Download Issue Three – July 2009 – CMS Nerd PDF 4.3MB

This spring marked the launch of the long awaited Debut Creative website. After three ironic years in business, we finally have a website to call our own! Will it rank well in the 2010 Reboot Contest against Pixel Flex? Stay tuned!

Mobile Web

Kristi and I recently got back from a ten day trip to BC! If all goes according to plan this will be the first vacation of many to all of the provinces and territories in our great country. BC was very friendly, and very plugged-in. In major centers like Vancouver and Victoria I noticed a lot more people using mobile devices to surf the web.

The internet is always evolving, and the leap from the monitor to the handheld is just the next logical step. Is your website accessible by mobile? Should it be?

Many sites don’t warrant special development consideration as many mobile browsers (like Android or the iPhone) can handle regular websites perfectly. Social news site Digg is a perfect distraction for a bored commuter, so m.digg.com is a great example of how a site can be simplified to suit a larger variety of mobile devices without easy scale / zoom ability. One thing is for sure, mobile web is here to stay. Are you surfing mobile? What is your two cents?

More pics at flickr.com/photos/arleym

LINKS

IMG: So what do you do? http://digg.com/d1XTmD
VIDEO: Client / Vendor in Reality http://bit.ly/DCwfL
TXT: Digg takes the time to study the pain of IE 6 http://is.gd/1xeL3

Will You Be Using…

TYPEKIT

Generally all websites use the same handful of fonts – ones common on most OS’s. This is the only way to ensure that the website will look the way the designer intends. Typekit aims to change this. It’s essentially a snappy bit of code that will allow designers to chose any font they choose and render from the server as opposed to the client computer! http://typekit.com

WAVE

Late in May Google announced an open source communication tool that’s in development called Wave. There is so much to this real-time browser app! I’m predicting a paradigm shift in how we communicate with each other. For more check out http://wave.google.com or the more succinct http://bit.ly/gnzlP

BING

Google has been dominating the search engine war since before there was competition. Microsoft’s MSN search has long been ranked in the top 5, but recently they reinvented search with Bing. Early studies find it in close running with Yahoo (a distant second at best), with as much as 16% of search traffic http://www.bing.com

Webby Awards

The internet is a funny thing, it’s hard to stay on top of all the memes, viral and amazing content that is out there. The Webby Awards essentially tries to highlight the best of these with their annual awards – basically the Oscars of web.

The 2009 Webby’s seemed to get more press this year than in previous years. I joined the millions of voters to pick the content I thought most deserving – from a huge array of categories. I consider myself to be very web savvy and was amazed at how few I had heard of!

Now’s the time to catch up. Be sure to check out their site to view the award winning web content that was recognized – and check out the often hilarious famous 5 word speeches. http://www.webbyawards.com/

Facebook Username

Did you snap up your Facebook username URL? On June 12 at midnight the world’s number one social media site Facebook opened up their site to allowing its users to pick their own vanity address. This is largely in response to Twitter’s ever growing popularity, and a way to generate some buzz.

It’s safe to say it worked.

Within 3 minutes over 200,000 users registered. 500,000 in 15 minutes and over 1 million in the first hour. That’s more traffic than my site has ever seen!

I got mine! http://www.facebook.com/arleym

CMSNerd pt 1

Web 2.0 – or highly interactive web, is here to stay. With more and more services empowering the average user to create and maintain their own web presence it only makes sense that they should be able to manage every detail of their own website. So what can we as web producers do to facilitate this?

All but gone are the carefree days of manually sculpting a series of static* pages (these are pages that are set by the code that makes them, changed only by changing the code) and calling it a site. By making use of a Content Management System (CMS) you give the end user the ability to take the reins and control their site content dynamically and without any required knowledge of coding practices.

A CMS is essentially the framework upon which the site is built, – there are literally thousands out there (many great ones are Open Source, thus free). So which is the best for your client? The first considerations are the user’s skill and the primary function of the website. Next you want to consider issues like

• Extendability - are there easy to implement themes, plugins/modules?
• Support - is there an active community around the CMS?
• Adaptability - will the CMS evolve and get better?

It would be impossible to be well versed in all CMS out there, but I try to keep up on a couple that we’ll look at in more detail with the next newsletter; namely WordPress and Drupal.

Open Source CMS – try before you install http://opensourcecms.com
Ten Simple Guidelines for choosing the perfect CMS http://digg.com/d1wUtC
21 Popular Brands that are using WordPress http://digg.com/d1wDQc

In the Next Delightful Issue (maybe)

» Content Management Systems pt 2: Not just for Nerds
» The gory truth about browsers (and IE6)
» And more fun links than you can shake a stick at!

Download Issue Two – April 2009 – From the Depths PDF 3.5MB

FAME

Twitter has been growing hugely in popularity this year. Even since the last issue of this newsletter thousands have joined up – and not just savvy nerds from San Fran.

Early March Digg.com (a social news site) had a frontpage story on 10 features that could improve Twitter. After reading this I made a comment about an idea I had: Time Shifting Prime-Time Tweets. Soon I was approached by Six Revisions founder Jacob Gube about writing in depth about my idea for a follow-up article.

Sixrevisions.com is a very popular site for web designers and developers, so naturally I was amazed! After getting my contribution, Gube read my blogs at arleym.com and debutcreative.com and asked me to write more often on any topic! It is very flattering to be offered money for writing about a subject I am so passionate about, but what really inspires me is that Six Revisions sees about 500,000 visitors a month.

Ok, so I’m not famous yet, but my Prime-Time article is live http://bit.ly/xFLy8

Faster, Smarter, Radder.

How working from home has made me better

Ever since college I’ve been trying to find the best and fastest ways to work; be it software, work flow or even simple key shorts. I never would have guessed that working from home would be the most epic ‘Work Smart’ trick of all.

I love working from home: I work less time, I work less hard – yet I get more done, I get it done faster and I make more money. I don’t know how it works!

The phenomenon is growing. Readers Digest recently claimed that the Canadian work-force is working from home in greater numbers every year, sometimes only making the commute for periodic meetings.

Through industry publications like zines, blogs and podcasts I’ve been finding out that this is especially true of the web industry. The magazine .net (issue 182) had an interview with Jason Fried; founder of 37signals.com. He spoke about his team work flow: “We don’t see each other that often. This isn’t what people expect when they think about collaboration. We’ve found that by physically staying apart we encourage less interruption.”

“Interruptions are what suck most people’s time away. When you’re in an office, it’s easy to call someone over for a meeting, or to come and look at something… You can’t really be creative in that sort of environment.”

He goes on to illustrate how the majority of what we interrupt people for can easily wait an hour or two. By using passive communication like email or IM I can see how I am not only less distracted, but less of a distraction as well!

I love working from home. Ironically it makes me a better team player. You might say I’m having my cake and eating it too.

Fun Links

IMG: Periodic Table of Fonts http://is.gd/mE3r
VIDEO: Did you Know? http://tinyurl.com/cutb3p
TXT: 10 Bad Clients (thankfully none of my clients fit) http://bit.ly/orUHz

Are you using…

URL Shorteners

I’ve already used several in this newsletter. These services reduce huge URLs like http://freelancefolder.com/bad-clients-and-how-to-avoid-them into http://bit.ly/orUHz This is a huge advantage in print and we services that limit your characters. Several are highly used, and their worth is being recognized. Recently http://bit.ly sold for $8M!

Google Docs

I’m obviously a huge Google fanboy. Docs is one of the great tools that come free with a Google account. It not only allows me to store important files on their server (accessible anywhere with internet) but it also allows users to collaborate on documents. A great app for offices to stay up to date with sharing procedures and account information that change often. Centralize! docs.google.com

RSS Feeds

Really Simple Syndication allows people to read / share the content of sites without going to the website. Ever find you don’t have time to visit all the websites you want to read? With an RSS reader you can gather all the new content without the visit. Simply copy the RSS URL (usually linked to this icon)

www.google.com/readerwww.bloglines.com
and most mail clients like Outlook

The Exciting World of Web Accessibility

Websites are made with good code or not-so-good code. Bad web code usually comes out of a necessity to meet a deadline or laziness. Good code takes a lot more time and care, and you might not be able to see a difference – so is it worth it?

Web Accessibility gets its name for making the web more accessible to users with disabilities. It’s so easy for us to take for granted what visually impaired or colour blind users must face every day.

For instance some users with visual impairments use screen readers that convert text to speech. Some users might turn off images and surpress colours to improve legibility. Some users change text sizes…So what are they seeing on your site?

Some code mark-up will not allow text to be resized. Media like Images containing text (in some site navigations), Flash and embedded Video are impossible to be understood by these readers.

There is always a work around, but it all takes time. Code can also be optimized for better printing, for use with slow connections, and the ever increasing use of mobile devices with smaller screens.

It might be time consuming, but accessbility is the difference between your site being useful or aweful – and not only to human users; search engines will rank your site based on what they read.

If your site is inaccessible; then it can’t be read by search engines; then it won’t be ranked, then it won’t be found. Invest the time.

Google is, for all intents, a blind user. A billionaire blind user with tens of millions of friends, all of whom hang on his every word.

-Karsten M. Self
Tech Writer

BACKGROUND NOISE:

Tim Ferriss (author of the 4-Hour Workweek) and Kevin Rose (digg.com, Top-10 most influential internet personalities) discuss the process of naming products / sites and investing in budding websites (30min) http://vimeo.com/3934635

INSPIRATION

(in less than 5 min): The Technology/Entertainment/Design conference is about spreading ideas. TED Talks are a great source of inspiration (well, about half of the ones I have heard). Richard St. John talks about “Secrets of success in 8 words, 3 minutes” http://tr.im/i9CM

In the next swell issue of the Debut Creative Newsletter…

(quite possibly at any rate)

• Content Management Systems: Not just for Nerds
• The gory truth about browsers (and IE6)
• And more fun links than you can shake a stick at!

Issue One – Feb 2009 – Hey! I never asked for this! PDF 900KB

Introducing the first issue of the (likely sporadic) Debut Creative Newsletter. News and facts from the world wide web. Trends, Tips and Cake for everyone!

Keeping in Touch

It’s official, 2009 has been the busiest two months of my career. It has also been a time of learning like never before; which is why I have decided to create a periodic newsletter. It’s a great way for us to keep in touch, while sharing some of the stuff I’ve learned that can help with your website or services. As always, I’d love to hear what’s keeping you busy too. Here’s to growth.

Are You Using…

Gmail

It has long been hailed the best email client in the world, so what makes this the second most popular Google product? In addition to the snappiest inbox on the web, Gmail boasts many “labs” features that are unbelievably useful like Multiple Inboxes, chat, tasks manager and more. It has every feature you would expect from desktop software, but with the convenience of web accessibility. Add to this quick access to tools like Google Docs and Cal and you have a must-see app. I send and receive personal and work emails through my Gmail. I love it.

See gmail.com

Twitter

What are you doing? This question is the foundation upon which social media sensation Twitter was made upon. This site allows users to ‘tweet’ in 140 characters what they‘re up to, while following friends tweets (it’s hard to convey how cool and addicting this actually is). This service is growing in popularity every day. I have been using it to follow some of the world renowned rock-stars of the web design world and have gained invaluable insight into how these giants work. Don’t over-think it, sign up, start following and tweeting. RT @ArleyM FTW!

See twitter.com

Debut Site

I’m entering my third year with Debut Creative, and the website is little more than a business card.

Yes, as a web designer and developer it is incredibly ironic that I don’t have a proper site. I have rationalized it in several ways:

» I’m too busy with paying work
» I’m busy without promotion
» I love irony

Similarly, my long time buddy, and friendly rival Tim Lum has an equally un-website for his studio.

By way of friendly competition we have decided to take part in this years CSS Reboot. Essentially we are going to completely overhaul our sites and launch on May 1st 2009. After one year we are going to compare site traffic Before and After; whichever studio site comes out on top in terms of popularity, wins! The losing studio will then donate time to the charity of the winners choice. We’ll have more details a little closer to the date.

This is a friendly and competitive way for Tim and I to pit our SEO and marketing wits against one another while hopefully finishing the sites that we may otherwise never make the time for.

Put to the Test

End Users Site Testing

All too often our sites don’t perform the way we or our clients might like. The issue is the end-user: that demographic that is never as predictable as we might like – or are they?

Even those of us who design, develop and maintain sites every day can often be completely flummoxed by how the sites we make are used. Even great tools we use like Analytics fail to tell us why.

Website testing is a step we often skip. For one thing tight budgets and time lines require us to cut corners to deliver a product as quickly as possible. While site tests are very time consuming, they can identify some major issues the target audience may have at an early stage of development.

On several occasions I’ve performed the most basic website test: the wife review. Without fail I am amazed how Kristi interacts with a site for the first time. The balance between competing elements is always exposed – proving that even though it makes sense to a designer or developer, users may get off track.

There are many different ways to test a site (see the article linked below), and it’s never too late. In this economy it’s no time to scrap a site, but with some slight modifications a website can seem completely different and more usable to the end user.

» A great .net magazine article on website testing (Nov 2008): http://tinyurl.com/cgrr28

+ MORE RADICAL READING

» @cameronmoll – Good Designers Redesign, Great Designers Realign http://tinyurl.com/8nv7g

» @boagworld – 5 Options when Website Budgets get Slashed http://tinyurl.com/dlg3fx

Next Issue (if I still feel like it)

• Content Management Systems and You
• Website Accessibility
• A sneak peek at my self-proclaimed project of the year