Customization of Shopify has always been something I’ve wanted Talking Pixels to get it’s teeth into, and finally we have! Website to follow shortly, but here are some thoughts that the process has triggered…

Talking Pixels have always excelled at, and enjoyed, building custom e-commerce sites (particularly since Ruby on Rails came along). However, I’ve always been concerned about the large investment involved in building a really good e-commerce site from scratch, even with Rails. It’s fine for businesses who already have a reliable turnover, where the cost of building a solution from scratch is offset by the value of having features built around their (often rapidly changing) business needs. However, many e-commerce business ideas are more experimental, unpredictable, and started on a shoe-string. While in theory the web is ideal for this, the realisation of such ideas is often, let’s just say - ‘underwhelming’.

Trying out a business idea in the real world (well, real-virtual at least), while not having to invest large sums of time and money into software, is liberating, democratic and exciting. The idea that start-ups could be selling products to the world in a matter of days, even hours, through a professional looking and operating web shop,
is a revolution.

Services like Shopify allows business to try the market, selling real products, without busting the bank in the process. I’m sure market research still has it’s place, however, when the cost of deployment is so low, I have to wonder whether it still has such importance.

Of course, the idea behind Shopify isn’t new. In the dotcom days, I was involved in the development of a conceptually similar service for a UK-based payment processor. However, three things were wrong, in my opinion - firstly, the market wasn’t ready for it. Not enough people ‘got’ e-commerce. Secondly, web interfaces were rudimentary and painfully slow to use. The customisation options were either highly limited, badly designed or both. Thirdly, online marketing was a just a nipper. Tools such as Google Adwords and Campaign Monitor didn’t exist. And even if they had, few people would have grasped their potential.

I still believe customized solutions are the way forward, if you have capital to invest and a tried and tested business model. But services like Shopify are very usable for retailers who are just getting started.

So, I’ll end on a plug - if you’re looking for a customized Shopify site and you like the look of our work, we’d love to help. If you have grown out of your shopping cart, we’d also love
to help  : )

Btw. we’re based in Clerkenwell / Farringdon, London, UK.

We’re excited to announce the launch of our first self-initiated project - Talks & Lectures For Londoners. The concept is simple - a site which provides a comprehensive, up-to-date and highly searchable listing of the large number of talks and lectures happening in the London area.

Visit the site at: talks.forlondoners.com

It’s still very much a beta site - currently with events only from the ICA, RSA and LSE. The list should grow quickly, but hopefully it’s already a useful resource.

We’d love to hear your feedback on the site. Please do send any to:
feedback@forlondoners.com

Update: We are no longer looking to fill this position, however, we’re always happy to receive interesting CVs to keep on record.

We are currently looking for an exceptional person to join our small team as a Junior Software Developer.

For all applicants we’d expect the following:

• - Good communication skills
• - Good verbal and written English
• - Experience developing web applications
• - At least 6 months experience with Ruby on Rails
• - General programming and scripting experience
• - Good OOP knowledge
• - Some CSS and XHTML/HTML knowledge
• - Comfortable with Linux/Unix
• - An eye for detail
• - Appreciation of design & usability
• - Experience or keen to use agile methodologies

The following would be advantageous:

• - Test-Driven Development (TDD) experience
• - Experience in other programming languages
• - Advanced knowledge of JavaScript and AJAX
• - Knowledge of usability issues

We’d look for the candidate to be…

• - friendly, honest, trustworthy in nature
• - organised and proactive
• - comfortable working in a small company
• - able to work in Farringdon, London

In return, we will…

• - be friendly, respectful and fair
• - give commercial, professional experience
• - share a ton of knowledge and experience
• - encourage and nurture self-development

Please send your covering letters, CVs and work examples to tom [at] talkingpixels.co.uk.

A Friday afternoon thought:

Everyone seems to have gone rather GTD (Getting Things Done) crazy. The fact that everyone is writing GTD software and blogging about it, surely indicates one of two things:

1. It really works and everyone’s got lots of time on their hands
or…
2. People are spending loads of time finding ways to avoiding actually employing the GTD methodology, whilst convincing themselves GTD is in the forefront of their mind … i.e. they are procrastinating

Can anyone clarify this for me?

We’re proud to announce the launch of a new e-commerce site for Elias & Grace, a boutique in Primrose Hill, London, selling designer maternity and children’s clothes.

www.eliasandgrace.com

The site is the fruits of what I consider to be a great working relationship between Elias & Grace, Aloof and ourselves. It has been designed and developed over the last few months, and despite the apparent simplicity of the end result, the process threw up some interesting design and technical challenges.

We look forward to hearing feedback from users about the site, seeing how Elias & Grace find the process of becoming an online retailer and working out how the site can continue to evolve.

A graphic designer and I had a discussion yesterday about adding a small piece of functionality to a site we are building together. I mocked up the elements and asked for some feedback. I was thinking along the lines of - ‘is this approach worth developing further?’. The designer’s response was along the lines of - ‘can you line A up with B, and C up with D?’. I said - ’sure, but do you think this is a good solution?’

This highlighted something interesting - i was thinking in terms of time and he was thinking about space. What i mean by that is that my

interests lay in the sequence of events that occurs between the user and the interface over a period of time; whereas his lay in the more static visual relationships between items on the page.

It was a reminder to me of how crucial it is to consider both of these factors to achieve successful interface design.

You may have noticed the beginnings of plans for CSS frameworks/conventions. It’s something i’ve been thinking about for a while now, so it will be interesting to see how this develops.

Something has crossed my mind more and more recently - the more we use frameworks such as Rails, Prototype, Scriptactulous, etc. the more I start to wonder about the longer-term effects of everyone using them. Let’s take Rails as an example - it’s really easy to do things such as auto-completed text boxes, standard error messages, AJAX with blind-down effects, etc. There’s an understandable excitement about these things - it’s refreshing after years of low-interactivity HTML. However, I predict some downsides. Firstly, inappropriate application of technology - rather than considering what is the best solution to a problem, designers and developers will gravitate towards the the easy options.

Secondly, it would be very easy to get complacent, with all these time-saving features and forget to innovate. Gizmos will only be impressive for so long, until everyone else is using them. Building your success on these kinds of features will leave you swamped with competition in the near future. I believe, forging ahead with your own ideas, while sensibly applying the help of frameworks is much healthier.

To conclude, what I’m pointing at here is not actually a problem with the frameworks themselves; it’s a problem of complacency in the mainstream workplace. There will always be a small number of people forging ahead with their own ideas, solving problems in radical new ways, setting the lead for everyone else to thoughtlessly follow…

Over and out.

Yesterday a tornado went past our office window in North London. It only lasted for a minute or two, then it was blue sky again. While the gusts of wind attacked a nearby tree, i noticed a wood pigeon clutching on to a branch. It looked rather scared but determined to stick it out.

I realised afterwards, that this week I have felt a bit like that pigeon.

Our industry clearly doesn’t need another buzz-word but Tornadic Web Development does have a ring to it. Now, i just have to come up with a meaning …