Design Implementation
Our Designers implement their designs
Having our designers implement their designs means that they have more empathy and understanding of what our Developers are doing. It allows us to have smaller teams that can create quickly but also change direction quickly. We believe what makes a great team is when each of the member's lines of responsibility blurs into that of others. Every member of the team understands enough about the other's job that they can reach a high level of empathy for each other and communicate effectively.
Designers hold a lot of power regarding the products they build and the process by which they create solutions because they're able to impact the final implementation. They are actively deciding what the product is and how it solves the problems of others, not only what it looks like. We believe that the more of these decisions the designers are part of, the better the resulting product.
Think in reusable elements and components
When writing HTML and CSS, think in systems.
Browser Support
Browser support means that we make a site or web app usable. Support does not mean visual and behavioral parity across all browsers. While we may strive for this, it's not always possible to achieve the same user experience cross-browser.
We default to supporting the newest and the last previous two releases of popular browsers (Edge, Safari, Chrome, Firefox, and Android Browser) for mobile and desktop devices. Older versions are much harder, more time consuming, and hence more expensive to design for, develop for, and support. In limited special cases, user demographics will dictate that supporting a less common or older version of a browser is required. Those special cases should be identified early on so we can plan for additional time and expense to support the version.
Browser and Device Testing
A majority of our browser testing gets done through Browser Stack. We've found it to be the easiest and fastest way to check our work within a wide variety of browsers.
To avoid a last-minute bug smash, you should check how things are looking in supported browsers regularly.
Device Library
In each studio, we have a small device library with some of the most popular devices to test on. If your project has specific needs for a device, discuss with your project Advisor and Team Managing Director to make sure that this is a reasonable purchase.