Getting Real Web Development Methods

Getting Real is a term coined by the web applications company 37signals.com. This web development company mainly works on hosted applications like project management, chat, and personal organization. I thought I would share some of the excellent points made in their eBook Getting Real, and how it is benefiting I.T. Web Experts web development company:

• More features do not make a web site or web application better, they can actually kill it. For every new feature you add, first think: does this feature really make my site more useful? Or might it confuse people?
  
  
• People are always thinking of adding new features, what about removing old features that are not that useful and distract people?
  
  
• Google is an excellent example of simplicity and not adding to many features. When they do add new products, notice that they don't fill up the google.com homepage with all that junk.
  
  
• Use Epicenter Design. What is Epicenter Design? It is designing starting with what is most crucial for your web application. For example, if designing a web calendar, the calendar could still work without email reminders. But it wouldn't be a calendar without the ability to add events to it.
  
  
• Do away with gant charts and useless graphs. Work on actually getting the work done. A good process is sketch > HTML mockup > Final Site. Don't worry about mapping out the backend, start with the front-end first.
  
  
• If you can't meet your project timeline, reduce the number of features or increase the deadline. Don't try and meet the same deadline with the same number of features, or the quality of the project in its entierty will be reduced.
  
  
• Make sure your application has a good blank state. What is blank state? It is when your application has no data in it. Someone might sign up for your application and be confused on what it is actually supposed to look at or do. Putting in blank state example screens of what the data will look like once they enter it will help them visualize what they are doing.
  
  
• Work in small software teams. This reduces the amount of commuication paths.
  
  
• Focus your software on a niche rather than trying to outdo your competion with a thousand more features. Niche software fills needs better than the "do it all" type approach for everyone.
  
  
• Worry about scaling problems later on ("what if we get a million customers?"). Your first problem is getting the number of customers for your web site so that you need to scale, that is the harder chore.

Overall I highly recommend the eBook "Getting Real" by 37signals.com. A great read for any web developer or I.T. realted company.