This post is dedicated to my fellow web designers and developers to share our experience of knowledge exchange between the developer and the client. Our field combines business development, graphic design, technology, and user experience design – a basketful of very different areas of expertise. When dealing with clients one does face a challenge of clearly and effectively communicating the goals and results of work performed in the mentioned areas.

We believe that our core purpose is to solve business challenges for our clients. No, I haven’t forgotten you Mac-loving-single-mouse-button-fanatic designers; a business solution includes an application platform, solid data design, and web design which makes the UI and the site approachable and easy to use (convert, transact, click on a monkeys butt, etc.). Your everyday challenge, then, becomes to successfully deliver the project on time while satisfying the clients requirements for visual, business, and aesthetic requirements.

You're Not as Smart as You Think

But Google Is

The challenge here is that I like to think I’m always right (boy, would my wife have a thing to say about this) and that becomes tricky when communicating with clients. As a professional in the field, I am able to detect patterns, usability issues, trends in the industry and other important issues that the client might not be aware of. On the other hand, I’m a complete idiot when it comes to semiconductor temperature tolerances, furniture preferred at pre-school institutions, or the importance of steel spikes in this year’s fashion of lederhosen. My client, on the other hand, is an Encyclopedia Britannica for every single one of those topics. What I am trying to say is that you need to remember that you're an expert of your field only and that you should prick up your ears when the client is telling you something.

We Can Both Win

Negotiating for a win-win result

So as you’re treading through your pitiful pixel pushing existence you need to be aware of things that might put your sorry developer/designer self in a position that is advantageous in getting those project sticking points negotiated through. Have you ever had a client who wanted a larger logo on their website? Maybe a logo which is made in flash and a little earth spins and then sparks!? All valid requirements, I’m sure, and so as you were slowly stabbing your quads with a pencil under the table in the meeting you should have realized that owners of businesses love their brands and have emotional attachment to them. Your response, then, should be based on a composite of research based facts (best presented as a link to a reputable source on the web), an explanation that is specific to their business.

Damage Control

Sometimes Bending Over is Part of Your Job

A successful negotiator (you are a negotiator; maybe not a gun totting hostage holding Samuel L. Jackson, but a negotiator none the less) delivers a solution that allows both parties to win. Your client is happy that their demands have been met by the responsive and well informed web developer, and you are happy because you didn't have to waste time in meetings. Hopefully, after you demonstrate the facts and reasoning for keeping the logo the same size, the client will change their mind and leave you drooling in ecstasy over being right and not having to go back for a fix. In the case that they don’t, you still don’t have to increase the size but perhaps reevaluate the white space and other visual trickery associated with that devilishly sexy design work.

Authoritative Position

Your voice has to be heard

As I’ve mentioned before, you do wield some authority in this line of work but so does your client in their business. I recommend that on every project you establish attainable and clearly defined goals, goals that will be measured by performance of the website and are supported by strict deadlines. If you or your client don't meet certain goals and deliverables by the designated deadline - you can still try to launch the site if all critical items are completed and then clear up the remaining items once the site is live. This strategy is used by major tech companies such as Google and achieves several important things:

• Forces you to deliver on time
• Forces you to focus on date based deliverables which makes the client easier to educate on “sticky” issues
• Forces the client to deliver content, stock photos, and their ideas to you on time because the resulting missing features will have to be paid on a consulting hourly basis.

As you’re working towards these goals understand that at a certain time your opinion and your decisions on the project is critical to its success – there’s no backing down or shoving your tail between your legs. At certain times you cannot negotiate and a client must understand that they are paying for this expertise you are providing for a reason - you know your stuff!

Keep in mind that your client also has authority and knowledge that might not be accessible to you at the point of negotiations. For example:

At the end of the day you are at the mercy of the client and need to deliver all requirements, but you need to perceive your value and be able to demonstrate it through examples, research, and logical arguments. Be responsive; ask a lot of questions to understand the client’s motivation. I endorse client education, but not to the point of losing the client and project. Remember that your client is a resource you should utilize and good communication will allow both of you to get the project finished in time to watch the mens figure skating competition.

Another year crumbles behind us as our databases are pleasantly ripening with new data and clients. A good and exciting year 2009 was, with goals achieved, lessons learned, and ideas hatched for the next twelve months.

Some Major Accomplishments

The projects we undertook in 2009 reflect our dual path business philosophy, which is to focus on development of self sustaining web systems that generate perpetual revenue by either service or product offerings, and development of systems for our clients that solve their business problems. The exciting consulting development projects we completed in 09, allowed us to pursue ventures that might have been otherwise unavailable to us due to time and resource constraints.

At the beginning of the year we won a bid to develop a new website for the Lava Lite people. They’re the guys who make the, and I’m quoting here, Original Lava Lamp. Besides being totally cool (they made us say that), the lamps are an American culture icon; needless to say we were very excited to implement our e-commerce engine and design a user friendly ui. Our relationship has continued to grow and we’re currently working on new features and projects for our goo loving friends.

Much like a little pink poodle that doesn’t have the sense to stop barking at a pit-bull, we are slowly but steadily expanding our typographic web efforts and chewing on the heels of the font industry big players. Our simple, quick, and intuitive e-commerce platform lead to dramatic growth in web sales and our SEO work has exploded relevant web traffic. We redesigned AscenderCorp.com, launched a new version of AscenderFonts.com, and redesigned SearchFreeFonts.com. In 2010 we have even more exciting new font & web technologies coming your way so stay tuned.

We continued and expanded our relationship with Sarpino’s Pizzeria franchise by continuously improving their www.gosarpinos.com website and internal web systems. We implemented an unprecedented customer feedback functionality for all Sarpino’s restaurants which allows customers to submit feedback about their Sarpino’s experience. The content of their feedback is published immediately on the store page of that Sarpino’s restaurant without censorship. The negative feedback is removed from restaurant pages only after satisfactory resolution of customer’s complaint has been reached. We view the Sarpino’s franchise as pioneers in enhancing their customer experience though web technologies.

The successful completion of Sarpino's projects has been steadily enhancing our waist lines, too, as the team has been well supplied with our favorite thin crusts through the development process.

Lowery McDonnell Company approached us to create a new e-commerce system for their educational furniture and supply business. A combined catalog of tens of thousands of items from multiple wholesalers has been interpreted and imported into a new database, allowing a central simplified administration interface for product management. EDI and SOAP links were established with drop ship wholesalers allowing Lowery McDonnell uninterrupted flow from order placement to fulfillment. Custom functionality was developed for LMC that allows budgeting, approval chains, multi vendor integration, robust search, tiered pricing, and more. After a successful and smooth implementation, DevBridge and LMC created a new service that is now focused on licensing and re-branding the existing LMC product catalog and commerce system to other resellers.

A continuous flow of consulting projects and a steady stream of revenue from our partnerships enabled us to invest time and resources into startup projects such as ConceptFeedback.com. Andrew Follett, a marketing professional at AirCycle.com, came up with an idea of a community based website for marketers, designers and web developers who wanted to get actionable feedback on their concepts (look, I draw kittens!). After several brainstorming sessions Andrew and DevBridge formed a partnership. You are probably sensing a trend here. DevBridge would develop the system, and Andrew would focus on the marketing and service aspects. Half a year later and we’re over 5,000 users, a ton of high quality concepts and professionals, and developing a new revision of the system that will expand with premium concepts, paid profiles, a creative marketplace and more.

The Growing Family

Like that doubled headed calf, DevBridge believes that doubling brain capacity is a smart evolutionary move. During 09 our team has grown twofold and now stands twelve strong. Increased capacity means quicker project turnaround time and larger Friday Thai food lunch bills. DevBridge headquarters are still in Chicago, however our development taskforce now spans multiple continents and time zones. We welcome our new members to our family and wish them to love this job as much as we do.

A relaxing drumming of raindrops is beating against the windows at DevBridge – nature is preparing for yet another season of slumber. Shades of yellow and red are embracing forests and parks alike; the pesky neighbor squirrel is no longer bothering Tomas as it’s time is consumed with various nut gathering activities. Spirits inside the office, however, are quite on the other side of the spectrum with activity peaking at an all time high. New employees, multiple product launches, and deadlines creeping up on us leave little time for melancholy and nut gathering (Marius also buys us nuts in these large containers, so we technically don’t have to gather them in preparation for winter).

Our dysfunctional technology obsessed family grows once again as a new developer joins our ranks from the already ice covered Lithuania. Logistical hurdles of working in sub zero temperatures aside, Karolis is good at more than fending off polar bears that tend to crawl into his development lair. A self proclaimed hacker extraordinaire, Karolis has picked up the workload like a true champ: his recent Facebook post indicated that he’s “Looking for some hot Chix”. While we would hate to crush his dreams we feel it is important to inform that the sickly paleness acquired while working in front of a monitor for ten hours a day will indeed make women believe one to be a vampire. Vampires are the new hotness these days, however, so it may not be such a bad thing.

Since we couldn’t find any large comic book conventions happening this fall, we decided to visit Microsoft Professional Developers Conference yet again. Everyone here is very excited about the conference because we had such a great time last year: Tomas for the industry insights, I for the excellent lunch and dinner buffets. To compound the effectiveness of all this training we’re even shipping over Gedas for a four week long coding binge. A complete program of advancement has been prepared, including Call of Duty basic training that we like to call “how to collapse gracefully as the masters induce heavy lead poisoning into your system”. We would also like to inform that our workload bandwidth will slum incredibly on November 10th, the release date of the new Modern Warfare game. Office computers have been equipped with new headsets, all coffee cups now feature rubber grips, and developers communicate in short bark like commands that are usually followed by a string of random Alfa Tango Charlies.

As I have mentioned previously, we’ve been staying really busy with projects, nurturing this economy back to life one AJAX call at a time. Just recently we launched a new version of AirCycle.com, expanded LoweryMcDonnell.com to have e-commerce and distributor communication capabilities, and launched Ballco Manufacturing and Health Directions websites. Our efficiency is in part due to the recent fascination with certain inspirational/technique books, which should be read in the following sequence:

• A seminar recording of David Allen’s “Getting Things Done”


• Snowball – the biography of Warren Buffet


• The 4 Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss

You can learn more about the books by clicking on the links, I honestly don’t feel like reviewing them here one by one… I must stress, however, that they all have some very good, functional advice for individuals and professionals alike.

The clock is showing 2PM on a Saturday afternoon and my lunch time calzone is slowly tranquilizing me to sleep. As exciting as it is for you to read this blog post, I’m sure, I must spin it to an end. Farewell and keep in touch!

The business strategies used at DevBridge have been forged through the grueling and millennium lasting conference calls and thirty person meetings with the marketing department at the helm. Ok, maybe I’m being just a tad facetious. Marketing has a place in an organization, but we’re big on the theory that a product should market itself through its features and uniqueness.

What sets us apart from other medium sized firms is our rapid no-nonsense development approach. Conceptualizing ideas, quickly weighing the benefits and going right to development and deployment is something that would make some corporate marketing and IT departments self combust in flaming fireballs. A tedious and wasteful process is unfortunately the norm in the industry and we deal with these companies on a daily basis.

Part of our role as business consultants is to tell people that their branding campaign that they just spent tens of thousands of dollars on means nothing without the meat and potatoes: the tool, the service, or the product. Look at Skype, Facebook, and Twitter – do you honestly believe marketing played a large role in the success of these mammoths? Function first – marketing later. I can’t peacefully watch my daily dose of Kardashian Sisters without hearing every other sixty year old newscaster drop free advertising by asking you to follow their news on Twitter.

I apologize, I’m drifting off target. We like to think of software development in terms of this algorithm:

There’s nothing revolutionary in this approach, yet for some reason people are inherently susceptible to getting stuck in the little nook between concept and development. Perhaps it has something to do with the unease of taking action and claiming responsibility for failures, yet I can’t think of a worse thing that drawn out, stuck in limbo planning stages. In our experience first-to-market is the only advantage available in the modern software development landscape. Aggressive development fueled by continuous feedback creates a flexible and efficient environment where the users of the software provide the so needed growth nutrients. The initial concept might mutate in front of your eyes as your target audience will actually perceive a different value in the tool than you originally planned or thought of. Stay on your toes – that’s a sign you need to shift your goals and adapt. This is the time to tell your marketing department to go kayaking, because more than likely they will try to shift the focus back to the original spec.

We walk the talk with our own mutant child – ConceptFeedback.com. The idea was born out of a need to get unbiased opinions on graphic designs, marketing concepts, and usability of sites and tools that were in their infancy stages. Pixel pushing syndrome aside, clients are usually very emotionally vested in their projects and are unable to clearly state what they dislike or would like to change. Getting a third party involved (a third party of opinionated, passionate and creative individuals) is the most logical step… yet there were no such services out there.

We brainstormed the concept with Andrew Follett, established the minimalistic criteria that was needed for this type of service to be useful and got the site up and running within a month. Fast forward a couple of months and we’re close to 1500 users. We are receiving requests for features and input on a daily basis and are on the verge of deploying an updated version. The irony is that the tool itself is a physical interpretation of the algorithm I speak of in this same blog post – develop, get feedback, develop again. The “must have” features we were planning for version 2 are now on the “Someday” list as real use and need has been created by the social aspect of the tool.

It's rather uncomfortable here. The splintered wooden table has little ornamentation left on it's antique frame. My sweaty back is pressed against it and the radiating heat of the recently utilized M16 is pleasantly warming my face and palms. I still have twenty rounds left in my clip, but after that it's slicing time - and you know how much I like slicing.

And here's the soft rattle of someone's Ak47 breathing death down it's barrel. My map lights up with a cute little red dot and I'm on my way, anticipating the encounter with the aforementioned tango, slowly caressing the expanded clip.

HT-Mielas bursts out of a weathered shack, the nozzle of his rifle still glowing red, face painted by the sickly yellowish sunset of a far eastern continent. My nemesis' heart skips a few beats as the realization of imminent lead poisoning creeps into his head.

Today is yet another day of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. There are no computers in this office; there are, however, AK47's, M16's, ballistics, kill to death ratios, air-strikes and UAV's. The crew is completely engrossed in digital annihilation with lunch discussions ranging from effectiveness of stun grenades to the annoyance of helicopter support I dispatch.

Next week the Air Cycle crew is deploying to our bunker for a company to company battle royale... Like puppies into a coal furnace.

In other news:

• We launched our new site. We wanted to home in more on our core strengths: system building, e-commerce, and custom web solutions.
• ConceptFeedback has grown to a thousand registered users with feature additions every week.
• Launched a new AscenderFonts website with improved usability and a friendlier cart process.
• Marius hooked us up with wireless speakers for the office so now "Barbie Girl" can be listened to while traversing from bathroom to kitchen to working space.
• Majority of the crew here is fascinated by "Getting Things Done" and are not doing much else but figuring out how to get more things done.
• Tomas went to a four day hockey camp where he proceeded not to get all of his teeth knocked out. His hockey knowledge now rivals that of most Canadian citizens.
• We have a team outing scheduled for some paintballing. I fear I will be punished for my efficiency in Call of Duty.
• Weekly code review sessions with Tomas have started. People finally have time to catch up on their sleep.

That's it for now, folks.

You ever get that project where the client begs you to put that uh... fancy 600x400 pixel flash intro on their web page? You know the one I'm talking about: no real function or use, a bunch of circles floating around while some techno reject soundtrack plays in the background and you start getting flashback from your clubbing days?

Apart from fond memories of glow sticks, those intros are not only lame and useless but they also increase the bounce rate on the home page, annoys your customers or clients, and sends a message that you like big flashing things (would you hang a disco ball in your living room? I didn't think so).

For times like these we present to you ConceptFeedback.com. Concept Feedback is a free tool that lets you share your concept with a group of industry professionals and get honest feedback. Got a client who's got a "great idea"? Mock it up, upload it, get it torn to shreds by designers, developers, and usability experts alike and show it to your client. Much better than getting it all coded up and then finding out your conversion rates just dumped a couple of percent.

We created the tool because there was demand for it internally. We dealt with the "design, review, approve" cycle a lot of times and we really felt there was room to make the process easier and more efficient for all parties involved.

Love is in the air. As the chaotic Chicago temperatures traverse upward in a bouncy unpredictable manner, even the most hardcore DevBridge developers start brushing their teeth and combing their hair in expectation of new things to come. The office is permeated with smells of anti dandruff shampoo and Windex; keyboards are getting sprayed clean, cobwebs gathered up from old C++ books lining the shelves of our library. Judging by the sounds coming from Tomas' wall, the squirrels living there are either doing spring cleaning, or chewing through the wall in a grand attempt to burglarize all of Tomas's chocolate with nuts.

While I'm on the topic of nuts, Tomas goes through chocolate like a white guy through airport security. I'm sure there's a correlation between cocoa and sexy algorithms, but I don't have enough proof to publish that paper just yet.

Being the font experts that we are, we recently launched a new and improved version of SearchFreeFonts.com with great success! Graphic designers and artists rejoiced worldwide as they discovered the largest free font library on the web. Due to increasing popularity and hordes of fan girls we had to transfer Jay Dooty from development to security responsibilities. The site has also been recently featured on UnmatchedStyle.com for it's crisp design. Thankyouverymuch! *bows*

We have also expanded the width of the site a bit which allowed us to launch an advertising program. With 500,000 unique visitors and 2.5 million page views per month SearchFreeFonts.com generates excellent exposure to a target market of graphic designers, artists, and web developers. You can learn more about the program here.

Like the Great White with it's fin sticking out of the water, our new project ConceptFeedback.com is nearing completion and is expected to launch at the end of May, taking over the graphic design, art, and marketing communities. The free service will allow individuals and companies to post their concepts and receive free quality feedback from professionals and community members alike. You can preregister and check out the concept (pun intended) on ConceptFeedback.com.

To wrap up today's post I would like to mention that some of our clients are making cheesy excuses for late or yet undelivered payments. We're all very nice guys, but being eastern European we started playing the Russian Roulette on server up-time. So far we haven't accidentally pulled the plug, but it's all up to chance.