Book Summary:

This book is about a discovery that transformed author's web development process and saved his company. This discovery allowed his company to clearly communicate the subtleties of a website to non-technical clients. The clients "got it" and were able to move confidently through the entire development process. As a result of this simple discovery, many of the advertising agencies and design firms that the company works with have become much more comfortable, confident, and profitable in offering web development services to their clients.

Intended Audience:

This book is for anyone who has been, or will be, involved in developing a website. There are many parties involved in the development of a site, some are technical, some creative, some strategic, and some managerial. This book is primarily written for those poor souls (often Marketing Directors) who are tasked with the responsibility of leading a team in getting a website built or redesigned. They will benefit from this discovery because it gives them a means of understanding the subtleties of hypertext, and the technical complexities of the web. Their projects will be greatly improved through identifying and overcoming the common barriers to communicating about the web.

This book is also written for both account executives and creative directors who often get stuck in "no win" situations as they try to meet their clients' needs for web development. These communication professionals are often caught between the exaggerated expectations of their clients and insensitive web development partners who don't grasp the complex relational dynamics and corporate politics that can govern a decision making process. Trying to mitigate these two diverse perspectives can be extremely frustrating for them. In fact, it can be so frustrating that many agencies and design firms have given up on the web entirely. This book places a high value on communicating technical complexities to a non-technical audience. Understandable technical communication is the key to resolving these frustrations.

Finally, and to a lesser degree, this book is written for other developers. The benefits of this process should be obvious to them since, like us, they contend with the barriers of communicating web development every day. The author has deliberately described the process in ways that can be adopted by any developer, using generic web development tools. The core idea behind the process is technology agnostic.

The main subject of this book addresses how to communicate technical issues non-technically (for the benefit of clients who don't have technical backgrounds). Because this is the author's aim, the technical developer may find the lack of precise technical language disconcerting. However, this is necessary and deliberate. The technically literate developer should consider how important it is to be able to translate technical issues into non-technical language, especially when it comes to the web. Websites, after all, are custom software applications that are purchased by people who have never bought custom software, making them completely unfamiliar with the language of this endeavor.