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Sketch takes over

Tuesday, October 28th, 2008

Sketch beta development is now dominating life for the product team here at Webstruxure. The Sketch beta plans we started on several months ago are now being turned into actual software by our developers. Aaron, the Sketch team leader, is juggling a multitude of priorities as he keeps the project on track. And I have recently finished getting in touch with as many of New Zealand’s 750 or so web design companies as I could to explain Sketch to them and ask them whether they would like to take part in the Sketch beta development process.

The response has been excellent. Over 10% of those companies have said that they would like to take part in the beta development process, and about another 10% have said that, although they don’t want to take part in the beta, they would like to be kept informed about Sketch.

We have received many extremely valuable comments about the features that designers would like to see in Sketch, and while many of these suggestions won’t be incorporated in the beta, we have taken careful note of them for future releases. And we’ve also got a lot of good feedback about how web design companies are likely to use Sketch, and where they look for information about such tools.

Because of this focus on Sketch, we are going to discontinue this general Webstruxure blog and replace it with a blog devoted specifically to the Sketch beta development process. Here you’ll be able to see detailed feedback on the progress of the Sketch beta. We hope you’ll look out for the launch of this new blog (which will be linked from this page), and follow us as we take the next steps on the journey to the full release of Sketch.

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Introducing: Patrick Te Tau

Friday, July 18th, 2008

Tim writes

Webstruxure was founded by Aaron Stewart and Ian Edwards. Our other employees are Richard Simes, Patrick Te Tau and myself, Tim Jones. This week, it’s time to introduce Patrick.

The first time I met Patrick was when he came to do one of the early usability tests for Rightcar, the car-comparison site Webstruxure developed in 2007 for Land Transport New Zealand. He stayed beyond the allocated hour, and made many valuable comments about the layout and graphic design of the site.

I was struck then by his enthusiasm and energy, and I’m still impressed by them now he’s working for Webstruxure! (A note to prospective usability testing subjects: we can’t afford to hire everyone who does testing for us, much as we’d like to.)

patrick_photo.jpg

Patrick writes:

From the Wairarapa, I was raised in Carterton by my artist mum, Victoria Te Tau. As a kidalump (zoological term) I pulled all my toys apart and asked an incessant number of “whys” to a patient family (mainly mine). University turned out to be much the same, a toy world of quick sorts and Descartes.

I met the Webstruxure posse through my friend and now co-worker Richard while working for the visualisation company Chaos Dimention (a Java 3D role) only just upstairs from Webstruxure at Creative HQ. Sharing similar philosophies (Belgian beer) worked out well; they liked the “cut of my jib”.

As a Web wrangler I touch all parts of web development from the initial requirements with our customers through to the implementation. Processes, algorithms and, increasingly, usability have become the tastiest of flavours; my wrangler role typically sates this.

Brazilian jiu jitsu at Grappling Specialists Wellington is pretty much the sweetest pastime ever. It’s physically challenging and suitably cogent. Photography is my other vice, and I hope to be New Zealand’s first concert stilt photographer (to self – get stilts). I also read books slowly, currently page-per-daying The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris and Zadie Smith’s On Beauty.

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Introducing: Richard Simes

Saturday, July 5th, 2008

Tim writes:

Webstruxure was founded by Aaron Stewart and Ian Edwards. Our other employees are Richard Simes, Patrick Te Tau and myself, Tim Jones. This week, it’s time to introduce Richard.

Before I started working here regularly, I did some contract usability testing work for Webstruxure on the Rightcar site, when it was under development. Before each test session started, I would put participants at their ease by introducing them to what the test involved. As part of this, I assured the participants – truthfully – that “I am not involved in the design of this website, so you can be as honest as you like and you won’t hurt my feelings”.

But it took two people to run the tests: one to deliver the spiel and explain the scenarios, and the other to observe and take the notes. For many of the tests, Richard was the observer and note-taker, although he was heavily involved in the design of the Rightcar site. I was amazed by Richard’s ability to listen to people criticise aspects of the site without reacting negatively – an ability which, I fear, is beyond me. But that’s Richard for you!

Richard skateboaring at the Wellington waterfront

Richard writes:

I joined Webstruxure in 2005 as their first employee and as my first ‘real’ job. I have always had a passion for problem solving and have found my role as resident geek for Webstruxure most rewarding in this regard.

I always like to use the right tool for the job, and try to familiarise myself with as many ‘right tools’ as possible.

In my spare time, I am an avid longboard skateboarder and can be often found weaving through pedestrians at Wellington’s waterfront or skateboarding from Taihape to Wellington.

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Introducing: Tim Jones

Friday, June 13th, 2008

Here’s the third in our series of posts introducing Webstruxure staff. This time, I’m talking about myself.

Tim Jones

I’m Tim Jones, and I’m the part-time Marketing Manager at Webstruxure, where I’ve worked since September 2007. My job encompasses working with Aaron Stewart on Webstruxure’s marketing – which, at the moment, mainly involves talking with web companies about Sketch – but also a lot of other things: functional testing, usability analysis and testing, documentation, and editing.

As far as those parts of my role go, in a company otherwise filled with brilliant developers, I’m the representative of the users. It’s my job to say things like “But what does that actually mean?”, “Will users understand that?”, and “I clicked this link and everything stopped working!” I get paid to subject our sites and products to cruel and unusual punishment, so that you, the user, don’t have to.

To this role, I bring the added perspective that I have been a client of Webstruxure myself. I used to be corporate website content manager for a large Wellington institution, and Webstruxure were responsible for the dynamic aspects of that site. I got to know Ian Edwards and admire his dedication to the work he did for us, and when Ian heard that I was looking for a change, he started to think about whether Webstruxure could use my services. It all took a while to come together, but here I am – and I’m very happy about it.

When I’m not working for Webstruxure, I wear a couple of other hats. I am involved in work to make New Zealand’s energy system more sustainable, and I’m also an author – my new book, Transported, has just been published. I also enjoy cricket, music, being a husband and father, and many other fine things.

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Webstruxure Has Arrived

Thursday, June 5th, 2008

We moved office last week. It took us a bit longer than we expected, and there have been a few issues with wiring and cabling, but we have now made it into our new premises:

Webstruxure
Level 2, Korea House
29 Tory Street
WELLINGTON

And we even have the phone on: you can reach us at (+64) 4 385 8022

Our email address is the same as always: info@webstruxure.co.nz

We have a comfy office, which is surprisingly quiet considering we are located just down from the Sports Café on the Courtenay/Tory corner. (There is no shortage of choices when it comes to buying lunch.)

We have some nice neighbours, such as the Landau Group, the Gibson Group, and Three Sixty Media, whose design expertise we have called on for several of our projects. (Three Sixty did the background design for the collaborative online wireframing tool we’re developing, Sketch.)

All in all, it’s been a good move. Come in and visit us if you get the chance.

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Skating from Taihape to Wellington

Saturday, May 31st, 2008

Richard Simes, one of the Webstruxure team you haven’t been introduced to yet, is doing something rather unusual next week: as part of a three-person team, he is skateboarding from Taihape to Wellington, a distance of 230 km, to raise funds for research into Motor Neurone Disease.

Richard skating

Richard in action

Motor Neurone Disease is a debilitating neurological condition that affects nerves that control voluntary muscles. They gradually stop working until the body stops functioning – while the mind is still active. MND has a prognosis of two to five years. There is no known cure.

A group of people whose friend Duncan has been diagnosed with MND set up Ride for MND to raise funds for research, and the Skate for MND fundraising event is an outgrowth of that. If you’d like to help out, you can sponsor Richard and his mates Craig and Jestah on their epic journey.

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Introducing: Ian Edwards

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

Tim writes:

Here’s the second entry in our series of posts introducing the members of the Webstruxure team. The company was founded by Aaron Stewart and Ian Edwards.

I met Ian when I was working as website content manager for a large Wellington institution, and Ian was part of the team who revamped our website and added new functionality. He has the patience of a saint, because not only did he cope with all the change requests I made as a client, but he’s even been prepared to cope with me as an employee!

And now let’s meet the man himself.

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Ian writes:

Since school I’ve always been interested in the combination of mathematics and design – the patterns in the way things are and in the way they work. Having done my time in academia and the corporate world, working with Aaron Stewart to build and run Webstruxure is my opportunity to do something useful with this interest.

I was lucky enough to be part of the early growth of web development in New Zealand. During that time I learnt not only how to apply consulting and development skills to a revolutionary new way of making things work, but also a lot about running businesses from some very wise heads.

Webstruxure is still small enough that I can legitimately practise all those skills. My glorious title is “Chief Technology Enthusiast” (in small companies you get to have interesting titles), but in practice it’s what you do with the technology that matters …

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Webstruxure Is On The Move

Friday, May 16th, 2008

After three years being incubated in Wellington’s Creative HQ in Marion St, Webstruxure is moving on. In the last week of May, we’ll be shifting to our own premises in Tory Street. Our new address will be:

Webstruxure
Level 2, Korea House
29 Tory Street
WELLINGTON

For those who don’t know Wellington well, this isn’t a very big move: it’s about ten minutes’ walk between our old and new locations. And for those who do know Wellington, we’re going to be beside the Sports Cafe on Tory St – one door down from vibrant Courtenay Place.

But though it’s not a very big move in physical terms, it’s a significant mark of maturity to leave Creative HQ and go out on our own. Our project-based consulting work is well established and enjoys a good reputation, and we’ll enjoy the sense of being able to present our own space to our clients & visitors. Drop in for a coffee!

We still have work and learning to do on the product development side – for that, we’ll be maintaining a relationship with Creative HQ and continuing to make use of some of their mentoring services.

But as a whole, the move marks a coming of age as a company and is a great confidence-booster.

While we’ll miss the funky Creative HQ space and (even more) the interaction with other residents, the new offices are about half as big again as our current ones, and a lot more professional – say goodbye, exposed timber-and-plywood partition! Also, we’re on the same floor as TV production company The Gibson Group, so we are confident that television careers will follow. Contact us for all your acting needs, and your web applications development needs as well.

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Introducing: Aaron Stewart

Thursday, May 8th, 2008

Tim writes:

As part of my mission to contact web design companies about the features they would like to see in Sketch, I have paid brief visits to a lot of websites over the past few weeks. There’s a wide range of designs out there, but one thing I’ve noticed is that I respond best to sites which provide some personal information about the people who work for the company.

I like the Webstruxure site design, and the site continues to evolve. So far, however, there’s nothing on our site that tells you about the people who work for Webstruxure. So we’re going to put some brief writeups here on our blog, starting with our CEO, Aaron Stewart.

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Aaron writes:

When I had the idea that would eventually become Webstruxure I was studying law and the liberal arts – a mixture of history and political philosophy. Those things are still interests of mine today, although further studies have been put off – not to mention the stellar legal career!

In a business context, it’s been a surprise to find myself enjoying the process of designing and coding software. It’s something I’ve had to pick up along the way, as well as all the other things that go into creating a business from a bright idea. I’m now CEO of Webstruxure (my business card actually says Chief Enthusiast), and I’m also in charge of product development. And fortunately for everyone, I seldom write software.

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A Sketch of 2008

Friday, December 21st, 2007

2007 is almost over. It’s time to wish you a happy holiday and look ahead to what’s coming up for Webstruxure in 2008.

First of all, there’s Sketch – the tool that can do everything, as I rather ambitiously called it in a previous post. We’re making rapid progress on this, and we’re now looking at a beta release in the first half of 2008.

sketch-logo.gif

Sketch is an online prototyping tool that lets web professionals and their clients work collaboratively on the structure and content of web sites. But it’s not just a prototyping tool: at the end of the process, you get a set of files that constitute a working website that can then be refined and styled using applications such as Dreamweaver.

When the time is right, we’ll be calling for beta testers. Contact us if you’re interested.

Coming up behind Sketch are other products which are designed to make the lives of web designers and builders, and their clients, easier and better. In 2008, we’ll be telling you more about Canvas, FormStore, and some of the other projects we’ve got in the pipeline.

Along with development of these products, we’ll be continuing to develop applications for individual clients. In April 2008, for example, cars* sold in car yards or online in New Zealand will be required to display vehicle fuel economy information. We’re building the application to produce the vehicle fuel economy labels, as an extension of our work on the Fuelsaver and Rightcar sites. In January, I’ll be spending some time in car yards as we test the fuel labelling application out with car dealers.

This application continues our record of working with Government departments to provide information to users through easy-to-use online applications. That’s sparked our interest in how small firms can often provide better value for money for Government projects than the “big iron” firms that usually win Government contracts. In 2008, we’ll be outlining how small firms, working singly or together, can make a big difference to Government IT procurement – an area that doesn’t always go smoothly.

So, plenty to be going on with. I’m off to catch my breath and recharge my batteries. See you in 2008.

* This applies to new and used light vehicles (cars, utes, vans and small trucks) of 3.5 tonnes or under manufactured from the year 2000 onwards, with some exceptions.

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Posted in About Webstruxure, Canvas, Formstore, Fuelsaver, Products, Projects, Rightcar | No Comments »

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