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| Preface | |
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| Managing Interactive Media Projects | |
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| Introduction | |
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| Who Should Read This Book | |
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| Party Line | |
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| Why This Book? | |
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| Projects this Book Covers | |
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| Case Study: Theater Company Web Site Overhaul | |
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| Meet the Neo-Futurists | |
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| The Content Developer | |
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| A Typical User | |
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| Step-by-Step | |
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| Effective Communication | |
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| Collaboratively Yours | |
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| Project Scenarios | |
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| Stay Flexible | |
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| Get Crackin' | |
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| Exercises | |
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| Conceptualization and Initial Planning | |
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| Introduction | |
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| Get the Hook | |
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| Honing an Existing Idea | |
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| Profile: Threadless.com: A Good Idea for the Right Audience | |
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| It's All About the Details | |
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| The Other Side | |
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| Develop a Thesis Statement | |
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| The Initial Plan | |
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| Define Your Audience | |
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| Define Your Goals | |
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| Define your Tools | |
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| Set a Launch Date | |
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| Find Resources | |
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| The Money Question | |
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| Summary | |
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| Case Study: Conceptualization and Initial Planning | |
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| Brainstorming with the Neo-Futurists | |
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| Exercises | |
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| Tools | |
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| The Initial Proposal | |
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| How Much Does a Web Site Cost? | |
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| Proposal Precursors: Defining Projects | |
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| The Dangling Carrot | |
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| Elements of a Good Proposal | |
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| Payment Structure | |
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| Scope Document | |
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| Change Request Forms | |
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| Case Study: Building the Neo-Proposal | |
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| Joomla CMS | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Exercises | |
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| Tools | |
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| Profile: Alesia Tyree, McDougal Littell: Elements of a Good Proposal | |
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| Defining Project Specs | |
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| Define Before You Design | |
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| Defining a Spec | |
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| Profile: Judi Lapinsohn: The Importance of Strategic focus Groups when Assessing Content | |
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| Case Study: Defining Project Specs | |
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| Lock and Load | |
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| Sign-off | |
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| Applying Your Specs | |
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| System Requirements | |
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| Profile: Jason Saunders, Charlottezweb.com: Choosing the Right Hosting Provider | |
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| Testing | |
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| A Cautionary Tale | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Exercises | |
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| Supplemental Materials | |
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| Content Assessment and Treatment | |
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| Content is King | |
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| What Makes a Good Story? | |
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| Where Will the Content Come From? | |
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| Flow Will the Content Be Defined? | |
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| Case Study: Assessing the Neo-Futurists' Content | |
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| Your Content Development Schedule | |
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| Profile: Lee Parkel, Abelson-Taylor: Routed Clean: The importance of the Review Process | |
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| The Treatment/Content Outline | |
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| Peer Review | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Exercises | |
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| Information Architecture and Navigation Chart | |
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| Content Structures | |
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| Information Architecture | |
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| Define Media Elements | |
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| Define Naming Conventions | |
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| Define Directory Structures | |
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| Creating Your Flowchart | |
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| Conditional Logic vs. Information Screens | |
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| Types of Charts | |
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| Create Wire-frames | |
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| Define Possible Future Content Structures | |
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| Case Study: Information Architecture | |
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| The Neo Flow | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Exercises | |
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| Supplemental Materials | |
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| Creating a Script and Asset List | |
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| Tell Your Story | |
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| Head to Head: Script vs. Flowchart | |
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| The Script | |
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| Consistency Check | |
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| Case Study: Script and Asset List | |
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| Scripting the Theater | |
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| The Asset List | |
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| Profile: Judy Cammelot, Devore Software: Developing Scripts for Interactive Projects | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Exercises | |
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| Tools | |
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| Art Direction and Interface Design | |
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| Defined, Designed | |
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| Conceptualization | |
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| Conceptualization Take Two | |
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| Creating Design Comps | |
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| Profile: Christina Weisbard: The Creative Process and Working with Clients | |
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| Creating a Design Rationale Document | |
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| Presenting the Designs | |
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| The Waiting Game | |
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| Comp Revisions | |
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| Final Approval | |
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| Case Study: Art Direction and Interface Design for the Neo-Futurists | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Exercises | |
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| Tools | |
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| Revisions, Approvals, Scope and Feature Creep | |
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| The Revision Factor | |
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| Creepers at Bay | |
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| Managing Expectations | |
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| Case Study: Revisions on the Neo-Futurists Site | |
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| Revision Philosophy | |
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| Unrealistic Expectations | |
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| Approvals: Waiting for the Thumbs Up | |
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| Defining the Approval Process | |
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| Managing Approvals | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Exercises | |
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| Tools | |
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| Prototyping and Scope Creep Redux | |
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| Stop, Click, and Roll(over) | |
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| Rapid Prototyping and Iterative Steps | |
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| When to Prototype | |
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| One Little, Two Little, Three Little Prototypes | |
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| Profile: Michael Schaffner: It Works on My Machine: Prototyping and the Testing Process | |
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| Feature Creep | |
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| Profile: Christopher Salvo: The Benefits of Rapid Prototyping | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Exercises | |
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| Profile: Dave Clarke: Prototyping Games in Flash | |
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| Case Study: Prototyping and Scope Creep Redux | |
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| The Navigation Banner | |
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| Design Production | |
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| Defined, Refined, Redesigned | |
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| Concurrent Design and Production | |
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| Screen by Screen | |
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| Where to Begin | |
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| In Your Element(s) | |
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| Files and Folders: The Name Game | |
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| Work That Template | |
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| Don't Be Lazy | |
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| Case Study: Design Production for the Neo-Futturists' | |
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| The Content Template | |
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| Screen Production | |
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| Presentation and Approval | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Exercises | |
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| Tools | |
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| Production and Programming | |
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| Come Together | |
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| Make it Modular | |
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| Thirty-One Flavors | |
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| Individual vs. Team Production | |
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| File Management | |
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| The Clock is Ticking | |
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| Revisiting Your Tools | |
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| Standardize Production Elements | |
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| The Asset Library | |
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| Structure Setup | |
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| Profile: Marcia Sutter: Working with Content Management Systems | |
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| Your Faithful Documents | |
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| Tracking Time | |
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| Progress Reports | |
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| Case Study: Production on the Neo-Futurists' site | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Exercises | |
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| Tools | |
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| Testing, Revision Tracking and Quality Assurance | |
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| Ready, Set, Test | |
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| Testing Defined | |
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| Case Study: QA for the Neo-Futurists' Site | |
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| The Testing Environment | |
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| The Testing Matrix | |
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| Bug Standards and Priorities | |
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| Finishing Touches | |
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| Test Away | |
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| Tallying Your Results | |
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| Exterminate | |
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| Lather, Rinse, Repeat | |
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| Other Testing Options | |
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| Internal vs. External Testing | |
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| Profile: Sean Conley: External Testing and When to Do It | |
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| Even Creepier | |
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| Case Study. Newark InOne Search Engine Tour | |
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| The Need | |
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| The Specs | |
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| The Content | |
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| The Design | |
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| The Production | |
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| The Testing | |
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| The Deliverable | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Exercises | |
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| Tools | |
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| Final Revisions, Launch, Promotion and Maintenance | |
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| The Home Stretch | |
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| The Cut-off Point | |
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| The Final Files | |
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| What's in a Master? | |
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| Deliverable: Application vs. Source Code | |
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| Looking Ahead | |
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| If You Build It, Will They Come? | |
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| Pixel Polygamy | |
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| Promotion | |
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| Maintenance | |
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| The Plan | |
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| Payment Plans | |
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| Case Study: "Launching www.neofuturists.org" | |
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| Neo-Prep | |
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| File Finessing | |
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| Promotional Opportunities | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Exercises | |
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| Tools | |
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| Index | |