Websites are always in beta

Your website is never finished. Web pages don’t “go to press” like printed leaflets and brochures do. And that unfinshed quality is a great thing.

I started in work doing print design. The worst moments were always when advance copies of the finished printed item came back from the printers. We would leaf through the pages hoping not to find any mistakes. It didn’t matter how many drafts and proofs the item had gone through, the grinding-stomach feeling was always there.

That’s why I like working in the web. In my work now, it’s very rare that a mistake can’t be rectified so fast that it either doesn’t matter or causes very few problems. Accuracy is vital of course, especially when dealing with pricing or items that can be seen as contractual. But I rarely get the same grinding-stomach feeling any more.

In a recent blog Guy Kawasaki highlights The Top Ten Lies of Engineers. He’s talking about software engineers and it strikes me that their lot in life is similar to that of the print designer. Engineers work on a product that has a deadline and gets launched with or without mistakes. The web developer’s life is often much easier in comparison.

So here’s to the world of the web developer where everything is beta all the time and we never make any mistakes.

By the way, the image above is borrowed from a newly launched personalisable news site called Spotback. Oh, and the site is in beta mode at the moment…