Recently when testing a new finished Flash file on the Internet, someone encountered a problem with their browser.  I had tried it in all of mine and it worked fine, so what was the problem?  Apparently Internet Explorer 8 had been downloaded and it was the beta version.  Generally with a beta you still expect the majority of things to work fine, but of course in this case one of the things that didn’t work was the one thing we were checking.  Luckily, there is a non-beta version out now and everything should work fine, pending some more review.

Beta tests are very useful and by no means should they be done away with.  When you program or design something, you don’t always actually know how users are all going to use it or what things they will try.  There are too many variables.  With a beta test you can release your product to the masses to let them help you find all the remaining bugs that they come across.  There is no good way to achieve this mass testing effect with your comparatively small team.

Here we test everything we make a lot for both form and function.  Programming projects obviously need to be thoroughly tested, but other things such as Flash animations, copywriting, and video editing all get tested and proofed as well in all aspects.  By the time any project is done, at least a quarter of this company has laid eyes on it.  Lots of eyes also means lots of opinions and this brings on many meeting of the brain trust to find the best solution.

Waking up this morning to sun and slightly warmer temperatures, I got to thinking about fun things to do over the weekend. If the good weather holds up, I thought it might be fun to go to Rice’s Market - a Buck’s County staple. It’s been about a year since I visited, so a trip is long overdue. One of my favorite things to do is visit markets - like the Reading Terminal Market and those in Harrisburg and Lancaster - and see the goods of all the vendors. Food, plants, jewelry, handbags, household items, etc. etc. are all available for the taking. Personally, I pay particular attention to the plants, baskets, and garden materials at Rice’s, the tasty Italian sausage and fish of Reading Terminal, and the loose tea and the handmade items of the Amish in Lancaster.

This got me thinking about what DDA would have on the table at an “advertising market”. Honestly, we would probably be the vendor that drives foot traffic to the market and take up a vendor space that wrapped all the way around the corner. We’d have animations and video productions hanging along the ceiling of the tent, search engine optimization next to corporate and medical website designs on one table, copywriting, graphic design, and programming for the picking, and an area up front designated to special “services of the month” like eLearning tools, Healthcare IT modules, patient and physician portals, and much more. It would be quite a sight!

Here at DDA, we deal with clients from all over the globe. Our Southampton location is convenient for clients from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware that wish to visit, but clients located further away can’t always be present in the studio for video shoots and voice-over recordings. That never stopped us in the past though as we would just send the client mp3 files of the takes and make changes based on their feedback. This method works well, but can be a bit time consuming. We know your time is valuable so we took steps to make this process much quicker. Recently, we purchased a telephone audio interface that allows us to send the client a feed directly from our sound booth so they can listen to each take in real time and give prompt feedback. It is like the client is sitting right there in the studio! The client then chooses their favorite take and the process is complete! Just another way DDA is a step above the rest.