How to tackle the outside party developement

Question

Currently I'm working on a social networking project whose design is developed by the another company we are dealing with. We informed them that we need a task to be done on high priority to finish the project ASAP. We told them that what we need in the task and the party said, "What you do code or design?"?

Is it their concern that I do design or code? When we have given them task, how can he ask a question that what I do?

So I ask my boss what to do, and he said to tell him that "We need HTML and CSS".

He the did the task.

What exactly is this guy asking? I don't want to get into this kind of situation again. I want to handle these situations myself without talking to my boss.

What am I missing here?

Answer 1

i want to handle these situations my self not by boss

You should be aware of exactly what your needs are as the developer, as well as the technical needs of the project at hand. If you can develop a sense of what the project is going to need next, than you can tell the 3rd party exactly what you need, and maybe even spec it out for them.

the party said that what you do code or design

It also sounds here like the 3rd party didn't know what you were talking about, and wanted to find out if you spoke their language. It might be a good idea to be as clear as possible when talking to 3rd party developers

Answer 2

Were you clear on the inputs and outputs of the task from the other company? They may have wondered if you had any code or design components to be used as part of doing the task in which case it very much matters if you do code or design as it is presumed that that would be used in the final product. Some examples that may or may not the case you are presenting:

1. Both code and design can be given - If you are working with a specific CMS and mock-ups of the new pages to be added to a website, then there may be both elements to send as what is being built by that other company has to work within your company's technical infrastructure.

2. Design but not code - If the work was for some component that is completely separate,e.g. an investor relations portion of a website, then there may be mock-ups to be sent so that style guidelines can be followed but not necessarily any code as this could be on a different domain potentially.

3. Code but not design - If the work doesn't contain any UI components then there could be a case where what gets built doesn't have a design to be given but could be built on top of a given code base.

My guess for an understanding is that if you give very limited information then there may be questions that address peripheral issues that you missed in your initial request. For example, you don't state anything other than you gave them a task. That's kind of a big black box to my mind as there are tons of possible things that could constitute a task. If this answer seems a bit vague that is just a reflection of the vagueness I get from the question. Are there various underlying assumptions you had and didn't disclose?