Obviously I never do this...

Then after the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc person doesn't understand it you realise actually it's you that's the idiot.

I think it's an interesting debate on the pros/cons of getting people outside the project to test your designs. Can you objectively test your own designs? I think so, I even think you can be more nuanced in the testing.

There's also an argument to say that you can be more innovative in the design if you know that you can test it's performance yourself/internally, and react to observed changes. Experiment to see behaviour and evolve.
External companies are more likely to react very strongly to the elements you know are more experimental and uncertain.

I've had some bad experiences with external testing companies and I continue to be dubious about the weight that is given to them by clients. I would rather they were labelled something like "another pair of eyes" or "opinion of a peer" instead of "1 day infallible expert usability review and final say"

(p.s. Leisa, I have to say, I've never had a problem with Flow.)

Projects of Death

It's painful watching this happen. Even more painful if it's actually you it's happening to.

I hate Gantt charts

Truly. I really hate them. You might as well show me something upside down in Ukranian

It's like me showing a massive content audit spreadsheet to a client as a sitemap or something.

Just tell show me the number of days i have, what i have to deliver and when.

interesting discussion about it on the mega clever tuftey-bear site

Normally i take the gantt chart, count the number of days, then just do a single line with my days/activities in an excel spreadsheet, then add the other peeps on the project in successive lines, so i can see what i'm actually doing. It suddenly raises loads of things that a gantt chart normally misses out, like holidays, prep for meetings etc.

Anyway. That's boring.

Basically, i hate. hate. hate. Gantt charts.