Hey! This is the Daily Overpass! My name is Eric and I make apps! Now today, I want
to talk about why you should always design your client apps before you code them.
When we first started doing projects for clients, we would always save the design
until the end. Well, you know, would sit down with a prospect, we would talk about
their application, they - they'd sign it off, they'd make the first
payment and then we go it. But then, you know, either I'd code it or one of my
developers will code it and we would do all the functionality. We'll release some
beta builds and they would check it over and everything was fine and
that just seemed to go, it just seemed to flow. And we would do
design at the end. And one of the things that I found was that we went over
budget on a lot of projects or you know, our internal budget because of
design. And most of the scope creep in my experience has been designed related. So,
to give you an example, well, we actually go time to release it, it'll be
like, "Ooh, could we move this over here? Could we do this over here? I don't know
if I like that font for that button... You know, I don't know if this is
going to be confusing for the user. Can we add an animation at the beginning? Can
we add some onboarding, that kind of stuff?" And it really - to give you
an example, I remember having an argument with one of my client. He was saying,
"You know, I don't understand - why isn't this app going live? When can we -
when can we release this app?" And I say, "Hey, we're ready to release now.
"Are you ready to go live?" "Well, I'm not sure if it looks
professional enough." And I go, "Sorry? What do you mean it doesn't look
professional enough?" "Well, it just needs to look more professional. How long
is that gonna take?" And I said well, "Can you tell me exactly
what you want because that didn't really mean anything to me." "It
just need to look more professional." I said, "Well..." "So, how long is it
gonna take?" and I said, "What's gonna - I don't know. It could take a day, could
take a month, could take a year." And he goes, "'m running a business here. That's
just not good enough." And I said, "Well, needs to look more professional is not
good enough." We go through each screen, and go through each one and you
know what, this is the only time it ever got heated with a client. That this
conversation - I've had other conversations with clients where it was
like, well if for games and stuff, was like the characters' too cute or
whatever. So design by its very nature is very iterative. You never know exactly
what they want and a lot of times, they can't tell you. As a software
developer myself who thinks in terms of code, it's difficult for me to do that
too. So, what we do now is we try to get design signed off
early on in the project. So like, we're using - well we use wireframe tools. I use
always use Balsamiq. Lately we've been moving over to a Adobe XD, the
Experienced Designer, which is, you know, which I really, really like because we
can collaborate on it within the team. We use Proto.io in the past, but I found
that to be too expensive, just on a on a monthly basis, I think for what it does, I
found it to be a bit expensive for my liking. So, we use Amazon
XD. Now, what we tried to do is get the design like just sort of build out some
prototypes, get it either prototypes or just JP, oh sorry, JPEG or PNG images.
Just say ok and you click on here, you go here, you go here, go here and that should
hold off development. So, development doesn't progress until we get that
signed off. Now, if we have like back-end processing or something like that, then
that's fine. We can start working on admin screens or the the backend and all
that kind of stuff, but for me, I just - I found life got a lot easier when nothing
moves forward until we get designs signed off earlier. Because, and this
is my theory here, just based on - based on the the vibe I got from people
in the past was, a lot of times when it comes to just to go live,
there's this sort of stage fright. This kind of it has to be perfect before it
goes live. We, you know, if I try to say, "Look, we needed to go live
because we don't know anything about the application, we don't know how well it's
gonna do, we don't know how the users are gonna accept it, you know, we could - we can
make guesses but at this point we should not be going into asking
friends what do you think of this, "Oh, my friend Dave said we need to add this in,
all that kind of stuff." At that point we need to just go live
and see what it does and then we could go back in and adjust it. But
because it's this stage fright, it's almost like, you know, I'm not good enough,
like if you were gonna go - like let's say, you were gonna go on - on a
big date or something and you're just - you're really nervous so you
keep checking yourself in the mirrors, "actually, I'm gonna comb my hair
again or let me go change my shirt," that kind of stuff. That's what happens in
terms of design because it's seen as a a low-priority thing. And I know that other
developers will say, "We'll give you five changes of design and that's it." Or "We'll
give you three options, you have to choose one." But we - for me, I
want them to really like the application and in order for them to really
like the application, they need to agree on design up upfront. Anyway,
it's just something that I found, for those of you are working with clients, I
think design - getting design out of the way early, then it also makes it a lot
more apparent what to change. So, if they ask for a change, you say, "Hey, we've
already - design's already been nailed down. And this is not the most easy especially
not easy with games, but that means that your designer who works on this, like
like our designer Sandee does, it has to understand the interface elements of the
app so the coders don't get there and and say, "Oh, we can't we can't do this, we
can't do a round button that spins around and flips off and pings off the
size of the walls or whateve." The designer has to understand UI elements
and the developers have to be able to do that and it's kind of marrying them up
together. So, it's a delicate balance but somehow, you know, we seen the muddle
through. Anyway, I hope that helps. Let me know if you, guys, had any trouble
with design. For me, just being a technical person dealing with design, I
mean, I know what I like. But you know, when you work with other people, it gets
a lot more difficult and I could tell - I could tell some horror
stories when it comes to designing projects and ithe design phase. So, anyway,
let me know what you, guys, think. If you have any trouble with this kind of stuff.
And anyway, that's it for today. I'll talk to you, guys, tomorrow.