Dale Burgos Design, LLC

Money is an issue if you let it be

2011-10-23T09:30:00.000-07:00

by Nate Burgos

It was an assumption—from when Steve announced his idea for an iPhone app—that we would split every cost halfway. If money and how it’s going to be handled remained stuck as an assumption between Steve and me, then no start. The only way to stop money being an assumption is to do a preemptive strike: Squash the sensitivity to talk about it and commit to expectations. If you keep avoiding the topic, welcome toxicity.

Edit, Edit, Edit

2011-07-27T06:17:00.000-07:00

by Nate Burgos

Copywriting. Information management tools. URLs. Color. These are some of the areas that we keep editing. Some sound bigger (copywriting) than others (URLs) but everything provokes mindfulness in making something.

From the start in late summer of 2010, the impulse to edit is always there. The first wave of editing was when we were wireframing. Information architecture is about organizing content into a meaningful interface, and editing was a big part of this activity. Composing an interface to be used in a manner of what we feel makes sense is all about editing.

Editing persisted in each review of our wireframes, in each discussion with our mobile developer T4G about wireframes informing requirements, in each draft of copy for our every blog post and tweet, in each build of testing, where editing is hopefully more steered toward enhancing. Editing can be stressful, with every reaction toward what discovery uncovers—like a missing message, or a button that ultimately doesn’t appear “discoverable”—but it leads to the satisfaction from trying to make something better. Writer Bernard Malamud expressed the joy of editing:

“The first draft of a book is the most uncertain—where you need guts, the ability to accept the imperfect until it is better. Revision is one of the true pleasures of writing.”

Malamud’s relentless editing in the literary world applies to the world of software.

Introducing Never Forget!

2011-07-20T18:35:00.000-07:00

It’s been a very educational and rewarding journey toward release 1.0 of Never Forget!, our first iPhone app. After thirteen months of a seemingly endless process of discovery, resolution and refinement, Never Forget! is now on sale in Apple’s App Store.

Never Forget! is designed to help you quickly and easily make your 37signals Backpack reminders on the move. We scratched our own itch, worked hard, and with help from some awesome collaborators, made something.

Collaboration works best when everyone is focused on getting things done. Working with T4G, particularly Andrew Little, our highly talented and diligent developer, was instrumental in getting our idea real.

And we did it without a project plan.

How to Find a Mobile Developer

2011-04-18T19:36:00.000-07:00

by Nate Burgos

We discussed coding our mobile app ourselves early on. When Steve suggested learning the iOS SDK ourselves, my reaction was: “How long will that take?” It’ll save us money but we decided that it would take a long time. We opted for efficiency.

Our search for an iOS developer took a few days in August, 2010. It could have easily been much longer, because we suspect that the most talented are employed and sticking to it, busy making mobile apps for people—like us—who are champing at the bit to get their ideas real.

Family and friends first
We reflected on our personal network, but we knew that there was no one in our respective families involved in software development. In retrospect, more diligence could have been done to exhaust our personal connections.

Colleagues second
We then turned to our professional network, particularly those involved with digital projects and web development. Developers know other developers. In our case, this didn’t pan out.

To the web
We also tried developer-seeking tools CollabFinder and Interhoods which are viable kickstarters to finding people for digital projects. But we weren’t satisfied with the results of the former, and the latter was new and thereby thin on membership at the time.

We then resorted to the ultimate finding machine: Google. One click led to another, and we ultimately located an awesome mobile developer.

Finding a developer for our kind of independent mobile project was hard for us. Using Google to find talent made us “feel lucky”, in this case.

Just Choose Your Tools

2011-03-23T08:23:00.000-07:00

by Nate Burgos

From the outset, we chose to use familiar tools. Familiarity breeds usage and vice versa. There’s comfort in this. The two primary tools we’ve depended on throughout this project:

Gmail is used to communicate. Viewing email as conversations makes sense. Is email anything but a conversation?
Backpack is used to make to-dos, store documents—store most of our thinking. Writeboards are used a lot, from making copy for the upcoming website to tweets. Working is writing, and like work, rewriting.

Before looking to other tools to do work on a project, look to what’s used now. Does it make sense to adapt it for what needs to get started, now? There is temptation to try out a new tool. There are several apps available. But what’s already part of your set-up that can be a part of your start-up?

Make it Easy

2011-02-19T08:59:00.000-08:00

by Nate Burgos

During one of our weekly calls with our mobile developer, we discussed how to resolve a button. In the current design, the button was located at the bottom, with edges flushed at the sides and bottom. It looked interactive to us, on paper, but we changed our mind when we did some think-aloud usability testing with the first iteration of the actual build. It was judged that the button’s presentation wasn’t really clear, and that simply rewording the label, including adding a symbol, weren’t enough.

Three ways were proposed to solve this issue:

Make the button look like the rest of the buttons with rounded corners
Customize what the iOS SDK allows
Add a margin of space to the sides and bottom of the button

The third method was chosen. Have to see it to believe it, but it was the easiest one to do. Taking the “path of least resistance” doesn’t mean laziness at times, and this was one of those times for the big detail of a button. Nothing wrong with taking and making it easy, if it results in the effect we want, which is interactivity in this case. And if it works, there was the added benefit of speed. We’ll let you know.

We were reminded of this bit by 37signal’s Jason Fried:

Find Time to Talk

2011-01-15T14:36:00.000-08:00

by Nate Burgos

Finding time only sounds easy. If only time were an actual object to auto-magically deposit back into a safe box every time it was withdrawn. When it came to finding time to meet about our iPhone app project and matters dealing with our collaboration-turned-business partnership, it became a natural thing to do. We naturally found time within our always “I’m busy” schedules.

Plan
Have in mind what needs to get discussed ahead of time. “Have in mind” sounds heady, considering our heads are already congested with stuff. But so far, we haven’t resorted to writing an agenda. Know your topics and discuss at meet-up time.

Meet for lunch
This an optimal time during the work day to talk. I’m usually at my desk at high noon (big savings in making your lunch). If you happen to work within the vicinity of your collaborator, take advantage of it. Steve and I happen to work a few blocks from each other. We take advantage of this on a need-to basis.

Professional pillow talk
Steve spends quality time with his baby daughter. I spend time working on Design Feast-related projects. We do our respective things after our day jobs. If there’s a sensible break, use it. Ours is when Steve’s daughter is on her way toward sleep.

Confine talking to any window of time
Deviating from what must get discussed can derail a conversation. It happens. Try to curb the tangents in order to end the meeting on time, especially if your business partner has a strict sleeping schedule. We also the make practice of telling each other upfront of how much time we can be on the phone.

It does take effort to find time to talk and making the time. Once the mechanics are determined, a rhythm sets in, when the talking doesn’t feel like a disruption to our lives. Because when it comes to the ratio of talking and doing, we strive to keep the talking to a spirited minimum.

Setting up A New Blog Home

2011-01-02T14:24:00.000-08:00

by Nate Burgos

We’ve used 37signal’s webapp Backpack to blog about our current path toward Getting Real with our mobile app. It started as an experiment to find out how it would feel being used like a blog. It turned out to be a read-only experience. Like we said, it was an experiment and one worth taking, considering that we’re passionate users of Backpack to help organize the bits of our projects.

So we’re transitioning to a solution made for blogging. Here you’ll see us share our thoughts and experiences—complaints included—in making something, in addition to anything that strikes us as practical, even inspiring, when it comes to creativity and work.

Make sure to follow us on Twitter too.

We know that making something always takes longer than was originally thought, but this knowledge is often overlooked. Here’s to putting a dent in the universe.