Project timelines

I find it very difficult to estimate project timelines. Things usually take longer than I expect, and I never seem to learn. When someone asks me for a project timeline, I usually tell them that it will take somewhere between two hours and eighteen months.

As a recent example, I wanted to add a skip-to-main-content feature to a web application, because the application was growing a large block of navigation links at the top of every page. I figured this problem would have a widely-accepted solution, and that this would be a ten-minute task.

A web search quickly disabused me of that assumption. Lots of people solve this problem in different ways. I was looking for something that would

1. work in most or all modern browsers
2. hide the skip link until the keyboard user TABs to it
3. not require JavaScript
4. (most importantly) manage focus such that using the TAB key again advances focus to the next focusable element.

Here’s the implementation I ended up using. It’s still not perfect, because it won’t work in Firefox on OS X (not without some help, anyway).

So with evaluating search engine results, trying several different things, and then testing on a bunch of browsers, this ten-minute task took all morning one day.

At times like this I’m reminded of The Money Pit, a 1986 film with Tom Hanks and Shelley Long about a couple who buy a house and hire a bunch of contractors to renovate it. Every time they ask the foreman how much longer the work will take, he says, “Two weeks” (typically with derisive laughter).

So if you’re writing about someone who works in technology and need some day-to-day flavor for her, have her deal with a money pit assignment and an impatient customer.