Wall you can write on: Be Creative With Your Writable Walls
Be Creative With Your Writable Walls
Do you want to work in a modern and productive working environment? Then it is time to get creative
Install a whiteboard wall in your office and make changes to the way you work. It’s easier than you think.
Get creative with your whiteboard wall and you can help meetings and everyday work tasks become more engaging, easier to complete and fun too.
Find out some of the ways you can get more creative with your whiteboard wall here.
Draw Up Company Murals
Have you got visitors coming to your office? Hosting an event?
It helps to get creative with your whiteboard wall.
Draw a huge mural dedicated to your company on one of your walls and wow visitors as they come in.
Or dedicate the wall to an event and invite attendees to write their feedback up on the wall for everyone to see.
Your walls don’t need to just be for other people though.
Why not use it to draw seasonally inspired drawings? You can have one for springtime, Halloween, Christmas, whatever season of holiday your company feels like celebrating.
It will look great and it’s an interesting way to make use of your surface.
Add Functionality To Your Digital Print
Have you got a digital print or are considering adding one to your office?
You can make a digital print with any image you can think of. Create a large version of your logo, an image showcasing your products, it can be anything you like.
Why you’re at it, why not make it writable as well?
Get creative and top coat your digital print with Whiteboard Paint in Clear. Not only will your wall look great, it will be functional as well.
One of the best ways we’ve seen this used is a customer who added functionality to a map in their office. It enabled them to get an overall view of the markets they were supplying to and identify where they might next target distributors.
Now that’s being creative.
Make Things Colourful And Creative
Did you know that whiteboard walls don’t need to be white?
It’s true.
You can create a writable surface in any colour you wish. Red, blue and green walls can all become whiteboards.
But how can this help you become more creative?
Well, office walls are traditionally white. By adding a bright colourful wall people will be instantly drawn to it and eager to get writing on it.
Your colleagues will be more driven, you’ll have a huge amount of space to work as individuals or groups and everyone can find a way to use in for their own projects.
Find out more about how you can create whiteboard walls here.
Have you any questions regarding our products? Call us on the relevant number below:
US: 1800 932 1609 UK: 0203 5145395
IE: 01 4126200 CA: 1800 948 9438
Find out how you can use functional walls to manage your projects better here.
Are you looking for alternatives to whiteboards? See our suggestions here.
Transforming Your Walls – Write On Wallpapers
Tired of having limited space to work on? Want to make your office more eco-friendly and reduce the amount of paper you use?
Then why not consider wallpapers that you can write on for your space?
Yes, we really mean it.
With dry erase wallpaper you can transform the way you work by increasing productivity and working more efficiently.
Want to learn more?
Then keep reading below to discover all of the ways you can benefit from having wallpaper that you can write on in your office.
Unlimited Space To Work
Ever wanted a large area to explore your ideas upon? This isn’t a reality with traditional whiteboards, notebooks or flipcharts.
With a whiteboard wallpaper you can make this happen. All of Smarter Surfaces Wallpapers can be used to cover an entire wall – or all the walls of an office or classroom – and transform them into writable surfaces.
You’ll be able to use your wall as a canvas to explore ideas without having to flip a page.
When working in a team, no one will need to wait for a space as the entire wall will be free to use.
During meetings you can assign everyone a wall to work on so that they can brainstorm and get their ideas out into the open.
You can even keep everyone informed of sales targets or important updates by writing it directly on to your wall.
With writable wallpaper, the possibilities are endless.
Encourage Team Engagement With Active Meetings
Getting your team engaged in meetings can at times be a difficult task. Especially when everyone is sitting around a boardroom table while one person uses a flipchart.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
With whiteboard wallpapers you can get your colleagues out of their seats and on to their feet.
Getting everyone actively involved will make meetings, and office work in general, more productive.
Promoting activity during your meetings can also help your staff members be more focused on the task at hand.
Wallpapers that you can write on are truly the perfect solution for active and engaging meetings
Who wouldn’t want the chance to write on a wall?
Want more than one functionality? Enjoy wallpapers that you can write on, project on and use neodymium magnets with at the same time.
Enhance Your Décor with Write On Wallpapers that Offer Both Functionality and Visual Appeal
It isn’t just about functionality though, is it?
Certainly you need walls in your office that look good as well.
Our range of wallpapers that you can write on are available in white.
This means that they will blend seamlessly into your current design scheme, so that you won’t have to sacrifice style for functionality.
Why Choose Smarter Surfaces Whiteboard Wallpapers?
There are currently 4 whiteboard wallpapers in the Smarter Surfaces wallpaper range:
- Smart Whiteboard Wallpaper
- Smart Whiteboard Wallpaper – Low Sheen
- Smart Magnetic Whiteboard Wallpaper
- Smart Magnetic Whiteboard Wallpaper – Low Sheen
All whiteboard wallpapers come with a 10 year guarantee and contain the following benefits:
- Perform just like a whiteboard, with no size limitations.
- Transform any wall or room into a modern, clutter-free and collaborative working area.
- Can be hung vertically, horizontally and even on curved walls.
- Independently tested and certified for classification of reaction to fire.
What Is The Best Whiteboard Wallpaper For You?
So, with all of these different options, which is the best whiteboard wallpaper for you?
If you’re just looking to replace your current whiteboard with a limitless writable area, why not try Smart Whiteboard Wallpaper?
Do you want to make your meetings more interactive by projecting and writing on to your whiteboard surface at the same time? Then you should check out Smart Whiteboard Wallpaper – Low Sheen. The matte finish of this wallpaper reduces glare from your projector, leaving you with a high quality projection surface.
Trying to better organize your office or classroom? With Smart Magnetic Whiteboard Wallpaper you can enjoy a strong magnetically receptive surface as well as a high quality whiteboard surface.
How about getting the absolute most out of your surfaces with Smart Magnetic Whiteboard Wallpaper – Low Sheen? That’s right.
You can write, project and even use neodymium and rare earth magnets on the one wallpaper. It truly is the one stop product for all of your office needs.
Wallpapers that you can write on really do work. So why don’t you try them for yourself?
Understand difference between whiteboards and whiteboard wallpapers.
Discover our top tips on installing functional wallpapers.
Smarter Surfaces products are used and trusted by top brands such as Google, Virgin Media and Coca-Cola.
Have you any questions regarding our products? Then call us on the relevant number below:
US: 1800 932 1609 UK: 0203 5145395
IE: 01 4126200 CA: 1800 948 9438
You can write flawless technical specifications, but what’s the point if your developer is crying? / Sudo Null IT News
A spherical product owner works in a galaxy far, far away. He scribbles notes on a napkin and silently hands it to the developers. And soon he receives a finished product that 100% meets his expectations.
Even if this product is a complex cross-platform service with blackjack and adaptability.
Is this possible in practice?
“No, brother, you won’t fool us! The terms of reference should be written long and meticulously, ”the gray-haired seniors will say. “TK is serious!” – the yellow-mouthed juns echo them. “My wife left me because of a short TK,” admits an experienced business analyst.
Let me disagree.
Writing a TOR does not have to be labor intensive. Moreover, good terms of reference are easier to write than bad ones. If you know some tricks, of course. I’ll tell you about this today. However, instead of napkins, I still recommend using confluence .
What’s wrong?
I have been writing problems for developers for over 11 years. Applications, games, web services, CRM systems, learning platforms and other other products are made using them. During this time, I went from writing 200-page design documents to concise terms of reference in several stories.
And, of course, filled all possible cones.
Year after year, in different companies, I watched how the products, game designers, marketers set goals. And what are the consequences of various “features” of the design of these tasks. How they postpone the start of the sprint by a week, finding out what exactly the customer wants. As in a panic, they hotfix the functionality that has just been poured into production. How quickly the application rating drops due to unaccounted cases. How sales fall and loyal users leave. How developers burn out when they have to deal with problematic tasks.
I got the impression that too many of those who set development tasks do not know how to do it well . And the very question of the quality of technical specifications is out of focus: they say, I wrote the task and the norms, they won’t figure it out, or what? Moreover, there are always more interesting things: discussion of new hypotheses, rallies, coffee breaks. As a result, everyone suffers – customers, developers, and business.
Disclaimer
In this article, I’m talking about product development, where the task of the TOR is to effectively convey to the developers what needs to be done. That is, we are not talking about outsourcing, where a business analyst writes technical specifications in such a way as to protect himself from customer lawsuits.
There are two extremes when writing technical specifications
1. And so it will do!
This happens even among experienced products. They can invest heavily in market research, custom development, analytics … and then write some kind of vague task.
This leads to prolonged decomposition, unnecessary re-opens, post-release improvements, and even conflicts within the team. This leads to losses, in short.
This approach looks crazy to me. How to choose a good whiskey by reading dozens of reviews and interviewing kavist… To dilute it with cola and drink in one gulp without smelling or tasting.
Do not do it this way!
But the option when the task is thought out but poorly described is not so bad. Because a good developer will ask questions, get answers, and get on with the job. And it also happens that the task is poorly described, because the customer himself did not understand the issue. As a rule, this becomes clear at the moment when the decomposition is already underway and the same developer starts asking questions. That’s all, dry the oars.
2. I am a technical writer with my mother
The opposite situation, when the product is sincerely sure that the more detailed the technical specification, the better.
Even if you need to change the color of one button, the template of the terms of reference opens and all fields are systematically filled in. This is, of course, a cartoon. But such an opinion, they say, the task should be described in as much detail as possible, is often found among products, developers, QA.
This is a harmful delusion.
Excessive detail turns the TOR into an impractical, unreadable document. Here are a few reasons why you shouldn’t write such a TOR:
- It slows down the entire development cycle, because it takes longer to write, longer to read, longer to decompose, and even to test longer.
- It is more difficult to find logical inconsistencies and missed negative cases in it – exactly the case when the forest is not visible for the trees.
- Good products come from system solutions, not hundreds of crutches and exceptions. Therefore, all small nuances like field validation should be fixed at the level of the entire product, and not prescribed in each individual task.
- Developers are smart guys, not dummy coders. They can make many correct decisions on their own, if they are not interfered with. The task of the product is to create a product that will be in demand on the market, and not to get into the nuances of technical implementation.
- Well, while the product is busy with meaningless scribbles – competitors will roll out 3 releases, and even have time to hold a corporate party.
Let me give you an example. Somehow I came to a team where it was customary to draw all the key permissions for responsive design, and then add them to the TOR. Instead, I suggested a one-time agreement on the rules by which adaptability works for us and … trust the layout designer. Now we showed in the TOR only the main resolution, and the rest was left at the discretion of the layout designer. Result:
- Designers cut the rendering time for new screens by at least half. They became happier as the routine was reduced.
- Terms of reference began to be written faster. They became easier to read and decompose.
- The layout designer felt like a person who participates in the process and influences the result, and not just copying the finished design one to one.
- QA no longer needed to compare all resolutions with design and technical specifications, so testing time was also reduced.
- The quality of adaptability has definitely not worsened (and even increased in some places), as the layout has become more conscious.
The larger the product you are working on, the higher the cost of an error and the more important the quality of the TK (thanks, cap!). Therefore, both options are not suitable if you are doing something more serious than a landing page. In large and competitive products, the writing of the TK should be fast, smart, rock and roll . Let’s see how to get there.
Requirements for a good, sincere terms of reference
- TK should please the product
And that means writing quickly, easily, with pleasure. Ideally, you don’t need to write a special specification at all, it should appear on its own in the process of work (I’ll talk about this later). - TK should please developers
And that means to be as concise, simple and unambiguous as possible. Moreover, it is important not to complicate the TK, but it is even more important not to complicate the product. Those. you need to avoid confusing logic, tricky conditions, tricky mechanics. As a rule, if a product wraps up complex logic, it is not competent enough or not trying hard enough to make it easier. - TK should please PM -а
This means that it is easy to break down into small, predictable, autonomous tasks. By “autonomous”, I mean tasks so fucking independent that they can be done in different sprints by developers who don’t know each other. - TK should please QA
This means taking into account all the key states and negative cases that may arise. What user journeys are possible and how the product will behave in each of them. Migrations, default settings, blank screen states, that’s it. - TK should please the team leader
And that means not to require any special rituals and explanations for transfer to development. For example, if a product has finished the TOR and is immediately, right in the office, hit by a bus, this should not prevent him from making the TOR in the best possible way.
As a rule, if a product wraps up complex logic, it is not competent enough or not trying hard enough to make it easier. 
Is it difficult to meet all these requirements? Not at all.
On the contrary, if you remember them, you won’t be able to write frankly bad technical specifications. Because all these requirements come down to only one thing – care for people who interact with this TK.
My format TK
This format is a rather loose mixture of user story + definition of done .
It appeared as a result of many years of evolution: every time I saw a systematic problem, I changed the format of my TK so that this problem would not arise in the future. The result is a concise and visually clean format that even juniors can easily pick up. Plus, it meets the requirements described above.
This is what a typical task (story) looks like in my TOR:
And no matter how big and complex the product we are developing, any TOR will consist of such simple stories (only their number will grow).
Let’s see what each story consists of.
As a rule, one story is one feature or product mechanic. For example, a story can fully describe the registration of a new user. As a rule, one story is also enough for me to set a task for the layout of a new landing page.
If the TK is large and significant, then before the list of stories I briefly write: why we are doing it and what results we want to achieve . Just so that the developers have an overall picture.
In general, it turns out something like this:
Example
Okay, to understand how it works – let’s break some product into such stories. For example, we decided to make a neuro-bottle app. In it, the neural network will conduct heart-to-heart conversations with products that have not had a day (and no friends).
For simplicity, we assume that we already have a trained neural network and we need to make it an interface in the form of an application.
TK will probably consist of the following stories:
- User authorization
- User profile
- Communication screen with a neuro-drinking buddy
- Screen “Catalog of neurodrinkers”
- Profile and settings screen
- Payment popup
- Analytics connection
It remains to paint each story (in the format indicated above) and give it to development.
I told you it would be easy.
Tricky life hacks
There are a number of techniques that help me every day in the work on the product. Here are those that relate to writing technical assignments.
Lifehack #1: Iteratively refine
Now I don’t write technical specifications at all – they themselves, in the background, appear in the process of work. When a new task appears, I immediately figure out: what subtasks are needed to do this? And then I fix each subtask in the story format (only the name, the details will be later).
Thus, I have a generalized technical task ready right away. It remains only to detail the story to the extent that it will be possible to give the technical specification for development.
Detailing is also going on in the background: while I’m researching and thinking through the details, I immediately take notes inside the relevant stories. Instead of design, I insert prototypes from NinjaMock .
This approach noticeably speeds up the work. Plus, it allows you not to miss the big picture and not dig into the details ahead of time.
Life hack #2: Don’t work with genies
There was this old movie where a genie grants wishes in the worst possible way.
Of course, a sane developer will not specifically look for an opportunity to do harm. But sometimes people don’t care what they’re working on. Then they do the task “as written”, without really understanding why it is needed. Periodically, this will lead to large and small fails. Well, yes, the production went down … but no one wrote in the task what needs to be checked – whether such an implementation will break everything else.
I won’t say anything about outsourcing, but this approach is not acceptable in a product. A good developer builds a temple, not just lays bricks. That is, he sees the big picture and delves into what is happening. Such guys often offer alternative solutions and warn about pitfalls themselves.
Therefore, if you want your technical specifications to be done in the best possible way, then sometimes you need to improve not the technical specifications, but the development culture in the team. In general, this is the task of the PM, but the product can also influence the situation. Especially if the team trusts him (thanks to his thoughtful and well-designed TOR, for example).
Life hack #3: Separate technical specifications from documentation
The assignment answers the question “what needs to be done?”. And the documentation – to the question “how is it done / how does it work?”. TK is written before the implementation of the task, and documentation – after.
If I need to rearrange a cupboard, I will write a task in the spirit of “rearrange from here -> here”. But I will not draw an architectural plan of the house in which there is a closet.
Sometimes there is an opinion that technical specifications should be written in such a way that it would be at the same time and documentation .
This is a pernicious theory. Full-fledged documentation will still not work, because it is not known in advance how exactly the terms of reference will be implemented. In addition, developers need leeway that the documentation doesn’t provide. Well, and most importantly, it takes much longer to write such a TK and it will turn out to be cumbersome.
There are different products and different startups. Someone can do without documentation at all. But if you still need documentation, hire a junior who will describe the functionality in detail already after its implementation. You don’t need special skills to describe the existing functionality, but you will save time and nerves of skill employees – products and developers.
Life hack #4: Learn to code
A purely empirical observation: products that know how to program are better at formulating tasks. Moreover, it is not necessary to become a senior backend engineer, it is enough to master any programming language and understand the essence of algorithmic thinking.
At one time, I was coding unrestrainedly on the chthonic Spectrum, and in my student years I even had the opportunity to write drivers in Assembler. That is, I am familiar with programming firsthand – and this, of course, helps to find a common language with developers.
Life hack #5: Think a lot, write a little
The biggest problems always arise with tasks that the customer himself does not fully understand. For example, he needs a new report in the admin panel, but he does not quite understand how this report will be generated. Like, tyzhprogrammers will figure it out. No, it doesn’t work that way.
The only way to write a good problem that gets done right is to get it right. Ideally, understand the problem enough that you could do it yourself … if you knew how to program.
But when you figured it out, you don’t need to throw out all the information you found in the TOR. Just a deep understanding of the task allows you to discard the superfluous and write only what matters.
P.S. TK is a means, not an end. Therefore, sometimes the best TK is its absence. Someday I’ll tell you how I launched a couple of products without technical specifications at all.
P.P.S. If you have your own format for terms of reference or life hacks when writing them, please share in the comments.
“You can’t write investigations with one hand and advertising copy with the other” – Journalist
– Forbes is a business magazine. The brand is often associated with the name of the first editor-in-chief of the Russian version of the magazine, American investigative journalist Paul Klebnikov, who was killed in 2004. Does the journal continue the tradition of investigative journalism today?
— Of course, it is better to talk to the editors about this. I now work in commerce: we call special projects non-editorial content, which is marked as “Affiliate material” and “As advertising”. And we have a “Chinese wall” between commerce and the editorial board – the editorial board is independent, as it was under Paul Khlebnikov.
As a reader, I can say that the journalistic content in Forbes has been and remains strong. Only now it is also available in different formats – for example, on YouTube and on the site you can watch investigative films based on large texts, this is the Forbes Deeper project with journalist Sergei Titov.
– What is the “Chinese Wall” like?
– No one from commerce can come to the editorial office and ask to use a client’s comment or not to write about someone or something. The fact that we have a commercial contract with some client does not affect his relationship with the editors. And there were cases when a client canceled a fully prepared special project for me, because the editors wrote something about him at that time that he did not like it very much. But we understand that editorial independence is part of a brand’s DNA and is valued by both readers and advertisers.
Paul Klebnikov’s instructions
– So Forbes adheres to Western journalism standards?
— I would say the standards of objective journalism.
When you turn to different parties and request comments even from structures from which you are unlikely to get a response, you look for confirmation of a fact in various independent sources, carefully study all available documents. Those who today produce high-quality texts in Forbes came to journalism when Paul Khlebnikov was gone, for them objectivity was already the norm of high-quality business journalism.
— What traditions, established by Paul Khlebnikov, exist in the editorial office today — apart from editorial objectivity and independence from commerce?
– Again, it’s better to ask the editors. I can tell you how it was when I worked there. I joined Forbes as a department editor in 2005. I remember Paul’s printed instructions on how to fact-check. The finished text, before being read by proofreaders, is carefully read by a journalist who did not participate in the creation of the material. He notes everything that needs to be checked, from the spelling of names and positions to citations.
I remember I was writing some text, and the fact checker asked me to find in the record on the recorder the place where my newsmaker said a specific phrase.
— You are currently the head of the Special Projects Department. How useful is experience in journalism and how do texts differ from editorial ones?
— Native content is labeled as “Promotional” or “Affiliate Material” so readers don’t confuse it with editorial content. But at the same time, my task and the task of the editors of special projects is to make sure that this content is of high quality and interesting. The editor-in-chief of special projects Ivan Prosvetov, by the way, was also, like me, the deputy editor-in-chief of Forbes once, the other two editors also have experience working at Forbes.
We know the DNA of the publication and take it into account when creating partner projects. That is, we figure out how to solve the client’s problem in a format that is interesting to our audience, we pack the message the advertiser needs in the right context.
That is, we do not write “this vacuum cleaner is the best”, but give, for example, five innovative trends of recent years, which are reflected in the new brand.
— What are the requirements for such content?
– It must be of high quality and must be in the style of the publication, that is, written for the audience of the site. Native advertising is in trend, its share is growing in many media, not only here. Someone marks it in one way, someone else, someone does not. Somewhere it is prepared by journalists assigned to the editorial office, somewhere by freelancers. It seems to me that our model, when there are editors for special projects and a pool of professional freelance writers, each of whom is an expert in his field, is optimal.
– Is the work on the text itself built differently? Are there any genre features?
– This should be normal human text. All the same requirements – we need an idea around which everything will be built, texture and structure.
When a brief comes in from a client, we brainstorm and try to come up with a concept.
For example, to highlight the benefits of sports infrastructure in a luxury residential complex, we are looking for heroes – people from the business world who are actively involved in sports. And we interview them about what sports give them in life and business, how they build training into their busy schedule, why it is important for them that the sports infrastructure is close to home, and even better at home.
As for genres, we have no restrictions on the site. It can be columns, and interviews, and reviews, and author’s articles. But there are special formats for presenting native content. In addition to the usual partner materials, we have Brandvoice – the voice of the brand, a branded section where materials appear for at least three months that reveal topics of interest to the client.
– Some media do not label commercial content. How can the reader figure out where is not a journalistic text?
— Do you feel that you are being promoted or not.
But I, perhaps, will not prompt the readers here with clear signs.
Life behind the “Chinese wall”
— Tell us more about the work of the Special Projects Department Forbes .
— We have editors and managers who lead the project. They bear the main burden, the entire project management. They closely communicate with both the client and contractors – these are authors, transcribers, proofreaders, photographers. And if we are talking about landings, then also designers, programmers.
For example, the advertising department sends a brief from a bank. We come up with three or four ideas for this request. Merchants send our ideas and budget calculations to the advertising agency of the bank. And if the client likes it, they return to us with the choice of an idea and confirmation of the project. Our financial editor calls up journalists who are in our pool of authors. The author communicates with the bank only during the interview.
All communication with the client regarding timing, coordination of questions, organization of interviews, filming, coordination of the text is carried out by the special projects manager.
– Are the journalists who go to interviews working at Forbes ?
— No, we do not have the right to involve the editors in the preparation of commercial materials. We can only consult with a specialized author if the topic is specific.
— What is the significance of the special projects department for the magazine?
— Special projects generate income. Advertisers are increasingly turning to native advertising, because such content allows you to explain the benefits of a product or show the expertise of a company speaker. Conventional advertising for such tasks is not always suitable. You won’t come to the editorial office with promotion tasks either. They need an exclusive, an interesting informational occasion, the speaker can be asked sharp questions.
– Shouldn’t there be uncomfortable questions here?
— This is commercial content and we are aware of this. There are awkward questions, but we always agree on them. I remember a client who had a mixed reputation online. And we immediately warned that it was better to talk about negative reviews about his company. Their CEO explained in an interview that he had a corporate conflict with a partner, this provoked an information war, hence the reviews.
Who are your customers?
– These are companies from a wide range of industries. Traditionally, there are many banks, real estate, technologies, but there are also fashion and other lifestyle clients. Now the department has about 90 projects in progress.
– As far as I understand, you are the director of special projects, but at the same time you also carry out editorial functions?
— Yes, I myself am in many projects and an editor.
The usual job in a journalistic career: I brief the author, look through the questions before sending it to the client, I can go through the text – somewhere to make a statement, somewhere to clarify the logic. Or, on the contrary, I look at the text as a director of special projects – whether the content of the text corresponds to the client’s brief.
Sometimes it can be difficult for business writers to adjust to commercial writing. We have restrictions, for example, on mentions of third parties. I can’t safely quote Steve Jobs in a commercial material, because then Apple may come in asking why they were used in someone’s advertising. Negative statements about someone are also unacceptable. Lawyers, of course, check each special project before publication. But when editing, I also monitor compliance with legal norms.
– Any advice from experience on how to make native content?
— During trips to the regions, guys often come up and ask how best to organize this process in the editorial office.