For me the web has always been about contributing rather than consuming.

Don’t get me wrong I learn a huge amount from the web everyday. However, the web was always meant to be a medium you contribute to, unlike reading a book or watching TV.

For me contribution is in the form of writing blog posts, recording podcasts and giving presentations. For others it is participating in open source projects or sharing code and designs.

However, there are many who don’t contribute at all. This is not because they are bad or lazy people. It is because they either think they have nothing to contribute or because they fear getting it wrong.

If that is you then I would encourage you to read a post on Smashing Magazine about moving the web forward. One paragraph in particular says it all:

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes (because that’s how we all improve). It’s absolutely okay for you to not be a complete expert or authority on a topic. Share what you do know because it has the potential to help many other developers and designers out there.

Don’t rely on others to contribute. Share what you know, for somebody that might be exactly what they need to hear. No matter what your skill level, you have something to contribute.

I don’t seem to be able to shut up about working with clients at the moment. Not only is there my book “Client Centric Web Design,” I also cover this subject as part of a series of videos I have recorded for Sitepoint.

These videos form apart of Sitepoint’s superb “Kick Start Your Web Dev Business” course, which I can highly recommend if you are starting out freelancing.

I have to say I find recording these videos painfully embarrassing, but apparently others find them useful. Here is the first video, which is particularly embarrassing because I talk about how great I am!

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:58 — 1.1MB)

The main theme in my latest book “Client Centric Web Design” is one of collaboration. If you want happier clients, better websites and more job satisfaction, you have to learn to work as a team with your client.

Interestingly, I am not alone in this point of view. A post on Smashing Magazine, perfectly articulates the point.

Set the expectation from the beginning that you will work with stakeholders collaboratively. They will help you think through the design at every step… If the client is unwilling or unable to spend time and energy on the design as you develop it, find another client. A client who is too busy to get involved in the process is a client who doesn’t care…

Collaboration is essential to great design. No one person can think of everything or always have the best ideas for every aspect of a product. It takes a group to make this happen. This might require you to occasionally browbeat the client into being available for frequent discussions on new and developing ideas, but the result will be infinitely better.

For me this is the key. Without it, a project will at best produce a mediocre website. However, I am interested in your opinion? How do you work with clients? Do they help or hinder your projects? Let me know in the comments below.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:05 — 1.1MB)

Are you caring about your web forms?

I came across this great article on Smashing Magazine from last November talking about web forms. The post is stuffed with great advice, but the following leapt out at me:

A form is a conversation, not an interrogation.

Order the labels logically, reflecting the natural flow of a conversation. For example, wouldn’t it be weird to ask someone their name only after having asked a number of other questions? More involved questions should come towards the end of the form.

It reminded me of the excellent signup form on Huffduffer. This signup process recognises that web forms should reflect the natural way we converse. Filling it in feels more like a conversation and less like a chore. It engages, while many forms just demand input. Websites and computers generally can be impersonal and cold. We need to work hard to counteract this tendency. Forms are one way we can do this.

Have you seen other forms with a friendly and conversational tone? If so share them in the comments.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:04 — 1.7MB)

One of my biggest frustrations with the ecommerce sites we work on, is when clients want users to register before they can purchase.

Users do not come to your site to register. They come to purchase. Even though there is very little difference between the two activities (to make a purchase you have to provide all the same information as registration, with the exception of a password), in minds of users registration is a distraction.

It was therefore refreshing to read a post on econsultancy driving this message home. The author writes:

Making customers register before they checkout is a barrier to purchase, yet many online retailers have yet to learn this lesson.

He goes on to say:

A recent Econsultancy / Toluna study found that 25.6% of online consumers would abandon a purchase if they were forced to register first.

The post goes on to outline a series of alternatives. However, interestingly it fails to mention my preferred approach. I recommend that ecommerce sites ask users to register when they have completed their transaction. This is the point where the user is thinking “what next” and provides a superb opportunity to layout the benefits of registering.

Of course, the problem with not forcing registration is that users effectively create multiple accounts. This is not great from a marketing and data hygiene point of view. However, the post makes a suggestion for dealing with this too based on Amazon:

Amazon has an interesting example of how to handle this. It will allow me to create a new account with a previously used email address, but warns me that the existing account will be disabled.

If I’m a reasonably regular customer who has simply forgotten their password, this will convince me to go down the password reset / reminder route and avoid losing my stored billing address and payment details.

However, if this is an old, unused account, then allowing customers to go ahead anyway avoids the pain of resetting the password.

Do you build or run ecommerce sites? How do you deal with the issue of registration? Is there a better way? Share your approach in the comments below.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:30 — 1.4MB)

When I ask you about content strategy, what are you thinking? Are you thinking about populating your new website with copy or are you thinking longer term?

When we meet with clients to ‘redesign’ their websites, they are often so fixated on the challenges surrounding the copy for their new site, that they fail to think longer term. This is a dangerous mistake as Kristina Halvorson makes clear in an article she wrote for .net magazine:

Many people assume that content strategy is about content creation – but in fact, that’s the easy bit. It’s what Halvorson calls the “messy stuff” surrounding the long-term management of content that forms the real challenge. Essentially, she explains, it’s all about asking the right questions early on in the process – “Who is the content coming from? Who owns the content? How will that content be maintained and developed after launch?”

“So really it’s about working to move organisations’ focus away from launching content and towards looking at content as something that lives within a long-term life cycle. And that requires a longer commitment than just a copywriter and a project manager for the website launch.”

This is a huge issue! We recommend that our clients create a new position in their organisation, one dedicated to content strategy – a content editor.

This person is not only responsible for initial content population but also for the ongoing quality of content on the site. They are responsible for editing what is added but also (and potentially more importantly) for removing content that is no longer helpful.

If you haven’t already, now is the time to consider the long term management of content on your site. As Kristina says:

Who owns the content? How will that content be maintained and developed after launch?

What is your approach to the management of content? Is an editor the right approach or is training of content contributors more important? Lets discuss the best way forward in the comments.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:18 — 1.3MB)

Most of the time when a web designer talks to a client about code, the clients eyes glaze over.

This is understandable. Code can be pretty intimidating. In fact many web designers legitimately argue that clients don’t need to understand the code on their site.

Although there is no good reason why a client needs to know anything more than some basic HTML (if you don’t then its time to learn) they should still discuss code with their web designer.

The reason it is important to have this discussion is because how a site is coded has business repercussions.

Take for example a recent conversation I had with @sheerman. He tends to focus on coding extremely lean, clean code. This is ideal if a site has to download like lightening. However, it also makes changes to the site slightly more cumbersome.

If you want to constantly update your website, including moving elements around or making design changes, then you maybe better taking the approach favoured by @emerritt, another designer at Headscape. His approach is much more flexible but does result in slightly more code that could slow down a site.

Web designers argue endlessly about which approach is best. In reality the answer depends on the clients needs. That is why sooner or later web designer and client needs to discuss code. They don’t need to get into specifics, but they do need to discuss issues such as whether flexibility or speed is more important.

Of course that is just my opinion. What do you do? Do you discuss coding with your clients? If you are a client does discussing code terrify you? Let me know in the comments.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 4:24 — 2.4MB)

A friend of mine is a mechanic. Recently he took on a new job working with young people who have failed to fit into the normal educational system.

He has little in the way of curriculum. His objective is a simple one. He is to engage with these young people and get them excited about mechanics in whatever way works best.

His solution to this challenge is an elegant one. He makes use of his students natural curiosity, following it wherever it takes them. If they want to learn about bikes, he works on bikes. If they want to understand how an engine works, they take one apart.

He combines this with real world experience. If they repair a car and make some money from it (within the limits of being unqualified), they get to keep the cash.

This struck me as a great strategy for kids that just didn’t respond to our traditional and extremely inflexible education experience.

Learning from medical schools

This combination of curiosity and real world business experience was further reinforced by a book I am reading called Brain Rules. In this book the author John Medina points to Medical Schools as an alternative and potentially better way to learn.

Medical schools combine traditional academic teaching with real world patient care. They often have a strong research wing that allows the curiosity ignited in the learning process to flourish into new areas of research.

The answer to web design education?

It strikes me that maybe this is the answer to the education problems we are seeing in web design. Although there are certainly some good courses out there, many are teaching hopelessly out of date techniques. As web design employers we often claim that new graduates are not equipped with the real world skills we need. Equally many graduates find it hard to get a job because they don’t have the experience many employers demand.

What if we took a page out of the medical school book? What if web design courses were effectively run as web design agencies? They would take on real clients with projects run by seasoned professionals and developed by students.

These professionals would also teach more academic classes based on their real experience of working with clients, unlike many traditional lecturers who have little in the way of current industry experience.

Money earned from working with commercial clients could be used to help reduce course fees, so making the course accessible to more students.

Finally in much the same way Google provide 20% time, these courses could leave room for personal projects and research. This would introduce the much needed innovation that is the lifeblood of our industry.

I am the first to admit I know nothing about web design education. There was no such thing when I attended university. However, it strikes me that a combination of real world experience and giving students time to explore their own curiosity (in terms of personal projects) could produce the next generation of web designers to carry innovation forward.

So would it work or am I being naive? Are you a lecturer, if so what are the problems? Are you an employer, do you think it would help the skill deficit? Are you a student, would you go on a course like this? Are you a client, would you employ a web design school? Let me know in the comments below.

There are some tasks that are as fiddly as hell to do in Photoshop. An example of this is applying textures to 3D objects.

I had to do this recently when working on the collateral that supports my new book “Client Centric Web Design”. I had to superimpose my book cover on a real book and also show a page on an iPad. In both cases getting the perspective right turned into a real headache. Something that should have taken seconds, took far too long.

I am the first to admit that this is probably a sign of my outdated Photoshop skills, but even taking this into account there has to be an easier way.

It turns out the answer is a website called PSDCovers. The site includes a large range of 3D objects from books to iPhones. Each item has an associated Photoshop action.

To put your texture on the object, download the action and run it in Photoshop.

There are two steps with each action. The first produces a flat template that you post your texture into. This template also includes detailed instructions on each part of the template.

Step two is where the magic happens. By running the second part of the action it transforms your flat template into the final object. It takes a few seconds to run but the results are amazing. Best of all the object has a transparent background meaning it can be easily added to any image or combined with other objects.

I am sure that a Photoshop expert could do this easily. However, I see this as a superb way for non Photoshop experts (clients) to apply their branding to a range of objects.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 41:15 — 37.8MB)

The guys at the Sitepoint podcast invited me onto their show to discuss the upcoming season of Boagworld where I introduce Client Centric Web Design. The new season starts tomorrow, but if you would like, a taster of what we are going to cover and what is included in the book then check out the interview.

Show summary

Kevin and Paul talk in some detail on how we need to make sure our communications with our clients put them at the center of the design process, have them feeling a sense of ownership of the project, and use all their knowledge and skills as well as ours.

Find out more about the new season of Boagworld

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:48 — 1,002.1KB)

I recently ran a workshop on content strategy and social media. The reason I combine these two topics is because they are so closely linked. In today’s connected world, publishing has changed. It is no longer about broadcasting. Today publishing is about a conversation, as is beautifully expressed by Mandy Brown in her recent post Babies and Bathwater.

We can no longer think of publishing as a broadcast medium. It isn’t, not anymore. The web requires that we listen and converse as much as (if not more than) we ship.

Why then do so many publishers continue to broadcast rather than actively engage users? The reason is simple, as Mandy goes on to explain:

Of course, supporting a community is hard work, and it isn’t cheap. It’s expensive not only in time, but in spirit: you have to care about your readers.

For many nurturing a community is just too much effort. Unfortunately this is not an option on the modern web. Users are out there talking about you elsewhere. If you ignore them you risk alienating them or even missing a potential PR nightmare. However, if you nurture a community these very same people can become your best advocates.

What route have you chosen?

Picking fonts in Photoshop sucks. The preview of fonts in the font menu is so small that they are pointless. You are also faced with an overwhelming list with no ability to compare and contrast.

Fortunately, there are apps that specialise in managing fonts and font selection.

Some of these apps look pretty amazing, like Fontcase, which not only allows you to manage fonts but also preview their use on any website.

Unfortunately for me and many like me, tools like this are a sledgehammer to crack a nut. I am not a designer anymore, but I do need to pick fonts fairly regularly. I don’t want to pay a lot of money for a tool to let me do that and am not interested in the majority of functionality these apps provide.

The solution to this problem is a simple app called Font Picker. At only £2.99 you won’t get the functionality of more expensive apps. However, you also won’t get the complexity.

Font Picker provides large previews of all the fonts you have installed and allows you to quickly narrow down your selection until you find the perfect font.

I am sure I am not the only one that would be more than willing to pay £2.99 to get nice big previews of fonts and the ability to compare my options side by side.