The promised Upstart Blogger redesign has reached the point where the new wordpress theme requires testing and tweaking. This gives me a choice. I can either build a sandbox blog and play around with the theme in private or bite the bullet and the make the changes on the fly to the live installation while the world watches.
A behind closed doors approach is the safer of the two options since any mistakes can be rectified, at least once I spot them, in private, at my own speed and within whatever timeframe I need. Also, should anything catastrophic happen and the lights go out all together I can just delete everything and start again.
Privacy buys time. But what if it is in my best interest to get the design done as quickly as possible? Wouldn’t a live redesign, and the public scrutiny that could result, necessitate speed and act as a constant motivator to get the job done without delay?
Any thoughts?
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I always use a test site to work out the kinks in any of my new themes. After I feel I’ve perfected it as far as I can, then I move it over. Then I do changes on the fly if I absolutely have to.
Maybe you could try that.
Live redesign = motivation and accountability…. Hmmm. I’m not sure I agree with that train of thought. And, I’m also not sure I’d be interested in seeing every tweak.
One big potential drawback to a live redesign could be alienating your current audience or your future audience if some testing doesn’t work out as planned. Perhaps they are unable to access the content they were hoping to find or something you tried out just looks plain funky. That would be quite a first and possibly lasting impression.
IMHO, design should never be rushed, especially with all that design or redesign encompasses; however, solving a problem within a set time frame and budget is often part of the design equation.
Perhaps just announcing a deadline date would be motivation enough.
I usually design a theme locally using MAMP, then go live when I have things mostly worked out (I was tweaking the current redesign of Futurosity when I saw your post). But I still fine tune and play with a design live before I release it as a theme. It keeps me motivated to finish and I also find it more useful to troubleshoot a live site.
Sometimes live changes are necessary, but they’re not fun. At least a blog is harder to break than an enterprise web app! ;) I’ve fiddled with my own live blog several times, but I don’t get the traffic to justify a development version - if it takes me 15 min to make my changes, I’ve only disturbed one visitor. For yourself, I think a live change is probably fine if you’re looking to do it quickly.
Well. I guess it depends on your audience, or volume of daily viewings.
If like me, the website is low profile, barely visited :( then this would be better for a ‘live’ what you see is how it is. As you say, when it goes pear shaped, even though I know knowone is likely to be on the site, my sense of perfectionism takes over and I assume the whole world is watching, therefore i fix it as quick as I damn can.
If you suffer from procrastination then a ’safe’ option may just never quite get done. Obviously if you do not suffer from motivational issues then I guess its not an issue.
Also comes down to how confident you are in tweaking live, in fixing a problem if it arrises and if you mind someone visitors seeing a less than perfect site.
The site I am working on, using your modicus theme is in constant state of change, some BIG mistakes I have made, but often get fixed quickly.
And anyway, the simple solution to working live is to make a session copy of your PHP or CSS files before you start tweaking. Then every so often check your changes, then if everything is ok, carry on and save again. So worse case ism, that you break the layout, cant find the culprit but have a copy of the files to roll out from the beginning of the session. So you just loose some time, but still gain knowledge of WHAT NOT TO DO. Works for me…
Graham
Personally, I like live redesigns. Even as a spectator, I like watching the tweaks and fixes as they happen. I think it’s the same satisfaction that comes with seeing a building under renovation; you get a glimpse of all the work that goes into the finished product and you’re left wondering just how it’s going to look finished.
Maybe it’s just me.