Trains are a novelty to me. I spent childhood, adolescence and the early years of adulthood bound to travel by car. The great passenger railroads of America are centuries gone. I first traveled by train in Europe. The great appeal, I think, is the passive nature of train travel. A midway between points; a subdued and introspective void. A vessel of windows looking to a world of gliding landscapes and industrial ruin. Suspension of control: a time to drift and dream, to question.

The drudgery of commuter travel aside, train journeys hold a glimmer of ancient romance.

It is less an impulse to escape boredom than a track for serendipity. A mundane and arbitrary act to encourage the accidental discovery of something novel or useful — a search for provocation that might lead to insight or direction. At its least noble, a way to promote a sense of satisfaction (however false) that I accomplish something simply by doing. With no agenda or known destination and no knowledge of the route, the journey becomes the plot. While the seemingly unexpected defiance is, in truth, limited and predictable, the thrill of the new provides stimulation. The peaks of churches straining over the platforms of stations with unlikely names, the interactions and conversations of other passengers; everything takes a special meaning because it operates under a veneer that insists upon it.

I stay on the train until it terminates at Bishops Stortford. I imagine wandering into town, walking down unfamiliar streets past shop fronts, perhaps even coming upon a green space or waterfront.

I am unable to leave the station.

I am traveling on an Oyster card: a payment system that vanishes outside of London’s borders. The attendant explains this to me. Broxbourne is the last station with card readers. He asks if I have money. I need to find the ticket counter and purchase a ticket for the journey from London. I walk downstairs, but hesitate after seeing a map of the train routes. Two stops back to Broxbourne, and the next train is ready to depart.

Outside the gates at Broxbourne, the nearest building of any significance is six miles away.

The now familiar stations and names slide past the train window, blurring with the rain.

• 25 Mar 2013 Border agency condemned over backlog
• 25 Feb 2013 Border Agency ‘endangering pregnant women’s health’
• 24 Jan 2013 Watchdog finds two more UKBA immigration backlogs
• 17 Feb 2013 UK visa appointments ‘sold for cash’
• 3 Feb 2013 Gay asylum seekers feeling increased pressure to prove sexuality
• 4 Jan 2013 Capita tells departed migrants to leave UK
• 3 Jan 2013 Migrants wrongly told to leave UK by firm hired by UKBA
• 4 Dec 2012 Border Agency customer service ‘shockingly poor’
• 29 Nov 2012 Student visas: UKBA ‘failed to check’ tip-offs
• 27 Nov 2012 Border Agency official apologises for ‘inadvertently’ misleading MPs
• 18 Sep 2012 Capita gets contract to find 174,000 illegal immigrants
• 18 Jul 2012 Overseas students ‘cannot leave or stay’ in visa delays
• 5 Jul 2012 Immigration backlog: New warning from watchdog
• 15 Jun 2012 UKBA staff ‘unfairly rejecting’ African visas, report finds
• 15 May 2012 Border Agency boss warns computers ‘could crash again’
• 3 May 2012 UK Border Agency ID card system crashes
• 3 May 2012 Waiting target for non-EEA visitors at Heathrow missed in April
• 11 Apr 2012 UK Border Agency ‘not fit for purpose’
• 11 Apr 2012 UK Border Agency unable to fulfil its basic functions, MPs warn
• 11 Apr 2012 Border Agency still failing on basics, say MPs
• 20 Feb 2012 Theresa May to split up UK Border Agency
• 15 Nov 2011 UK border checks were relaxed at 28 ports and airports
• 5 Nov 2011 Head of UK border force Brodie Clark suspended
• 4 Nov 2011 UK Border Agency attacked for ‘dumping’ missing cases
• 16 Feb 2011 UK Border Agency ‘failing over visa controls’
• 27 Jul 2010 ‘Serious failings’ in UK visa controls for Pakistanis

Thousands of anecdotal stories support the news reports; found throughout online forums, comments on news articles and the personal experiences of friends and family of individuals in the UK. The agency’s shortcomings seemed compounded by a shortage of staff with subsequent outsourcing of work to consultancies, IT firms and private security groups. In one such example, as a new law requiring biometric visas (identity cards) for migrants came into effect, the UKBA issued printed bar code references during application. At ad hoc locations across the country workers scanned the bar codes during biometric enrollment; however they were frequently unreadable and needed, often repeated, reissue. A private firm handled biometric rollout; applicants bore the brunt of the government’s poor commissions.

The failings of the Border Agency can not, of course, be entirely attributed to internal mismanagement. Constant, disruptive change to immigration policy led to a flood of new applications and renewals. Biometric card requirements, higher application fees, stringent university criteria, and the closing of settlement routes — against a backdrop of frenzied determination by the coalition government to drastically reduce immigration numbers — pushed hundred of thousands into an untenable backlog that the agency, already deemed “not fit for purpose”, was never capable of handling. A successful visa grant was largely and arbitrarily dependent on a case worker’s understanding of the rules in place at the time of application.

Only time will tell if the decision to close the Border Agency will result in anything more than a bureaucratic reshuffle. Immigration policy in the United Kingdom requires extensive reform: better opportunities for those seeking education and skilled employment with a sustainable route to residency, supported by sensible government practice.

Previously:

• Immigration and settlement in the United Kingdom
• Closed doors
• This is my station

In a lean environment, design matters more than ever

The project brief was all-inclusive in regards to the design and development of the website, but left out formally considering a revised or new brand identity for the organization. This was intentional, for sake of budget and time. Historically, event organisers had the creative freedom to craft a local identity, which might occasionally use basic visual elements of the parent group.

The identity, so to speak, was a slightly haphazard application of Sketch Rockwell (often substituted with Cabin Sketch).

The initial visual designs for the website used an uppercase application of Cabin Sketch, with a bit of kerning and resizing of individual letters; a small attempt at connecting the new website with the existing material.

The client approved the designs with this logo, and we moved forward.

Except, it bothered me.

The new website was a real step on the founder’s part to bring the impressive collective of events they started two years ago to a wider audience. The group is entirely non-profit, and as such any promotion comes from the founder’s own pockets. I saw a gap in between the serious (paid) effort of the website and the brand they stood behind. The existing font felt uneasy and frail in the new context.

The catch being, of course, that it was out of scope.

The titles, quotations and taglines of the design are set in Quatro Slab. I considered a version simply using this face in the Ultra Black weight.

The team weren’t keen on the idea. They, quite validly, preferred to keep the casual, hand drawn and essentially unprofessional typeface as it — I speculate — better represented the democratic nature of the events.

I wondered, was there a middle ground?

After a few poor trials trying to fuse the sketch lines of the original with the slab serif, I had a go at it by hand. With a few printouts of Quatro Slab as reference, I penned the nine letters in my sketchbook (my luck to work with a title without repeating letters).

I scanned the sketches and overlaid them on the computer with the precise machine letters. With a bit of manipulation in Photoshop, I extracted rough outlines: texture cut-outs. I then converted each letter to a vector object in Illustrator, with a bit more custom refinement.

The result is a mix of the clean, mechanical lines of Quatro Slab Ultra Black with the digitized sketch and shading lines. While it isn’t likely to find its way into a design hall of fame, I believe it is a suitable balance given the time and monetary constrains of the project. The client agrees, and it is finding its way into new configurations, as seen on their Facebook and Twitter profiles.

This was a year of challenge and opportunity. A year of travel and learning. As it goes, everything changed then changed again.

I don’t have much use for New Year’s resolutions. If something needs fixing or an opportunity lies in sight, best to get to it. That said, I started the year with a list of outstanding aspirations: change jobs, move house and neighborhood, and submit the paperwork for a visa renewal. Incredibly, all of these challenges were sorted by the beginning of Summer.

The year began in Las Vegas: a trip wrought with the confusion and disruption of maintaining a role at one employer whilst negotiating the next – amidst a great deal of alcohol and emotion. The months followed in limbo, an object in motion suddenly aimless and still as I awaited for government approval to stay in the country. Held within borders without a passport, every new decision a massive gamble. Plan to leave and plan to stay.

Then, suddenly — release! into the current. A grant to say yes. Within days an opportunity to move handed to me, to an incredible residence in a borough I begrudgingly left three years before. A summer of events, of friends, of discovery. The marriages of two beautiful couples, an invitation to witness that I am very grateful for.

And — travel, a ticket to ride! Bath to Brighton, Somerset to Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire and Rye. Berlin, Amsterdam, Bologna, New York, Washington DC and Belfast. Vienna.

A good year, an exciting year, but not without turmoil or regret. In my personal life, chances gained then lost; a promising relationship and friendship broken by mistakes and neglect.

The last eight years of my life have seen continuous, tidal change. Jobs, homes, cities, countries. Though a few years stand back as unremarkable, change is the constant. I long for stability but shy from it, towards the gleam of possibility. Often, this leads to great things. However, if not balanced, these wax wings are bound to burn in the approaching sun.

What of next year? I intend to stay in the same job, the same flat and the same city. A year of potential firm footing? I am not naive enough to believe these things are not prone to upheaval. If, however, I keep to the ground a bit perhaps smaller, more interesting treasures are to be found.

The cardboard bed with its one, thin white sheet. Duvet the thickness of a starving lamb in winter. Flat, hard pillows.

A hotel room as a colorless, perfectly inoffensive cell. A strange sort of purgatory.

Tepid Earl Grey Tea, shade three seconds unreasonably dark. The ceramic mug black on a white, frilly doily.

Being awake is the same as being asleep. Time is lost, linear transgression escapes.

Do the work you love. Work with the clients and partners you respect and admire. Tell a story about something you know, tell your story. Tell a story that interests you.

The revised piece is split into three separate, easier-to-digest posts: A Standard of Quality (Part #1/3), A Standard of Quality (Part #2/3), A Standard of Quality (Part #3/3)

A standard of quality

It goes: Strive for quality in work. Require a high standard of quality in products and services, in business. In all things: quality of design, quality of code, quality of content, quality of usability and accessibility.

How do we define a high standard of quality?

One way of valuing quality is as a measure of craftsmanship.

Craftsmanship, to quote Richard Sennett, is “a basic human impulse: the desire to do a job well for its own sake”. Craftsmanship, by definition, implies a learned — or, more broadly, a practiced — skill in a particular craft. Craftsmanship, then, is an implicit standard of high quality.

In his article Crafting the Front End, Ben Bodien considers the attributes that make a craftsman (craftsperson) the maven of their craft. They are, paraphrased: “an appreciation of good work, a belief in quality at every level, vision, a preference for simplicity, and sincerity”. Further, the article explains that a craftsman is adept at his skill by maintaining a personalized toolkit, specialized to his strengths.

Quality in collaborative work then is finding the best designers, developers, writers and content creators; those who excel at a craft and expect the same of peers.

Craftsmanship and delivery

A high standard of quality and craftsmanship would suggest careful, considered effort and refinement over a long duration of time. In an environment of agile development and lean principles —  frequent release for purposes of quantitative learning — is there a conflict between work quality and the timely delivery of product? If the goal is to constantly test a product to gain user feedback and an understanding of progress, are the two constants — quality and pace — at odds?

As it stands, gaps in traditional ways of working allow for output without validation. This applies to design decisions as often as it applies to product research and feature investment. As with development, if allowed all the time in the world design quality will stagnate or diminish as authors add more and refine less. Rapid iteration is not counter-intuitive to a good design process. In fact, it is the opposite. The early concepting and sketching stages of design often need an exhausting devotion to the repetitive generation of ideas. The strength of visual design is in iteration. Similarly, rapid prototyping does not necessitate haphazard, disposable code.

The proposal then, is that there is no inherent compromise in essential — fundamental, quintessential– quality in work and the rate at which it is completed.

Elements of craftsmanship

Accepting that duration of products will differ, the pace of completion will vary, and unforeseen variables will disrupt workflows: how can we best infuse an essential standard of quality in our work? What elements of craftsmanship can shape our process? What elements of craftsmanship are at the heart of work we take pride in?

Consider a draft list of candidates.

Fundamentally usable design

Get things straight from the beginning: start with fundamentally usable design. Paul Schriver recently wrote on the notion of  ”Minimum Usable Design”. While the method he describes doesn’t quite live up to its premise, the term (which, admittedly is a bit silly) contains a kernel of truth. That is, favor simplicity and usability by designing for the largest user audience first. Design the aspects of a product or service that are relevant to a broad set of users. Avoid designing every feature or layout.

As we establish basics, add specialized features in iterations; prioritize the design process. In doing so, we save time and sidestep the risk of diminishing returns, as explained by Dmitry Fadeyev in response to Schriver’s article. He writes:

Once you implement the core foundation, you’ve satisfied most users, and as you go up from there, adding more and more features and refinements, the payoff for your efforts will steadily fall.

A smarter design process produces less waste and better design. This is especially crucial if the product is nested in a responsive web design workflow. Convey a broad design vision at the start, iterate as the audience returns measurable needs and the technology becomes less opaque.

Accessible, measurable concepts

Accessibility is critical to early user-testing, whether as designs presented for feedback or in product prototyping. Keep design straightforward: free of embellishment and difficult color or typographic choices. Thoroughly consider decisions, unapologetically remove unnecessary features or flourishes that put accessibility and testing in jeopardy.

A prototype or Minimum Viable Product (MVP) must be usable by the users testing it; measurable feedback is only useful if consistent and trusted. In cases where a single technology or browser scenario is not specified in early testing, always aim for broad compatibility on different devices.

Do not lose sight of established best practices. Progressive enhancement, web standards, image optimization and a mobile first approach are more important than ever. Remember your audience and their capabilities and limitations. Technology bootstraps and boilerplates, by their nature, often prepare for every contingency. Bloated with fallbacks and callbacks for edge cases — pandering to deprecated browsers and strutting the latest clever Javascript framework — prepackaged boilerplates are liable to become a hinderance if the markup survives to the late stages of product development. Avoid temptation, be wary of shiny things. This may seem dogmatic, but it is important to avoid points of no return in development. A bit of research and discussion with peers to weigh the benefits against the needs of the product will, more often than not, fend off the unforeseen implications of using untested technology in otherwise stable development environments.

Follow the rules! The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) tell us everything we need to know to build compliant web services. Additionally, keep note of HTML5 support for The Roles Model (ARIA). Be mindful of users with visual impairments and learning disabilities. Simulate users environments where you can, consult with experts where you cannot.

User experience modeled on shared and personal learning

Ben Bodean, in his article on craftsmanship, wrote on the importance of a craftsman’s toolkit. He provides it as a metaphor for the tools and knowledge we collect to enable our craft in a chosen field. We specialize each toolkit through the tools, and individualize by our unique, particular experiences.

In terms of design, our toolkit is a personal collection of layouts, concepts and recurring patterns that we find online, in publication, on the street. There is a parallel to the photographer’s morgue of editorial shops and studios. It is the scaffolding borrowed from the shared libraries of our peers; the templates and stencils we forage to fill the gaps in our software applications.

Design, and the process of establishing user experience, is stronger for shared material. Building on the learnings of others makes for an efficient and timely process, but more importantly reduces the potential for repetitive mistakes. Accepted user behaviors, design patterns — a cumulative result of the trial and error of others.

Modular, reusable patterns of code

In the same way, front end development should encourage reusability. Stop redundancy and repetition by stashing pieces of code. Pool from previous projects, build a centralized repository. Use snippets in text editors. As you assemble a toolkit, prepare a collection of common, reusable markup and style patterns. Examine standard elements for commonality; how often does the underlying markup for lists, headings, tables, navigation and content styling change? The best minds in the industry insist on modularity — for example Dan Cederholm’s pea.rs, Jeremy Keith’s Pattern Primer and the BBC’s Global Experience Language.

If possible, build and keep lightweight framework skeletons and vanilla themes with basic functionality, without the frills. Import entire bits of previous projects when starting something new. Be lazy, efficient and advocate cohesion.

Output adhering and contributing to, a guide of living standards

The simplest way to maintain quality is to ensure consistency. As organizations and teams often change, the most reliable way of keeping a legacy of regularity in work or appearance is through guidelines, or style guides. Newspapers have written and adhered to their own language style guides for a century; transportation networks, large corporations and cultural institutions achieved visual uniformity through graphic design in the mid-20th century. Style guides are keystones of modern branding.

Design guidelines determine typographic selection, a color palette, image treatment, the outlay of a complex grid system. Language style guides set a tone of voice, punctuation and spelling, the context and definition of words.

In her article on style guides, Anna Debenham provides a number of excellent examples, as applied to both design and front end development.

Development guidelines offer the same possibility as their printed precursors. From detailing code conventions as minute as indentation and capitalization to providing accessible and standards-compliant examples of common markup patterns, development guidelines have the potential to persist as evangelists of good code on ever-shifting products.

As software products mature, the developers and teams mobilized to build them often move to other projects. In an agile work environment, it is not uncommon to bring on developers from outside the team as needed to fulfill a temporary increase in work. Every developer arrives with different experiences, opinions and preferences. Proper documentation and guidelines are a practical way to stop your product from evolving into a zombie Frankenstein, cobbled together from wildly varying bits of code.

It is useful to start with the conventions of others. Google, Tait Brown, Paul Lloyd, Nicholas Gallagher and Richard Hallows all provide wonderful examples. However, for an organization with shifting staff, writing one as a team is ideal. Take inspiration from other guides, but taylor it to the team’s quirks and practices. The document is not static, but always open to correction and expansion; a living standard. Dock this knowledge in a versioned repository to take advantage of branching and revision history.

On the topic of design, it may not be appropriate to place brand or visual guidelines on an organization, particularly if the organization specializes in making products for others. Instead, perhaps an umbrella guide of suggestions, nudges and hints to bake in an instinctual feel of connected identity.

Collaboration

To this point: Essential quality as elements of craftsmanship, placed brick by brick as a foundation for your workflow. However, as it goes, knowledge isn’t very useful if not shared. Craftsmanship is a fine thing as an individual. Collaborative work amongst talented makers, however, is only as successful as the platform they share.

Define and share guidance. Encourage peer reviews, critiques, group presentations. Expect technical documentation and open data culled from research and measured learnings. Centralize resources: single points of access for design assets and templates, repositories of protected source code.

A proverbial well-oiled machine

The less obstacles in a product cycle, the sooner users give feedback, the stronger a design — a hypothesis — pushed through iteration will be. By establishing a standard of quality, focus can move exclusively to rapid release cycles, testing and intuitive decision-making. By establishing a standard of quality, all output — no matter how temporary or disposable — is accessible, lean, and fundamentally usable.

As work cycles inevitably stagger or drift, pause and reflect. Nothing is so urgent that it is not susceptible to questions of relevance. As Ben Bodean wrote, on craftsmanship and quality:

A good craftsperson regularly takes a step back from their work, and questions every facet of their product for its precise alignment with their core values of quality and sincerity.

Almost everyone I know is busy. They feel anxious and guilty when they aren’t either working or doing something to promote their work. They schedule in time with friends the way students with 4.0 G.P.A.’s make sure to sign up for community service because it looks good on their college applications.