The moment we start creating a website, we’re setting ourselves up for failure later. Bad code creates middle of the night fire drills. Lack of thinking about accessibility gets our employer sued. Not thinking ahead on mobile generates rework. We accept this as the normal course of business — but is there any way we could prevent (or lower) this cost? Is there anything we can learn from the building codes that dictate how our built environment is constructed? A quick tour of how we got where we are with the web, and perhaps some valuable takeaway points.

1. On Fireproof, Future-Proof,
Failure-Proof Things.
Dylan Wilbanks
OpenWebCamp VI, July 2014
!
Web: dylanwilbanks.com
Twitter: @dylanw

2. Two huge caveats.

3. 1. I have (almost) no answers.
2. I have (almost) no takeaways.

4. Philadelphia.

5. https://www.flickr.com/photos/lschreur/101326235/

6. https://www.flickr.com/photos/ericsbinaryworld/130500981/

10. Fireproof?

11. http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1865/february/philadelphia-fire.htm

15. What about the web?

16. “Building codes would never
work for building code.”

17. “It’s different!”

18. “The built environment
is planned!”

19. https://www.flickr.com/photos/structures-nyc-photos/5595474378/

20. “Development is not
pre-planned!”

23. “What’s on fire today?”

24. The Hierarchy of Startup Code Needs
Technical debt
New features
Fixing bugs in working code
Shipping working code

25. The Hierarchy of Startup Code Needs
No Money, Many Problems
MAKE IT RAAAAAAAAIN
MOAR MONEY!
MONEY

26. Let’s talk debt.

27. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ward_Cunningham_at_Wikimania_2006.jpg

28. –Developer, Apptio
“Six years ago I was asked how long it’d
take for me to internationalize our code
base. I said two weeks. But we didn’t do it.
Now, it would take months of work — with
multiple developers.”

29. Kinds of debt
• Technical debt
• Design debt
• Accessibility debt
• I18N debt
• Security debt
• DevOps debt

30. Tech debt
• Code upgrades
• Refactoring
• “Temporary” hacks
• TODO
• Not staying up to date

31. Design debt
• Poor usability
• Sub-optimal user flows
• Mobile Last, Mobile Not, What’s Mobile?
• “Experience rot”
• “Patch and paint” UX solutions instead of
“replacing the wall”

32. Accessibility debt
• Doesn’t work with screen reader
• ARIA hooks not used for AJAX-based sites
• Accessibility never tested, never a priority
• “Yes, but are they the 80% case?”

34. You will never not
have debt.

35. Resources vs. Revenue

37. But…
• Poor architecture kills velocity and sales
• We always have to keep up with change in
market, device, user
• Not planning for I18N is costly
• Bad security mistakes cost us money (and face)
• Bad accessibility costs us face (and money)

39. What do we do?

40. We need a building
code for the web.

41. Clear rules:
Retrofit, replace, new construction

43. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/New_and_Old_Bay_Bridge_(8859593785).jpg

44. http://www.districtenergy.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Seattle-SouthLakeUnionAerial_big.jpg

45. Standard sizes,
standard practice.

46. https://www.flickr.com/photos/duiceburger/3312213574/

48. http://idighardware.com/2010/01/survey-q3-how-can-you-tell-a-fire-door-from-a-regular-door/

50. Beyond web standards,
beyond frameworks,
it’s practice.

52. What can we do?

53. My little part for UX

54. StoryCore
2014 Home Edition Live* 365! (pre-alpha preview)

57. StoryCore
• Bootstrap for applications
• Sets the nuts and bolts pieces in place for a
basic web application
• Import stories into your bug tracker of choice
• Build in key user experience requirements
• Accessibility and security acceptance criteria

58. Available… soonish.

59. What are you going
to do?

60. Kinds of debt
• Tech debt
• Design debt
• Accessibility debt
• I18N debt
• Security debt
• DevOps debt

64. Thank you.
Dylan Wilbanks
Web: dylanwilbanks.com
Twitter: @dylanw
And other fine social media networks