Series

Series

Posts written across several parts. Each one stands on its own, but reading them in order shows how it went.

Rebuilding our website

A record of rebuilding a company site that had only a phone number as its way in, working alongside AI. More of it is about what we had to fix than about what went well.

7 parts

  1. Rebuilding our website (1): the phone was the only way inWe rebuilt the company website. Why did we decide to start again? There were three reasons, and none of them were about what suited us — they were all about what made things hard for our customers.
  2. Rebuilding our website (2): building it alongside an AIWe built this site in conversation with an AI. What we handed over, what we did not. And the part that mattered most was deleting the plausible-sounding falsehoods the AI wrote.
  3. Rebuilding our website (3): cut, cut, and cut againWe had a finished home page, and then cut it down to two thirds. What there was too much of was not information — it was the same point repeated. Here are the numbers we measured.
  4. Rebuilding our website (4): what is still unfinishedAt launch there are parts of this site that are still not filled in. Here, without hiding any of it, is what is missing.
  5. Rebuilding our website (5): on a phone, it was a messAfter launch we opened the site on our own iPhone. The bottom of every page was hidden, and once you had scrolled down there was no way back to the menu. Here is how we turned "somehow it looks wrong" into numbers, and what we fixed.
  6. Rebuilding our website (6): for two and a half years, the internet thought we were in ShibuyaWe set up Google Search Console. In the process we found that our 2024 move to Katsushika was reflected nowhere online — and that even our own site had an address that did not match the company register.
  7. Rebuilding our website (7): on an iPad, this time it was the "steps"The phone was fixed. What about the iPad? Opening it, everything — type, spacing — was "medium", with no point of emphasis anywhere. Here is how we removed nine breakpoint steps, made headings bigger and the supporting text smaller, and stopped Japanese from breaking mid-word.

Start from the first

Choosing AI for a contracting firm

Before choosing which one, decide what you will not hand over. How we use three of them, and what happens to the information you put in. Only what we actually use at work.

3 parts

  1. How a contractor chooses AI (1): decide what not to hand over, before you pick oneWhen a restoration and interior works company starts using AI, the first thing to decide is not which AI to use. It is what to hand over and what not to. We draw the line by asking who loses if it gets something wrong.
  2. How a contractor chooses AI (2): using Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini for different jobsHow the main AI tools feel in the day-to-day work of a contractor. We do not rank them: comparisons date quickly, and the draft of this article was written with AI, so we are in no position to rank them fairly.
  3. How a contractor chooses AI (3): what happens to what you put in — things to check before you signWhether the text you put into an AI is used for training is handled differently on personal plans and business plans. We checked what each company states officially, then set out the rules we settled on inside our own company and how to read the pricing.

Start from the first

Turning site preparation into an app

We are trying to turn the product-code lookup, ordering and lead-time checks that follow every order into an app. What is holding us up is not the technology but putting into words what the problem actually is.

1 parts・Still being written

  1. Turning site logistics into an app (1): the three jobs that only happen after hoursEvery time an order comes in, we look up product codes, place the order with the wholesaler, and check lead times. Three to eight jobs a week, twenty minutes each at the very least. None of it can be done while working on site, so it waits until we are back at the office — and it comes last in the order of desk work, finishing around nine. We are building an app for it, and what is holding us up is not the technology; it is putting into words what the actual problem is.

Start from the first

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