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Keeping an eye on the trends in interface development (code production for sites, blogs and applications) is something that comes naturally here. But what does take some thinking and observation is how clients wish to work with us. A couple things we’d like to learn more about are:

1. Is it more convenient to have projects waterfall (be broken up based on client approvals or other steps in your workflow) than it is to package up the finalized artwork? If it is more convenient, what kind of time commitments can you make to provide the “next batch” of artwork?

   More and more of you are asking to waterfall your projects and we want to present a solid methodology for this. Please let us know how you like to work as this summer we’ve seen a lot of these kinds of requests and we’d like to tighten up the response time for this kind of approach.

2. Should we add an option to provide “working wire frame” or “skeleton site”?

   Meaning, are there cases, where if you provide a site map you would prefer to have all the pages linked together so that a site can be demonstrated for your client? A similar result is achieved when purchasing a theme or skin, but for sites without a software engine, would a “clickable” (build) site option be valuable?

We’d also like to share some tips for those just getting started. This is always stated during new client orientation phone calls (which we provide by the way), but it’s best to jot these down as well:

• We’d also like to recommend that those outsourcing for the first time leave themselves some cushion with client timelines so that when you have some additions to make or need help with changes, that there’s time for those to be turned around. In other words, expecting a client to review the work once it’s in your inbox is definitely possible, but it does take a least one project to make sure that you’ve asked for everything you needed (and frankly sometimes it’s just not possible until you work with the finished product) — please keep that in mind.
• RAR compression will realize the highest compression ratio for your artwork, so if you’ve got a 100 MB zip file to upload, you’ll probably see that same file be 70 MB or much less — so we recommend that. If you’ve got a file over 100 MB, sometimes the upload can go wrong, so we encourage you to post that to your FTP server and give us the link in the order form.
• At present our solution shines (best), when the entire finalized project is submitted for code production or (application) interface development. Whenever possible we encourage clients to provide as much artwork as they can to have the crispest experience.

As always if you have any input on how we could otherwise improve — please leave a comment below or give us a call.

Many of you have asked for it (because you use it yourselves), many of you have reacted very positively to the simplicity of the new payment process as well — thanks for that. For those who don’t know, we’ve moved away from our proprietary invoicing system to FreshBooks as our bookkeeping platform, leveraging their API for a nice seamless experience.

For those that are not familiar, Freshbooks is a great tool for folks from all walks of life (design studios, project managers, copywriters, freelancers of any type etc) to simplify the invoicing and time tracking processes. If you dread dealing with the entire invoicing process and helping clients get set up with PayPal (thinking it will save you time or don’t even have the time to take a Credit Card over the phone let alone keep track of the transaction), these guys have simplified transactions as far as one can go. You can run widgets they provide on your Mac or PC to make counting those hours even more painless. Take a closer look, or give them a call (yes they answer the phone) better still go ahead and try it for free.

We’ll be polishing up look and feel shortly, but seeing as we have the kinks out, we’re ready to say FreshBooks is here and we couldn’t be happier! We’ll be using some of their features like estimates, recurring invoicing and snail mail service for our NET 30 clients as soon as we can.

As always if there’s anything we can do to simplify your outsourcing experience, reach out and let us know.

No doubt many of you have already been over to A List Apart’s Survey, and for those who have not yet, the ALA guys run an annual survey, that helps them to identify trends and the like within the web design/development community.

We find the initiative to be very interesting and we always look forward to getting input on goings on in our industry/community. The value of the results of their reports is similar to what one might pay Forrester for. So again we encourage everyone to head over there to participate. So get started:

Please let us know if it’s your first time participating in the survey by leaving a comment below.