Quality Metrics: Design
First and foremost; Do it, get done.
I’ve had to lower my expectations
Used to be about how “good” I felt about a piece of work; is it up to a certain standard
Initially based on very unrealistic goals
Does everything work perfectly? Have I written perfect CSS?
Now it’s more about:
Did it get done?
Were we on budget?
Does it achieve what the client wants?
A lot of the time, we don’t have the time to do amazing-looking work
Sometimes, ‘good enough’ needs to be good enough
Sometimes it just needs to do something. Plenty of people don’t care how it looks
What’s important is that we are achieving the goal that the client or the project set out to achieve
In a lot of ways I’ve had to- not lower, because I think that a lot of the time my standards are higher than they need to be
Being okay with not having control over all the factors, or not being entirely happy with the look of it.
Not getting hung up on stuff
The main thing- did it get out there, and are people using it?
One of the positive things recently: Evictions Guide
Built a while ago
Initially didn’t have a lot of traction, since a lot of people in the townships prefer to do things in person instead of online. Have someone come to them. Like go to the courthouse to pick up a flier or a pamphlet, etc.
K: Now there’s no choice
M: Exactly. Now that there’s no choice for people but staying home, the evictions website is getting a lot of traction.
It’s really gratifying, since I worked hard on the site and we spent a lot of time and effort on the Evictions project, but it wasn’t showing results
Now it’s proved itself as a worthwhile project
We got the google analytics showing two-minute sessions, which is pretty good for the internet
First metric: did it get out? Did it get done?
For me that’s a big checkbox; Shaun’s helped a lot with that.
Even if it’s an MVP,
A lot of times, things live and die as MVPs. Big fancy projects, that we didn’t have the time or budget for
A project may never leave the MVP stage, and I have to be okay with that
What’s important is that it got done, and we achieved what the client wanted, or what we wanted..
Second metric: are people using it?
Google analytics and user feedback, as much as possible
Sometimes we’re not very good at incorporating ways for people to give us that user feedback, but it’s something we’re working on.
Third metric: how proud I am of the project
Cherry on top, if I can get there
If a project can achieve its goal, get done on time, AND I’m proud of it? Goals.
Wazimap is becoming that for me. I’m really enjoying the work I’m doing with Wazimap.
It’s starting to check the boxes: people are gonna be using it; we’re getting user feedback; and the more I work on it, the more I’m happy about it.
I put extra time into it, since it’s a big-budget project
M: So those are the three things I mainly use.
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