Fun links for “Scripters and Stylers”

// September 19th, 2008 // No Comments » // CSS

css zen garden
css-tricks.com
scriptandstyle.com
css techniques you couldnt live without
cssplay.co.uk 
 
css at a alistapart

What to look for in a web designer?

// September 16th, 2008 // No Comments » // Strategy

1. Accessibility - This does not only mean that it is accessible to disabled people. An accessible site is one that can be viewed and read appropriately by people with slow internet connections, various plugins switched off such as javascript, and in all the many browsers that are available etc. It is a very import aspect to web design in that you want your site to be as accessible to as many people, browsers, and systems as possible.  There exist accessibility tests and are 3 different levels depending on your target market.
2. Usability - Usability involves various factors. Primarily it involves the way the site is read and navigated from a user’s perspective. This all starts from the way a site is coded.
3. Coded in CSS, Mark up should be semantic. No tables. Web technology is moving forwards all the time, and if your designer is still using spliced images, spacer gifs or even bad css (css that only works in one browser) its not good.  It is also important that it is coded correctly, so make sure that they do the basics, like put headings in h1,h2 or h3 tags and navigations in lists. If you can’t be bothered, try asking them if it validates.
4. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), On page search engine optimization (AKA SEO) is a process that builds/ensures/re-builds some or all of your websites’ content and tags in a way that promotes certain keywords. Those keywords and phrases should be chosen carefully and are dependent on search popularity. Basic SEO done by a designer during development without SEO/SEM experience will not guarantee you a decent place in search engines. There are many other ways to make sure your site is a high ranker, but this takes a lot of time once the site is live, if you want this to continue then you will definitely need to pay your web designer for their time, or take some of it on board yourself. Its a form of marketing that should be important to any business.
5. Use of flash, Flash should only be used for banner ads, diagrams, games etc. It shouldn’t really be used for the main navigation. Flash changes all the time, so some people may not have the version of flash that you do. Search engines are only just beginning to crawl flash. Mostly there is nothing you can do in flash that you can’t do with css and/or degradeable javascript on a navigation anyway.
6. Design, I know this is purely a matter of taste, but if you want a modern and future proof website, look around the internet, do your research, find websites that look like they are in fashion, because the last thing you want is an ugly website that looks like its from the 1990s for the next 5 years. Consistency is so important. If your site looks like some sort of mishmash you aren’t going to win any awards. 1 bit of advice I have is, don’t just go for the flashy designer. They might be excellent at making things look pretty, but they also need to be able to code the site properly, if necessary delegate the work to different people. A designer and a coder.

1. Standards, If your web guy/girl is telling you something you aren’t sure about, check out what other websites do and make sure that your site follows standards that other websites adhere to. For example, a guy I know is setting up a website and he has been told that the best way for the users to make payments is by them paying through their phone bill. No one I know would trust this sort of payment system. And if you look around, the sorts of payment methods that are available are used as standard on all of the big sites such as ebay, amazon etc. It is what people trust.

Convert XML and HTML into PDF – Prince

// February 27th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Design

I came across a nifty little tool recently that converts XML and HTML into PDF.  The niftyest part of all is that it formats the pdf based on the CSS.  You can download it here: Prince. Check out some of their examples of use.

Most useful CSS links

// September 16th, 2007 // No Comments » // CSS

• CSSZenGarden- this is a great demonstration of the powers of css
• CSSplay-This guy pushes the boundaries of what css is, its his craft
• htmldog - I didn’t use this much but when I did it was uber useful!
• A list Apart - really useful articles
• Think Vitamin - Some really top web designers contribute to this website.
• 456 Berea Street
• Blue Robot
• Meyer Web

Web Designer’s Tool Kit

// January 16th, 2007 // No Comments » // CSS, Design

Web Development and Design Tools Archive