Sunday December 14 2008
The 10 Simplest Website Tweaks for Designers to Get More Clients
The 10 Simplest Website Tweaks for Designers to Get More Clients - copied from this link - will apply to CreateSean Web Design just in the next couple of days. I partcularly like number 1 because it’s so easy and it makes sense.
- Change your page title from your name or portfolio to what/where/who or in other words [offer city - name], example: “Graphic Design Atlanta - John Doe”, use descriptive titles for each page
- Use CSS or image replacement like sIFR, Flir and typeface.js for navigation, headlines and links instead of pure Flash or images
- Rename your navigation links from works, portfolio etc. to web design, print design, logo design etc. Use your name instead of about me
- Do not display solely one image per page, nobody clicks 10 times. Make lists of 10 images per page and create a page for each image. Forget thumbs, clients who can’t afford broadband probably can’t afford design too.
- Display your content right away, don’t make me think or click (no “enter” pages, navigation only homepages), every links costs you visitors
- Display contact information right away and every page, a form is best, a phone number, email and IM at least
- Display your name and/or URL on your images so that when they get redistributed the still advertise for you, best example Glennz
- Join a community like Behance to share your work and to to spread the word
- Submit your well designed site to CSS galleries (or mixed ones if you’re into Flash)
- Start a blog and link out to all your friends and people you admire for their work
Monday December 08 2008
IE6 equation
Jeremy Keith wrote an interesting article titled The IE6 Equation over at 24ways. Here’s the bit on the equation:
Let’s say that t represents the total development time. Let t6 represent the portion of that time you spend developing for IE6. If your total audience is a, then a6 is the portion of your audience using IE6. With some algebraic help from our mathematically minded co-worker Cennydd Bowles, Natalie and I came up with the following equation to calculate the percentage likelihood that you should be using Dean’s IE7 script:
p = 50 [ log ( at6 / ta6 ) + 1 ]
Andy Clark left the first comment, with permission to steal for use in client contracts. I’ll be adding this to my contract when I get home later today.
As you mentioned client contracts, here is what I say about the issue in my standard Stuff and Nonsense client contract. (Feel free to steal, change and reuse.)
“If the project includes XHTML or HTML markup and CSS templates, we will develop these using valid XHTML 1.0 Strict markup and CSS2.1 + 3 for styling.
We will test all our markup and CSS in current versions of all major browsers including those made by Apple, Microsoft, Mozilla and Opera. We will also test to ensure that pages will display visually in a ‘similar’, albeit not necessarily an identical way, in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 for Windows as this browser is now past it’s sell-by date.
We will not test these templates in old or abandoned browsers, for example Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 or 5.5 for Windows or Mac, previous versions of Apple’s Safari, Mozilla Firefox or Opera unless otherwise specified. If you need visitors using these older browsers to see the same or similar visual design, we will charge you at the daily rate set out in our original estimate for testing and any necessary additional code.”
Saturday December 06 2008
State of the Web: Survey
The State of the Web 2008 is a survey for web professionals from the folks at Web Directions and Scroll Magazine.
Go on take the survey.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Saturday Dec 6, 2008 at 12:20 PM
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Tuesday December 02 2008
Tabs vs Blocks
I’ve been working on a client site and am happy with the progress, and more importantly the client is very happy. The original front page design had the logo and nav on top with three large picts on the left sidebar. The main content section had a highlighted box with for other boxes that load random content. I was happy with this and so was the client, but I decided to put together an alternate index page.
The alternate index takes the four boxes and turns them into tabs using the jQuery idTabs plugin. I added two more optional boxes below the tabs. I felt that this allowed my client to get more info on the front page without being cluttered or too busy.
Client liked them both but with a slight preference for the original. My preference is for the tabs. I posted links to both pages on twitter and the consensus was for the original. The main reason being offered that the tabs faded into obscurity. After discussion with the client we went with the original, but the tabs are a possibility in the future.
I’m not sure if I agree with the fade into obscurity because it’s not true or because I like the tabs due to a “cool” factor - first time I did that on a web site.
Wednesday November 26 2008
Vote for Leevi Graham
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Wednesday Nov 26, 2008 at 12:47 PM
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