Development

A few years ago you built an amazing website. Maybe it was 2009 or 2010. At the time, you loved it. You told all your friends about it and they loved it, too. But that was a few years ago and now it’s starting to look a little stale. It just doesn’t function the way newer websites function. It gets ridiculed and beaten up by other websites after gym class. So you begin the arduous task of the dreaded *redesign*. You call it a redesign. In your mind, it has…

We don’t treat projects with a one-size, fits all mentality. The first step in our marketing process isn’t the one where we assume we know what you want, nor do we tell you what’s best without ever having spoken to you. It just doesn’t work that way within our walls. Instead, we kick off projects with a Learning & Discovery phase where we stop talking about the project at hand and start talking about you. We listen to your story. And we gather your needs by looking at your big…

The first question I ask myself before starting work on an application, before touching a single key, and before I even brew a cup of coffee is, “Who is using this and how can I make them enjoy using it?” To some, this might seem like a very silly routine for a simple website or service. However, at the end of the day, the most useful function software can provide to the user is the function of being useful. To elaborate this seemingly obvious statement: The first thing an application…

Twitter recently made some significant changes to its API. For those unfamiliar, an API is like a code library used when you build software. These changes affect every piece of software written to interact with Twitter. While developers paying attention are aware of these things, users often are not. Millions of websites have little Twitter widgets and plugins installed to display their tweets. Some of them are custom built, many aren’t. These widgets and plugins have become so commonplace that many people install them with a single click and are…

Social media in the Capital District erupted into frenzy recently when a local school published its yearbook with placeholder copy where student names should have been. But not just any placeholder copy. Funny placeholder copy. Except it obviously wasn’t that funny to the students. Or their parents. Or the administration. Let’s explain. The misprints occurred on pages of group shots. One picture included the caption “creepy smile guy”. Another: “tall guy”. A picture of a sports team had, instead of the bottom row of names, listed “Entire bottom row –…

The process of designing and developing website and applications is changing. Tools and skillsets are always pushing forward, and the old way of doing things doesn’t cut it anymore. The traditional methodology has many names. Some call it the waterfall, implying the project is like water, flowing down through each department until completion. This is kind of naive, and obviously doesn’t allow anyone to go back upstream for any reason, ever. Others call it an assembly line, in which each department is handed something, does something to it and passes…

The phrase “responsive design” has been getting a lot of attention lately. Conferences are organizing whole sessions around it, Google has come out in support of it (when it makes sense for users) and everyone is scurrying to make sure their website now fits the latest buzzword. But while responsive design may be new to some people, the concepts and technologies involved have been around for years. It also doesn’t help that, most people think responsive design just means that your website resizes itself depending on the width of your…

As an agency, we believe in process. The goal is to streamline. The goal is to remove ambiguity. The goal is to become more efficient, but, most importantly, the goal is to foster a more collaborative workflow between the different departments. And that’s why I spent the majority of last week looking at our process for developing websites and web applications and, alongside our other departments, made some significant modifications to our workflow. There’s a problem in a majority of high-volume production agencies. We partition our designers, our developers, our…

As the lead developer at Overit, I’m consulted on a daily basis for my ‘expertise’ by clients, by account managers, by business owners, by colleagues and by my own team to create solutions for problems I’ve never thought about before. I’m expected to be on the top of my game and ready with the right answers to problems, even when I have little to no background knowledge of the particular situation. I’m asked for my opinion, my advice and my solutions. When that’s not happening, I’m writing code. I’m calculating…

You need a new Website. Or a Web application. Or you have an amazing idea you need someone to actually build. Chances are you’re going to need a developer. There are a lot of stereotypes about developers. Many think we’re nocturnal (some of us are) or we speak in some sort of code. Or that if you come into our offices here at Overit you’ll find us wearing headphones and typing furiously with deep thoughtful frowns on our faces. The truth, developers are a pretty awesome bunch! We can be…