effort. Scope creep distorts our carefully structured schedules, making project managers weep. Have we run out of strategies for fighting this evil scourge? Is it hopeless? Maybe not. Maybe, thinks Hal Helms, it can even be beneficial.
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CMS and the Single Web Designer
Content Management Systems free designers from the gruntwork of individual web page production. They may also free companies from the need to retain design staff. How do content management systems work, and what impact will they have on a web designer’s job?
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Process, Methodology, Life Cycle, Oh My!
Process, methodology, life cycle. No matter what label you slap on it, if you want to manage your web projects, you need a system that works the way you do. Meryl K. Evans’s overview will help you kick-start your own process.
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The Art of Topless Dancing and Information Design
Creating a web site makes for all sorts of strange working relationships. What does an information designer have to do to get a little cooperation?
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Breaking out of the Cubicle: How a Small, Swiss Company Got its Groove On
In the mid-1990s, Makiko Itoh and her partner left New York’s cubicle land for a web shop of their own in the suburbs of Zurich. Learn from her tips on running your own web agency.
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Fragments (of Time)
The best web interfaces take time – the one asset that seems to be in perpetually short supply. Leading Scandinavian web developer Pär Almqvist presents a time-based perspective on web interfaces and the network economy.
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CSS Talking Points: Selling Clients on Web Standards
Selling your clients on standards-compliant design doesn’t have to hurt. Kise's four-point CSS Selling Plan helps the medicine go down.
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Nipping Client Silliness in the Bud
Slashdot’s Robin (Roblimo) Miller could write a book about web clients’ mistakes. In fact, he’s writing it now – but he needs your help.
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A Failure to Communicate
It’s ironic that, as professionals dedicated to clear communication, information architects and user interface designers are having such trouble communicating with each other. Information designer George Olsen digs up the roots of communication breakdown and explores the three aspects of web design.
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The Client Did It: A WWW Whodunit
Shepherd on the fine art of telling bad clients to buzz off.
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Separation Anxiety: The Myth of the Separation of Style from Content
The separation of style from content has long been the web’s holy grail. But is it a myth? Stein claims that when design communicates, style and content are inextricably wed.
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Daemon Skins: Separating Presentation from Content
There ’s more than one way to skin a website. Newhouse demonstrates creative scripting techniques that give viewers and designers the control they crave.
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The Ins and Outs of Intranets
Sooner or later, most web designers will be called upon to create an internal site. And will quickly learn that one’s own company can be tougher to deal with than any client. Dave Linabury offers tips on surviving the process (and building something good in spite of it).
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Back to Basics
The importance of being Source.
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A Design Method
In a high-powered production environment like the web, a design method can help you get more done faster ... and provide you with rules to break. New ALA writer Ross Olson shares his company’s game plan.
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Bridging the Gap
How can we work together if we don't understand each other? Systems administrator Robert Miller describes the view from his side of the cubicle, and attempts to break down the barriers between "creative" and systems professionals.
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Tackling Usability Gotchas in Large-scale Site Redesigns
Redesigns can solve old usability problems while creating new ones that must be solved in turn. From the lessons of the ALA 3.0 redesign comes this quick study in remapping content without frustrating readers.
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The Creative Process
Ideas are like policemen — they're never around when you need them. Mattias Konradsson sketches a campaign to seduce the Muse.
