Web Design Sydney Melbourne | Wiliam Blog

Social Media Shifts Up A Gear!

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

As with all industries there are winners and losers among Social Media companies. MySpace, so long the darling of the social sites has experienced a dramatic and undignified fall from grace. At the risk of getting egg on my face, I ‘m happy to stick my neck out and say that it is just a matter of time before this once mighty trailblazer is consigned to the dustbin of history.

Conversely, other players, some new (Zynga, Twitter) and others longer in the tooth (Linkedin – established way back in 2003!) are experiencing rapid growth in both users and revenues. [a caveat here – I am still on the fence re Twitter as a platform for the masses, who among your friends do you know using it? Be honest!]

But there is one undisputed winner: Facebook. The site has over 400 million active users and adds more than 700,000 new ones every day. This is impressive stuff. And the growth isn’t slowing. If anything it’s speeding up.

In an article published on 03 March Business Week cited a new index created by SharesPost Inc., a marketplace for trading in private companies, valuing Facebook at a whopping $11.5 billion. Some estimates put the company’s revenue for 2009 north of $750 million and on track to exceed $1 Billion in 2010.

Now there have been a raft of new announcements which point towards this ubiquitous platform maturing in to a truly unrivalled marketing platform.

In an article in TechCrunch on 24 February, Marc Benioff founder and CEO of Salesforce.com explained The Facebook Imperative on why enterprise software should take its cues from Facebook and become more social.

Then, right on cue, Facebook announced Plans To Take Over The Internet With Facebook Pages. On its site for Facebook developers, Facebook calls this toolset the "Open Graph API," and describes it this way:

The Open Graph API will allow any page on the Web to have all the features of a Facebook Page – users will be able to become a Fan of the page, it will show up on that user’s profile and in search results, and that page will be able to publish stories to the stream of its fans.

At the Wall Street Journal, Jessica Vascellero writes that Facebook's goal here is to "make it even easier for users to share information from the Web on Facebook and to have that information associated with their Facebook identity."

Hand in hand with this bold move, Facebook has moved to deepen its partnership with Omniture, the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) web analytics provider acquired by Adobe in late 2009.

This will enable companies using Omniture's products to measure far more accurately how effective their ads are on Facebook and compare how well their ad campaigns do on the site compared with other outlets.

So what does this mean for you and your business?

Well, if you have been sitting on the fence with all this social media stuff till now and if you are one of the silent majority who in your heart of hearts thinks it’s all just a fad that’ll blow over, it should mean an awful lot to you.

By the time you get with the program and learn how to utilise these platforms to better market your services and engage with your customers, your competitors will be streets ahead of you. And it’ll already be too late to catch up.

Wiliam is one of Australia's leading web site design and web development agencies. Our Melbourne web design and Sydney web design offices provide cutting-edge Web 2.0, internet marketing, business web hosting, email marketing software, search engine optimisation, SEO, Facebook Applications, Link Exchange and SEO Tool services.

Mobile friendly websites – straight forward and extremely beneficial

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

The iPhone as a handset has made some serious traction in 2009 to 2010 – we have seen its saturation rate literally multiple in our meetings with clients here at Wiliam.

In April 2009 there were maybe two iPhones per five people, now days I am unable to sit at a table without everyone having an iPhone on show – utterly amazing, never before seen with any other handset before now.

As you can imagine, the amount of data the iPhone as a handset is crunching each month is now a considerable figure as people passively browse the internet at any free moment they have.

Interesting statistics

Recently while looking at a clients Google Analytics, I noticed there was a large upswing in mobile traffic, notably from the iPhone. I immediately checked some other client’s data to see if it was just an industry specific trend, yet I quickly noticed that most analytics account replicated the same large mobile browser stats.

10-15% of traffic on average comes from mobile devices (namely iPhones)

Now this statistic isn’t going to apply to everyone, but what an increase! 12 months ago it was less than 3% - a growth of 12% or 1% per month.

What does this mean?

It means that for people without mobile friendly websites, potentially 10-15% of traffic might be seeing unstyled, broken or hard to read versions of your website.

Without a mobile friendly page, the user will likely see all kinds of errors and styling issues that make browsing a nightmare.

How can this be fixed?

The launch of a mobile friendly website can be content managed or static. It will adhere to guidelines for iPhone and other handhelds to ensure the website is proportional and easily navigated by iPhone users.

A small ‘sniffer’ code is installed on the homepage of your original website so as to learn what browser the visitor is using and if it is mobile oriented, it will show the mobile friendly version.

Problem solved, 10-15% of traffic regained.

Who cares about your logo

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Name a purely online company whose logo you can actually recall? eBay maybe? But then they have external exposure as well. A professionally designed logo is not equal to a good website.

Wiliam designs a lot of new websites for start-up companies and the first question is usually “can you just throw in a logo”. The answer is ‘yes and no’. We can use some simple typographic treatment to give the name of the site in the top left hand corner, but we can’t research graphical devices and colour theory, conduct user groups and spend hours developing a whole brand strategy in the form of a logo!

The real logo is the URL. The URL is what people remember, it is what they email to each other when they like a site, it is what they post on twitter and facebook. A good url is like gold.

Couple that with a good idea, a good offering, a useable and well designed website and… well, who cares about your logo?

Developers, Developers, Developers

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

In alot of web agencies there is a ‘larger than there ought to be’ gap in communication between developers and designers. Its something that has been happening since the dawn of web time, something that may or may not ever be rectified. The issue is that you are dealing with two different characters. The uber cool web designer type with iphone and latte attached to hip. And the pony tailed developer with fantasy obsessions involving Dr Who female assistants.

Designers are brought up to believe in negative and positive space, colour theory and interesting fonts. They pride themselves in creating work that is pixel perfect to the point that if they could they would split a pixel in two. They love colour and spatial theories and get physically excited by interesting photos of architecture. Yes its true.

Developers care about numbers and things working properly and easily and simply.

This is where the problems arise. The creative hand is trying hard to work with the numerical hand but they just don’t want to be shaking. So what happens is that the designer produces a ‘masterpiece’, proudly boasts about it to his peers and mother, then hands it over to the developer. The developer then goes about ‘fucking it up’, introducing live text where it could (and should) be graphic type. Images don’t line up and those pesky drop shadows suddenly disappear…

I am being facetious of course. There are a couple of developers out there who are incredibly cautious and wary of the creative hand. And they don’t wish to bite it….

ASP.net website gets a facelift

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

The ASP.net website, where I go for a lot of my .net web development needs, has been re-skinned.

The site has always provided a wealth of information for all things ASP.net but has always seemed a little clunky and blue. Well today, thanks to its new re-skin, it’s much less clunky but still blue. Maybe even more blue. Their colour scheme seems to be based on shades of blue. Must have been designed by a developer.

The fatal flaw to this re-design is the idea that less clunky translates is directly proportional to sparseness. The homepage now only shows a meager 5 links to their ‘spotlight’ articles. I’m not sure if those are the most recent articles, or articles in particular they want you to see, or some other sorted list of spotlights. If you want to get a decent summary of what’s recently been written on or submitted to the site click on the “More News and Community Content” link towards the bottom of the homepage. Why didn’t they just make this the homepage? It at least shows some slight value in summarizing their newest content to the world.

So, word to the wise, if you have a chance, update your bookmarks. http://ASP.net to http://www.asp.net/community/ , you’ll thank me later.

Nothing's really private online

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

In this day and age it’s easy to forget that life used to be much more private than it is now. Social interaction has changed significantly in the last decade, with more and more activity conducted online.

Already there is an enormous amount of content about our lives that we willingly share online via facebook, twitter, blogging services and various other applications. In addition to such obvious examples, there are less obvious details like the search history and other forms of data and information we leave in our wake as we surf the net.

Most of us take a pretty cavalier attitude to this lack of privacy. As I noted above, it’s easy to forget that life used to be more private. Sometimes it’s good to get a little perspective and so, as a small diversion in the day, I offer you this amusing and satirical look at web privacy from The Onion – Google Responds to Privacy Concerns with Unsettlingly Specific Apology.

6 issues each business needs to consider

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

As economic conditions seem to improve many businesses need to consider the next steps. Taking advantage of the improving conditions is obviously being deliberated across Australia.

Since the defaults in mortgage payments affected market confidence in the US so severely in 2007, many businesses have been consolidating. But the rising price of money signifies that government expansionary policy has increased aggregate demand.

Here are six issues that each business needs to consider:

Has your business properly stress tested its growth assumptions?
Investing in labour is subject to sovereign risk, such as, in Australia, new federal employment statutes that became operational on 1 Jan 10
Large company earnings might seem to have improved, but a large percentage of this is the removal of overly pessimistic provisions for market failures
If R+D and marketing were both cut during the downturn, which is the first area to be recapitalised if sales have slumped?
If your business has no online commerce profile, have you performed a cost / benefit analysis on investing in that area?
If your business ceased production / service provision today, how long could you realistically survive on your cash and receivables base?

If your business cannot confidently respond to these issues with evidence based material, perhaps your business needs to reconsider its plans.

Wiliam is hiring - You!

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

We’re hiring across the board

I know our blogs are meant to be anything but about Wiliam, though for sake of this blog, I am going to argue that by pitching the different jobs we’re hiring, we’re painting the ‘state of the nation’ in the Sydney/Australian web strategy/development/design market.

First of all, hiring for a position is taking almost as long as it did in 2008 with the difference being that the quality of candidates at the moment are superb. We’re not seeing nearly as many inappropriate applicants, and someone that claims to be ‘senior’ probably is. Two years ago, everyone was senior.

On a positive front, we’ve appointed roles in our Account Management and Productions teams, and the new additions to our team have been first class.

Finding suitable additions to our Development (Programming/Database) team has been harder, while finding front-end developers (HTML/CSS) has been very hard indeed.

So, what are we recruiting for:

We’re always looking for freelance content producers and content managers, both for our own requirements and for direct employment with our clients.
We’re always looking for freelance Flash developers to help our core team. Actionscript, experience with XML/Flex.
We’re appointing full-time developers: ASP.NET 3.5 and SQL2008, XML with CSS/HTML a real plus. We’re looking for mid-to-senior developers with experience in retail/commerce/enterprise website development. Lots of CMS and database work.
We’re recruiting for Account Managers. This is a very senior role in Wiliam, and combines strategy, marketing and a real understanding of modern web strategy and technology. This is the front-line of our business.
We’re recruiting Producers. These are Project Managers with an eye for detail, creative and programmatic knowledge and experience. Producers own the website at Wiliam, and are responsible for literally producing websites to our standard.

If you are a ASP.NET programmer, we have some excellent roles available. We have an amazing team; there is autonomy for each developer yet plenty of support, a real desire to use the latest technologies (we’re playing with F# and Asp.NET 4.0) and some pretty cool websites and applications – including iPhone.

Email careers@wiliam.com.au if you are interested, or call 02 9978 8888.

Google's PubSubHubbub (PuSH) - No that wasn't a typo

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

PubSubHubbub is a simple, open, server-to-server web-hook-based pubsub (publish/subscribe) protocol as an extension to Atom and RSS.

The theory is when a subscriber subscribes with the publisher’s feed, it subscribes to the publisher’s declared hub, and when the publisher has an update, it pings the hub to notify it there is something new, and then the hub can effectively pull the newly published feed and posts the update to the subscriber’s endpoint URL within a second.

This protocol makes instant updates possible for RSS, largely reduced the load of the publisher, and also avoids the subscriber repeat polling the URL. The protocol is decentralized and free. Anybody can run a hub, or anybody can ping (publish) or subscribe using open hubs like Google App Engine.

The drawback is the subscriber must have a known IP address, which means it can’t be behind the firewall or NAT. However, by using some kind of proxy, we can get an external IP address.

Currently, many CMSs have the plug-ins that support PubSubHubbub. For example, WordPress has the plugin named PuSHPress, which enables the updates to be sent directly from WordPress to you r PuSH subscribers. It is good to see that PubSubHubbub gets its popularity very soon.

Affinity Diagrams

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Affinity diagrams have a number of different uses, from sorting out list of issues, to relating apparently unrelated ‘things’. At Wiliam we use them to study affinities or relationships between different sorts of content, in order to direct us to appropriate navigational structures.

Affinity diagrams in their crudest forms allow you to sort through apparently unrelated content and group them in to piles of related content, often using post-it notes or index cards. Once you have a series of ‘piles’ of content, you can then try to label or name these piles with labels which describe what relates the items of content to each other.

Once grouped and labelled, you have the back-bone of your navigation and it’s then as simple as applying some basic usability rules and you have an appropriate navigational structure.

Alternatives to this simple paper based process include online card sorting, with tools such as Web Sort or Optimal sort to more involved user testing of existing or proposed site structures through tools such as Tree Jack.

Although these online tools are more involved in setting up initially and often have small fees to run them, the results are very compelling and with the more advanced option providing you with excellent and clear results, the extra effort is well worth it.

Related blogs: Online card sorting

Mid- Senior Web Developers Wanted

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:10:36 +0000

Wiliam, a digital agency based in North Sydney, is looking for mid - senior ASP.NET developers with digital agency experience to join our talented team.

What we can offer you:

A rewarding career experience with the freedom to introduce the company to new ideas, methodologies and technologies
The opportunity to work within a very highly skilled team of web developers
Access to the latest tools including Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET 3.5 framework
High profile and varied client work as well as internal system development
A competitive salary
A great working environment, a knowledgeable and upbeat team, and some killer projects for your portfolio.

What you can offer us:

Solid ASP.NET commercial website experience in C# (2 years + preferable) with a solid amount of the front end knowledge
Ability to develop and deploy small, medium and large CMS driven website projects
Demonstrated experience in AJAX.NET and JavaScript (particularly the JQuery library)
Knowledge of XML/XSLT and both writing and consuming .NET Web Services
An understanding of Search Engine Optimisation, from an implementation perspective
Skills in XHTML/CSS with the ability to transfer a graphic designers artwork from PSD to HTML without using tables, passing W3C validation, and working in all major supported web browsers
Excellent communication skills.

If you like the sound of this role and you are eligible to work in Australia, then we look forward to your application! Please include examples of previous work in your CV.

This position is full time and is available immediately. Excellent salary package will be rewarded to the right candidate.

http://www.wiliam.com.au
Strictly no agencies please.

Web Mashup - A new breed of web application

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

A web mashup is a web page or web application that uses or combines information from one or more sources and presents it in a completely new way as a service.

As the internet is continually growing more open and social, many websites have opened their API that allows developers to grab the content, which has led to a variety of interesting mashups. Then the developers can combine them together, and mashup the content to create a new web service that meets different needs.

The Google maps API is a very popular interface to use in mashups. It can be combined with another stream of data to create some new application. For example, The ChicagoCrime.org Web site is a great intuitive example. The Web site mashes crime data from the Chicago Police Department's online database with cartography from Google Maps. Users can interact with the mashup site, such as instructing it to graphically display a map containing pushpins that reveal the details of all recent burglary crimes in South Chicago. The concept and the presentation are simple, and the composition of crime and map data is visually powerful.

Flickr API that exposes photos sharing offers us another interface for mashup application. Because these content providers have metadata associated with the images they host (such as who took the picture, what it is a picture of, where and when it was taken, and more), mashup designers can mash photos with other information that can be associated with the metadata.

Nowadays, there are many tools available that enable us to develop the mashup application even without coding. Yahoo Pipes is a powerful composition tool to aggregate, manipulate, and mashup content from around the web. Microsoft Popfly is another service does mashups.

Mashups provide us a new and exciting idea for web application and can also reduce the massive amount of duplicate information on the internet. However, there are still social issues that need to be taken into consideration such as intellectual property, fair use of information and date integration between organizations.

Focus on success with your website

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Good web design and development can be a significant investment. This is especially true when a website is intended to introduce a new or additional product, service or function to your customers. Sometimes when the reality of this cost sinks in, the decision is made to extend the scope of the website, in an attempt to squeeze every cent of value out of the investment.

The inherent difficult in this approach to design and development is that it almost always requires dividing the purpose of the site. This results in a fragmented site that has little clear focus and struggles to achieve any of its goals. Moreover it can frustrate users and end in a poor experience with your brand.

If you’re struggling to reconcile your project investment with your projected outcomes, the best solution is often not to divide the site’s purpose and make it do more. Rather, it is better to review your web strategy with clear and measurable goals in mind, so that you can then track your progress against those goals and measure the site’s performance (and return on investment) accurately. If you focus on the factors required for success, you will build a site that enables that success to be achieved.

Designers Sanctuary vs Slicers Nightmare

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

They’ve done it again haven’t they? You’ve just been briefed on a new project, had a peek at the designs and it’s drop shadow-ville! Never fear, jQuery is here.

Whilst I was recently slicing a site, I was confronted with some funky gradients and drop shadows. Now don’t get me wrong, these features really do bring out a design, however deem tricky and fiddly to slice. It was this repetitive slice procedure that made me Google around for a quicker alternative that could be reused (even by a CMS for clients).

jQuery has a nifty wrap() function which takes in a string or object to generate a structure wrap of HTML around the matched elements. With this wrap() function, we could use some nested sliced DIV’s with gradient backgrounds to create a shadow effect wrapped around an image.

Reference for background images: http://15daysofjquery.com/examples/osds/

Therefore, after placing a class of dropshadow on any image requiring a drop shadow, the output HTML would render as:

Example:

Treating your proposed web firm with decency

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This is a bit of a rant, apologies in advance!

Basically I can tell you a little pet hate of all web development companies (and I’m sure many other professional services organizations!).

It revolves around getting asked for very detailed proposals and response to tenders, outlining intricate detail about how the website and online marketing campaign will work with heavy input from the prospective client only to see them vanish and never to make contact again afterwards.

Now I don’t think our well designed proposals are offensive, nor our prices overly high, instead I see this is largely the result of a lack of manners and people playing companies against one another on a price basis, regardless of the fact they admit they are not price driven but quality driven.

Yes a web development company is there to win your business and will be grateful in doing so, but that does not mean to say that numerous hours or days have not gone into giving you free and bespoke strategy advice to help light your online path.

Behind that custom proposal you received is not a hyped up salesman/woman drooling at your business and trying to rip you off, it is someone who has thought about your needs, prepared a custom solution, pulled developers and producers off existing paying projects for input and tried their hardest to outline how they can actually help you and your business.

Now wouldn’t you say this is worth a quick email or call to let them know your plans?

If the project isn’t moving ahead, just let the company know. If the project is going ahead but with another developer, thank them for their time but say the business is going in another direction with a different provider. I assure you that you won’t get an angry person on the other side of the email or phone line, instead a person that is grateful for your ability to be upfront and not leave them hanging.

For all people guilty of this, please consider the above and apologies for the long rant.

For other web firms reading this, I hope you agree and </rant over>.

Rapid fire Wednesday (Weekly roundup)

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So the world is obsessed with Avatar and the 3D movie revolution. I can tell you from experience one group of people who are not finding the revolution that great: those who already wear glasses. Twice now (for movies Up and Avatar) I have endured - and paid substantially extra for - a 3D experience that admittedly is impressive, but is definitely uncomfortable. Sure some people can wear contact lenses, but my eyes disagree with them. So unless I want to be the black sheep of the flock when my friends go to see Spaceships Blowing Up Stuff in 3D, I will have to endure the discomfort. And don’t get me started on 3D TV!

Nintendo settled out of court yesterday with a young man from Queensland who admitted to uploading his accidently-sold-early copy of Mario Bros for the Wii to the Internet. He apparently agreed to pay 1.5 million dollars in damages to Nintendo. The kid lives at home with his parents. Where is he going to get 1.5 million dollars from? Birthday money perhaps? More importantly, why are Nintendo caring so much? This is not like downloading a movie or album – to play a pirated Wii game you have to get your console hardware modified. Those that have gone to this effort are doubtful to pay for games in the first place. So yes, more people will get the game for free, but I don’t see how Nintendo’s profits would be affected in any way. Regardless of what this kid did, Nintendo claim that the title has sold 200,000 copies in Australia and was the first to do so on any format.

In similar news, ARIA has released their sales figures for 2009 which signify the first increase in sales since 2003. Despite the decline in sales of physical media – simply a sign of the times and customer shift to easily portable music formats – the report headlines that “Digital sales continue to increase, delivering return to growth for recorded music”. According to the report, digital album sales have increased over 60% - and this is the important bit – “more than offsetting the relatively modest decline in physical sales”. Relatively modest? That is hardly the doom and gloom stories we hear every day, and I believe the same rationale as the Mario Bros game can apply here – the majority of those that download music would not have bought it in the first place. How can you determine a loss of revenue on something that was not a guaranteed purchase in the first place? In fact, some studies have shown that users who download music illegally are 10 times more likely to pay for music.

Don’t forget that Facebook changed their appearance again which everyone supposedly hates, and Google unleashed their new toy Google Buzz, a mash-up of your Gmail and Facebook-like status updates.

Developing for the iPad

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

As most of the applications currently available in the App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch can work on the iPad we ask ourselves what can we develop for the iPad.

It may help to compare the 3 devices to see what the differences are between the iPad, iPhone and iPod. The biggest difference is the display then secondly the battery life.

	iPad	iPhone	iPod Touch
Display	9.7-inch (diagonal) widescreen 1024-by-768-pixel resolution at 132 pixels per inch	3.5 –inch (diagonal) widescreen 480-by-320-pixel resolution at 163 pixels per inch	3.5 –inch (diagonal) widescreen 480-by-320-pixel resolution at 163 pixels per inch
Capacity	16GB, 32GB, or 64GB flash drive	16GB or 32GB flash drive	32GB, or 64GB flash drive
Audio	Yes	Yes	Yes
Video Support	Yes (except flash)	Yes (except flash)	Yes (except flash)
Built in Camera	No	Yes	No
Battery life for surfing and video	Approx 10 hours	Approx 5-9 hours	Approx 6 hours

One of the obvious things to do would be to revisit the current apps and re-develop them to take advantage of the bigger screen and processing power. Which is what Firemint who developed Flight Control the 1# selling app in the App Store is doing.

As for new applications the restrictions that limited what you could do on the iPhone and iPod Touch don’t apply therefore the world is your apple.

It may also be worth noting that the iPad is not the only tablet you might consider developing for there is also rumours that Sony is joining the market with their own take on the tablet which may look something like their first attempt the Sony Dash (pictured below)

When to call your web developer

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

A customer has just called you to inform you that your website is down. Before you panic and call your developer which may incur needless support fees, find out from your customer what they mean by ‘website is down’ as this can be interpreted a number of ways.

Did the customer type in the address correctly? A simple check but weeds out many false positives.

What do they see in the browser window? If the browser tries to go the website for a while and fails with an error such as “Cannot locate server” or “DNS Error” then there are a few possibilities:

Your customer cannot see the site because they cannot see any sites. Ask them to see if they can get to Google. If they can’t, the customer is at fault.
Can you see your website? If you can see it and they can’t, again it is most likely the customer at fault.
Check if your website is truly down by entering the URL at http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/. If the site says “It’s not just you” then you have a problem but it is most likely a hosting issue. Who is responsible for hosting your website? It most cases it is not the same company who built your website, although your developer may have arranged hosting on your behalf. You should have an email or letter detailing who to call in this situation. Tell your host that you and your customers cannot get to your website and have the error message handy.

Sometimes the meaning of “website is down” is less clear. Your customer could simply mean that one part of the website is not functioning the way it should. He or she may even mean that it is not working the way that THEY expect it to work.

If it turns out that a piece of functionality on your website is causing an error when it is utilised, this is the appropriate time to call your developer. Such errors could obvious such as a complete stack dump to the screen – typified in the Microsoft world of development as a red, yellow and white error log – which is important to copy the contents of or make a screen grab and email to your developer. Other errors may be on the page itself and as simple as “error sending email” or “failure to generate report”, depending on the functionality of your site.

The more information that can be provided to your developer in this instance, the quicker the problem can be resolved. Knowing precisely what your customer was doing at the time, what values they entered into a form, what buttons they clicked, etc. will assist your developer in reproducing the problem.

Running a smooth web development project

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

My most important job is to make sure that the relationship between the client and the web developer is a smooth and happy one.

With large web development projects comes complexity and technical issues which will require some explanation and education along the way.

So what should you be expecting from your web developer?

Interest in your company

In order to address your requirements, a web developer will want to find out as much about your business as possible.

At best, there should be a structured process that will help both parties discover important requirements that they may not have thought of. How does your business operate, what are your competitors, what – intrinsically – is the goals of the site. Merely listing the sorts of features wanted is not the best way of going about it.

If your web developer is not interested in your business, it will show every step of the way. Genuine and transparent interest, on the other hand, will be immediately apparent.

Good communication

Good communication is vital to the project and the relationship – if they are able to explain the complexities of web development in a way that you understand, you won't be left bewildered and disempowered. Everyone has a different level of knowledge and way of communicating, and your primary contact should recognise that and adapt.

A collaborative approach

A web developer who blindly takes your requirements and content with a murmur will mean that the potential of your solution will be hamstrung and unable to take advantage of an online strategy that could expand your business. By the same token, having the developer dictate every single aspect of your site means that your business distinctive identity and service offerings will be lost.

Best practise advice

From design, Search Engine Optimisation, and security to the way you organise your site's information – your web developer should beable to discuss confidently all aspects of the project, and justify their position. It's worth listening to them if that's the case, it's what you are paying them for, after all.

In the end, a good web developer will want an ongoing relationship with you. The online world is always changing, and you should to think of the project as a one-off. An ever expanding web presence requires a mutually respectful partnership.

It's the only recipe for success.

Would you trust this man with the internet?

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Earlier this week Mark Day wrote a piece for The Australian on the “internet filter” proposed by Stephen Conroy and the Rudd government.

One of the more interesting points that Day attempted to make was that the sites being blocked under the proposed scheme will be sites that are “Refused Classification”, which is the same classification system used in other forms of media.

Day contends that the internet shouldn’t be any different to other forms of media in this regard and it’s an argument that on the surface appears to have a certain amount of merit. After all, as Day suggests, one can’t reasonably claim that the Australian public finds child pornography in any way acceptable. These are materials that the vast majority of us have no desire to come into contact with, and that we rightly condemn as criminal in their nature.

The problem with Day’s argument arises in relation to the items that he does not include in his article. The list that was used as the basis of the recently concluded trial variously includes sites that contain information on subjects such as Euthanasia, Abortion and other topics that are at the very least, politically charged.

On top of this, there are severe and fundamental problems with how the current classification system operates in Australia. For years now Australian gamers have been lobbying for the introduction of an R18+ classification (in line with other media). This is no surprise given that the average age of Australian gamers is 30, they want and expect to be treated like the adults they are.

Unfortunately for gamers, any amendment to the classification system needs to be approved by the attorneys-general of all States. This means that Michael Atkinson is able to hold Australian gamers to ransom. Frustratingly, if the internet filter is approved, the classification system will apply to online games as well, meaning that a host of games routinely available worldwide will suddenly be blocked to Australians.

But that is not the biggest concern. Most frightening of all was the attempt by Michael Atkinson to directly censor political discourse within South Australia during an election. This stunningly ignorant blunder was quickly and resoundingly condemned around the country, with Mr Atkinson the next day conceding that he would repeal the legislation in a “humiliating” backdown. Fortunately in this instance, sanity and democracy prevailed, but I can’t help being concerned at how much influence Michael Atkinson will be able to wield if the Rudd government’s “internet filter” is implemented.