We’ve been using Basecamp to manage our projects for the last few years. We love Basecamp and we especially love the way we track the time for everything we do with it.

However, we have always found the applications that allow you to time against your projects don’t really do everything we needed them to do – which is why we have been developing our own app.

TrackRecord

1. Track times for multiple projects
2. Allow you to see all your project in one easy to use view
3. Move timers between projects or To-Dos
4. Track or dismiss idle time

Best of all though, you will also be able to edit and repost time you’ve tracked and posted directly to Basecamp from within TrackRecord itself. No more posting the wrong thing and going in to Basecamp to find it and change the time.

We are still going through final stages of internal testing and will be launching the app to a controlled test group soon. If you would like to be one of our testers, please drop us an email at support@trackrecordapp.com.

Keep up with what we’re up to at http://twitter.com/trackrecordapp or at http://trackrecordapp.com

More to follow soon….

Discussing our latest application development

Here at Something Interesting we like getting together to discuss ideas. We all have different opinions on how the websites and applications we develop should work, and what would make them exceptional.

Today was no different. We needed to discuss some of the finer points on the UI design for the new application we’re building. So we all got round the table and started working on these ideas.

Why do we bother?

Recently we have seen a resurgence of new enquiries from potential customers with some of the key warning signs that make any quality web agency start to panic….

We need the website up and running within the next 3 weeks

and, our all-time favourite…

What we want is basically a copy ‘n’ paste job from one of the other sites you’ve built, and we have a budget of £2,000

For these customers, explaining that we need time allocated to just discussing ideas and the best way to develop the site seems completely alien, but it’s not for these customers that we do this.

We bother because it shows

Without time spent just discussing how the site or application is going to work, how the audience is likely to use it, what makes for a usable interface design etc, all we will ever produce for our clients is a mediocre result. No one ever set the world on fire with mediocrity.

At Something Interesting we are passionate about what we do and fundamentally believe in what we produce. That’s why we will always allow time for collaboration…

I’ve always enjoyed reading (and listening) to what Seth Godin has to say. Most of what he says makes perfect sense and I tend to agree with it (mostly). But I have never been moved enough to re-post his comments until now.

In his last post “Hardly worth the effort”, Seth talks about the importance of the final 10% of effort – no matter what you are doing. The last 10% takes a disproportionate amount of time to achieve, but it is most definitely worth it.

And that is exactly what we do here. That extra 10% in the research stage, in the wire-frame, design, UX and testing stages all adds up. It means the difference between a good user experience and a fantastic user experience – a good website and a fantastic website.

So many companies try to compete by being the cheapest or the quickest which is fine, but it is only with companies that try for that last 10% that products will evolve. So please, whatever you do, keep trying for that last 10%.

Seth’s article can be found here – well worth a read.

And you can follow him here > http://twitter.com/ThisIsSethsBlog

Something Interesting is growing – again!

With a lovely big project on the horizon and more clients in the pipeline, we are now looking for a junior developer to join the team. Ideally you will:

1. Have experience of developing in a LAMP environment
2. Have some experience of XML
3. Want to join a team where your opinion matters
4. Care about the user experience

So, if you love to code, get a kick out building highly usable websites and don’t mind talking to customers, drop us a line.

Email your CV with examples of sites you’ve built, your availability and salary expectations to jobs@somethinginteresting.co.uk

We look forward to meeting you.

Why do we go to all the effort of sketching and creating wire-frames for all our websites? It all takes time and adds to the cost of the overall product. We wont lie, we have lost out on contracts plenty of times because we were out of the clients expected budget.

Drop the sketching & wire-framing and reduce the cost of the site to win that work? NEVER! And here’s why…

‘Creating a wire-frame gives the client, developer, and designer an opportunity to take a critical look at the structure of the website and allows them to make revisions easily early on in the process.’

Using wireframes to streamline your development process

Simply put we create wire-frames because they offer the following benefits:

1. It is an early chance for us and the customer to ensure we understand the importance of each element of the site and it’s content.
2. It is a chance to clarify the goals and objectives of the site.
3. It gives us a framework from which to start the creative process.
4. It allows us to plan a clear route through the site for a potential customer, this means we can identify the best places for calls to action and ensure a customer has the information they require when they need it.
5. They save us time and our customers money in the long run.

So these are just a few of the many reasons why we always quote including valuable time for sketching and wire-framing. It gets us the results we need to make our customers happy and keep them coming back to us.

Our approach works, we’ve proved this to many customers in the past but sometimes we all need a little justification. It may cost more and it may lose us work but when a customer understands the value of our process we always ensure they are happy with the results.

We’ve been in our new office for 5 weeks now and have started getting new furniture and other bits and bobs together.

Yesterday we got our prints back from the printers, they are so lovely we thought we would share them with you.

The artwork was created in house by J-P and our new best friends at Southsea Gallery (www.southseagallery.co.uk) printed and framed them excellently.

More stuff to follow….

November 7th marks eight years since we set up in business. Since then a lot has changed but what still remains constant is our desire to design and build the best possible web solutions for our clients.

Now with a team of 5 experienced and dedicated people, we are building cool websites for some amazing clients. You can see our latest web design work on our portfolio.

We are always on the lookout for the next great project to get involved in, if you have a project you want to discuss with us give Steve a call on 023 9286 3725.

…to design and build with absolute passion

Yesterday saw our latest new recruit joining our ranks. Nial joins after a brief stint at another local web design company that closed down.

Nial is another graduate from Portsmouth University (which makes 4 Portsmouth graduates in the office now).

As our newest developer, Nial will be helping to develop and support our growing customer base. With experience in XML and application development, combined with a strong data architecture background we’re sure he is going to be a really valuable assest to the company.

Of course for the first few months, he will probably have his head down getting used to things, but soon he will be out and about meeting all our clients.

If you would like to work at Something Interesting please keep your eyes on our website for jobs at Something Interesting.