And while there are plenty of benefits, it can be a tricky scenario. Unlike those who routinely work as part of a team, the process of freelancers coming together might not be so seamless. It can take a lot of effort to make things work.

Freelancing is often an individualistic pursuit. We tend to develop our own preferences and workflows. Thus, bringing a new person into the mix can lead to clashes and confusion.

Whether you’re the project’s lead or just helping out, it’s a challenge. But not to worry – we’re here to help!

Here are some tips for collaborating effectively with other web designers.

Establish Project Goals and Parameters

Before tackling the design and development processes, everyone needs to be on the same page. That’s why establishing the project’s goals and parameters for achieving them are a must.

Knowledge of the desired outcome is one part of the picture. However, you might also want to think about benchmarks at specific points within the project as well. These serve as checkpoints to keep things going smoothly.

In web design, there are multiple paths one can choose to achieve an outcome. When collaborating, some methods may be more acceptable than others. Therefore, it’s better to have these discussions before any work is done. Better safe than sorry!

The idea is that everyone involved will know what’s expected of them. It will help to keep them on task with an understanding of how the project will come together.

And while having a video chat or phone conversation is helpful, it’s also worth putting the key points into writing. This provides a reference point that can be accessed at any time. And it can also be revised as necessary.

Learn Their Preferences (And Share Yours)

The ability to listen is always a great skill to have. And particularly valuable when you’re working with other freelance designers.

As we mentioned, every designer has their own way of working. The tools they use, the way they write code, and even their entire process might differ from yours. None of these are bad things. But they may require a period of adjustment.

Therefore, it’s worth taking the time to learn about their preferences. Ask them how they approach certain aspects of a project, like creating mockups or building custom functionality. Likewise, you’ll also want to fill them in on your process as well.

For example, knowing that your colleague usually responds to messages at the end of the workday can alleviate any fears of being ignored or lost emails. Understanding their methods for organizing and documenting projects provide an idea of what to expect as things progress.

Learning this information is beneficial to everyone, and it opens the lines of communication and helps to avoid any preventable issues. Plus, it allows for some compromise when necessary.

Keep in Touch

Whether you’re working with someone for the first time or the hundredth, communication means a lot. It ensures that goals are being met and little problems don’t become big ones.

In general, it doesn’t take a massive effort to keep in touch. There’s no need to sit through long meetings. Instead, you can leverage the power of technology.

Collaboration has been built into all kinds of tools. Messaging services such as Slack can provide space for one-on-one or group chats. Creative apps like Figma or even Google Docs let multiple people comment on and revise documents. And there are several project management apps out there that help teams track progress.

But, regardless of how you communicate, the communication itself is what matters. Having an opportunity to give or receive feedback and ask questions is a key to creating positive outcomes. Besides that, it can also enable you to build a better working relationship.

And maybe that last benefit is the biggest one of all. Becoming comfortable with your collaborators can make future projects a more cohesive experience.

The Power of Teamwork

Being part of a team (even a temporary one) isn’t always easy. It takes a willingness on all sides to communicate and adjust to how others work. But it’s usually well worth the effort.

For one, it can improve both the quality and efficiency of your projects. Each designer and developer can work to their strengths – while potentially avoiding the usual pain points.

But it’s also a great opportunity to learn something new. That could be anything from a hidden Photoshop feature to a slick CSS layout technique. You might gain knowledge that will be a significant help in your career.

Last but not least, there’s also a chance that working with another freelancer leads to even more projects. If someone has enjoyed past collaborations, they might want to bring you into the fold again down the road.

While the idea of collaborating with other web designers can seem daunting, it’s still worth considering. Once you get past any initial awkwardness, it can be a very fulfilling experience.

The post Tips for Collaborating with Other Web Designers appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

The project is more than just blocks, though. Phase 3 of Gutenberg involves adding collaborative features to WordPress. The main focus has been on design tools to this point. Now there will be a shift toward workflow.

Workflow is an overlooked subject. It’s relevant for websites maintained by multiple people. That’s likely a significant chunk of the WordPress user base. Websites in the publishing, education, and corporate enterprise sectors are all targets.

So, how will collaborative features improve WordPress? Here are a few scenarios that demonstrate how they can streamline working together.

Multiple Users Managing the Same Page

Let’s start with a personal pet peeve. I often provide technical support to my web design clients. Helping them create a page layout is a common request. It’s often a simple task. For example, it might consist of aligning an image beside the text.

This should be easy to resolve. But WordPress allows just one user at a time to edit a page. That means my client must exit the page so that I can access it.

It’s a small frustration. But it happens often enough to be a waste of time. Plus, this limitation makes training harder.

I usually end up creating a short video tutorial for them. It’s an effective tool, if not a bit overboard. There has to be an easier way to work together.

Allowing multiple users to collaborate would be a game changer. I could walk my client through the process while we’re on the same page. They’re more likely to remember it. And I won’t have to go to the trouble of making a video. Everyone wins in this scenario.

Collaboration can be useful even on small sites. It may not be used very often. But the feature is there to help when you need it.

Tweaking a Page Until It’s Just Right

WordPress currently allows users to work asynchronously. But tracking changes isn’t easy. And there’s no built-in way to communicate about them.

And what if you’re making edits to a published page? There’s no way to save changes now and release them later.

These are common roadblocks for collaborators. And both are part of Gutenberg’s Phase 3 roadmap.

We’ll eventually have a system that facilitates communication between users. Stakeholders can add notes to individual pages or blocks.

Meanwhile, changes to the revisions feature would enable users to work with the future in mind. Let’s say that we want to prepare our home page for Black Friday. We can make the necessary changes and save them. Then schedule publishing for that date.

Current methods don’t offer this kind of flexibility. Thus, a streamlined experience and increased efficiency will be welcome.

Custom Guidelines for Publishing Content

Some organizations have guidelines for publishing content. They may include rules for branding, word counts, or the inclusion of a call-to-action (CTA).

But how do we ensure that content creators meet these benchmarks? WordPress doesn’t prevent users from clicking the Publish button. Thus, content may be published without some crucial elements.

Workflow has long been a struggle for publishers and web designers. Consider blog post layouts, for example. They often assume the user will add a featured image. But some users need constant reminders to add them.

This issue could be solved by creating a custom workflow. Users may see real-time checklists that measure progress. Or the software could prevent them from publishing content that doesn’t meet the established guidelines.

These functions may not be part of WordPress core, mind you. But the software could provide a way for developers to build them. From there, an organization can design a workflow that meets their needs.

This eliminates some manual labor from the process. Editors can then focus on content instead of its structure.

Working Together – Only Better

Initially, the Collaboration phase of Gutenberg sounded a bit boring. It seemed like a niche functionality that impacted relatively few users. But the information that has been released so far is quite the opposite.

Collaborative features have a broad appeal. They go beyond large publishers and will reach mainstream users as well.

They’ll make it easier for freelancers to work with clients. And they’ll increase the synergy between designers and developers.

What’s more, the features outlined are wide-ranging. They’re not just a case of “Google Docs meets WordPress.” Entire workflows can be constructed. And they can evolve as needs change.

The end product is still a ways off. But it looks like this phase will be well worth the effort.

The post What Collaborative Features Will Bring to WordPress appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

A quick look at the dominant frameworks and technologies of the day will back this up. They all focus on visually responsive interfaces for the user, whether that’s AngularJS or React. But whether it’s visual or textual, feedback is important, there’s no denying that.

Collaboration for teams is as relevant an issue today as it was when only email was available for exchanging feedback. The volume of communication between teams is not getting smaller anytime soon and the same can be said for the complexity of this communication during web development collaboration.

Team members on the project need a system where designers can share designs with developers and other stakeholders in a simple and easy way to collect feedback so that the project moves forward as efficiently as possible.

To ensure better design collaboration, the feedback system should have certain characteristics that helps teams in web development collaborate. Let’s take a look at what these characteristics are:-

Feedback that has Context

Providing sufficient context in feedback is essential. When designers share designs with developers or review a project’s progress with managers, context is necessary to keep everyone in the loop and on the same page.

Source: zipboard.co

A major issue with sharing feedback via text based channels such as email, message threads, or even Slack is that you’re only sharing part of the information. You can give approximate ideas and translate bugs into words as much as you like, but words cannot substitute images when it comes to fruitful collaboration.

This is precisely why having screenshots and images as part of feedback is so important. Nothing beats seeing a live representation of the application.

Feedback that is Actionable

Source:notableapp.com

Time wasted recreating issues and bugs can be used so much more effectively when the problem is right in front of you. Visual feedback frees developers from having to follow every step to see the issue live so that they can devote more time to innovating and solving problems in the designs shared.

Feedback is not working the right way if it isn’t organized properly. Having a feedback system that can sort, prioritize and organize everything will keep your team from getting bogged down by the hassle of going through pages and pages of comments.

Feedback that is Accessible to all

A feedback system that makes it easy for every team member to participate in the process is surely better. Having a complex issue tracking system that needs tedious setup, a back-end server, an administrator and a special database installation is definitely not the most fun or effective way to work with your team.

That’s why a visual feedback tool is so much easier for web development collaboration. There’s next to no setup time. Most of these platforms have data hosted in the cloud so there is no overhead for the team and everything is accessible anytime from whatever location. Whether your team is working remotely or in the same room, it’s like a virtual whiteboard for effectively sharing designs with everyone, right from developers to external reviewers.

The biggest advantage of working with a visual feedback system is when collaborating with clients or external stakeholders. If people outside the team are going to review the application, they don’t need an overwhelmingly technical tool to work with. Design agencies, in particular, can benefit from this. Clients don’t need technical fuss as part of the review. They need tools that let them cut through the jargon and assess progress.

All these characteristics of visual feedback help reduce turnaround time and make collaboration faster. It also helps the entire team understand the scope of the project better. Tracking progress and tasks is much easier, all in all greatly making collaborating on web projects a more efficient exercise.

Final Thoughts

Visual feedback has a lot of benefits over conventional text based feedback systems or issue logs. Even major enterprise tools such as JIRA now offer a plugin(Capture for JIRA) for collaborating visually. There’s also lightweight tools like zipBoard and other visual bug tracking tools that can help share design with developers and other team members to collect visual feedback with better context.

The post How Visual Feedback Helps Collaboration in Web Development appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Though the assembly line is advantageous for making things like automobiles and computers, some endeavors suffer when tasks are compartmentalized. Some processes are simply more effective when the effort is collaborative. One such practice is creating really good design work.

Too often, the person with the idea meets with the designer. Then when the design is complete, it’s sent to a copywriter who must put together words that compliment it. The work is sent back through the process several times for changes before it’s finally approved.

While this creative assembly line approach is capable of producing results, the strongest work is accomplished when the exchange of ideas takes place at the beginning of the project and at intervals throughout its completion.

There could be a scientific reason for why design is stronger when designers and copywriters work together. Design work utilizes the right hemisphere of the brain, the side believed to be responsible for creative thinking, interpreting colors, recognizing images, and expressing emotions. Writing incorporates the left side of the brain, responsible for language, logic and critical thinking.

When the designer and copywriter work together, the potential for a successful final product is maximized.

When you think about it, the jobs of copywriters and designers are very similar. They are both masters of their crafts. They express complex concepts and ideas in bite-sized bits that convey meaning in a moment. The fact that one does all this with words while the other accomplishes it with images isn’t important: They are kindred, creative spirits that can amplify their abilities when they work together.

“One of the problems with being a creative is that we love to have all the ideas and claim credit for them, especially if they are awesome ideas. But in my experience, the best ideas don’t come from working in a silo,” said Michele Kamenar, dialogue artist at The Lucid Word.

“A good art director or copywriter can magnify the power of their ideas by overlapping their skill sets with the skill sets of the other. To pit them against each other totally misses the point and can even compromise the strength of the idea they are trying to pitch.”

That’s not to say that it’s always easy for copywriters and designers to work together. Artists and writers often like to work alone. This way, we can get things “just so” but it can also make us vulnerable. Having someone else to work with is like having a partner to back you up.

“Working in step along with them allows for valuable collaboration in the initial stages of the project,” said Abbey Fitzgerald, a web designer at Smartpress.com. “Questions, ideas, and strategies are discussed early in the process, which helps to find possible issues sooner rather than later. This helps to eliminate last minute design changes or finding that there is missing content that needs to be addressed.”

So how do you make sure you get the most out of your designer-copywriter partnerships? The following advice cuts both directions. Great copywriter-designer teams use the following tactics to create stronger design work, together.

• Express yourself clearly: Plan out what you want to say before you speak. Even if you’re trying to describe ethereal emotions or vague notions of color that could be difficult to define, choose your words carefully. What you say will shape the entire direction of the project, so make it count.
• Listen carefully: Pay close attention, or you could miss, or misinterpret, important details that should be included in your project. Worse yet, your partner could say something that sparks a burst of inspiration. If you’re not paying attention, the seeds of ideas could be scattered to the wind.
• Ask questions: Explore the project’s boundaries and narrow parameters with a few good questions. Clarify things you might not have understood. You may come across an important point that wasn’t covered in the design brief that would be vital to know. Asking the questions at the start of the process will help with a successful finish.
• Be open to new ideas: Don’t lock yourself in to any one concept before you brainstorm ideas with your co-creators. If you’re concentrating too much on a good idea, you might not recognize the brilliance of a great idea. Open your mind, listen to your team’s ideas and let your mind explore the possibilities.
• Go with the flow: When a designer and a copywriter really connect over a concept, it can lead to creativity flow. “Flow” is when you’re so focused on your project, you lose track of time or forget to eat. In such a state, the perfect words spill across the page, and the right designs appear almost as if by themselves. You never know where creative flow will bring you, but it’s where the best ideas are found.

At first glance, it might seem that the assembly line approach would be great for all manner of projects, but that’s just not the case. In creative work, collaboration and teamwork is the key to success.

When we work together, we can become greater than the sum of our expertise and foster an environment where exceptional ideas take flight.

The post Collaboration Between Designers and Copywriters appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Take a look through your portfolio. Are there any projects in there that you weren’t quite happy with? If so, think back to your relationship with that client. Were both parties on the same page, so to speak?

Over the years, I have found that some of my best work has been done in collaboration with clients, not in spite of them. Working with my client as if they are a teammate, rather than someone ordering a sandwich from me at a fast food counter, often means good things are in store for their website.

On the other hand, there have been clients who have been more difficult to work with. Or, perhaps it was me who was more difficult to work with at that time. Either way, the quality of the finished product tends to suffer in these situations.

Find a Balance of Power

As designers, some of us (myself included) tend to think the world revolves around our opinions. After all, we’re the experts who have been hired to do the job right. Sometimes the very mention of a certain idea from a client sends a chill down our spine. The more arrogant among us may even make an ill-regarded comment about it.

The trouble is, at that moment, we’ve tried to shift all the power to our side. While it’s certainly nice to have a lot of say in the design process, the relationship between designer and client can be harmed.

Be humble. The key is to listen to what your client has to say. Then, try to figure out what they are trying to accomplish with it. As the expert, try and take what they have suggested and build upon it in a way that makes sense for the project. If you’re not sure what their intent was, don’t be afraid to ask them to provide more clarity.

The bottom line is, the client must have some say in the process. How much say really depends on the individual(s) involved. Some people are more hands-on than others. The idea is to form a relationship where both sides can speak honestly about their ideas.

Be Accessible (Not Just in Your Code)

There are a lot of people out there who are a bit intimidated by technology. When they hire you to create an amazing new site for their business, they may not know how to communicate with you. As a designer, you may also have problems communicating with someone who doesn’t know WordPress from GoDaddy.

A lack of communication with your clients can lead to a lot of misunderstandings and revisions of your hard work. It’s important to try and explain things as plainly as you can and let them know it’s ok to ask you questions. Show them examples of the ideas you’re presenting.

This can take a lot of patience, but it can really help your client to feel empowered. If they feel more confident about what’s going on, they’ll be able to make better decisions.

Be a Tour Guide, Not a Professor

There are times when you may have to train your clients to use a CMS or some other software. Probably the worst thing you can do is to sit down at their desk and just start clicking away at features.

Instead, try letting the client "drive" the demo. Explain different features of the software and politely ask that they click on specific areas of interest. Think of yourself as a helpful passenger who is pointing out landmarks in a city.

Again, this is about making your client feel more at ease with what is happening. It helps build their confidence and their trust in you as a "tour guide".

In Conclusion

I’ve found that, when I’m exceptionally busy, it can be hard to take the time to work on that team atmosphere with my clients. Sometimes, it’s easy to feel like just getting the project done is the goal.

Still, even for the stressed-out among us, taking those extra few moments to engage our clients can have huge benefits in terms of how well you work together. I often find that doing so brings more of the human element to a project. And that, in turn, can reduce stress.

Chances are that you and your client will still work together long after their new website is launched. Remember to make that extra effort to become a part of a team. You’ll both feel better, and their website will be better off for it.

All images via Bloomua’s Portfolio on Shutterstock.

The post Building Websites in Collaboration With Clients, Not in Spite of Them appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

In this article I want to share tools and ideas for building projects with open source. Remote developers are also found working to help teams all over the world. The Internet has drastically changed the way that we develop software. And it means that lessons can be taught from anywhere at any time! It is a revolutionary community and worth getting involved if you have an interest to study more complicated web development techniques.

Managing Tasks

You can never underestimate the process of getting organized. This is especially true if you are working in a team with 3 or more members who all need to be sharing information on a daily basis. I have read a lot of good things about Trello which is a newer startup in the field. A lot of techies and freelancers agree that Trello is fantastic when it comes to organizing multiple people together.

The Basecamp option has been around for a while and it does work perfectly. But if you are looking for a new webapp with an easier interface then Trello is definitely worth the try. One of the people helping to launch Trello recently published a blog post discussing how it is meant to be a horizontal application which scales among all levels of computer literacy. This may be compared to Microsoft Word or Internet Explorer, which almost everyone can operate.

But another solution is Wunderkit which is most well known for the infamous Wunderlist mobile app. The team has been hard at work reinventing the project so it is more friendly to a group of people working together. Additionally you may have members in a team creating private lists for specific job tasks, such as PHP development vs HTML/CSS development. Both apps are worth a try and ultimately a good project management tool is what will help you and your team communicate and simply get things done.

Scouring Open Source Projects

What kind of discussion would this be without locations for open source projects? Almost everybody knows about Github which is a social networking site for publishing open source projects. Developers can post in nearly every language and the website search feature can help you find existing projects which are available to download.

There is no telling what you can find when searching through Github. Even typing a few keywords into Google coupled with “github” should yield a few helpful results. There are hundreds if not thousands of jQuery plugins and similar WordPress/Drupal/Joomla! plugins, too. But Github is merely one network in a sea of projects released as open source.

I find Bitbucket still has a lot of great repos available to the public. Bitbucket is fantastic at handling multi-dev team projects where each person is accessing codes with their own account. A bit more complicated to pickup, but the profile controls on Bitbucket are easy to master. I find their site is slightly more reserved than Github. Some developers will pay to have private server space for development.

This is also the case on Github but the amount of private code is dwarfed in comparison to the free projects. Although many developers will only publish their codes on their own website, relayed in a blog post or something. So to find these open source projects it would require a Google search with some related keywords.

Coding in the Cloud

It almost seems like cloud computing is a pastime in our technologically advancing society. But the amount of webapps and tools which have been released on this technology is only getting larger. Most notably the choice of building smaller HTML5/CSS3/JS webapps inside an IDE code editor right from a webpage.

JS Bin is a respected launch which has a few similar competitors. JSFiddle is another website which allows for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript coding. The rendering window can be reloaded and run each time you make changes. Additionally the repos will be stored in the database under your personal username, so they can be easily duplicated or split into another project. Plus you always have the option to come back at a later date and make changes or revisions.

One other common solution is Dabblet which ties into the Github Gists functionality. You have the ability to write simple pages in HTML/CSS and they are rendered directly in real-time. This may possibly be my favorite cloud application because of the instantaneous updates. It is very simple to prototype entire website layouts, practice newer CSS3 techniques, build theme styles, and really anything you would need.

Again these Dabblet entries can be accessed right from your own profile page. The system will connect into your Github account for pulling older Gists. This means you can even share with your friends & followers online! The cloud IDE market has exploded with all of these amazing features. I can only expect good things to come in the very near future.

Save Development Time

The purpose of starting with open source projects is to save yourself time. When somebody has already written the functionality you need, why re-do it all from the beginning? It really comes down to saving time and pushing out new projects at a faster rate.

When working in teams this can be a challenge because you need to find something which everybody can agree will work. Even if some developers are not familiar with the system, it may be worth transitioning and helping them to catch up. Most of the frontend/backend libraries are versatile enough to produce great results in any setting.

Fork CMS is a notable mention because their system is built on a nearly identical stack as WordPress. The ever-so-popular blogging system continues to dominate the field of new website launches. But I think Fork provides an even safer backend, templating engine, administration panel, and loads of modules/themes for customizing.

I only bring this up as an alternative to WordPress or some of the other popular names. Personally I have used Fork a number of times and their product is very good. Lots of smart people helping with the development and squashing bugs. And if you take the time for practicing I can guarantee it’ll be very easy collaborating with similar Fork developers. As is the case with other WordPress devs, Drupal devs, and Joomla! devs.

One other special open source framework is Twitter Bootstrap. I know this gets mentions everywhere but I have to bring up the flexibility of Bootstrap when working in a team. You can include a slew of custom CSS resets right from within the Bootstrap CSS file. Additionally many common widgets can be applied into your page through JavaScript, including accordion menus or modal windows. There are so many dynamic JS features to look through – it is quite the extensive library!

If you are not familiar developing projects with other people it can be very stressful when first getting started. But to anybody who is seriously considering a future in web development it is also a powerful learning stage. There will always be other people who are smarter than you, who have more experience and have been on bigger projects in the past. Take the advantage to learn from these colleagues and you may be surprised at the substantial benefits of collaborating dev ideas in a team.

Final Thoughts

Working together and managing open source codes is not just about programming. You also need to be organized, functional, and have other team members on the same page. Good documentation will never write itself and the first iteration of your project will probably not be perfect. Just keep in mind that everything is a learning process, and don’t give up on your ideas!

I hope these tools and resources may provide some insight for web developers looking to collaborate on various projects. Even freelancers may find these tools enjoyable when dealing with clients or 3rd party agencies. But the overall community of open source developers will continue to push the envelope brimming with new ideas on the horizon.

The post Team Collaboration for Building with Open Source Code appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

In this article I want to discuss some of the key ideas behind teamwork in a startup environment. When first building your new idea the adventure can feel exciting and spontaneous. But without a steady plan you’ll eventually lose focus and derail off the tracks at some point. I’d like to break this mold by offering a few helpful tips for stabilizing any startup team.

Organizing Workflow

During the first few weeks at any startup there will be so much to accomplish. It feels like everybody is working in turbo drive to push out new e-mails, server changes, script updates, template bug fixes, etc.

This chaos will quickly grow out of control unless somebody takes the authority of organizing targeted actions. It’s best if 1-2 leading founders can help with long-term project management goals. Get everybody on the team together and discuss the most important objectives over the next few months. Which features are pertinent in determining the success of your startup?

Every small business should go through this stage during the early days of their growth. However if you have a team behind your ideas it’s much easier brainstorming on some more exotic topics. If the team is constantly running into pitfalls you may consider hosting these meetings once a month, or even more often if needed. This is perfect for keeping everybody working on the same page.

Open Delegated Tasks

A well-oiled startup will require some of the best talent you can find. Or even if they aren’t the best programmers or designers, your teammates should be motivated and willing to learn new talents along the way. Working at a startup can develop into the perfect opportunity for honing new skills in website design, development, and marketing.

Yourself or another project manager should be in charge of communicating with everybody on the team regarding their duties. Some people should be focusing on frontend web development, others on graphics and icons. You may also want to have people marketing to increase brand awareness. Make sure that everybody has a place working in their own niche.

It’s best if you can place teammates working on time-sensitive investments as the top priority. Make a small list of all the important things which need to get done, and schedule out some timeframes. Open communication offers trust and a level of respect which you can’t find at many larger tech companies.

Constructive Feedback

One huge benefit to working with a team is offering and gathering feedback. You can’t always count on your users to provide the most helpful suggestions. But you can always ask questions to your team of engineers and graphics designers.

These are the people working online each day and picking up small annoyances. Startups run into trouble when they grow too big for their own good and begin ignoring the most obvious criticisms. A familiar example is the recent sale of Digg.com to Betaworks after launching the horrendous v4 release. Smaller mistakes can snowball into big ones if ignored for too long, so try and keep an open mind about changing your opinion down the road.

Progressive Alterations

I will vouch for solid teamwork techniques even moreso when I am unable to work. There are plenty of days where you’ll be dealing with an emergency, running errands, stuck in appointments, or just feeling under the weather. These are the days you are happy to let the work fall back onto the team.

Over time you begin to realize and accept that your startup idea will continue growing with each passing week. New features are implemented quickly and traffic numbers will also draw attention. You want to construct a team that’s steady and willing to commit to building one exceptional product. This will of course require time, and thus progressive updates are the best solution for overall growth.

This method also leaves some free time for your team members to bounce around ideas before creating them. Perhaps your plans of 6 months ago are now outdated, and there are more critical issues to deal with. Having the stamina to rebound quickly is a major team asset, especially working in the realm of fast-paced Internet startups.

The Melting Pot

My favorite analogy is comparing a new startup team with a sweet melting pot of various ideas. You’re combining so many creative people together under one roof to build a single product, either for the web or desktop or mobile smartphones. This will sometimes lead to conflict. But understand that not all conflicts are bad if dealt with properly.

At times it can be favorable if you are open to new ideas and willing to let other people take charge for a while. Over time you’ll learn to trust each of your teammates with some larger-scale decisions. The melting pot theory can bring about new opinions and techniques which you had never even considered! This is what makes the concept so intriguing.

Education and learning is truly the greatest benefit you’ll receive from your friends and teammates. It’s impossible for one person to know everything, and this is why businesses can grow so quickly with a large group of dedicated people. This is also why a brand new startup can scale and reform new changes with tremendous speed.

Open yourself to these changes and they will appear much quicker. Even in a team of 3-4 people you can accomplish significant tasks by helping each other. The act of sharing knowledge and compelling ideas is how some of the best companies in our history have been started.

Final Thoughts

Internet startups are some of the more exciting businesses launching in the new century. Much of our past corporate structures have been molded around the physical world, and we’re just now entering a time where digital businesses are thriving in all sectors. Smaller startups can launch with 1 or 2 employees and scale very quickly.

I hope this article can offer some inspiration and ideas for working in a team setting. No great idea can be truly managed by one person. But you shouldn’t fall for hiring any ordinary team either. Pick your real battles and hold your teammates to the same high standards as your own quality of work. A successful team-centric business startup is all about reasonable compromise and commitment to the fullest extent.

The post The Benefits of Teamwork in a Startup Environment appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Document Collaboration, Sharing and Editing

First, of course, the 7000-pound gorilla. Google was among the earliest upstarts in the collaborative office tools space with its Google Docs offering. Slow and unsteady at first, it has now blossomed into a feature-rich suite of Excel-like spreadsheet, word processing, presentation and drawing applications.

The recent addition of online storage (with up to 5 GB of free space) in the form of Google Drive has made it an even more attractive proposition. If you haven’t looked at Google Docs lately, you’ll find significant improvements compared with even a few months ago.

Zoho‘s suite of collaborative applications is extremely extensive, covering almost all facets of collaboration. Zoho ‘Chat’ facilitates real-time group discussions across employees, while its ‘Docs’ application allows for easy document collaboration, sharing and management (imported from MS Office, or created natively through the Zoho suite of office apps). The Zoho suite of online spreadsheets, word processing, notepad and presentation tools is fairly strong, allowing simultaneous access, sharing and editing of documents in the cloud across an entire distributed organization.

Zoho’s offerings aren’t limited to document sharing and collaboration though, and it boasts of a full line-up of business and productivity applications, from a simple calendar app to a fullfledged CRM system and site-builder. The prices for each application vary, ranging from free to several dollars per user, per month. Altogether, Zoho offers 29 applications spread across three categories (collaboration, business, and productivity apps) — a one-stop shop for everything a small business might need.

Microsoft Office 365 is the third option in this category — an online port of MS Office. Considering the eroding traditional (offline) user base for MS Office, Microsoft has devoted considerable time and development dollars to perfecting Office 365.

The end result is a powerful suite of collaborative tools — calendar, email, spreadsheets, word processing, presentations, and OneNote — that mimic the desktop versions of these applications. While Microsoft offers a free trial, to take full advantage of all the features you will have to upgrade to one of the several paid plans — ranging from $4 per user, per month for email, to $20 per user, per month for enterprise-grade customers.

File Sharing, Collaboration and Synchronization

DropBox has emerged as the file sharing and synchronization platform of choice, offering 2 GB of storage for free per user, and up to 50 GB for just $9.99/month. Referring friends can earn you up to 16GB of free space.

Box.com is the other major player in this field, offering DropBox-like convenience and usability at $9.99 for 25 GB of storage space, and $15/user/month for up to 500 users and 1000 GB of disk space for business customers.

Google Drive is the latest entrant in this space, offering 5GB of free space. It works seamlessly with Google Docs, which makes it more efficient than either of the above two competitors, especially for businesses that rely extensively on Google Docs. Additionally, OCR support and search integration set this offering apart. The kerfuffle over the Terms of Use and the ownership of uploaded documents, however, should give you pause before putting private or important files on Google Drive.

Project/Task Management and Collaboration

37Signals was an early trailblazer in the collaborative software space and still remains the platform of choice for entrepreneurs, startups and small business owners. It offers a host of productivity and collaboration applications, including the popular Basecamp for managing products, Highrise to manage contacts, and Campfire for real-time discussions and collaboration. Pricing varies from product to product. Highrise, the CRM tool, for instance, starts at $24 per month.

Asana is a new entrant in the task management and collaboration space and offers an easyto- use productivity tool designed specifically for small businesses. Asana allows teams ranging from two to thousands of people to stay in touch, sync files and collaborate over shared tasks. It is free to use for up to 30 members, with prices starting from $100/month for 30 members or more.

Conclusion

The online collaboration space is crowded, with competitors offering products that often integrate productivity, sharing and synchronization. In fact, the boundaries between collaboration and communication, sharing and synchronization, are becoming more and more blurred as all business moves towards the cloud. Small business owners are, indeed, spoiled for choice.

What are your favorite cloud collaboration tools?

The post Collaboration Done Right – Eight Tools to Help appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

The two perform very specific yet important jobs which harmoniously combine to create amazing web pages.

Oftentimes, however, bickering can ensue, leading to arguing and lost time. All client work, from small-scale operations to large design firms, is very important and must be treated as such. Below we’ll go over a few tips to help designers and developers reach a middle ground.

Portrayal of Ideas

One of the biggest problems arises from a misunderstanding of goals and ideas. While designers are interested in sketching and displaying their interests visually, developers are often not so lucky.

It takes time to knock out bits of code, and creating a program isn’t an easy task. Communication between the two teams will likely clear up many of these issues. Before even starting on a mockup comp, have everybody sit down and go over their objectives for the project. In this way, everything is put on the table, so everybody is moving forward at the same pace.

Developers may also consider practicing some type of visual communication for programs. Flow charts and graphical diagrams are often the best way to represent what’s going on. It may be worthwhile to practice building programs out of the conversation, too.

This isn’t exactly common practice, but it does help to strengthen your knowledge as a programmer. Begin by talking out all of the steps needed to build the website you’re looking at, piece by piece. Even write these things down in a list if it helps.

These individual pieces will come together in the end to create one final web application, which can then be passed off to launch.

Carefully Plan Deadlines

Nobody enjoys deadlines, but they are a must in business. Especially when working with high-class firms and clientele from all around the world, design work must be placed on a schedule.

This is unfortunate for designers since rushed work is almost never good. Time management is a crucial skill to have mastered and apply to everyday life. Once you know how much time is available, it’s much easier to start right away and plan an easygoing work routine.

The alternative is crunching numbers and pushing your limits the last few nights of a project. This technique can work with developers, although not encouraged because writing code is mostly logical and doesn’t require high reigns of creativity. Design work can only go for so long before quality begins to degrade seriously.

Group Morale!

Provide enthusiasm and cheer to all of your co-workers. Even though designers and developers may not see eye-to-eye all the time, we can all come together and acknowledge the work we do is important.

If everybody is working together to keep others motivated, there is no falling behind in the group. All tasks can be finished on time and well before the due date. In this way, there’s extra room in the schedule for possible changes, updates, revisions, or anything else.

If it’s possible, try building a work plan with your fellow group. Everybody is in on the work together, so why not grind out the process together, too? Generally, the designer(s) will create a mockup and pass this on to the developers.

From here, the coding process begins, and each web page is carefully crafted. If there’s any backend work or CMS implementation, this would also be addressed post-template design. After the initial layout, the designers’ workload shifts to smaller details. These can include page icons or banner graphics.

Ask Questions

Confusion is common amongst a large group, so there are bound to be questions from some people. Don’t hold back anything you’re unsure of, as it’ll ultimately slow down the process.

It’s important to feel comfortable in the working environment and speak openly when you feel the need. Clarifying a small detail up front will get you a direct answer and keep the project train moving. This is much more the case between developers who are working on similar features (frontend/backend Ajax effects).

Not only should fellow teammates be asking questions, but project leaders are imposed to run questions by the clients. If the team is indecisive about certain aspects of the project, it would be simpler to contact the consumers directly to figure out what they want.

If there is ever a lack of information, don’t hold anything back – ask questions when necessary and keep your head moving forward!

Be Respectful of Workspace Time

This is often a no-brainer, but it doesn’t hurt to be repeated. Each designer and web developer is important to a project and needs to be given time to work. If everybody is hounding each other and driving the team mad, then nobody is productive.

Respect is the name of the game and will get design firms much further in business. Even on a small scale level, it’s enormously important to have respect for your partners. Designers and developers each perform a completely separate yet key role in website development.

Make sure all teammates are communicating their ideas openly and honestly. At all times, a project work floor should feel fast-paced but relaxed and open. All digital creators can get stressed at times. It’s important to recognize this and release it.

Whether a designer or developer, just stick to your path and remember everybody is working as a team to reach the same end goal.

The post Tips for Compromising Between Designers & Developers appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.