The response has been excellent. Over 10% of those companies have said that they would like to take part in the beta development process, and about another 10% have said that, although they don’t want to take part in the beta, they would like to be kept informed about Sketch.

We have received many extremely valuable comments about the features that designers would like to see in Sketch, and while many of these suggestions won’t be incorporated in the beta, we have taken careful note of them for future releases. And we’ve also got a lot of good feedback about how web design companies are likely to use Sketch, and where they look for information about such tools.

Because of this focus on Sketch, we are going to discontinue this general Webstruxure blog and replace it with a blog devoted specifically to the Sketch beta development process. Here you’ll be able to see detailed feedback on the progress of the Sketch beta. We hope you’ll look out for the launch of this new blog (which will be linked from this page), and follow us as we take the next steps on the journey to the full release of Sketch.

She had it exactly right. Sketch beta is about to be built after almost a year of idea development and market validation, and I feel almost constantly like I’ve got butterflies.  I’m not worried about the product itself, because we’ve worked so hard to make sure we’re solving a real, pressing problem - and our beta proposal has been so thoroughly endorsed by the market.

It’s more all the things I have to do and pull together for the first time - a whole project consisting of technical build, design, integration and deployment, and of media content and relations, marketing, conferences, sales and support. As project leader and front-man, every day is a challenge. Every day I wonder if I can do it, and every day I have to back myself to try.

But it’s great. Truly great. This is what I chose to find out when I decided that I didn’t want to retire from law, even if from a very distinguished career, and wonder “what if?”

It’s the dream.

“The question is which is to be master - - that’s all.”

Web designers and their clients are a bit like Alice and Humpty Dumpty. The question often comes down to “which is to be master”: who calls the shots, and who makes the rules?

Ultimately, it’s the client who’s master. After all, the client pays the bills, and has the final say on what the site will look like. But designers often chafe under this yoke. When the client shows up at the design company’s office, it’s like the enemy is at the gate.

Since we’re developing Sketch, which is designed to speed up the process of creating the structure of a site and populating it with content, it isn’t really appropriate for Webstruxure to take sides in this conflict. But we know what it’s like for web designers, trying to cope with content being delivered late if at all, last-minute demands for major changes to site structure, and naïve requests for visual design changes: can we put the Chief Executive’s photo on the home page, top left? Wouldn’t the whole site look better if the colours were green and red?

So we think it’s important that designers lay down some clear groundrules early in the design process. Clients need to be told when it is the right time to have input, and when it is the right time to let the designer go off and work in peace. If the designer lays out a clear process with clear checkpoints to the client early in the process, it’s more likely that the designer will be left to do the parts that they can do best.

One of the big advantages of Sketch is that it lets the designer specify what aspects of the site the client can work on – whether it’s adding content only, or being able to change both structure and content. The client is provided with an easy way to get on with their part of the process, and is therefore less likely to pester the designer. Sketch gets clients involved in the website creation process – but it gets them involved in the right aspects of that process, not the wrong ones.

Sketch is like a sturdy wooden box. Place it next to that wall in Wonderland, and Humpty Dumpty can meet Alice half-way. He can climb down without a painful fall, and she can communicate with him without getting, or being, a pain in the neck.

• Is the feature strictly necessary to provide the core value of Sketch?
• Without the feature, would Sketch fail to work acceptably?

The second question legitimately catches things that the first doesn’t. For instance, a designer’s ability to access and add to a list of projects that are active in Sketch doesn’t solve their core problem. But without it, Sketch is unusable for more than one active project - not a good thing!

We’ve said ‘no’ to other features. It’s been hard, but the generosity of many web designers, who have allowed us into their businesses and their problems, gives us the knowledge we need to assess the relative value of many ‘nice-to-have’ ideas.

So we are really excited about delivering a tight, clean solution to a basic and widespread web design problem. How to get clients delivering their content before the technical build, so that information architecture, testing, and revision can all take place without cost, and so that completion deadlines for the project can be met?

Webstruxure was founded by Aaron Stewart and Ian Edwards. Our other employees are Richard Simes, Patrick Te Tau and myself, Tim Jones. This week, it’s time to introduce Patrick.

The first time I met Patrick was when he came to do one of the early usability tests for Rightcar, the car-comparison site Webstruxure developed in 2007 for Land Transport New Zealand. He stayed beyond the allocated hour, and made many valuable comments about the layout and graphic design of the site.

I was struck then by his enthusiasm and energy, and I’m still impressed by them now he’s working for Webstruxure! (A note to prospective usability testing subjects: we can’t afford to hire everyone who does testing for us, much as we’d like to.)

Patrick writes:

From the Wairarapa, I was raised in Carterton by my artist mum, Victoria Te Tau. As a kidalump (zoological term) I pulled all my toys apart and asked an incessant number of “whys” to a patient family (mainly mine). University turned out to be much the same, a toy world of quick sorts and Descartes.

I met the Webstruxure posse through my friend and now co-worker Richard while working for the visualisation company Chaos Dimention (a Java 3D role) only just upstairs from Webstruxure at Creative HQ. Sharing similar philosophies (Belgian beer) worked out well; they liked the “cut of my jib”.

As a Web wrangler I touch all parts of web development from the initial requirements with our customers through to the implementation. Processes, algorithms and, increasingly, usability have become the tastiest of flavours; my wrangler role typically sates this.

Brazilian jiu jitsu at Grappling Specialists Wellington is pretty much the sweetest pastime ever. It’s physically challenging and suitably cogent. Photography is my other vice, and I hope to be New Zealand’s first concert stilt photographer (to self - get stilts). I also read books slowly, currently page-per-daying The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris and Zadie Smith’s On Beauty.

Webstruxure was founded by Aaron Stewart and Ian Edwards. Our other employees are Richard Simes, Patrick Te Tau and myself, Tim Jones. This week, it’s time to introduce Richard.

Before I started working here regularly, I did some contract usability testing work for Webstruxure on the Rightcar site, when it was under development. Before each test session started, I would put participants at their ease by introducing them to what the test involved. As part of this, I assured the participants - truthfully - that “I am not involved in the design of this website, so you can be as honest as you like and you won’t hurt my feelings”.

But it took two people to run the tests: one to deliver the spiel and explain the scenarios, and the other to observe and take the notes. For many of the tests, Richard was the observer and note-taker, although he was heavily involved in the design of the Rightcar site. I was amazed by Richard’s ability to listen to people criticise aspects of the site without reacting negatively - an ability which, I fear, is beyond me. But that’s Richard for you!

Richard writes:

I joined Webstruxure in 2005 as their first employee and as my first ‘real’ job. I have always had a passion for problem solving and have found my role as resident geek for Webstruxure most rewarding in this regard.

I always like to use the right tool for the job, and try to familiarise myself with as many ‘right tools’ as possible.

In my spare time, I am an avid longboard skateboarder and can be often found weaving through pedestrians at Wellington’s waterfront or skateboarding from Taihape to Wellington.

Halvorson is clear about the consequences of not focusing on content early in web project planning:

“Oh, where do I begin. Delayed start to the writing process, since Web content documentation needs to be agreed-upon, standardized, and built out. More delays, because suddenly gathering up the content becomes a messy, time-consuming, overwhelming task. Dozens of unplanned revisions as more and more content keeps being requested or remembered. Incredible, unavoidable scope creep. Tensions and frustrations because no one has the time (or the power) to slow down and make sure everything is consistent, relevant, clear. And, of course, the end result of crappy content that none of your customers care about.”

Delayed start…more delays…mess…overwhelming task…unplanned revisions…unavoidable scope creep…tensions…frustrations…crappy content…missed customers.

This is not a happy picture.

Our own research backs this up. Our data shows that ninety-five percent of web design companies suffer from late content delivery and late change requests.

Why is this? They can’t communicate the importance of content effectively. And they can’t collaborate with the client to ensure it’s produced early in the process. Therefore, it doesn’t influence the website architecture until too late.

What’s needed, then, is a way for designers and clients to rapidly begin drafting the website so that the importance of content is clear, and so that the client feels able to deliver it effectively. This solution needs to be flexible, fast and very responsive to changes - a site-before-the-site.

That’s why we’re making Sketch.

Behind the scenes, we’ve been conducting research to confirm that Sketch will meet the needs of a significant proportion of web companies and their clients. We’ve talked to as many Wellington companies as we can, and we’re now doing the same in Auckland.

Results so far confirm that the relationship between web designer and client is often strained, and suffers from poor communication; that content is often not provided until very late in the site development process; and that, when it is provided, this often results in late, and therefore expensive, changes being made to the site structure. A tool that:

• makes it easy for designers and clients to communicate and collaborate
• makes it easy to align the expectations of web designer and client, and
• leads to early agreement on site structure and content

is likely to find a ready market if it’s priced correctly.

Our research is continuing, but we’ve gained enough data already to start moving ahead with a beta version of Sketch, built around the set of minimum functions that our research has told us Sketch needs.

We know that we can’t give everyone everything they want, all at once. We’re not even going to try! We’d rather start with something relatively small, something that’s going to give web designers and clients a huge amount of help just by itself, and make sure we’ve got that right. Then we’ll start adding to it bit by bit, testing usefulness with every step.

We figure this is a good way to build something that web designers and their clients are truly going to enjoy using.

So, a Sketch beta is on the drawing board!

I’m Tim Jones, and I’m the part-time Marketing Manager at Webstruxure, where I’ve worked since September 2007. My job encompasses working with Aaron Stewart on Webstruxure’s marketing – which, at the moment, mainly involves talking with web companies about Sketch – but also a lot of other things: functional testing, usability analysis and testing, documentation, and editing.

As far as those parts of my role go, in a company otherwise filled with brilliant developers, I’m the representative of the users. It’s my job to say things like “But what does that actually mean?”, “Will users understand that?”, and “I clicked this link and everything stopped working!” I get paid to subject our sites and products to cruel and unusual punishment, so that you, the user, don’t have to.

To this role, I bring the added perspective that I have been a client of Webstruxure myself. I used to be corporate website content manager for a large Wellington institution, and Webstruxure were responsible for the dynamic aspects of that site. I got to know Ian Edwards and admire his dedication to the work he did for us, and when Ian heard that I was looking for a change, he started to think about whether Webstruxure could use my services. It all took a while to come together, but here I am – and I’m very happy about it.

When I’m not working for Webstruxure, I wear a couple of other hats. I am involved in work to make New Zealand’s energy system more sustainable, and I’m also an author – my new book, Transported, has just been published. I also enjoy cricket, music, being a husband and father, and many other fine things.

Webstruxure
Level 2, Korea House
29 Tory Street
WELLINGTON

And we even have the phone on: you can reach us at (+64) 4 385 8022

Our email address is the same as always: info@webstruxure.co.nz

We have a comfy office, which is surprisingly quiet considering we are located just down from the Sports Café on the Courtenay/Tory corner. (There is no shortage of choices when it comes to buying lunch.)

We have some nice neighbours, such as the Landau Group, the Gibson Group, and Three Sixty Media, whose design expertise we have called on for several of our projects. (Three Sixty did the background design for the collaborative online wireframing tool we’re developing, Sketch.)

All in all, it’s been a good move. Come in and visit us if you get the chance.