web.erratica

Honestly, web designers are a geeky lot. If you strip away the creative process we give our left brains a pretty good workout. More often than not we’ll meet with a prospective client and try to sell ourselves using our knowledge of web standards and accessibility. “Your site will be built to be fully accessible and standards compliant” we’ll say and wait for the client to look as excited as we are. “Hmm, Where is the benefit to my business” they are surely thinking and “What the heck are standards and accessibility?”

Standards compliant markup means the designer has spent time developing a site using markup that will be read consistently across browsers and has stayed away from using proprietary tags or styles. This is simultaneously a line in the sand and a measure that ensures each person visiting your site will see the same content and receive the same message.

To understand why I say it is a line in the sand you need to understand a little bit of the history and rationale behind the web. Admittedly this is the probably the shortest and most dumbed down history of the Internet on the web but it should suffice.

The Internet began as the answer to the problem of sharing information over vast distances with people who would be viewing it on different computer operating systems. From the very beginning it was about sending the same message to everyone regardless of the differences between their computers. This was not an easy task but HTML was meant to standardize the display.

Initially the intent was to share scientific and scholarly information but it didn’t take long for the advertising and marketing industry to catch on to the vast potential of the Internet.

In fact it took about a nanosecond.

Marketing is essentially visual as almost all relationships start with attraction. The limits of basic html were quickly exceeded and the battle of the browsers began. Proprietary markup was introduced with each new version in the hopes that designers would design primarily for certain browsers thus gently forcing the public to adopt the “browser with the most toys”.

There are still remnants of those days. Occasionally you will stumble upon a site that says “Best viewed in Internet Explorer” but in general designers have realized that new features are best left to the standards developing bodies such as the W3C. Browser developers are expected to adhere to these standards more and more as it is clear to us that clients, designers and the public benefits.

The point is to get the same message to everyone regardless of their browser choice or their computer choice or their operating system. That always was the point.

Accessibility is essentially the same thing but it gives standards a helping hand. Even if you have done a fabulous job making your site standards compliant and every browser is rendering it the same way the individual you are trying to reach may have a hard time reading the type due to vision problems. An accessible site will allow type to be easily magnified. Try control+ or command+ depending on your browser to see this in action. Control or command- will reduce it again. An accessible site will label images and will ease the process of using a form for those who are viewing your site in a screen reader.

Building sites in this way is no longer considered an extra. It shows you are trying to reach out to all, not just some of your sites potential visitors.

And that should help your bottom line as well.

Maybe we need to answer the question “what is web design” as well.

When I first considered writing this post I knew that I’d immediately have to add that “of course this post is a client resource as those of us in ‘Web Design’ already know the answer“.

Of course that isn’t really true. The definition can be confusing . Even those of us who consider ourselves designers have trouble. Simply reading the job postings will demonstrate this. One company’s web designer is another company’s web developer. Whil one company is satisfied with layout and illustration skills another requires a solid grasp of coding, scripting and software development cycles. So venturing boldly into potentially controversial territory. I’ll make an attempt at defining, or at least narrowing down, what separates a web designer from “someone who makes web pages”. Then I’ll explore what a web designer should absolutely know and some additional (don’t you detest this term?) value added skills.

The first misconception I want to dismiss is that web design is about making a site “pretty”. Its not though it surely doesn’t hurt. The second misconception is that if a person understands Dreamweaver or even html and can use Photoshop or another graphics editing program they can call themselves a web designer.

That misconception is responsible for more built by a relative, designed by a friend and self-created sites well. . .you know. . .you’ve seen them. Frankly thats all some people need but I wouldn’t recommend that particular approach for any site that needs to attract an audience or upon which your business or reputation may depend. If your only knowledge of web design is using Dreamweaver in design view I think it safe to say at some point you will run into trouble and ask for help.

You wouldn’t expect your six year old child to create a gallery worthy painting with the paint set they received for Christmas either.

So web design is not merely graphic design or art. It is not html or software knowledge. What else is it not?

A surprising number of programmers and software engineers out on their own advertise as web designers.

Someone with any, or a combination, of the skills above has made a solid start - its simply that knowledge doesn’t stop there.

Web Design has a lot more in common with Industrial Design than it does with Graphic Design. Think about it. Remember that Buckminster Fuller quote from an earlier post?

“When I’m working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.”

What this quote means is that all of the skills mentioned above, in combination, come into play as well as a number of additional skills. The site should be beautiful. It should be functional. It should be easy to navigate.

Web projects are problems that need a solution. A good web designer will know how to separate the pertinent from the immaterial and will work out a solution that addresses those specifically. Unless your project is on an extremely fast track a wireframe diagram will be created at this point. This is much more about placement and how items are weighted on the page than look and feel. The point of a wireframe is to work out a layout that solves the unique design problems of a project.

A web designer needs to be able to grasp the nature of sometimes large amounts of content and understand how to make that information easy to find and navigate. Web designers are often the professional closet organizers of web content and this part is known as information architecture. This, as well as a number of skills and or knowledge areas to follow, is critical enough to the success of a web project that there may be a dedicated team member specializing in this one aspect of the whole if the project is very large.

More to come on this post. Return for more on usability, web standards, browser compatibility, color theory, creativity, css, seo . . .

At its most basic your website acts much like the signage outside of your brick and mortar office or store front. It displays your branding, shows your location, gives some information about what you do and probably lists your hours.

Your site can do so much more. Though adding functionality can mean additional upfront expense your savings or additional income generated should more than make up the difference.

Let’s think of your website in different ways:

Your site as Receptionist: Thinking of your site this way means you are thinking of your site as representing your company in a professional way. This particular receptionist works 24 hours a day greeting your customers, handing out basic information and initiating more complex customer interactions including taking messages which then may be routed to one or several different people or departments.

Your site as Sales Representative: If you have a product or a service it is your site’s job to sell that product or service which generally involves more than listing information about it. Take a look at your copy and ask yourself if it convinces the prospective customer that your product or service fills either a need or a desire and if it addresses why it should be purchased or obtained from you rather than a competitor. In this case it is not about more text it is about convincing text.

If you haven’t been successful selling your product or service through your site make sure you:

•  Are promoting your site
•  Have compared your pricing structure to others selling a similar product or service (Its not about how much you want to make from a product as much as it is about what others are willing to pay)
• Have adequately described and promoted your product or service on your site. A good web copywriter can make all the difference by writing to promote the product as well as considering the keywords so important to SEO.

Your site as Customer Relations Manager: Whether you are offering online support, a subscription service or send out a regular newsletter; capturing the contact information of people interested in your product or service is one of the most valuable things your site can do for you. Though the site “acting as receptionist” probably obtained this information via a contact, information request or shopping cart form be sure you follow up, tailor your follow up to the interest expressed by the customer, that you treat customer privacy seriously and are clear about how you will use their information.

note: this is an article from the monthly newsletter i send to my clients

What makes a good site and what are the basic steps you and your designer should follow in order to get there?

R Buckminster Fuller once wrote, “When I’m working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.”

Ask the right questions
A good design provides the solution to a problem or is the solution you arrive at after asking pertinent questions. An elegant design is a simple solution to a complex problem.

If your project is a public facing web site then some very important questions might be:

* Who is (are) your target audience?
* What message(s) do you want them to receive?
* What action(s) do you want them to take?
* How can the site contribute directly to increasing your business, easing the burden on your staff or both?

The most important step is to ask the right questions and to know what problems you want to solve. Perhaps the problem is simply that your site has become stale and needs a fresh look. Then again you may have decided you want more interactive components, the site may not be attracting and retaining the traffic you had hoped or you want something that can be updated in-house. A larger company or organization will be dealing with additional issues such as changing management priorities, shifting market requirements, a new focus by one or more stakeholders or wanting to increase the strategic use of technology to meet fundamental business goals.

Build your site to support your original objectives
Every decision regarding your site should be made after the fundamental questions, and business problems you hope to solve have been considered.

The design and architecture (how people navigate through your site) should support the site mission by making the important areas easy to find. Site layout should be clean and focus on ease of use.

Page coding should adhere to current web standards. You may not know the difference but your web developer should. This will speed download times, increase accessibility and improve the ability for search engines to index your site. Accessibility is simply good practice. If your site was developed a few years ago chances are it is all table based.

Programming and back end decisions should be made based on the current needs of your business, the requirements of your site and your budget.

Hosting decisions should be made based on what will best support the sites needs including the size of your site, the security it will require, any legal compliance issues you need to consider and the traffic you expect to receive.

Finally - Traffic: Finding you is not automatic
As of September 20, 2007 , based on figures provided by Netcraft, there were 54,400,000 active sites and 136,000,000 domains on the internet – and thousands more every single minute. If you want people to find yours, more is required than just creating a site and launching it onto the web.

At minimum you should include your web address on your business cards, advertising and letterhead.

Get yourself listed in as many reputable online directories that cater to your business category as you can.

Consider even a small PPC [Pay per Click] campaign.

This will make a big difference in your traffic and therefore your bottom line.

Almost every client I have dealt with over the past few years has asked for either a simple way to update portions, or all, of their site without knowing html, or have asked specifically for a “Content Management System”. Of course “ways to update your site without knowing html” are all a type of content management system but not all content management systems are “ways to update your site without knowing html”.

There are a few really important questions you will want to ask before you evaluate management systems:

• How often is your content apt to change?
• What content will change? For instance news, press releases and events are prime categories. Products and product information will need updating if you have a shopping cart.
• How many people are apt to be adding content and what are their existing computer skills?
• Do you need to have the ability to revert to a previous version or track when and who made changes?

No matter what system you finally decide upon remember that no CMS is a substitute for a good web administrator. Besides, content management systems are designed to allow you to swap out or add content not alter the design. If your business is fairly large you will probably want one or several people on staff to deal with technical issues and to make design or coding related changes. If you want a polished professional presence you will want a copywriter or content editor who specializes in content for the web and, honestly, perhaps a few more staff members depending on your needs. If your business is smaller it is a good idea to retain your web firm or developer on an ongoing basis to perform those specialized functions.

If you are a very small business and have neither the time or the skills it may be best to simply leave the content updating to your web developer as well - especially if the number of updates you are likely to need are few in number and the rate charged for updates would be far less over a several year period than implementing content management.

Even the easiest content management systems to use can produce unexpected results upon occasion. If you have ever wondered why your margins or formatting went all strange in Word - believe me it doesn’t get better in a CMS.

• Always make sure you receive sufficient documentation or training.

Two to consider:
Two excellent content management systems are WordPress and Joomla. WordPress is a good, easy to use content management system that, depending on your need and desire for customization can be used “out of the box” or be highly customized. There have been a number of plugins created for WordPress including calendars, galleries and more. WordPress is essentially blog software and therefore requires a developer who knows their way around it to customize it so that it will function as a simple CMS. Once that is completed it is one of the easiest ways to manage website content out there.

Joomla (like its also recommended and related product Mambo) is a full featured, enterprise ready Content Management system that allows a number of Extensions. This is the one to use if you want to have registered users, varying levels of access rights, sell products, reservations and more.

Both Joomla and WordPress are free but the implementation won’t be. It takes time and skill to install and customize any of these solutions. The upside is that to obtain even half of the functionality from scratch would cost many thousands of dollars.

web.erratica is built using WordPress. As of this writing minimal customization has been done to an existing template. I uploaded a photoshopped version of a flower from my garden, chose specific widgets (the sidebar elements) and was up and running.

You can view Joomla in action here. The installation is the default with a few minor changes. I will link to a more customized version soon.