What a press check taught us about websites

On press, nothing runs until someone has signed the sheet. The printer pulls a proof, the client checks it under proper light and both put their name on it. Only then does the machine speed up.

Websites rarely get that moment. They drift live in pieces, and the first real check happens in public. So we wrote one down: a single page, eleven lines, signed by us and by the client the day before launch.

The list is dull on purpose. Every form sends to a real inbox. Every page has a title someone would click. The site has been read aloud once, start to finish, by a person who did not write it.

Since we started, we have not had a launch-day emergency. That is not because we are careful people. It is because the sheet is.