Whats your favourite method ?

Does anyone use UML ?

newsreade...@gmail.com wrote:
Crayons. Seriously.

The "most popular" method is Photoshop. Generate a pixel-perfect image
of one possible view of one page and call this a "design". This keeps
customers happy, particularly if they're basically still a print media
company, and it's easily understood by graphic dezyners who don't
understand the web. As a technique however, it has obvious flaws - it
is a rigid definition of things that don't need to be rigid (pixel
positioning), it doesn't decribe the real graphic design problems of
the web (how should column sizes track a varying window size) and it
ignores the dynamic aspects of a website.

IMHE, working with customers who still want to think in paper-based
terms, then the best technique I've found is to do everything at
breakneck speed using paper flipcharts and broad coloured marker pens.
Lie to the customer and call it a "rapid evolution eXtreme DeZign
methodologY" if you have to give them a reason for this.

What you're actually doing is catching the broad-brush (literally)
important stuff, whilst making it physically impossible to waste time
on the pointless and wasteful details. You can't argue over fonts if
there isn't a Mac in the room, or pixel positioning if you don't let
them have a pen sharper than a wax crayon. Catch the important stuff,
such as relative column movements, not the actual column sizes for
merely one possible physical instance of viewing the page.

(The names "XZY" and "eXtreme DeZign methodologY" are copyright of
Codesmiths. All rights reserved. Buy my enormously over-priced book on
the technique.)


Most of what I do is code-heavy back-ends, not front-end design. I've
been doing UML (and it's predecessors) for 20 years. They're great, so
long as everyone using them understands the notations. Not a lot of use
for dealing with customer requirements though.

They're useful for designing dynamic operations on websites (tracking
through order placement etc.). They're of limited use for describing
access to static sites (directories / catalogues) - some modelling
forms are, such as use cases, but only for the simplest description of
the most complex sites. Users won't appreciate or understand them
either and they certainly won't see how "web design" isn't just
pictures of pages.

Actor diagrams and use cases are often looked down on and they don't
really capture much, but they do have a valuable role as checklists.
They don't add much, but they stop you omitting things that are
expensive to fix later.

newsreaderid@gmail.com wrote in news:1141727887.978577.225270
@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

Visio or even Powerpoint.
I'm giving Axure a try right now.


--
Karl Groves
http://karlcore.com
http://chevelle.karlcore.com

Accessibility Discussion List: http://smallerurl.com/?id=6p764du

So you basically capture the clients needs with flipcharts and crayons
etc.. then develop the back-end with UML ?

I've start developing a site for the express purpose of earning revenue
through google adsense, the site is backed by php and mysql. To earn
revenue the site would need high volume traffic.

The database will contain approx. 3000 records. I guess the performance
would depend on my programming and database design skills, plus the
servers hosting the site and database but I'm wondering about the
performance of php and mysql.

Any thoughts on php and mysql ?

newsreader wrote:
3K rows (SQL tables contain rows, not records) is nothing. 30M rows
becomes a medium sized database (depending, of course, on the number of
columns and average width of each column).

And PHP, of course, has some performance hits over static pages, but
it's not much.

So how do you expect to bring people to this great site?

--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstucklex@attglobal.net
==================

Axure looks interesting but looking at the review on the website the
thought crossed my mind to use a wysiwyg like netobjects for quick
visual design and then code by hand.

The cost of software is insane, if it wasn't for free software like
coffeecup there would be a lot less web designers around.

google

Fleeing from the madness of the http://groups.google.com jungle
newsreader <newsreaderid@gmail.com> stumbled into news:alt.www.webmaster
and said:

it could be argued that this would be no great loss to the world.

OTOH .... well, you know.

--
William Tasso

whither a trophy?

newsreader wrote:
And Google will send them to 2B (or more) websites before it sends them
to yours.

What are you going to to do attract people to your web site?

--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstucklex@attglobal.net
==================

William Tasso wrote:
Everyone wants to get paid top dollar for their software, but no one
wants to pay for it!

I've been looking at one package for my other business. Runs about $4K
plus about $300/mo for a single copy (single user). And there are even
more expensive ones.

--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstucklex@attglobal.net
==================