We believe websites are organic. They move, they respond, they do stuff. They are not flat. We believe creating a good website means getting out of the flat world of Photoshop design comps and into the live HTML as quickly as possible.

Design is design, regardless of the tools.

We design websites using a rapid prototyping method, working directly in the live space using HTML5, CSS3, and Ruby on Rails. When it comes to wireframing, information architecture, specs, and design studies we do the bare minimum. In fact, we like to do almost none of these things. We think most of these steps happen naturally in the live space.

Our process is specific. We believe in building small features quickly and learning as we go with frequent releases (sometimes every few days).

Weekly releases feel good. Big drawn-out releases feel yucky. We like feeling good.

The faster a website gets in the hands of real people, the faster we learn what they like. People know what they like, we trust them.

Listening to people means we build what they need and remove everything they don't need. We think this makes better tools. Learn about scheduling and our development process.

Is Success a Repeatable Process?

It was another sleepless night thinking about 2x2 grids; this time the subject was repeatable versus non-repeatable processes and how these relate to success. Is success a process which can be broken down into a grid, and then recreated? Or is success a happy accident like winning the lottery? Did Steven Spielberg, Henry Ford, or Oprah Winfrey follow an existing process to create their empires or did they create a new process which would then define future successful companies? (The rambling continues...)