What’s in a Phone Number?

Today’s topic is an example demonstrating the difference between requirements (marketing based) and specifications (engineering based). We have a simple example of one form field, where we’re adding a telephone number to the User Profile panel in the WordPress back end. We’ve often come across requirements like this where what appears to be a simple task becomes a bit more involved once we work on converting our client’s requirements into engineering specifications adequate for building robust software.

We typically start out with obtaining basic requirements from our prospective clients to understand the scope of their project concept. We want to ensure there is a designer involved, or somebody qualified to make design decisions when they come up. On the back end (wp-admin) we generally stick to the design conventions already there, though there may still be design implications requiring a designer’s input. Once we have all the requirements on the table and design mockups ready, we then ask questions that move us towards specifications, adequate for estimating cost and timeline for production.

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Our Tribute to Steve Jobs

Yesterday the technology community lost a hero. Steve Jobs was an iconic leader for marketing and innovation. His legacy remains alive and well at Apple, throughout the industry, and here at our little start-up business, beAutomated. Steve Jobs’ legacy comes into our operation in a number of ways, including:

• Commitment to quality and doing things in a future proofed manner.
• Being visionary—inventing new approaches, building upon and exceeding requirements.
• Doing the things we love and letting the “dots get connected” on their own.
• Leading the business optimistically on a path to success through hard work.
• Perfecting the entire experience within our control.
• Influencing the tools that the community uses everyday, thinking big and never giving up.

Apple products have been legendary. We use Apple products everyday to do what we do. Steve Jobs will be dearly missed…

Hear us on Your Website Engineer Episode 44!

Randy and I were return call-in guests on a popular WordPress podcast that aired Oct 5, 2011. Listen to us discuss the WordPress API with Dustin Hartzler of Your Website Engineer on episode 44.

Your Website Engineer has served many thousands of downloads to the WordPress community and ranks within the top 10 when one searches for the term “WordPress” within the Apple iTunes Store. This episode marks Dustin’s 44th podcast on how to build your own quality website and runs for approximately 40 minutes.

In this episode we discuss WordPress Plugin Strategy, a comprehensive overview of how WordPress is intended to be extended with plugins via the WordPress API.

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