A busy week at work, with the launch of a new travel
site. Nik has a bit more
detail
on tagging and suchlike. So here are my highlights of the whole
project:
- We didn’t break any links to any pages. We think. And everyone
worked very hard to make sure that we didn’t.
- The photography is striking and well-used.
- It’s quick. We worked really hard on performance and spent a
lot of time tuning things that nobody will ever notice, because
they are just quick enough.
- The design is much improved over the old site. A huge effort from
the designers, the editorial and commercial teams.
- It’s the most comprehensively tested piece of software that we’ve
ever released.
- We worked as a team. So, for example, I got to talk to developers
about database design as it happened.
- By far the smoothest rollout that I have ever been involved with.
As a side note, the cutover was the first time I have heard
applause for people typing commands into a unix shell, although I
was too tense to really enjoy the moment.
Inevitably, I fell asleep on the train on the way home and ended up in
Luton.