September, a month sharp as a razor

Razor-sharp web. It's been 10 years since the first edition was published. In 2016, there was still a second edition. They differ only in the amount of typos, in the second we corrected them plusminus. Both editions are sold out and there will be no more.

Among other things, because part of the book is out of date. I've been putting on LinkedIn for a whole month Current insights on topics from the book. What has changed. What hasn't changed. You can find them below. It's LONG. Enjoy them.

September 2024.

10 years since it came out Razor-sharp web.

Two years of writing and rewriting. Proofreading. The title? Karel. Design? Adam, Jolan and Clara. Publisher? Milos. PR? Michael. A bunch of feedback from a pile of people, randomly Ondrej, George. Baptism. Godfather Mark. Lecture Autumn Tour.

👉 10 years when you once in a while wrote to me that the book really helped you. I have your testimonials written down and read them every once in a while. Thanks!

👉 10 years when I haven't opened a book. It's really weird to read a book I wrote. It's like watching your own videos. He is. It's two. Weird. I prefer to read foreign books.

👉 10 years deserves a change. I opened the Web razor-sharp. I posted here on LinkedIn thoughts from the book. And updated them after 10 years.

Because in 10 years, some of the ideas from the book still remained the same. And at the same time, something has changed significantly.

September 2024. The moon is razor-sharp.

Page 201.

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When I wrote the book, our industry was mainly web designers and UX designers. There are a lot more of us out there today:

UX designer.

UX/UI designer.

Produktdesigner.

Service designer.

Digital designer.

Interaction designer.

UX/UI strategist.

Graphic designer.

UX copywriter.

Web designer.

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Do you know what all these names have in common?

They are completely unhelpful.

They don't say what these people are actually doing.

Standards don't exist.

Each organization deals with them in its own way.

Frog wars look like this: “A product designer is a UX designer, but he also emphasizes on the business of the organization. Service designer looks at holistic user experience across the service. “

He's nice. This is what web designers do, too. I mean, the good ones.

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Are you looking for a job?

‍Do not discuss the name of the role.

‍Solve what in This organization does.

The kind of UX/UI designer that 80% of the time draws in Figma... doesn't really handle much UX.

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Page 163.

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Since the book was written, the site has technically changed. Low-code and no-code platforms transformed him beyond recognition. API is standard.

👉 You don't want bespoke technology.

👉 You don't want Wordpress or Drupal.

👉 Want Webflow.

Or another rented platform. This is true for 99% of websites.

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The House of Řezáč website is on Webflow. We clicked on much larger sites into it. It works.

A rented platform separates you from hosting and code. He'll sort them out for you. It doesn't pay 100%. It pays enough.

So the moment the public administration resolves sites on Drupal, it opens a hole in my pocket. In most cases, it is not needed for a long time.

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Is it cheaper to create? Not today.

Is it cheaper to develop? Unequivocally.

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And that's exactly what you want to do with your site. You want him daily edit, change, develop. Instead of waiting for the project manager to call you with messages from the programmer. Who will have time next quarter.

Page 13.

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Factory per customer. The bottleneck model of business that Ash Maurya came up with based on the AARRR framework devised by Dave McClure. You can see why it doesn't make sense to talk about who came up with something first.

The framework says that you have a bottleneck somewhere. And until you solve it, it makes no sense to solve anything further.

👉 Acquisition — people come to us.

👉 Activation — they are excited about our offer.

👉 Revenues — we earn on them.

👉 Retention — come back and shop again.

👉 Recommendations — talking about us with others.

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In the book, I deal with the factory only superficially. Customer Factory is a useful framework when you have Running Business.

1 ️ ⃣ Want quickly earn more? Change the business model. Or change the way you do things. In the age of AI, this is more current than ever.

2 ️ ⃣ Want growth? You need more new customers. Strengthen marketing, business and PR. Actively reach out. Be seen.

3 ️ ⃣ Want more conversions? Improve communication. The fast method is the principles of influence. The slow method is branding. You want to do both.

4 ️ ⃣ Retention it is crucial that you keep yourself where you are today. At the same time, without getting enough new customers, it is a slow death. 100% of people will never buy from you again. Find out why people shop at you again and reinforce that.

5 ️ ⃣ Recommendation is essential. The entire House of Cutter business is based on personal recommendation. At the same time getting people to talk good about you is nuts. Maybe you can write a useful book. 😈

Page 150.

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If I really underestimated anything in the book, it's stakeholder management.

Communication with people.

Project Management.

Procedural management.

A hospital director once told me:

“People don't know if he's a good doctor or a bad one. Whether we made a mistake in the operation, or we saved, whatever we could. They know the quality of the food. They will know how This is what doctors are doing. They know how quickly the nurse will come after she rings the bell. “

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Communication with by humans.

Project Management.

Procedural management.

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Stakeholder management is not only directed towards managers or clients. It goes towards other suppliers as well. Or maybe your fellow programmers.

You want to have good relationships with stakeholders. Stakeholder management is 30% of the work of a junior designer-specialist. And 80 percent of the work of a senior design leader.

You need to learn stakeholder management from the beginning of your career. Can't catch up quickly.

Communication is a challenging discipline. There's not a day that I don't learn something new in her. And I still make mistakes.

Page 87.

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The numbers.

Hardly anyone works with them.

I didn't know at the time.

It's normal not to work with numbers. Every once in a while, management gets a report on the table... and that's NOT working with numbers.

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The numbers are hard.

Hardly anyone can do that.

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In addition to technical assurance and analytical thinking, you need willpower. Get up and look at the numbers systematically and regularly.

For every business, there are hundreds of relevant numbers that change every day, every hour, every minute.

Numbers help you uncover situations that you might not otherwise be able to capture. At the same time They do not represent the reality of business.

The number is a very rough indicator. He says “here's something going on, go and explore it”. It's not reality. It's the reduction of the world... literally to a number.

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What you need to know about numbers?

👉 How they arise.

👉 How they move normally.

👉 How much can we trust them.

👉 What numbers affect other numbers.

Page 109.

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Edward de Bono,

We use his 6 hats on every design project. Purposefully. Ritually.

At some point you need to hear why it won't work.

You need to hear this much before someone writes the first line of quality object-oriented code.

Opposition increases quality.

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Every bit of House of Cutter's ascents passes through the opposition.

Opposes lead. He opposes quality control. Opposes the client.

Very often everyone within the space at the workshop is opposed.

Opposition increases quality.

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Sure, if someone keeps telling you it's not going to work, it demotivates you.

Therefore, you must for the opposition to create a ritual space.

Opposition increases quality. Do not confuse the opponent with the competitor.

The opponent means well with your joint project.

Page 27.

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Project triple-imperative. In short... what is important to you? The scope? The price? Time? This is an essential tool that we use on every project.

In the book, I emphasize that you determine only one axis of the triple-imperative. We don't live in a perfect world.

Projects are about compromises. Sometimes you talk about them, other times you don't talk about them. They're always there.

Unseen compromises will bite someone in the ass sooner or later.

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1 ️The scope is crucial! The latter, by the way, is gradually increasing in size. After all, we can't launch it without X. We've forgotten Y. Add Z. The general would like to see more of this... so there's no point in dealing with the exact date... and not even the price.

Range is not related to quality. Quality comes from the experience and work practices of the implementer, regardless of the scope of delivery.

If you manage a project according to scope, always write it down on paper and come back to that paper with each new request. Changing the range changes the price and term. The more complex the project, the more often its scope changes.

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2 ️Time is crucial! In that case, you don't care about the scale. If we launch the project in September, it can also be a one-page website. I know, you wanted a thousand pages... but then you don't prioritize time. You have priority range.

It always makes sense to do projects as quickly as possible. Unstarted work doesn't make money.

Part of managers think that if he says, “Run it in X.” then there are no consequences. Much better to ask, “If I want to launch this in September, what does that mean for the project? “.

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3 ️The price is crucial! You will have to do a bunch of things with your own help. That's why we do our workouts. So that you do not need external contractors so much. Because hiring anyone from the outside is expensive.

At the same time, solving complex problems without sufficient know-how internally is even more expensive. This is not visible at first glance! Always ask yourself the question... how well prepared are we for something like this? How many times have we done this successfully? What kind of system do we have to guarantee that we deliver what is needed internally as well?

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Do you do software projects where the scope, time and cost is fixed? Every project is about compromises. Sometimes you talk about them, other times you don't talk about them. They're always there.

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Page 74.

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At the time of writing the book, I was confused about two concepts. Strategy and branding. I was throwing them at each other.

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Strategy is the set of decisions you make BEFORE you set goals and plans.

Branding can be one of those decisions.

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Branding is a set of activities that promote your story among the people out there. Part of it is about communication. The part deals with the customer experience. Part of it relates to your products. The key is to make it so clear that it reinforces your story.

For some organizations, branding makes sense. It doesn't make sense to others. Or doesn't give TODAY.

An early-stage startup doesn't need to invest in a brand. It needs to arouse demand for the product. Or create that product at least well enough to make elementary sense. Branding is challenging and, above all, long-term.

You don't need a brand to succeed.

At the same time, it can help you.

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In this, strategic decisions are challenging. If you decide otherwise, it still makes sense! It is all the more important that you make your decision as best as possible.

That's why we put together Strategic thinking. We only have a few vacancies in March.

Page 73.

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If I had to delete one page from an entire book, it would be this one.

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Forget about SWOT analysis.

‍Forget about SWOT analysis. ‍

Forget about SWOT analysis.

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It's probably the worst strategy framework you can use. At the time of writing the book, I knew nothing about strategic frameworks. I didn't need it. I didn't have my own business. So I clamped down on Swotka... because everyone else was using it.

There are times when it's very helpful to do what the crowd does. For example, when you build a website and it uses the same elements as all other websites. You save a huge amount of money.

There are times when it is very UNHELPFUL to do what the crowd does. Like if you're using the same SWOTK as everyone else. You won't invent anything new.

You make nothing of it a story. And you present it to colleagues. You did SWOTK, so it's a strategy, chmm? Only, not at all.

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If I had to delete one page from an entire book, it would be this one.

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There are a bunch of much more useful strategic frameworks than SWOT analysis. Like WTP & HTW by Roger L. Martin.

Page 159.

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Maslow's pyramid of web design is something I certainly wouldn't change. Over the years, I have only changed my approach to it.

Now I'm going to be razor sharp.

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❗Meaningfulness is still a problem. Some of the websites are informational websites and business cards. You don't want that kind of website. Either the site brings/saves money, or you don't need it. There's nothing in between.

❌ Findability gradually losing importance. What matters is and will be the discoverability of your brand. The list as a search engine is slowly dying. Google is trying its best to get people to stay on Google and not go anywhere. Social networks likebysmet.

✅ Availability is solved thanks to rented platforms.

✅ Accessibility can be solved thanks to rented platforms. I don't have data on how much they actually solve it. Anyway if I have a million sites with unified access to code and I make them accessible, it's “done”.

✅ Usability is solved thanks to standard components. All sites look the same. So take advantage of them.

❗Credibility and persuasiveness have a major influence on the purchase. I got a certificate from Cialdini for that.

❌ Joy of use turned out to be the ruin I would most like to erase from the book. It has been replaced by the psychological depression of people. Doomscrolling. Quick whips of dopamine. Hell on wheels.

❗Create a link is actually branding. You need it all the time.

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How to go to the site in in 2024/2025?

👉 Name the key results you want from the site.

👉 Do your research.

👉 Sharpen communication.

👉 Design a website with completely standard elements on a rented platform.

👉 Spice up your output with a few tactics to promote credibility and persuasiveness.

👉 Profit.

Page 201.‍

Design.

At the time of writing the book, I viewed design as a bifurcated discipline. I certainly had no idea how much it would be branched 10 years later.

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Design is not drawing pretty pictures.

Design is the solution of complex problems.

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You need to do this ! 12 Key Competencies.

👉 Design process

👉 Business

👉 Facilitation of workshops

👉 Customer Research

👉 Sense-making

👉 Strategy

👉 Creativity

👉 Prototyping

👉 Verification of ideas

👉 Stakeholder management

👉 Project management

👉 DesignOps

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You won't find them on the razor-sharp Web. We teach them to Strategic Design.

The 4th cycle is currently underway. We're full.

The next one starts in February 2025.

Page 82.

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Designer:”Why are we doing so many design probes this year? We've never done that. “

Me: “I've grown out of putting too much energy into ideas that won't work. “

Don't you do customer research?

Just don't do the website or e-shop redesign project at all.

Dot.

I'm sorry.

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✅ It's cool when you change the technological solution of the site.

✅ It's cool that you edit a specific page and adjust the effect of the changes.

❌ It's not cool for a pile of wireframes or a new structure to emerge from the air. Unless it's just input into further research.

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You can use hundreds of research methods. Normally when you redesign a site, you only choose from a few.

👉 Analysis of the behavior of people on the site.

👉 Classification analysis of keywords.

👉 Conversations with customers.

👉 User testing.

👉 Analysis of customer support.

👉 A/B testing.

👉 Flask tests.

👉 Design probes.

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You want to use at least one quantitative and at least one qualitative.

You will save yourself blood, sweat, tears.

Almost no one does.

So you have the opportunity to gain an advantage over the competition.

Page 163.

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As long as 10 years ago, I argued that graphic design is important. And that there are more important areas on the web.

Content.

Technology.

Graphics.

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🥉Graphics is on the crate. He has his honorable third place. And on the web, we don't really influence it much. Want great website graphics? First of all, you need a great visual style. Brand → Visual Style → Web. Never the other way around.

🥈Technology takes second place. A slow and error-prone website prevents people from being led to a demand or order. And that's it. For most sites, a rented platform will solve this.

🥇Content takes first place. Just not just any content. The content has to hit the hearts of people out there. He must see at first glance that you understand them. You know their problems. You offer a solution.

Great content is created from customer research. And of course you spice it up with a little ethical influencing.

Page 95.

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In the book, I stuck to the standard templates for describing customers. Personas. Segments. Or maybe ICP.

We don't use them today.

Templates force people to make things up that aren't in the data. Just because they're in a template.

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❌ We do not adapt the research to the template.

✅ We adapt the research to the client's reality.

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We make tailored frameworks as part of data interpretation. We draw. We visualize. We make tables. We show the client in the most useful way the reality of the people out there. So that he can change his behavior.

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When does our approach not work?

When you want to sell a business. And your prospective US investor or his consultants expect standard personas, segments, ICPs... as part of the filings for the valuation of the firm.

If everything always worked... well then it would be a bit boring. 😈

September, a razor-sharp month.

I hope you enjoyed it.

You need sharpen communication not just online?

👉 Write to me.

Looking for up-to-date know-how for creating a successful website, e-shop, appky?

👉 Go to Strategic Design. We start in February.

You consider, what next?

👉 Go to Strategic thinking. We start in March.

You have an e-shop?

👉 Watch the recording Webinars War of e-shops.

The webinar is free. You can practice pay from This year's education budget.

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“Language — particularly in books — doesn't just describe the world as it is, it describes the world as it could be. Escribir sobre como progresar a un futuro mejor pode que hacer que um futuro más probablemente. Writing about worries can create a worried world. “
-- John Burn-Murdoch

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Reading for the weekend

Reform Is Driven by Rising Elites

For a long time I did not understand the role of elites. Burja himself dissects what role elites play when you want to improve society as a whole.