Kill Your Processes
The small details and the specific tools definitely matter. But there’s a need to break away from tools and begin learning to act on the fly.
4/5/2015
Authored by
Categorized
We spend so much time learning the small details and tools needed to do our work — but do we spend enough time talking about the larger process? Are we too tied to our methods to break away and do what's best for the client?
This month, Blend’s User Experience Strategist Corey Vilhauer wrote about just this over at The Pastry Box Project:
As a content strategist, I spent a lot of time in the beginning learning about content audits and style guides. I defined the landscape around me by reading everything I could, creating a gigantic document, and putting my new knowledge to work. I wanted definition to shape my expectations. I struggled to find the edges of the industry.
Once we’ve found those edges, though? That’s when things get dangerous. We know all of the tools, but we haven’t quite learned how they interact. We know the terms, but we don’t know how to adapt them on the fly.
We know what we can do, but we don’t know what we should do.
Check it out. And while you’re at it, make sure you catch his entire series at The Pastry Box Project this year.
Our thoughts on web strategy.
Read articles on web strategy.
The Web Project Guide on Agile Digital Transformation Off-site link
The Web Project Guide’s Corey Vilhauer and Deane Barker joined Tim Butara and the Agile Digital Transformation podcast to talk about the process of writing the book, the web project process itself, and the role of agility when moving toward a successful launch.
Episode 11: Model Your Content (w/ Jeff Eaton) Off-site link
Corey and Deane chat about the first time they realized they really liked content modeling, and how modeling is the hidden language of content. Then, Jeff Eaton, partner at Autogram, joins to define content modeling, the concept of content reuse (and its many issues), and the balance between philosophical modeling and actually doing the work in spreadsheets.
Episode 10: Organize Your Content (w/ Lisa Maria Marquis) Off-site link
Corey and Deane chat about Information Architecture for the World Wide Web — ”The Polar Bear Book” — and then our experiences with information organization in real life. Then, Lisa Maria Marquis, author of Everyday Information Architecture and You Should Write a Book, joins to discuss how to frame information architecture for those who aren’t web people, the hidden biases in organizing content, and a bit about why you should write your own book. (We also take a critical look at Lisa Maria’s bookshelf.)