Something we have started doing very deliberately, something that really works to help us accurately scope and manage a project, is writing user stories for understanding project requirements. It’s not a new idea by any means, and we’ve always thought this way, but we’re seeing now it as a “must-do” step in our process. When we’re trying to get our arms around a project, it’s a formula to get moving with.

What’s in a user story? It’s simple (at least the way we write them). It’s just one thing a user can do and why. That’s all. So it describes an action the user takes…and thus implies a function we need to enable, and a user experience we need to streamline. You put all your single user stories together and voila:  that’s the entire website project in action form. It’s also a great way to start documenting your work (more on this another day).

A user story has a beginning, middle, and end. First is the Who.  In the middle is the What.  Last is the Why.

It looks like this:

As a <type of user>, I can <do something> so that <some reason>.

or

As a <who>, I can <what>, so that <why>.

The Who is important because it differentiates between types of users, whether they are:

• “anonymous” (non-logged in users, more than likely existing/potential customers who only are allowed to view specified pages on your site).
• “authenticated” (logged in users with more permissions than anonymous types…in addition to being able to view content perhaps they can also upload attachments, write comments, or otherwise interact in some way).
• “administrator” (can do just about anything from creating/editing content to SEO customization to menu manipulation, and lots more).
• there are other flavors of user types and some hybrids, but these three are pretty much the arch-types.

Here are some examples around posting comments on a blog:

As an anonymous user, I can read all recent blog articles in ascending chronological order, so that I can learn about what X company has been up to most recently.

As an authenticated user, I can submit a comment to a blog article, so that I can provide feedback to X company.

As an admin, I can moderate and approve/disapprove of comments submitted to my blog, so that I can ensure that my blog comments are not inappropriate or offensive.

Three different angles for three different types of users, all concerning the same aspect of the site (blog comments), but now we have defined the workflow and we can start discussing it in more granular detail. For the authenticated user, we can extrapolate to think “hey, we will need a little message that says ‘thank you for submitting, awaiting moderation now’”.  For the admin, we need to start knowing how he will be notified that there are comments awaiting approval, or is he allowed to edit or just approve/deny.  It appears to build on itself…but really these project requirements were lurking underneath the surface since the beginning.  We’re simply seeing the whole iceberg better.

As you can surmise, one of the big benefits of writing these silly user stories is that they often foment discussion and further investigation. That’s a wonderful thing…the devil is in the details.  When we get to a point where we have written every last possible user story we can possibly know about…that’s when we can put an hours estimate on implementing each story to completion and feel confident that we’re not missing something. Our clients and ourselves can talk about the project in a very informed fashion. The formulaic writing process forces both parties to suss out the hidden complexities of a project, and evaluate these for priority, i.e.maybe there’s a more efficient way to approach the What, so you can still provide the Why that matters to the Who.

Beyonce is a superstar.   Everyone knows and wants Beyonce.   She’s the kind of entertainer that only needs one name…Elvis, Prince, Cher, Madonna, Liberace…the short list.

Beyonce can name her price these days. Got $2 million dollars for a one off show? You can probably book Beyonce for your next big party.

That’s why she’s Beyonce.  It’s what makes her a superstar.  She’s a scarce resource that is beautiful, dynamic, beloved, and hard-working.  She brings it.  When she was younger she toiled in obscurity and sacrificed as necessary to become the world-class performer she is today.  Now she reaps the profit of all that practice, and there’s really no stopping her.

She’s on automatic awesome, and she’s appropriately expensive.  All she has to do is show up for the gig, prepared and on time, and just be Beyonce.  It’s all her fans care about…that 5 minute or 2 hour segment where she does what she does best and earns a small fortune.

Ever wonder what her job is like between performances?  Probably not very exciting right?   More practicing, taking meetings, signing deals, getting rest, working out, vocal exercises, recording, writing, choreographing, collaborating with other artists, charity work, managing her business.  Yawn.  It’s Beyonce up on stage (or screen) that makes the people happy.

When you think of Beyonce performing live at the Grammys, you think of her singing and dancing and the crowd going wild.  You don’t think of all the work that goes into making that happen.  You’re just consuming it.  But somebody must be producing it…and at a high level.

What about the team behind Beyonce? You don’t stop to think of all the handlers Beyonce surely has that allow her to sustain her career and schedule.

There’s the agent, the business manager, the bodyguard, the choreographer, the stylist, the personal assistant, the assistant to the personal assistant, the driver, the shopper, the spiritual advisor, the personal trainer, the nutritionist…  These people are not stars and no promoter ever hires them to entertain a room of thousands.  They might even be ugly and poor dancers.  Whatever.  They come with Beyonce, help her be ready to rock, set her up for success…great.   Take them for granted because they are behind the scenes if you wish.  So what if they are good at their jobs and Beyonce likes working with them between, during, and after the gig…there’s only one Beyonce. She’s the star!

But she’s not the show.

Beyonce could not be Beyonce without a lot of help.  She wouldn’t be able to be nearly as effective nor as focused without the worker bees she employs to make her job easy.

And she needs to pay these people.  That big fee she charges for 2 hours of work?  Does that mean her rate is $500,000 an hour?  No.  She’s got to share that with those that enable her, the ones who have spent hundreds of hours doing trivial and non-trivial tasks that are just as necessary, really, as her singing the right words to her song up in the spotlight.  All the way down to the bodyguard making “only” five figures. He’s not sexy and he’s not expensive, but he’s playing an important role in the show, too.

In our business, Beyonce is the lead web developer. The lead web developer is what the people crave. He’s the star performer.  He’s the scarce resource that folks don’t mind paying for.  He can charge a high hourly rate and our clients don’t argue.

Unfortunately, some clients only budget for the development work and forget to save a little outlay for the other hours that they will need to get the development work ready to work with.

Just like Beyonce’s support team, the lead developer is dependent on the efforts of others to really succeed.  Without a well planned project with fully vetted user stories and functionality requirements, a prioritized task list, and a client who has been well-educated as to the nature of web development projects (to name only a few necessary support jobs) he is adrift and likely to fail.  His talent and time will be wasted, at least by some percentage.  And since his talents are hired out at such a high rate, a lot of money is wasted when his time is wasted, too.

Don’t waste your lead web developer…it’s like wasting your Beyonce!  You wouldn’t waste your Beyonce, would you?  Of course you wouldn’t.

Think about it.  Do you really want Beyonce answering phone calls from the worried venue manager when he thinks an email has not been responded to sufficiently?  No, you want someone else to smooth out that situation.

Do you need Beyonce to personally inspect the legal documents pertaining to insuring the show or fulfilling the show contract?  Of course, she should be briefed but she should not have to read every line of small print either.  She’s got better things to do more germane to her skill set.

And it’s the same way with the web developer.  He doesn’t need to manage client expectations or make sure the checks are in the mail. But somebody has to.

He doesn’t need to make sure the designer has time tomorrow to go over client feedback, and he doesn’t need to populate the content in the FAQs section.  He shouldn’t worry about uploading the right SEO modules.  Other, less scarce resources that can’t handle writing a custom hook that integrates with Sales Force and accomplishes X, Y, Z unique use cases can handle the more mundane stuff.  But just because it’s mundane doesn’t mean it’s not important…it’s only less scarce.  So you have to put the right person on the right job.

It’s essentially a matter of a team dividing and conquering the myriad of details that go into making a complex system look simple and work elegantly…each and every time it’s on display.  That takes teamwork and team commitment.

If Beyonce was your lead web developer, you’d be happy to pay her for her time and you’d be right to expect a knockout performance.  But you’d still be really dependent on her support team setting her up to succeed in her moment.  Otherwise, it’d be kind of a waste.

So all this is to say to clients: appreciate and enable the efforts of the team, not just the web developer.   Pay a little for the personal assistant, the agent, the stylist, the legal counsel…pay the star her higher rate so she can happily do her thing…and you’ll get your money’s worth when it counts.

DreamHost reviews

So you’ve got a pretty good feel for what kind of new site you want.  Here’s some advice for efficiently building a site of great value.

1. Start with the content.

• gather all content together in one place
• content = words, photos, video, contact info, graphic art/logos…ANYTHING that will be visible by anyone who uses your site.
• organize it into acceptable file formats for the web (check with your web developer)

This is required work for any web project to be successful. Have it before you need it, or you risk wasting resources during your later project stages…because so many design/development decisions depend on what the final content is.

Too many website projects go awry because no one bothered to organize or produce the REAL content they needed for their REAL site. Everybody said “oh, that will be a demo” or “image area”, or “two or three paragraphs of content” and then assumed it would appear out of thin air. Content is the second-most important thing on your site, second only in importance to having users to appreciate it!  You don’t want to mess this up. Organize, write, edit, or produce the content yourself (or see to it that someone else does) now, not as an afterthought.

This is also a great exercise for you to be sure you will actually “say what you mean and mean what you say.”

2. Consider your users.

• put yourself in the shoes of your best customer
• what does he or she really want to do on your site?
• what do you really want them to do on your site?

Understand that the average web user is in a hurry and does not want to hunt for what he/she wants.  Don’t over think it.  Concentrate on user actions and clarity of information.

3. Assess the ‘minimum viable product’.

• what’s the simplest way to achieve your goals in a timely and efficient manner?
• think goals, not features
• separate the “would be nice to have” stuff from your bottom line “must have” stuff.  Prioritize both lists.

Understand that you can always add more stuff later (and you will want to), the important thing is to have a great foundation to build from.

4. Have a defined decision making process

• commit to being an active collaborator throughout the project.
• when it’s time to give feedback, be clear, be specific, and be engaged.
• when it’s time to decide A or B, be confident and be quick.

You should accommodate for change that will certainly occur during the lifespan of your project.  Building a website is an iterative process.  Sometimes the original vision doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.  That’s okay.  It’s not a failure or a setback…it’s an opportunity to improve and get things right.

Be ready to deal with important decisions in short order so you can keep your project momentum going strong and build a site of lasting value.

ENTERMEDIA has built a lot of websites since 2004 for clients of all types. Over the years we’ve gravitated to build practically every site with Drupal. Why is that?

Drupal is flexible.

From it’s inception Drupal was built with open source in mind. The founder of Drupal was smart enough to realize that predicting where the web will go in the future is a fool’s game, so let’s build it to be as flexible and modular as possible so it can adapt to each clients needs as well as any future developments. Remove as many constraints as possible at the outset. What this means is that you need to understand best practices for development to contribute modules that the rest of the community will endorse and adopt, but isn’t that how it should be? For instance, old site planning methodologies such as the waterfall project management approach, were concerned with concepts like knowing exactly where the main navigation menu was going to be before you would write a single line of code. With Drupal, if you decide that the main nav needs to move to the right side or left side instead of across the top you can make that change in a matter of minutes, so long as you haven’t styled the whole site prematurely.

Drupal is modular.

The devil is in the details when you are developing a website. Unfortunately, the majority of projects do not achieve the initial goal of building the entire scope on-time and on-budget. That’s because unless the developer has previously coded something exactly like what you need now, he’s having to estimate how he can get the job done on assumptions alone.  Building every simple thing from scratch is hard.

But with Drupal, ‘there’s a module for that.

Like the Apple store’s claim ‘there’s an app for that’, there’s most likely a feature rich Drupal module that does what you need and can be configured for your exact requirements. If not, there will be soon. There are over 3500 modules that can be used in Drupal to accomplish just about any requirement you can imagine.  Many times multiple modules are introduced that do the same thing, but over time the best solution emerges and the community gets behind it.  Once a module is adopted and accepted by the Drupal community it will be continuously tested and refined to fix any issues or add any ‘got-to-have’ features due to it’s vast number of implementations and specific feedback.  Developers help developers figure out these problems, and then the rest of us get to share in their solutions.

Drupal is scalable.

Drupal works with practically any type of database, so it doesn’t matter if you’re using an enterprise level Oracle databases or a free MySQL database. Without getting too technical, what you need to know is that Drupal can scale to meet your needs, but you’ll need an experienced Systems/Server Admin toproperly guide you to the right hosting a server setup. The greater point is that Drupal can scale as well as any other technology. The best proof is the number of large web properties who are successfully using Drupal, such as the economist. You can find more example drupal sites on the founder of Drupal’s blog.

Drupal is SEO friendly.

SEO is largely misunderstood from our experience. Drupal makes it easy for you to make your site follow best SEO practices.  It also allows you to write, publish, and correct problems with your site content that the search engines might not like with a little training and without needing a web developer to be involved.  Drupal does a lot of things automatically, such as provide strong internal link structure to make sure each link to pages within the site are tagged in the same way.  Drupal does not do SEO for you, however.  For more information on what you should be doing to practice good SEO, start here for a simple overview, but go here if you’re looking for professional help.

Drupal is free.

Drupal is open source and is therefore free of charge.  You will need to pay for hosting if you don’t have your own web server, and if you’re not a web developer you will probably need to hire a good team if you’re hoping for something professional.  However, you won’t have to pay Microsoft liscensing fees, the hosting for open source costs less, and the majority of the web is open source, so there are plenty of capable people in this world who can support a Drupal based website.

Drupal has momentum.

Like most movements, what’s critical to the success of Drupal is the huge adoption rate of the development community and the business community in general.  It is one of the greatest crowd-sourcing success stories around.  It is this community that will decide if Drupal deserves it’s success, if it should continue on, and for how long.  The Drupal 7 User Experience Project is a good reason to believe that Drupal will continue to be the best available option for years to come.  Already, some very big and important websites are built with Drupal, like:

• The British Government
  
• The Whitehouse
• Duke University
• Lucas Arts
• Reuters
• CNN

Drupal is simply an efficient tool.

Drupal is a content management system that allows non-technical site owners to manage their own content. It’s open source, which means it’s free as well. It still requires a high level of experience and expertise in web development practices and principles to build a professional website, which is not free unless you are one of those people. Drupal is simply the tool that allows you to do great things like build an online storefront, event listings, a social community, blog, photo slideshow, multimedia video player, forums, discussion groups, etc.

Smashing Magazine does it right once again…a great resource for spies like us…

>> Call to Action Buttons:  Examples and Best Practices

Call to action in web design — and in user experience (UX) in particular — is a term used for elements in a web page that solicit an action from the user. The most popular manifestation of call to action in web interfaces comes in the form of clickable buttons that when clicked, perform an action (e.g. “Buy this now!”) or lead to a web page with additional information (e.g. “Learn more…”) that asks the user to take action.

AustinontheRocks.com is live!  This brand new website is all about serving up search results for local happy hour and food/drink specials based on user submitted criteria.

Say you want to find a bar in North Austin that has a nice patio, beer and wine specials this Thursday night, a big TV to watch the big game, is “date worthy’, and allows a dog.  Austin on the Rocks will deliver the skinny.  (It won’t buy you a pitcher, root for your team, find you a date, or walk your dog.)  This unique site actually caters to Austin bar-goers and Austin bar/restaurant-proprietors alike, because it matches up the perfect customer with the perfect local food and drink establishment.  Bars can control and update their own entries on the site, too.  Design cues are simple, clean, and easy to navigate, so the user experience is smooth.

From concept to creation, ENTERMEDIA made it happen for this start up custom application-based web business built in Cake, including:

• brand and online strategy consulting
• creating the cool logo
• designing all interface and admin layers
• sussing out important content strategy and user-experience decisions
• setting up a database design that will allow Austin on the Rocks to scale gracefully

Our fantastic client Cathi Rustmann and her daughter Taylore Cunningham are the one-two punch signing up the hippest bars all over Austin to be a part of this.  Cathi and Taylore have big plans in store for Austin on the Rocks and really perform a great FREE service to local folks who want to find the best food and drink specials in town. Be sure to follow AusontheRocks on Twitter and become their facebook fan:  you’ll hear about unadvertised food/drink specials and “get ‘em while they last” promotions you won’t want to miss.  Cheers!

Putting customer testimonials on your website is a time-worn practice and generally a good idea, but there is some debate over their efficacy. One argument in their favor is ‘your users want to know you have them’…like some kind of a credibility benchmark. This is not to say that they will pay any attention to them. Why? Because testimonials are generally so complimentary by their very nature as to be perceived as embellished. They are not “reviews”…so what informational value do they offer? Again, maybe just the simple fact that you can get your current customers to say nice things about you is the entire point.

It’s also possible that users might have a different bias against them…whether or not they are real. Who would know if they are or are true accounts or complete fiction? In our experience, we have sadly come across some fabricated testimonials, that go a little something like this:

“[So and so] is the only [some kind of company] in the [blank industry] that I trust to deliver [x] [with all the trimmings].”

- Kenny S. from Alabama

Thanks for that, Kenny S! Rest assured, all of EM’s testimonials are genuine. (They need to be updated to reflect more of our latest work and clients, but that’s a different issue.)

Recently, one of our clients came up with a great way to present customer testimonials in a way that is genuine, informational, and compelling. Cuatro from CuatroBenefits invited some of his representative clients into his office the other morning and shot a quick video asking them some pointed questions about their experience interacting with his service. Full disclosure, Ethan and Ryan were invited and filmed.

Anyway, we think this is a wonderful and persuasive marketing play in the age of easy YouTube style video sharing. This is going to drive business leads for CuatroBenefits.  We recommend this way of presenting testimonials for similar service-oriented clients.

Check out the video on the CuatroBenefits site:
Cuatro Benefits Blog | Video Testimonials:  Why our Clients Choose to Work With Us

Or check it out right here on YouTube:

ENTERMEDIA cofounder Ethan Worrel and our Head Drupal Chef Nick Lewis will be the speakers tonight at the July meeting of the Austin Drupal Meetup on the interrelated topics of UX, The Client, The Project, and Drupal.

The meetup will run from 7-10p and held at UT’s ACTLab (4th Floor CMB, Studio B, corner of Guadalupe and Dean Keeton).  Ethan and Nick will take turns presenting their brief remarks and then open the floor for questions and comments.

Without giving too much away, here’s a sampling of what you can expect to hear tonight from two of our own most thoroughly enlightening and well-mannered professionals:

UX:

• Fully leverage everything the user already knows
• Display the most valuable data…let users dig for the fine detail
• Make decisions so your users don’t have to

The Client:

• Guide them to think in terms of page types
• Demand supporting content early and often
• Most of the time, you are the client

The Project:

• Making tough choices that pay off in the long run for both parties
• How to use the Website Price Estimator 5000
  

Drupal:

• Clients can figure out how taxonomy works well enough, but how taxonomy fits into the concept of view arguments?  That’s a different story…
• [pause for laughter...the audience will think its funny...]

A few years ago, we built a simple brochure website for an Austin-based client in the construction business.  At that time, we created a geo-targeted Google Adwords campaign aimed at driving qualified leads to the site and converting them into online contacts.

This pay-per-click campaign was quite successful.  For a scant few hundreds of dollars per month the client paid Google for ad clicks, he received enough good leads submitted through the website that the first year, annual  revenue jumped from low six-figures to mid six-figures.  In the second year, the client broke seven figures for the first time ever.

The client had so much new business in the pipeline, it was all he could do to keep up with demand.  It that’s a problem, it’s a good one, right?  Unfortunately though, amid all the activity he neglected to pay his $300 AdWords bill one month and, of course, Google turned his campaign off.  The client figured:  no worries…I’m so busy anyway…

Two years pass.  The client came by our office last week and reports:  business is dead…zero…we’ve got to update the website, buy some radio, tv ads, something…the recession’s taking me under!

Our reply was predictable.  He could pay thousands on a radio spend but it’ll be expensive and hard to measure.  Alternatively, we reminded him how well he was doing with his cost efficient pay-per-click campaign.

We told him:  just pay your bill…turn your ads back on…it’s the epitome of low risk, high reward.

He took our advice.   Over the weekend he got two good sales leads through the site within the first $45 spent.  He’s undeniably great at what he does from there, we’re sure he’ll turn those new leads into business.

Imagine that.

If you’ve ever started a business–and especially if you’ve ever used a laptop computer while starting this business–chances are you’ll appreciate Kirk Ladendorf’s interview with longtime Austin entrepreneur Gary Pankonien. He led the team that developed Compaq Computer Corp.’s industry-first notebook computer many years ago.  He’s kept it moving since.

You have a range of experience in technology ranging from Compaq Computer to several small startups in Austin. How does that help you as CEO of this young company?

After you’ve ridden a few rides – and fallen in enough holes – you learn what to expect.

Many of the issues are second nature. You still have to develop the plan and solve the hard issues, but you learn how to anticipate the next moves. You learn very early that cash flow is almost more important than your mother.

What are the right traits for a technology entrepreneur? Is it technical knowledge, market savvy, organizational discipline or something else?

I think a major trait of being an entrepreneur is being able to wake up in the morning looking forward to the challenges of the day and not knowing if your business is going to live or die.

The unknown is always changing, and how you handle the change usually predicts success.

You have to process a lot of data, usually not a with a complete data set, and make decisions that will significantly impact your future.

What’s fun about running a startup?

The first time you open the mail and see the check from your first sale, it’s a good day.

I once was standing in a checkout line behind two ladies talking about this great company her husband was interviewing with and the future they were looking forward to. She eventually said who it was, and I realized that it was the company our team had built. Yes, we did hire her husband.