Table of Contents
Discovery
Project Management
Design
- Why is it so important to obtain a printing proof?
- How do I use Invision?
- If our site requires custom illustration, what’s the process look like for that?
Development & WordPress
- Do you build sites that are WCAG/ADA compliant?
- Is WordPress a secure choice?
- How do I use WordPress?
- How do I export submissions out of Gravity Forms?
- I’m getting a ton of spam via my contact form. Any tips?
- How do I setup a Google Maps API key?
- Our site has robust search requirements. How would you achieve them?
- Do you include any bug-fixing period after launch?
QA & Launch
- I’m not seeing recent changes. Why?
- How does the QA process work?
- What is the difference between a domain and hosting?
- What do you recommend for hosting?
- How do you tackle content migration?
Post Launch
How do I prepare for my kickoff meeting with Simpatico?
Excellent question! We’ve written a blog post that includes all the things to think about and prepare for our first discovery meeting. Can’t wait to dive in!
How do you communicate with your clients?
We primarily use Basecamp and email for keeping track of project timelines, deliverables, and client feedback. You can read more about how we facilitate this process in this blog post by our product manager Mingwei, “How We Use Basecamp to Manage Projects.”
For larger engagements or for ongoing retainer clients, we’re down to create a cross-workspace Slack channel during the duration of the engagement.
Are you available for in-person meetings?
We’re a fully remote studio now, but the answer is yes (depending of course on COVID positivity rates and general safety). Tamara and Bruce (Simpatico’s Owner and Head of Design) are both based in the New York City metro area, and would be happy to meet in person as it makes sense.
Why is it so important to obtain a printing proof?
All printers print a little differently. If you’re printing a bulk order, we can’t emphasize enough the importance of obtaining a proof from your printer before fulfilling an order to ensure that your colors end up looking like you imagined.
Toto, we’re not in digital anymore.
How do I use Invision?
You can navigate through all of the pages using the arrow keys on your keyboard or the left/eight arrows that appear when you hover at the edges of your screen. You can also click the grid icon in the bottom-right hand corner of the screen for an overview of all available pages. To provide feedback, simply hit the ‘C’ key or click the speech bubble icon in the bottom-right hand corner of the screen to enter Comment Mode. You can then drop comments by clicking anywhere on the designs! Hit the ‘C’ key or the speech bubble icon again to exit Comment Mode.
If our site requires custom illustration, what’s the process look like for that?
To ensure our clients are satisfied with the final custom illustration deliverables, we follow a trusted 3-step process. Learn more about it here.
Do you build sites that are WCAG/ADA compliant?
The team here at Studio Simpatico (especially our Head of Development, Amber) believes strongly that an accessible internet is of utmost importance. We wrote this post about some of the best practices we support and implement on sites we build.
In our web development process, accessibility according to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is integrated seamlessly into both the design and development phases. In the design phase, our team meticulously considers elements such as color contrast, typography, and the placement of interactive elements to ensure they are user-friendly for individuals with various disabilities. This inclusive design approach forms the foundation of the project. As we transition into development, we implement coding practices and technologies that align with WCAG standards. This includes creating semantic HTML, providing alternative text for images, ensuring keyboard navigation, and optimizing for screen readers. This comprehensive approach ensures that the final product not only complies with WCAG but also delivers a seamless and inclusive experience to all users.
Is WordPress a secure choice?
This question comes up a lot. WordPress is the most popular CMS in the world so it’s understandably also the most popular to try to hack. However, there are many good practices that you can and should follow that reduce your risk exponentially. The first is going with a great host like WP Engine. We’ve outlined many more in our blog post, “How Do I Prevent My WordPress Website From Getting Hacked?”
How do I use WordPress?
A great place to start is the WordPress Admin Walkthrough that our Head of Development Amber put together.
How do I export submissions out of Gravity Forms?
Gravity Forms makes it easy to export all of your form submissions. First, click on “Forms” from the left navigation of WordPress. Then, click on “Import/Export” underneath the main heading (still in the left nav). From there, you’ll be able to select your form, select the fields that you wish to include in your export, apply any filters (including date range) that you’d like, and click “Download Export File.” Voila! A CSV that includes all form submissions.
I’m getting a ton of spam via my contact form. Any tips?
In fact, yes! Check out this post by Amber about how to block WordPress spam.
How do I setup a Google Maps API key?
Someone at Simpatico has informed you that you need to set up a Google Maps API key. Admittedly, it requires a bit of a process, but thankfully Amber has put together this helpful guide to figuring things out.
Simpatico sent me changes to review but I’m not seeing them on the live site. Why is this?
You may need to do what’s called a hard refresh, which you can do by holding down the shift key and pressing the reload button. The need to hard refresh happens because when you visit any website, your computer downloads the CSS file (the stylesheet file that controls the site’s styles). When you return to that site, it’s actually your machine that loads your local file, rather than looking to the new file on the server. (Your browser is trying to be helpful and save time.) Once we go into production mode, we have a tool that will automatically cache bust every time we push updates to the stylesheet. This isn’t turned on until we go live — but we also won’t be pushing code on a regular basis, so it’s overall less of an issue.
Check out the following for more info:
- What is caching?
- Video: How to hard refresh and clear your cache
- Video: How to clear your cache on mobile devices
Our site has robust search requirements. How would you achieve them?
Relevanssi is the gold standard WordPress plugin for search that allows for a tremendous amount of customization in how the index is built. We use it to power most of the sites you see on our portfolio.
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Do you include any bug-fixing period after launch?
Yes, the final weeks of the project are devoted to QA and bug fixing as you’re finalizing content for go-live. Additionally, our contract includes a 30 day warranty period in which we’ll fix any discovered bugs. (We define ‘bug’ as any aspect of the build that does not match the requirements defined during the UX phase.)
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How does the QA process work?
You’ll work in parallel with our team, testing and reporting bugs. Here are some tips we’ve put together for a seamless content and QA process.
What is the difference between a domain and hosting?
A domain is the address of your website: where your visitors can find you. Website hosting, on the other hand, is where your website files are physically stored.
How do you tackle content migration?
If it’s a WordPress-to-WordPress situation, we can use straightforward import/export tools. If we’re migrating from a different CMS, as long as the data is sufficiently structured, we will likely use WP All Import and the ACF Add-On, a powerful tool for mapping and importing structured content.
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- How do you tackle content migration?
Do you offer maintenance plans?
We sure do — maintenance plans small and large! Most of our clients opt to stay on some sort of support plan after their site goes live. Learn more about our offerings here.
What’s the difference between a staging and production environment?
In this article, “Staging vs. Production Environments,” we discuss the two environments necessary for any web project: staging and production. We’ll cover what they are, how they differ from each other, and when you should use each one.