Upgrade to Pro
— share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …
Speaker Deck
Features
Speaker Deck
PRO
Sign in
Sign up for free
Search
Search
Cost Effective Web Development
Search
Drew McLellan
September 27, 2011
Technology
120
3
Share
Embed
Copy iframe code
Copy JS code
Copy link
Start on current slide
Cost Effective Web Development
From Iceweb 2010, Reykjavík, Iceland
Drew McLellan
September 27, 2011
More Decks by Drew McLellan
See All by Drew McLellan
HTML5 APIs PHP Yorkshire 2017
drewm
1
230
HTML5 APIs Confoo Montreal
drewm
1
280
PHP Payments with Omnipay
drewm
0
140
HTML5 APIs Confoo Vancouver
drewm
0
300
Learn to Love Regular Expressions
drewm
0
180
Ecommerce Projects with Moltin
drewm
0
700
Writing Portable PHP
drewm
0
140
Getting to Grips with Regular Expressions
drewm
1
290
Back to Front Performance - Oct 2013
drewm
0
130
Other Decks in Technology
See All in Technology
強化学習「理論」入門
enakai00
3
3.6k
あなたの知らないバージョン命名規則
sat
PRO
2
370
現場回帰したデータエンジニアが考える AI 時代のキャリア開発 / Career Development in the Age of AI Perspectives from a Hands-on Data Engineer
medley
0
320
サイボウズ 開発本部採用ピッチ / Cybozu Engineer Recruit
cybozuinsideout
PRO
12
85k
Model Studio CLI × Token Plan
maigo999
0
210
Adding Right-to-Left support to your web application with CSS logical properties — Lessons from Redmine
vividtone
0
180
長期運営で肥大化したExcelマスターデータの解消に向けた移行事例
gree_tech
PRO
0
360
AIに持続⼒を与える 判断の⻑期記憶設計
eiei114
1
680
ソフトウェアサプライチェーンの構造的リスクとコンテナ環境の保護
kyohmizu
5
890
RapidCopy2 Matrix I/Oエンジンによるファイルコピーソフトウェアの設計と実装
kengosawa2
1
350
Sets in Go
ramalho
1
1.2k
2026-08-15 JAWS-UG 茨城 #16 Secrets ManagerにおけるSecret値の管理(Terraformの場合) / Secrets Manager Secrets
masasuzu
0
570
Featured
See All Featured
The Illustrated Children's Guide to Kubernetes
chrisshort
51
53k
Gemini Prompt Engineering: Practical Techniques for Tangible AI Outcomes
mfonobong
2
490
The Art of Delivering Value - GDevCon NA Keynote
reverentgeek
16
2.1k
Test your architecture with Archunit
thirion
2
2.4k
Claude Code どこまでも/ Claude Code Everywhere
nwiizo
66
57k
Keith and Marios Guide to Fast Websites
keithpitt
413
23k
Lessons Learnt from Crawling 1000+ Websites
charlesmeaden
PRO
1
1.5k
Digital Projects Gone Horribly Wrong (And the UX Pros Who Still Save the Day) - Dean Schuster
uxyall
1
2.5k
brightonSEO & MeasureFest 2025 - Christian Goodrich - Winning strategies for Black Friday CRO & PPC
cargoodrich
3
780
Leading Effective Engineering Teams in the AI Era
addyosmani
9
2.4k
How to audit for AI Accessibility on your Front & Back End
davetheseo
0
500
ReactJS: Keep Simple. Everything can be a component!
pedronauck
666
130k
Transcript
10 COST EFFECTIVE WEB DEVELOPMENT TECHNIQUES
OR: HOW CAN I MAKE THE BEST USE OF LIMITED
DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT BUDGETS IN THESE INCREASINGLY CHALLENGING ECONOMIC TIMES?
SOMEWHERE OUT THERE LIES A WORLD OF LIMITLESS BUDGETS
WHEN BUDGETS ARE TIGHT EVERYONE WORKS HARDER
F A S T E R CHEAPER BETTER STRONGER WITH
FEWER RESOURCES AVAILABLE
S O M E T E C H N I
Q U E S A R E TECHNICAL BUT MANY ARE ABOUT WORKFLOW
I’M DREW MCLELLAN E D G E O F M
Y S E AT. C O M ~ @ D R E W M I HELP PEOPLE BUILD THINGS ON THE WEB
HERE’S THE TIPS PRESENTED IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER
1 WRITE A COMPREHENSIVE SPECIFICATION FOR YOUR PROJECT
& A GOOD SPEC DOES TWO THINGS LIMITS S C
O P E E N A B L E S EFFICIENCY
T H E E A S I E S T
P L A C E TO CONTROL COSTS - IS IN - THE SPEC
DESCRIBE HOW THE SITE WORKS FROM THE USER’S PERSPECTIVE NOT
HOW IT’S IMPLEMENTED
C H A N G E S A R E
C H E A P T O M A K E O N PAPER
ENABLES EFFICIENCY! DEVELOPMENT - CAN BE - PLANNED U P
F R O N T
- NO - ALARMS - NO - SURPRISES
2 EVALUATE POSSIBLE EXISTING SOLUTIONS
DON’T REINVENT THE WHEEL
EVALUATE AGAINST YO U R ( N OW S O
L I D ) SPECIFICATION
CONSIDER COMPROMISES: WHERE DOES COST MATTER MORE THAN FEATURES?
USE EXISTING CODE AND BUILD 10% ON TOP - NOT
- 100% FROM NOTHING
3 CONSIDER THE COST OF YOUR DESIGN CHOICES
None
None
None
None
T O U G H BUT NOT IMPOS S I
B L E
I T J U S T TA K E S
TIME
None
None
None
C O N S I D E R T H
E DEVELOPMENT IMPLICATIONS O F E V E RY S I N G L E DESIGN CHOICE
4 MAKE SURE YOUR DESIGN COVERS ALL STATES THE USER
ENCOUNTERS
GOING BACK & FORTH CO S T S T I
M E
& - CONSIDER - LOGGED IN LOGGED OUT
& - CONSIDER - EMPTY STATES TOO MUCH DATA
& - CONSIDER - WITH JAVASCRIPT WITHOUT
& - CONSIDER - ERRORS MESSAGES
MAKE SURE EVERYTHING IN THE SPEC IS DESIGNED
5 DESIGN FOR REUSABILITY
BUILD A TOOLKIT OF REUSABLE COMPONENTS
DESIGN TO A GRID
EVERY UNIQUE ELEMENT IS A SOURCE OF COST
- A FEW - VERSATILE TEMPLATES IS BETTER THAN DOZENS
None
6 REMEMBER: BROADBAND IS NOT A SILVER BULLET
None
DESIGNING FOR BROADBAND PUTS EXTRA LOAD ON YOUR SERVERS
- BANDWIDTH IS - EXPENSIVE C O N S I
D E R Y O U R RUNNING COSTS
JUST BECAUSE IT’S DIGITAL DOESN’T MEAN IT’S FREE
7 PREPARE YOUR DESIGN FILES READY TO SEND ACROSS TO
YOUR DEVELOPER
MAKE IT EASY FOR YOUR DEVELOPER - TO - GET
IT RIGHT
MISTAKES - & - ADJUSTMENTS ARE EXPENSIVE
GOING BACK AND FORTH COSTS TIME
NAME AND GROUP - YOUR LAYERS -
PROVIDE FLAT VERSIONS OF EACH STATE FOR REFERENCE
HAND OVER A COLOUR GUIDE
EXPLAIN YOUR GRID - DEVELOPERS WILL LOVE YOU -
8 BUILD YOUR SITE FOR CHEAP MAINTENANCE
ONCE A SITE IS BUILT IT HAS TO BE MAINTAINED
C O N T E N T CHANGES S T
RU C T U R E CHANGES U S E A G E CHANGES
DESIGN & BUILD FOR FLEXIBILITY
- AVOID - LABOUR-INTENSIVE TECHNIQUES SUCH AS TEXT AS IMAGES
DON’T DESIGN EACH SECTION - IN A - DIFFERENT COLOUR
CONSIDER HOW EACH ELEMENT RESPONDS TO CHANGE AND THE TIME
IT WILL TAKE TO ADAPT IT
9 BUILD YOUR SITE FOR LOW COST QUALITY ASSURANCE (THAT’S
TESTING!)
EVERY ELEMENT OF A SITE NEEDS TO BE TESTED
- MULTIPLE - BROWSERS - MULTIPLE - PLATFORMS
LOGGED IN - OR - LOGGED OUT
JAVASCRIPT ON OR OFF
FLASH INSTALLED OR NOT
THERE ARE TWO OUTCOMES: TESTING GETS EXPENSIVE - OR -
QUALITY SUFFERS
CONSIDER THE TESTING OVERHEAD OF EVERYTHING YOU ADD
10 BUILD ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS USE EXISTING APIS
OUTSOURCE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE
THE WEB IS A COLLECTION OF SMALL PIECES LOOSELY JOINED
BE A SMALL PIECE
AMAZON S3 FEEDBURNER YOUTUBE / VIMEO FLICKR GOOGLE MAPS YAHOO!
SEARCH
APIS
THE BEST WAY TO SAVE MONEY LET SOMEONE ELSE SPEND
THEIRS
THANK YOU ANY QUESTIONS?
SLIDES ALLINTHEHEAD.COM/PRESENTATIONS FOLLOW ME: @DREWM