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All about White October
White October is a leading web development agency based in Oxford, specialising in the development of content managed websites and web applications such as extensive databases that can be accessed online. White October's impressive content management system, ‘Contented' is SEO friendly and easy to use, making this agency one of Momentum's preferred web development partners.
We recently interviewed Dave Fletcher to find out more about how White October works and what business owners on the brink of a web development project should expect.
Jonathan Fink (Momentum): On your site, you describe yourselves as "a web development agency". Could you describe what that involves?
Dave Fletcher (White October): In our case we develop websites and web applications. When you think about what goes into a web site our work is always related to the technical side of design.
To give you an example of a web software application, we recently made a database of film locations that can be accessed online. It contains hundreds of thousands of photographs and a members section. A lot of work went into designing how members interact with the site.
We've also built several other membership databases for national organisations, and administrative systems for universities to manage courses they offer and allow students to book onto those courses directly.
Jonathan Fink (Momentum): Do you get involved with the full process (ie, coding hosting, design etc)? Where is the border between development and design?
Dave Fletcher (White October): We don't do any visual design in house, we always partner with a good design agency, regardless of whether the project is a public facing site or a back end system. With the latter, we always need a skilled graphic interface designer to ensure that the usability of the interface is easy and clear.
As a web development agency we place huge amount of importance on good on-screen graphical design. Often with web suppliers you get a designer who has to code or a coder who has to design. We get good designers in to focus on the design, that way our clients are always getting "best of breed" in development as well as design.
Jonathan Fink (Momentum): At what stage do the visual designers get involved?
Dave Fletcher (White October): It depends on the project; sometimes designers are involved from beginning, sometimes we do the user experience work, then get the visual designers involved as we have an in-house user experience consultant. Depending on project, we also do the wire frame stage, card sorts and user interviews for the information architecture before the visual designer gets involved.
Jonathan Fink (Momentum): What kind of clients do you work with? What size businesses?
Dave Fletcher (White October): We've worked for businesses of all sizes, but we work for fewer sole trader businesses now. We tend to work with companies who are on their second or third website and have higher budgets for more complex requirements.
Jonathan Fink (Momentum): Is there a big difference between working for small to medium sized businesses and enterprise level companies?
Dave Fletcher (White October): Yes, there's a very big difference! There are more stakeholders in enterprise level projects and they have teams of people involved with dedicated project managers. When we work with that size of company, we need to have more time for account management and project management so things run smoothly and dovetail with their processes.
In contrast, when we work for the SME businesses we tend to deal with owner managers with fixed ideas about what they want; it's still their baby and they are much more personally involved. They are also very busy and can be slow to get back to you for stages involving sign-off.
I like to work with both: owner managers have a real passion for their businesses and it's great to work with someone who cares so much about the project. But I also like the
challenge of working for enterprises as it involves working with different personalities and it's nice to have more people available. As a result of that, enterprises will push the project forwards proactively, whereas the SME projects are more likely to stall as the owners are so strapped for time.
Jonathan Fink (Momentum): What advice would you give to businesses considering a redevelopment / redesign of their website?
Dave Fletcher (White October): Start with the site users. Work out what groups they fall into by profiling their characteristics, for example, the type of job and lifestyle they have. Then write scenarios of what the users will want to get from your site; put yourself in their shoes. If your site can meet their needs, it can achieve its business objectives, but if the site fails to do that, they'll leave straight away
It's a powerful process. Lots of people don't do this when approaching a web company, they fill the brief with lots of information about the company as seen from within it, rather from the outside in.
Jonathan Fink (Momentum): What are the most common obstacles you come across when working on a new project?
Dave Fletcher (White October): That would definitely be the lack of copy or delays in reviewing a project stage. One project suffered a 2 year delay because the business owner just couldn't get the copy to us! We have one project that is 9 months behind schedule, again because of the content delay. This is frustrating for everyone involved, and in these cases the clients have paid for the bulk of the project and it just sits there, waiting for content that would only need a few hours work. It's always the hardest thing in the world to convince them that they need to pay for copywriting to unblock the bottle neck.
Jonathan Fink (Momentum): What is the question that customers ask you most?
Dave Fletcher (White October): Can I have a splash page? (A page that usually contains an animation to reinforce brand, with a link to enter the site proper.)Thankfully it only takes a couple of seconds to dissuade them from this when we explain why splash pages are such a bad idea.
Another one we get a lot is "I think it needs something moving" and again we have to explain that having something flashing or moving on a page is more often than not just irritating and not beneficial. Saying that, our customers are asking for these less nowadays. The general level of education and experience relating to the web is higher than it used to be.
Jonathan Fink (Momentum): What do you need from the client and what expectations do you need to set?
Dave Fletcher (White October): As always, it depends on project. Universally however we need the client to appreciate what the user will need from their site, as we are very focussed on user-centred design. (Read more about this in part two of the interview).
For the large, enterprise level projects we need a lot of ownership from the client. This means a high level of interest in the project and its success, regular meetings and an appreciation of the process. We actually run big workshops at the start of the project so they understand how we work and how we can work together. At the beginning of each sprint (a two or three week period of intense development) we give a presentation so they know what is coming up, what to expect and what they will need to do to sign off.
With regards to sites using the ‘Contented' content management system, content is vital and we can't design without knowing what the content will be, so that is the most important thing we need from the client.
In all projects, managing expectations is critical. Developing a website is not like business card design for example, where the design is signed off, a physical thing is made and then delivered. In fact, client expectations relating to design changes are hard to manage. All we can do is explain that changes to design can involve a lot of time, and therefore increase costs, and that's why we have distinct sign-off stages. Even small changes can involve a couple of extra hours of work. Some clients have the budget to make lots of tiny changes, but often clients will think the really easy changes are really expensive and vice versa. Often what seems like a massive change to them is actually not as complicated as a lesser change.
Jonathan Fink (Momentum): What is the project you are most proud of?
Dave Fletcher (White October): We recently completed an internal website for BT sales staff. We delivered it on time, on budget, under high pressure, to a very high standard. It was a testament to the use of agile development. (Read more about this in part three of the interview.)
Jonathan Fink (Momentum): White October is incredibly successful. What's the secret?
Dave Fletcher (White October): One of the main drivers for growth is Contented, our content management system. Design agencies and marketing agencies have been convinced of how powerful and easy to use it is, and because of this they have recommended it for the sites they're involved with.
We're also successful because of our people; we've got a very switched-on group of developers, and so White October can put together awesome websites as a result. We've been going for six years now and we're still growing, despite the recession. In all honesty the downturn really hasn't affected us at all.