I went to @ManageFlitter's Twitter page today, and found an interesting-looking link. It took me to a Smashing Magazine article called: What is the Worst Design or Programming mistake you've ever made?
What a great question. Well, not the question exactly, but the answers.
Eureka - - I read some personal stories about actual incidents from real people. It was fun.
Plus, it was so good to realize that that I am not the only occasional mess-up out there who has done something really bad to a website or job. It is part of the normal learning process when you teach yourself.
I do know that a person working on a site or blog can have something terribly wrong happen due to working too fast or not being careful. And if you have not done a lot of file transfers before, you are probably going to make some missteps.
Some people (like me) just have to learn the hard way.
You know what they say, as you learn from your mistakes, they are all good. At least I like to believe that.
This article was so enjoyable. Here are some mistake stories taken from the article:
1. Somebody uploaded a new webpage over the "old" one only to realize that the old one was at least functional. The "new" one was broken and there was not a backup. Oops.
3. Somebody sent off an "e-blast" way too soon.
And here is another story from the article:
“Sent PDF to the printing house for 1000 leaflets. Received them and realized that the phone number was wrong. Then, sent corrected PDF, received leaflets and realized that the wrong PDF was sent. We had 1000 useless leaflets with the right number but with the ‘iStockphoto’ watermark on every (lo-res) picture. Third time it was OK.”
If you are like me, and have done things like written over index.html and other files when they weren't from the same site (yup....) or had your hard drive crash with no backup, well, these stories will definitely make you feel better about yourself.
Not backing up your online work and then losing it is something many people talk about here. I have had my computer crash twice. I lost my data completely. Once I had only a minimal backup, and once with only half my files backed up. Augh!
So.... if you are like me and have had made some mistakes while learning online or offline design, I think that this article might just make your day.
Here is that Article again - enjoy! What is the Worst Design or Programming Mistake You've Ever Made?
-Betsyanne
Web designer / Artist / Blogger / Tutor / Jill of All Trades
My Personal Page and blog
The Nontrads site and blog
My Squidoo pages
Join me on Twitter as @betsyanne or @nontrads
Here are some other blog postings you might enjoy:
Are you on Twitter and Facebook yet? Why I like them.
Letting go of problems you can' fix... some tips
Joe's Shorty and Gizzard are Biker Dogs (with photos)
The art on this blog posting is from the great (and free!) website Clkr.com.
