How to efficiently send a request
How to log an issue, report a bug, or submit a change
Sending request or updates (AKA “logging issues”) on your project is an inevitability. Unfortunately, so are the delays and additional expenses that come with improperly logged issues.
Here is a quick guide to help you log your issue in a manner that helps the recipient of the request to work most efficiently and reduces any back and forth that might waste your time or incur undesired expense
1) Assume the recipient knows nothing
Sure, it sounds reasonable that when you say "[X] is broken" that the recipient of your issue will know exactly what you’re talking about. That's not the case though.
When filing your issue, assume that the recipient knows nothing about what you're talking about. There is no such thing as too many details when sending your request.
2) The title of your issue should be descriptive
"[X] doesn't look right" is a bad title when creating your issue. The title should be as descriptive as possible. It should be so descriptive that the recipient should be able to pick up the gist of the issue from the title itself.
Some examples of great titles:
The blue widget on the contact page has white space issues
Clicking on "create" gives me a 500 error
The blue muppet should be green
3) The description should be overly descriptive
Even the simplest of issues should have an overly descriptive description. Again, there is no such thing as too much information. A well logged issue will include the location of the issue, steps to reproduce the issue (only needed if more complex), and what the desired outcome of the issue is.
Some examples of great descriptions:
On the contact page, I was expecting the blue widget to have less white space.
Can we tighten up the spacing between the blocks in the blue widget?
I tried to create a new recipe, but I am getting the attached error.
Steps to reproduce:
Sign in to the siteClick the "Create" button on your dashboard See attached 500 error screenshot
Please fix the 500 error.
The blue muppet on the muppet details page is green.
Steps to reproduce:
Go to muppet details page. See blue muppet in the leaderboard.
Can you make the blue muppet green per the mockup from August 1?
4) Screenshots
You should try to include screenshots for all logged issues, but it is required to file an issue with a screenshot if the issue is related to the styling of the page.
When taking a screenshot, paste it into an email, send the link to the screenshot, or place in a Google Docs for and share the document (share with info@onewheelmarketing.com if sharing with us)
On a Mac you can take a screenshot with CMD+SHIFT+4. This will put a screenshot on your desktop which can be uploaded or emailed directly.
On Windows machines, see this.
5) Issues are atomic
Once the recipient of the issue has fixed the issue and you have verified that the reported issue is fixed, the issue is closed. If you have related issues, or a new issue was created in the fix, you must open a new issue or send a fresh email. This will increase the ticket or email count, but it helps work to happen most efficiently.
For One Wheel Marketing purposes, a request or issue is something that can be done in about 30 minutes of work. Sometimes larger requests will need to be broken down into smaller requests. Largest requests are basically a project, and will need an estimate or quote if our client doesn’t have us on retainer. The easiest way to keep work flowing is to keep your retainer account full so we can work full speed on requests and projects.
If you follow these steps for the requests that you send, you can help everyone work more efficiently and save yourself the headache of passing issues back and forth. Hooray!