Web Design News

There are some web designers and developers who lean towards functionality rather than pretty pictures. Then there are some who think that pretty pictures are far more important than functionality.

Whichever camp you fall into perhaps you should look at this site - http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/ -

and then review the discussion that is going on here.

Personally I’m with the guy who made this comment “Business is not about pretty sites, it’s about making money.”

But of course your mileage may vary
With that said, the site is perfect.

It’s been one of those crazy weeks here at Copy Text Online where the work coming in has just not stopped. If anything it’s actually increased and we’re seriously beginning to think that it’s time to take on more staff.

Not only have we been hit with a bunch of work from some of our overseas clients but we’ve also just been handed a project that is like a dream come true for us. We’ve been asked to do the redesign and text work for two local sites in major tourist centres here in Queensland.

One of the domain names cost the client many tens of thousands of dollars and the other didn’t come much cheaper and now he wants us to rebuild them. Hmmm it’s a challenge we’re looking forward to.

But I didn’t come here to brag about that. What I did hit the blog to talk to you about was banner blindness and that’s something that web designers really should be aware of. As most of you are aware, Jakob Nielsen is the leading usability guru on the Web today and when he speaks we really do need to listen.

Now he’s spoken again and you’ll find what he has to say here. You should read it not only because it talks about what people don’t see on web sites but there’s also a little gem hidden away in there about some of the useless navigation that web designers inflict on their clients.

Good web design is about more than just pretty pictures. Good web design is about more than just the text that’s included on the site. Good web design is also about the site’s directory structure -  - that part of the site that surfers don’t see but search engines do.

When a client asks us to review a site … or do something - anything - to improve its rankings in the search engines we often find a site that has a structure that looks like it was built while the designer was off his or her face.

Site structure may not appear to be very important to the designer who wants to impress their client with their ability to build something that looks pretty but site structure is very important for the client after the site goes live. If it’s not done right then the client could end up spending a lot of money to get their site rebuilt so that it is right.

So why not do it right from the beginning?

If you’re not sure what really does constitute good site structure then read 7 Maddening Site Mistakes - it will have a lot to teach you.

When you’re designing a website for a client what voice do you speak in? Who are you talking to when you’re writing the text for the site  and does the design combine with the text to speak with one voice?

It seems to be a problem for many web designers and one that many web designers don’t even seem to recognise and it’s certainly that our clients don’t understand either. But it’s a very real problem that can have a very negative effect on a website’s ability to communicate effectively with its target audience.

For example if the website you’re working on has other businesses as its target audience are you using language and design that is appropriate for those businesses or are you talking to them as if they were ordinary web surfers? If the website is supposed to sell a product does it actually sell the product or is it merely entertaining?

On Monday I was asked to take a look at a new website that a large design business here in town had just built for a local industry. This industry has a very specialised product that can be used by governments and businesses all around the world. It’s really very innovative and arousing the interest of those who would buy it would be so easy.

But, instead of targeting those who would buy this product the website set out to entertain. The language used was weak and almost apologetic. Important aspects of the product and testamonials from high ranking users were either overlooked or hidden so deep in the site that most people wouldn’t see them.

It’s a website that definitely speaks in the wrong voice despite the fact that it obviously cost the client a lot of money.

Kim Krause Berg, a usability expert, has written a piece that every web designer should read and apply to all their designs. You’ll find it here.

We may have never experienced the product or service that the website we’re building is promoting but that’s no excuse for not getting it right.

Late last week we were talking to a local signwriter who was telling us that he was about to resort to legal action against local web design business here in Hervey Bay. It seems that said web design business had taken much of the signwriters website and incorporated it into their own without bothering to ask.

Out of curiosity we wandered over to the offending site last night and got quite a surprise. There was a site promoting the web design business and it was littered with Google Adsense ads … including a rather eye-catching ad for the biggest web design business here in town.

There’s nothing quite like advertising your competition on a site that is supposed to be displaying your talens to prospective clients.

Here in Australia web design for real estate businesses is a fairly specialised industry and, because of the franchise structure of the real estate industry here, it’s almost a closed shop.

But in the United States things are a bit more fluid and there are a lot of local real estate sites run by independent real estate businesses and their websites are beginning to include some new and interesting features.

You can read more about that here

Should you bother to sign a contract or have a written agreement with each client who employs you to develop a website for them? Small Business Trends offers some good reasons why you should.

It seems that we’ll be starting work on a website for a furniture store in the very near future so I was interested to follow a link from the SEOigloo Blog to this site.

It’s a very interesting site to look at and poke around in. It’s also interesting because it’s the product of a web design company run by one of the web’s leading SEO experts. You’ll find navigation links in three different areas on the page and which links appear in which parts of the page is also interesting.

If you happen to use Firefox as your browser of choice here are two useful add-ons that I just came across thanks to WebbyOnline

The first is extremely helpful if you work across several computers. Foxmark allows you to sychronise your bookmarks across all your computers and keep them synchronised automatically. It even keeps a master copy of your bookmarks online so if you need to upgrade your computer you simply download your bookmarks and you’re ready to go.

It took me a total of around five minutes to install Foxmarks across the three computers I use every day.

The second Firefox add-on is Firebug. Firebug is a great tool for web designers and developers because it allows you to edit, debug and monitor CSS, HTML and JavaScript live on any web page. There’s also a Lite version for IE, Opera and Safari users.

Here at Copy Text we like to take great pride in the simple navigation we build into clients’ sites. The navigation is where users expect to see it, the links are obvious and the words that appear in the link leave little room for any misunderstanding about where they will lead to. It’s a simple matter of click and you’ll be there.

But yesterday I had a most frightening experiene. Toni and I were in the office of a client and he was trying to navigate his way to a new page we had added to his website. Instead of using the simple navigation we had built into the site he fiddled about and clicked in his browser’s address bar, wandered up to the tool bar and did something there and generally mucked around trying to get to that new page.

As we left I asked Toni if she had understood what on earth he was doing.

“No” she said shaking her head. “I have no idea what he was doing but somehow he ended up with what looked like his site embedded in what might have been a frame that seemed to include his Gmail inbox.”

And that’s exactly what it looked like.

I have no idea how he did it and I’m not sure I want to know either but I certainly hope no one else navigates their way around the Web the way he does because if they do then we web designers are all doomed!