Musings

Design aspects

I’ve been wanting to redesign my personal website/portfolio for the past couple of years. I had the previous version since 2014 (if not before), and only made minor updates to it. It did the job, but wasn’t really impressive like I wanted it to be in order to apply to the companies I want to work at. But I spent all my extra time working on other projects and didn’t really have an idea of what I wanted to do with it until recently.

One day in class in my final semester at UGA I got a bit of inspiration to use parallelograms as a slider to show projects, so I made a quick sketch and figured I had enough skill to develop it pretty well. I made use of CSS clip-paths and got a working version of the design in code. However, the result wasn’t as impressive as I was imagining (though I still think it’s cool and could be a valid slider in the future for a different site) and it wasn’t the most usable thing I’ve made.

I’ve been part of some web developer chatrooms for ~4 years now. In order to help newcomers quickly get used to them, here are some etiquette tips:

• Keep the number of messages you post to a minimum. No one wants to read 10 separate messages that should have been one message. It fills up the chatroom and makes less content in total visible.
• If you’re requesting help, be very concise and clear, generally keeping the question of your scope very limited. This is true in all mediums, but especially true for chat. It is better for everyone, including yourself, to do so.
• Don’t update people every time you’re leaving or apologize for not responding immediately. There are exceptions, but in general people don’t expect immediate replies all of the time. Be patient when expecting others to answer and don’t flood the chat with, “be back in 2 minutes” type of comments.
• Chatrooms operate in UGT (Universal Greeting Time). Or better yet, no time at all. Don’t create a bunch of noise about the time of day when someone includes it in a message of theirs.
• Use chatroom features appropriately when they are available. If your chatroom platform supports threading, use it. If it supports editing old messages, use that for corrections and simple additions instead of creating new messages. If it has a bot, don’t abuse it by using it too much or posting content irrelevant to the chat. If it supports “pinging” people, don’t do it unless you really need to.

About business

• Efficiency > exact precision for most things
• Good interaction between co-workers is one of the most important things for employee retainment and satisfaction
• Good interaction with clients is what is memorable to clients and makes employees stand out
• Good product is necessary for client retention
• Options (including availability) gets a bigger client base
• There’s always a place for a good employee
• It’s better to have (reasonably) too much than not enough
• People get way more upset about unexpected loss than expected loss
• Special events bring in some traffic but don’t affect long term growth very much
• Focus on what your company is good at, including specific products
• Clients hate things they see as necessary being taken away but will get over it if the product is still good
• Making things look pretty is not of much concern, though it does play a factor
• Group buy in helps immensely

About life

• Meet people where they’re at
• People love and bond over food
• Be open minded at all times
• People can be alone while being surrounded by people
• It’s good, fun, and profitable to meet random people at times
• Everyone has their own story and is awesome in some ways
• Most everyone likes to have a good conversation
• Diversity in choices is necessary to prevent burnout
• There are times for big groups and times for small ones
• Nothing beats a good home cooked meal

I’ve had several friends come to me seeking advice for how to get started programming for the web. Most haven’t given too much thought to the idea, but are intrigued by code or websites and want to learn more. If you’re in that position or somewhere similar, this post is for you.

What follows is a collection of recommendations that I have for a person starting out. I’ll keep updating it as time goes on. If you feel like it’s missing something or have a question, don’t hesitate to contact me at hello@zachsaucier.com!

I love life. Relatedly, I love change (when it comes in appropriate ways), customization, and interacting with stuff. That’s a big reason why I really enjoy the work that I do, creating new and unique ways for people to interact with each other and with the content I am providing.

On a seemingly different note, I have warm memories of the screensavers from when I was kid. The brick 3D maze, the pipes, and the rainbow colored shape that kept morphing into a new shapes entranced (distracted) me as a ~7 year old in school.

Also, ever since I got into animating, I’ve wanted to include the things I make into more areas of my life. One area that has come into my mind several times was my desktop background.