Web Design News

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!

Earlier this week I happened to stop and read this post on Seomoz where the writer suggested that it was time for some of those ‘ugly’ Web 1.0 sites to catch up to the rest of the Net and include some real Web 2.0 content on their sites.

If you read that post you’ll see a lot of people who agreed with the author and then you come to one person who didn’t … and that was me. You see, I’m of the firm opinion that there are horses for courses.

 All those nice touchy-feely little things you can do with Web 2.0 are fine but not every site has users who are comfortable with things Web 2.0 and to include them on some sites would be the kiss of death to those sites. Ironically sports fishing sites - the example used by the writer over on Seomoz - is probably one of the worst examples she could have chosen.

But then who am I to say? 

I may not be trendy but I am more in touch with reality than some people and youth and enthusiasm is never a match for experience and cunning - as long as you’re not too old and not too smart for your own good

It seems that although most people don’t notice it the standard RGB colours available for use on the Web today aren’t quite as rich as the human eye can actually handle. But fear not, more colours are on the way and you can read about them here

… the very very different

I’m not sure that you should try this at your place

Abandoned shopping carts litter every e-commerce site out there on the Web as site visitors begin the shopping cycle and then, for whatever reason, change their minds.

While some smart e-tailers report an abandonment rate as low as 10% others see an abandonment rate of up to 80% and a lot of the problem is caused by us web designers. Many of us fail to understand that the online shopping experience has to be made as easy for site visitors as possible.

The more steps a prospective purchaser has to go through between choosing what they want to buy and actually hitting the checkout page the greater the risk that they will abandon their carts. That’s something that we should always remember and make sure that our clients understand.

But it seems that some web designers like to make the checkout experience as involved and difficult as they possibly can.

For some interesting thoughts on shopping cart design check out Help for Better Shopping Cart Design over at Cre8pc.

Now there is a radical idea! Whoever thought that we should be designing websites for users?

Obviously my tongue is planted firmly in my cheek when I say that but it’s obvious that so many web designers don’t design sites for users. Oh of course they pay lip service to the principle that we should be designing sites for users but in reality many simply don’t think for a moment about how the user might interact with the site they are designing.

And then when you add search engine optimisation into the equation some designers will throw their hands in the air and declare that you simply cannot have the best of both worlds. Well guess what? If you know what you’re doing it can! If you don’t know what you’re doing it will show.

And Kim Krause Berg has been working in that area for years. You should find The Discipline Behind User Experience Design worth reading

We live and work in an interesting town here in Australia. Local search as the Americans and Europeans know it isn’t available here in Australia yet and in this town not many people search the Net for local businesses. Instead most people still rely on the old information sources.

But that’s going to change; local search will come and gradually people in this town are beginning to search online for the local information they need. As more people begin to search locally we will also see a change in the terms that people search for. More common local terms will be used - some terms that will become important are those that may only be common within this town or this district.

So are the web designers in this town including the factors that are important for local search into the sites they are building for local businesses? Are they including those local terms that could become important in their search engine optimisation?

Sadly most aren’t - in fact there are still web design businesses in this town that are producing sites with designs that were popular years ago but lack the functionality that is so important today. And search engine optimisation is something they can talk about but obviously don’t understand.

Now is the time to be building sites that will continue working effectively long into the future. Now is not the time to be building sites that were beyond their use-by date years ago.