#The Last Silo
##Intro
- With the rise of Agile we have spent a lot of time in the last several years promoting cross-functional teams as being integral to the creation of software.
- This is awesome, and it has vastly increased our ability to work sanely.
- Despite all this, it is still depressingly common for site design to be completely silo'd off from everything else.
- The result of this is, very often, a design that is not actually implementable.
- This effect is exacerbated when combined the restrictions when building to a CMS (both in terms of technology and editorial experience).
- It's time to tear down the wall between design and implementation.
##Examples
A set of examples based on real-world client issues. These will demonstrate the following issues that occur when implementation is left out of the design process, focusing on CMS-centric problems.
- Excessive layout options without considering the editorial ramifications
- Lack of attention to use of imagery, particularly issues around cropping and how it relates to text (especially overlaid)
- Layout issues that rely on overly optimistic content (exactly the right amount/type)
- Reliance on data not currently in the system or easily collected
- Implementing tile layouts on mobile
##Red Flags If you're on a project where design is isolated, here are some things to keep in mind.
- What kind of content will go here? How much of it do we have? Is it always consistent or does it vary?
- How much control do we have over imagery? How will we want to crop it? Is it light or dark or all over the place?
- How savvy is our editorial staff? Do they have the knowledge/time to get into all the options we propose to give?
- Where do each of these pieces of data come from? How are we going to collect them?
- Layouts that change source order or remove content at mobile, inconsistent treatment of like elements at mobile.