AITP of Southern New England

April 2002 Meeting

Avoiding the Communication Pitfalls of Web Development

Speaker: Eric Holter - President, Newfangled Web Factory

Eric's presentation will focus on the problems of communication that are common to web development projects. Drawing on his six years of experience as the president of Newfangled Web Factory, he will examine why web development tends to be a frustrating experience marked by miscommunication and unmet expectations. He will then demonstrate how a simple method of html prototyping can correct these problems and streamline the development process, enabling developers to communicate effectively with a non-technical project team to define the content, structure and functionality of a web site at the onset of a development project. This prototyping method is the subject of Eric's recent book, "Client vs. Developer Wars: Communicating the Web Development Experience." This presentation is a must for anyone doing web development, managing web development or thinking of implementing any type of corporate web philosophy.

About Eric Holter :
President, Newfangled Web Factory Author, "Client / Developer Wars: Communicating the Web Development Experience" Eric Holter is the President and Creative Director of Newfangled Web Factory, a six-year-old web development company located in Providence. He has contributed to Web Techniques (July 1999) and has been a frequent speaker at the Rhode Island Business expo and ITEC conferences. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration from Rhode Island School of Design. Having an emphasis in wood engraving and letter-press printing, his path to the web was not very straight. His position as studio manager for two distinguished advertising agencies (Pagano Schenk and Kay and Leonard/Monahan) originally lead him to the web, and in 1995 he began his own development company. Having guided his company through the turbulent waters of web development from the dawn of Netscape to the present has provided him with an education in the school of hard knocks. Through these years of hard-earned experience, his commitment to refining his company's development process has helped him to define the principals of RaPiD.

A Brief Overview of RaPiD

The goal of RaPiD is to recognize and overcome some of the fundamental problems inherent in web development. As a process, it is beneficial to companies as it will help them understand and appreciate the issues they will need to work through as they contract to have a web site developed. The web development experience is fraught with some consistent frustrations that cannot be solved technically. Rather the solutions must be found in a process that enables effective communication about a complex and technical project among groups of people with widely varied levels of technical experience and comfort (from web developers to marketers to CEOs). Eric's book, "Client / Developer Wars: Communicating the Web Development Experience," describes and analyzes the roots of these communication problems and then identifies the need for an effective process, describing how RaPiD (Rapid Prototype development) provides a model for solving these problems. While our process is proprietary there is nothing technical about it. It is based on simple principles and generic tools. It is half business philosophy and half practical application.