Transcription Web Designer #3

Saturday, June 5th, 2010

Interviewee: Peter Cole – 2010-04-27 17.31.13 with petercolesdc

Location: Bristol, UK

Duration: 22 minutes

Date: April 27^th 2010

*Both audio and transcription can go online.

Area of expertise or job title:

I suppose my job title would be, well I started out as web designer, but it’s  probably grown into web designer to web developer to doing printed media, I change what I call myself really, pretty much just go with creative, and whatever comes after that.

How many years have you been in the web design industry?

Professionally 4+ years, but I have been doing web designer since 2001

Do you work mainly as a freelancer or do you work in-house?

I am actually employed by a company called X In Bristol and do little bits and pieces in my spare time, but its growing more and more, something I am looking at. But yeah I am employed fulltime.

How if at all would you label your web design workflow?

Do you mean process?

Yes.

Well it depends really on what sort of project I am doing, what the time scale is, how much money is involved.  It depends for little sites; kind of do simple sketching and a few conversations then we just dive into it. For the larger projects there is a lot of research, a lot planning, and a fair bit of red tape. And we are doing some work for an animal charity; there are a lot of people a lot of scientists involved in the projects, a lot of predevelopment stuff.

What % of your projects then use WP?

It depends, more recently quite a lot. It has gotten to a point now where it is being requested. Maybe 6-8 months ago it was here is something we can, it has got quite a nice interface and people would run with that. Last couple of things people have actually requested that I use it. Probably personally about 80%, and in the job 10—15% because we do a lot of in-house stuff that is not suited to that kinda thing.

Is there a type a client that asks for to use WP for more often?

Um again, if you ask me that question in about 6 months time I could give you a better answer. Nonprofits do seem to be quite keen on it, because it is open source, and it aligns with the ethos of nonprofits.

Why in particular do you like wordpress? Or do you?

Yeah I do like using it. Mostly because like I said I started out as a web designer, front end developer and my Php and Jquery skills are limited in so much as putting sites together. I can write a bit of code but nothing so advanced, and WP is designer friendly enough that you can put things together in quite a good way, rather than using something like Drupal or Joomla which is just a bit too much. To step up that.

We can move on to the web site life history. Could you tell me the name of the nonprofit and the type of work they do?

International Gorilla Conservation program which is based in Dem of Congo, Uganda in Africa, and they work primarily with mountain gorillas, but other species as well, and the other locals communities as well. It is a subsidiary of Flora and Fauna. I am consulting with them at the moment regarding their website.

How did you become involved?

Good friend of mine from University is working for them, Flora and Fauna and like I said they requested something through him for Wordpress and he didn’t know how to do that. So being friends and this is what I do for a living, he got in touch with me and asked if I wanted to do it and of course I jumped at the chance because it sounded really cool and that is how I got into it. And now they seem to be asking for more and more stuff.

Workflow start to finish…provided markers…

How many people were involved in the project and what were their roles?

I say dominantly three, there was my contact…in the organization they provided content and gave feedback. A project manager in a way. Another, provided feedback and content, and discussed the design side of the project. All of the design and development was just me. A few other people involved but not really anyone I ever dealt with?

SO the 2 people involved in the project, where they solely responsible for design decisions, or was it done as a committee?

Well,  part of where the research would come in. We spent quite a bit of time setting goals and figuring out what they wanted to achieve with the site. So after providing content and giving feedback on the design, I kinda ran with, provided some wireframe and mockups and they Okayed that, then I ran with it. I was in contact with both of them 3 or 4 times a week for a 3 or 4 months, so it was a close kind of contact, but I was the only one doing the work.

Could you go through the documentation you used in the project? You mentioned wireframes and such, but was their anything else used?

By documentation do you mean sort of like a style guide? Things like that?

I mean a lot of that was decided in house, and I didn’t really have a lot of hands on style because they had their own way of writing things. Yeah obviously the wireframing which was actually quite quick, because the site is not that large. Maybe 5 or 6 wireframs for the main part of the site, and some visuals then building up. They provided a lot of content up front so I was able to strap it on to the navigation and apply it to how it works. We did a lot of focusing on 5 or 6 areas, as they had before something a bit more sporadic.

When doing the research, what sort of methods did you employ?

It was a small project on a small time scale, and the staff involved were on an entirely different continent, that was kind of difficult, but the research was mainly..I like to read up a lot, especially if I am doing something that I don’t know about, I will spend a weeks on it, on something I have absolutely no knowledge at all, because it helps you make more informed decisions. Yeah in terms of research it wasn’t something I generally do, it is not something that has come up.

After the complete the design, did you do usability or was that something not necessary?

To a certain extent, I mean it was a quite simple site, it was something I would have like to have done, but working on such a small budget with a small group it is quite a hard thing to perform.

Could you tell me a little bit more about the relationship with others in the project?

The main issue of course is working remotely. As good as tools like Basecamp or Skype are, it’s never quite the same as being the same room. I was lucky at the end, I got to go and train them and that was really beneficial, and we ironed out little bits and pieces, but we really did not have that luxury. I guess yeah. We did quite a through email and skype, and using skype to walk through.

Did anything work particularly well in relationship? Not so well?

We got to know each other quite well. Cause we talked quite a  lot, and once you have built a relationship with someone, and gel with that person quite well, it helps a lot with second guessing that person??? And it did help that one of my good friends was involved in the project as well. We worked together in the past and working together now. Open collaboration and regular contact is good if you are working remotely. We didn’t’ get to use any face to face tool, is one of many problems.

How did you conclude the project and know your clients needs had been met?

Basically, I hit the deadline, and made…and did training, and that after running through the site with those involved, that was when the project concluded. And going in and tailoring a few things….a couple of days going over things I think that worked quite well.

So you were training them how to use Wordpress then?

Yeah, I wrote them a manual and sent them that a few weeks before and I went over step by step through things. I mean it is quite a simple system to pick it. So I walked them through that.

Were you trying to training people who were specifically in charge of updating the site, or the entire organization?

Training the communication officer who is the sole updater of the site.

How does Wordpress specifically affect your workflow, if you think it does?

I don’t think it does really. I mean I think you need to be a bit logical with the site, especially with large sites, and pick out what is possible and what is not. What would take a lot of work to make it possible. I tend to put a large division between design, user interaction and development in my head cause if you deign something for Wordpress that is not easily possible then you shouldn’t be doing in. It not about getting a square peg in a round hole.

Are there any aspects of your workflow that are specific to nonprofits?

No, not really, I don’t think it is a whole lot different. You are tailoring your work to a specific audience, same as you would anything else. No, I wouldn’t say so.

Do you think WP affects the workflow for the nonprofit client?

Probably, I have seen a lot of in-house systems, not specifically for the nonprofit, but organization and in-house system become dated and very hard to use. Anything that can be used, it doesn’t have to be Wordpress that can streamline the process is a very good thing.

Is there anything about your workflow that is specific to you as an individual?

Probably, working with designers and developers in the past, they all got a different way of approaching things. Cause I have got quite a bit of experience working in teams as opposed to just being a freelancer on my own, I take quite a logical approach to my work, especially more recently bc obviously the more you use it the better you become. Yeah so there is a lot of logic involved a lot of planning things out, and practice and updating the way I do things on a weekly basis, just refining things.

Are there any skills that you have that your team especially values you for?

I suppose, I design and do front end code and those are my main skills…certain codes and the speed at which I can do things now, I can put things together in hours now rather than a couple of weeks.

Do you prefer nonprofoits vs for profit?

Nonprofits are just a better feeling in generally. A better feeling than just making money.

If feels more rewarding to my soul, doing nonprofit work.  At the end of the day I have to pay the bills like everyone else. I do enjoy my work and I enjoying doing work for nonprofits.

Tags: designer views, expert model, Nonprofit, ownership, web design, wordpress, workflow
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