Prescott chats with Niki Brown & Liz Andrade, the design duo behind The Pagebreak Podcast. Niki & Liz are both solo designers, working independently. Together we discuss tools of the job, the state of web design and text editors, and how they got started in podcasting.
Somehow, the topic of cats failed to come up, but we’re all cat owners.
Show Notes & Links
Guests Niki Brown (@nikibrown) & Liz Andrade (@lizandrade)
The PageBreak Podcast, featuring both Niki & Liz
WoMance, a web comic by Liz Andrade
Niki works in Boston as a front end developer
Niki is a marathon finisher and CrossFit participant
Liz plays video games and writes comic books
Solopreneur, a one-person business (solo+entrepreneur)
Contractor, Freelancer, Solo-practitioners — all confusing terms
Bootstrap, a framework
The old argument about making pretty things vs. adding value
Another old argument about generalists vs. specialists
Ever quit a project and refund the money? Niki & Prescott both have
“Can the buttons be more buttony?”
A “Danger Will Robinson” reference and shoutout to old-school button-laded interface design
Niki uses Basecamp, even when working alone; Liz uses it with other freelancers, not clients
Dropbox, for assets
Git & Github, version control for code
Labelled and organized email
Naming conventions for client files
Creating a system with the benchmark: “My grandmother should be able to find it, in six months.” (a human-readable system based on a priority such as client, date, etc.)
Steady routines? Liz continually experiments to see what works; Niki changes it up based on mood
The Rubber Duck, a physical tool for explaining things, and to throw at people
Width-agnostic responsive grids
“Blank” WordPress theme
iStock, a place to buy (or steal) design pieces. Not really. Jeez, relax.
WYSIWYG web design tools, getting better all the time
Proof-of-concept, then hand off to proper developers
Dreamweaver and Front Page, not a great reputation for producing good code.
Breadcrumbs, a web design termTextEditors, and how they can refresh a browser
Minimal Viable Product
How to name web features. Always include the adjective “slidey.”
“You can tell how good or bad of a day a developer is having by how many tabs of StackOverflow are open.”
Niki & Liz met on the FreelanceSwitch forums (R.I.P.)
Reddit is a forum, I guess.
Remote, by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
BoagWorld, a podcast about web design
“Don’t install Node”, it’s a great way to waste a day, apparently
Tools
Basecamp
Dropbox
GitHub
Bootstrap grids
“Blank” WordPress theme
Adobe Muse, part of Adobe Creative Cloud
Macaw
Coda or Espresso (not Cappuccino), text editors/coding software
Firebug or Inspector, ways to view a page’s source
Sublime Text and TextMate, two more examples
Live Reload, does what it says on the tin
Audio Hijack Pro, to record Skype or FaceTimeAudacity, for editing podcasts
Techniques
Save versions of your code, push to the server
See if your co-workers are wearing headphones. If so, talk to them later.
Set up templates for common documents — include guides, sizes.
Use a prototyping tool, then coordinate with a developer/programmer
Turn off Twitter to be productive
Don’t reply to email right away. They really aren’t “urgent.”
Habits
Don’t answer the phone unless you have a scheduled meeting
Don’t work on weekends
Create your own Resources library
Buy books and write off the costs as business expenses
Comentarios