This realization was rammed home to me over the last few weeks while I helped launch a new customer-facing Web site. It was taken live before being fully tested, leading to a disastrous user experience for the first couple of weeks of operation—not to mention long nights on my part trying to patch a live site to eliminate some fundamental problems.

This sort of pain normally has been reserved for major software publishers who could afford to launch a buggy new or updated app to an eager public. Now it's everybody's turn—anyone armed with a Web site can create their own public relations disaster.

New Skills to Learn
As developers, we don't expect to have to deal with the public. Generally those pesky users are someone else's problem. Layers of support and sales staff have isolated us for the consequences of our acts. And usually there are product managers and testers to make sure that what we produce doesn't go out until it is of an acceptable quality.

The cost and finality of pressing CD-ROMs and putting them in a box helps focus the mind on whether a product is really ready to ship or not. A Web-based service is quite different—it can be updated minute by minute if you so desire. That's a big temptation. Without having to commit to 10,000 CD-ROMs that might have to go in the dumpster, you can give it a go. Go on, stick it up now and see if it works. Well, actually, please don't, because it won't.

The only thing that has changed is the ease with which you can distribute your work to the world. Software is still difficult to write, mistakes are still easy to make, and testing is still a drag. Given all these temptations you need some strict discipline and a good, simple process to which everyone connected to the Web site must adhere.

A good restaurant relies on strict adherence to quality standards and everyone along the chain is responsible for ensuring that the client has an agreeable meal and eating experience. Whether you are the humble dish washer, a waitress, or a grand chef de cuisine, you are part of a quality chain that defines the user's experience. Just as restaurants rely on repeat customers, so do Web sites. The recipe for success is the same, too.

Creative Good's "Holiday 2000 E-Commerce Report" found that 40 percent of their purchase attempts failed. How long would a restaurant last if nearly half the customers could not place an order or pay? Stupid question, of course, yet clearly one that those people responsible for commerce sites asked.

If you're looking for a career in e-commerce development I'd like to suggest that you learn two key skills. The first is thinking about the customer all the way along the supply chain. Ask customer-oriented questions at each step of site development. Does the user need this? Is this easy to use? Could I make this simpler?

Let me give you a real-world example of what I mean. I recently tried to order three computer mice via next-day courier from an online supplier. Instead of the desired rodents, I received an e-mail explaining that my order had been cancelled and if I had a problem with that, I should contact customer service. OK, so I'm exaggerating, but I was peeved. I was even more upset when, three days later, the customer service department explained that they had canceled my order because I hadn't provided a customer name with the delivery address! A simple validation routine on the form could have checked that or—even better—the form could have used my name by default. Technically, the site isn't broken, but I'm not going to visit it again.

The second skill is to make realistic plans and a process for coping with slippage throughout the organization. A new online bank in the United Kingdom, called Intelligent Finance, cancelled its grand launch with only two days to go. (Although they are now online, they only handle phone banking. They were originally going to be a Web, WAP, and phone banking service launching on July 4th—a date chosen by the PR company because of its Independence Day implications. That rapidly slipped to July 14th for Bastille Day, and...well, we're still waiting for the Web and wireless services to come online.) Of course, delaying a launch is better than risking customer funds, but it does demonstrate an out-of-control development process. Learn planning and communication techniques that mean you never get into that situation.

New Management, Same Old Problems
While the media hype up the new economy, we're still left with the same old management and practices. Many Web sites that go live prematurely (that is, with their problems plainly visible) do so because of bad management decisions—ranging anywhere from irrational refusals to listen to technical reasoning to immovable launch dates established by the PR team. You know the drill: "We want to launch for the holidays and the lead time for press coverage is one month, so that means the development work has to be complete by mid-November, so can you build our (all-singing, all-dancing) e-commerce site for us by, say, the 11th of November?" And it's only October now.

Many non-technical people struggle with the notion that it is difficult to schedule software development or to know when the last remaining problems have been worked out. It's not easy for someone used to working in older media or stable professions such as accounting to cope with this newer medium.

The solution comes down to honest communication, education, and hard work. Educate the right people so they understand what you are doing. This will reduce the risk of misinterpretation or attempts by someone with a fancy job title to stop the tides. Hard work and communication go hand in hand. Unlike pure software development, a Web project introduces loads of different people into the process—writers, graphic designers, producers, and content planners. Most of those people haven't much of a clue about software and definitely none about software engineering.

New People to Meet
That puts the onus on you, the developer, to work with them to ensure timely, on-quality deliveries. You have to learn about their world, too. Media buying—or advertising, as you are more like to know it—involves long lead times. That prime 30-second commercial slot during the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV show is booked way ahead, so your service being advertised had better be ready on time.