The Artistic Outlaw

November 27th 2008 / learned, shared

We’re building web-sites wrong

I view a lot of web-sites everyday. I build a lot of web-sites every year and I can safely say we’re all doing it wrong, including me.

We are building web-sites with too much emphasis on visually pleasing ourselves, our clients and the potential surfer/user(s). We are ignoring content almost entirely.

There are an enormous pile of reasons (read: excuses) for this crazy workflow. We are all guilty of at least one or more at any given time. The copy/content is not available at the time of the design phase, no one knows what the content will be, you started strong got bored and just towed the line to get it off your calendar resulting in boring content placement and design, etc… and so on.

We should be solving the problem that is the presentation of content, not the placement of content within the presentation.

Wireframes, let alone design comprehensive dummies should not begin without a full content document. And I’m not talking about a vague notion of content and where it might go. I’m talking about a document that outlines final copy and contextual images and their importance.

I’m talking about examples of typical blog/news posts. I’m talking about a document that says we want this form, with this functionality, and this is what will happen if the form is filled in wrong, and here’s what happens when it is good to go, and here’s what happens after the submission, etc… and so on.

We need to see the problem in it’s entirety prior to trying to solve it. We cannot do our jobs to the best of our ability when we don’t know the problem we are solving.

Let’s stop spending so much time trying to please clients & users visually in the beginning and start figuring out how to please clients & users long term and with lasting solutions that are at once visually stunning and attentive to the needs and flow of the content.

Web-sites are content.

November 16th 2008 / learned, shared

the e-commerce situation

I’m fed up.

I’m tired of wanting or more often needing to buy something online and being forced to jump through a series of tiny hoops of the “on-fire” variety only to be told that I made a mistake somewhere along the way, yet said mistake is a guarded secret and up to me to guess where it was made and repair it before I can move forward and finish my purchase. I’m likely already pissed off from the process and fit to leave.

Perhaps I have less patience for this ridiculous circus than your average consumer, because I’m a web developer and know it’s possible to make a form simple and easy to use. A form that can tell me, the user, exactly what I did wrong and even give advice on how to fix it. A form that looks nice and functions better.

I have yet to experience an online shopping system that made me feel good about my purchase, let alone left me smiling and wanting to buy more. Even Amazon falls short, sure they get close, but they certainly have issues and they are clearly not sharing their knowledge or experience with other online retailers.

There has got to be a better way, a better process, a better checkout experience.

I’m not going to just gripe about it. I’m going to solve this problem.

May 13th 2008 / learned, shared

www != the wild west

Sadness prevails within me.

I’m tired of hearing: “Hey man, you should have known _blank_ would happen, it is the ‘web’ after all.”

Initially, I thought maybe this topic didn’t belong on TAO, but the more I think about it, this is exactly where it belongs. It concerns the internet and that is exactly the place our industry calls home, so ultimately it’s about our home.

When I visit a friend’s home I treat them with respect and kindness. I just do it. It’s not an option to do otherwise. It’s not my home, and therefore It’s a privilege to be there, not my right. Treating them with anything other than pure undiluted respect is blasphemy.

Likewise, when I invite someone to my home I expect the treatment returned in kind.

This idea translates directly to the web. There is no acceptable reason for pretending to be someone other than yourself in every aspect of your life. The Internet is an extension of your “real” life, not another/different life.

The Internet is not a free-for-all playground where you can assume any persona you like, saying and doing whatever you want. Yes, I know it’s possible and yes, I know people do it all the time. That, my friends is exactly why I wrote this.

As a human being it hurts to know that other human beings treat each other in such terrible ways online and off, but it happens. Constantly.

That doesn’t make it alright. Which brings us back to the web, where it is also not OK.

I believe, treating others with kindness, is a non-optional social convention and there is no acceptable excuse to do otherwise. None.

—me via twitter

So next time you log into an anonymous web account to lay down some hurt on an unsuspecting n00b, remember you’re just perpetuating the myth that anything goes online.

Which is my cue to pull on my boots and grab my shovel.

November 19th 2007 / learned, taught

Mac OS X 10.5, MAMP and VMWare Fusion

This is a note to myself more than a real post, so feel free to ignore it or use the info if need arises.

When using vmware fusion for MSIE testing on Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard through a MAMP based localhost. WordPress sites acts weird and won’t let you view sites on the localhost through MSIE.

The cause and solution of this issue is the following;

On the mac, with a MAMP based localhost, sites can be accessed via a url similar to:

http://localhost/~sites/

Whereas the same localhost setup viewed through vmware fusion using MSIE has to be accessed via a url like this:

http://mac's-ip(127.0.0.1)/~sites/

This causes a problem for WordPress based builds, because WordPress stores the full absolute URL to the install in it’s MySQL database in the table wp_options there are two rows that store the URL you need to change. They are siteurl and home. Just modify them and change the localhost bit of the URL to your mac’s localhost IP address.

Now WordPress will work fine through both vmware fusion’s MSIE install and your own mac browsers, because the mac doesn’t care if you use localhost or the IP to access your localhost sites.

Now you’re cooking with gas my friends.

August 21st 2007 / learned

Blog Rolls??

In my wanderings around the great big Internet I often come upon fresh blogs, new kids on the block so to speak. And on these blogs with no more than three posts in the archives—two of which are a “welcome to _blank” and a “Sorry I haven’t posted in a month… here’s why”—I tend to find these extremely impressive blog rolls that read like a who’s who of web design and blogging.

I’m baffled by this.

Why in the world would anybody automatically link to someone they don’t know? Is it the misconception that it supplies instant blog cred? Do these blog owners think their blog will explode if it contains a link to a well known blog? Or is this just fandom run rampant?

I would never link to anyone I didn’t know. It seems to me that most of these blog roll “regulars” would ignore any requests to return the favor in kind, and probably don’t even know your blog exists, so what is the point with wasting valuable ad/content space with a list of links of already over linked blogs belonging to people whom don’t even appreciate the link back?

When did Blog Rolls stop being a list of actual friends that blog and instead become a list of the biggest names in blogging and web development you can think of?

Enlighten me.

June 21st 2007 / learned, shared, taught

Respect

I’ve been working in the web development industry for five years now. For five years I’ve been able to sustain a specific lifestyle, working solo. Working in an industry I both love and admire. I’ve seen designers, programmers, ideas, businesses and so on, come and go, come again then leave once more. I’ve heard just about every conceivable pitch for projects from one page brochures to one-hundred page social networks. I’ve been offered partnerships, equity, free hosting and heard promises of more work to come. Basically I’ve heard it all.

There is one thing I do above all else that keeps my business running and my mind clear. Keeps me riding the karmic bicycle in the right direction if you will.

That thing. That one, simple thing is; Respect.

There’s more, go get it