Four Months at Switchplane

I've been at Switchplane for four months now - to celebrate the launch of our new website I'm sharing some thoughts on what it's like working here.

Covering all Bases

It always amazes me how many web designers continue to survive as one man bands in the ever changing and increasing complexity in the world of Web Development. Having lectured in Computer Science at University I know all too well that people have strengths in various areas. It is difficult to find an exceptional object orientated programmer who also excels at database technology (relational database tables, normalization, Boyce-Codd, etc). The chances of finding someone who is a great graphic designer with core programming skills is almost negligible. Sure I can program, but I would be the first to admit that my design skills could be described as functional at best!

Perfect Balance

Since October, when I started at Eastbourne based web designers, Switchplane, I have come to the conclusion that they have got the balance just right. By covering a variety of disciplines such as Graphic Design, PHP programming, Flash Actionscript Development, e-commerce, it is possible to put together something far greater than one person could ever achieve. Because each person is an expert in their area the work gets done to a much higher standard and is accomplished far faster than the 'Jack of All Trades' Web Designer.

Having five people with specialist skill sets probably is just about the right mix. Any less and the breadth of knowledge would fall short, any more and there would be a danger that the personal friendly approach taken with the clients would get lost in the 'not my responsibility' downfall of the large corporate culture.

Picking up the pieces

Looking around at some of the websites that the one man bands create it has to be said that on first appearances some of them are exceptionally good website designs. However on closer examination many of them are just re-skinned versions of open source software such as Wordpress and Joomla. Having personally and professionally used and modified both of these software packages it is obvious that a large amount of work has been put in by very competent computer programmers.

However in the case of a web developer just re-skinning these to give the client a quick website there are intrinsic problems if there are subsequently any amendments required. The average programmer working from his spare room would find it very hard to correctly identify and amend the source code to add or change the functionality and would they understand the effects of their software changes on other parts of the system they haven't written.

Since being at Switchplane there have been several clients approach us at our Eastbourne office because their previous web designer used free software such as Joomla or Zen shopping cart and ran into problems. Needless to say undertaking this sort of work is fraught with difficulties as not only do you have to understand the mechanics of the proprietary software but also what the previous person was trying to accomplish and the implications of their changes. Fortunately in all cases we were able to sort out the clients problems.

Testing

One other thing that also pleasantly surprised me when starting at Switchplane is the testing that is undertaken at every page of the process. Too many programmers, even those with degree education followed by formal training tend to leave testing to the last stage which leads to protracted debugging. However the team at Switchplane use a testing framework which ensures each component developed works perfectly. Not many web development / designers can prove they do testing this rigorously. This level of professionalism is beneficial on all projects and essential on any sites where security is an issue such as e-commerce or the size of the end project is significant.