117. Friendly
Posted in Podcast on: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 by
On this week’s show, we review woopra, a google analytics alternative and we explore why friendly urls are so important and what tools are out there to help you set them up.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (22.4MB)
Information
Fuel Conference
Fuel is a one-day conference for entrepreneurs and marketers who want to make their companies, services and products truly remarkable. The conference is on the 13th June 2008 and tickets cost £195 inc VAT however for lucky boagworld listeners if you enter the promo code boagworld at the checkout you will get a £25 discount!
News and events
The devil is in the detail
We kick off the news with three stories that focus on the detail of web design. So much is said about design, usability, accessibility and other broad subjects. However, less is written about the small things. It is here that a good site becomes an excellent site.
The first is a post on the list apart website entitled Zebra Striping: Does it really help?(1). Zebra striping refers to alternating colours on a table of data. It is a small thing, but a lot of us do it thinking it helps the readability of the data. But does it really? This post takes that theory and puts it to the test. The results are inconclusive but it is an interesting read anyway.
The second story is about a new book released on the topic of web forms. It’s called Web Form Design(2) and as the title suggests looks at the much under-represented subject of creating a great looking, usable form.
As I have said before forms make or break some of the most crucial elements of a website: checkout, registration, data input, and any task requiring information entry. This looks like an excellent read and I highly recommend you check it out. I will be.
The final post that focuses on the detail of design is looks at pagination(3). It is a tutorial that explains how to code pagination semantically. It then demonstrates how you can use CSS to recreate the appearance of pagination on sites like digg or flickr. It is an easy read and ideal for beginners.
Review crazy
The next theme of the week is reviews. In particular Smashing Magazine have gone review crazy in two excellent (if somewhat excessive) posts.
The first reviews 35 useful code editors(4). Of course, we can write our code with a text editor but that wouldn’t make for a very interesting post! Also we like those advanced features like auto complete, formatting and debugging tools.
If like me you have been using the same coding tool for years, this article is worth a read. Things have certainly moved on and there is no shortage of choice out there. It might be time to change.
The second review from Smashing Magazine only manages 25 applications. This time it is WYSIWYG editors(5). I guess this compliments the previous post very well. However, generally speaking I would warn against producing sites using WYSIWYG editors. That said they do have their place. They are useful to give to clients who want to maintain their own sites. They are also good for posting to blogs or other sites where the styling is already set.
It has to be said that I personally code in Dreamweaver, which has a WYSIWYG component. I have been known to use it to find a particular part of the code I want to edit.
A balanced look at flash
Our final news item of the day is a post by Veerle on her blog entitled Does Flash irks me?(6). It is an excellent opinion piece that clearly lays out her feelings about flash. She explains how she decides whether to use it and dispels some of the misconceptions about the technology.
Her post is very timely coming as it does a week after flash goes open source. It is balanced and her attitude very much mirrors my own (therefore it must be right!). If you view flash as the ultimate evil or alternatively refuse to code in anything else, read this post. It will provide a healthy dose of realism.
Feature: Friendly web addresses
When redesigning boagworld considerable time was spent formatting the sites’ web addresses. Find out why so much time was taken and an introduction to the tools I used in this weeks feature
Review: woopra
When it comes to website statistics Google Analytics dominates most of our thinking. However, there are some impressive alternatives. One I would like to introduce to you is woopra. I give my thoughts to woopra in this weeks review
Listeners feedback:
Creating consistant colors
Anna Joe Writes: I know that the colour of a website will look a little different on every monitor, but is there a profile setting that you use as an ‘average’ setting?
Since I work on Mac with a Mac monitor, I’m afraid most people will see something radically different than me. I have read that Mac defaults are brighter than Windows. I’m using a lot of dark colours, so I am concerned about the site appearing too dark on the majority of computers.
I have a list of colour settings provided on my computer… only one seems to have a Windows-related profile. It’s called ‘Nikon WinMonitor 4.0.0.3000′
Do you have any suggestions regarding this issue?"
I have to confess Anna, this was a subject I knew nothing about before your question. The way that I got around the problem was to look at any design I produced on as many different monitors as possible. To be honest, even after my research I would advise this as the best approach.
View your site on a TFT and an old CRT monitor. Also check on laptops and under different operating systems.
However, based on a bit of reading it would appear that the problem is to do with Gamma settings. Macs by default have gamma correction built in while PCs do not. This causes images (especially photographic images) which look good on a Macintosh monitor to appear too dark on a PC.
Fortunately there is a tool that allows us Mac users to experience the horror of the PC world. It’s called gamma toogle(7) and can be downloaded for free.
If you don’t have access to multiple machines for testing this would be the next best thing.
Setting up an ecommerce site
Paul East Writes: My girlfriend has come up with an sales idea that would require a simple store front application with the ability to take credit and debit card payments online.
Have you any advice on where to start or any recommendations on store front applications?
We’d like to try and keep start up costs low (we’d like to avoid paying a web designer, sorry!) and avoid eBay type stores if possible for that more professional look.
We’ve done a little investigation on merchant accounts but could do with a good steer on the rest!
Again this is not a subject I k
now a huge amount about. Most of the ecommerce sites I work on are considerably larger. However, hopefully I will be able to point you in the right direction.
First, for the best advice when it comes to setting up ecommerce sites big or small I would highly recommend the ebiz video podcast(8). These guys really know their stuff and in fact we had them on show 55 to talk about ecommerce basics.
Second, in the past I have come across two simple shopping cart systems that impressed me. The first is FatFreeCart(9). This simple system can be integrated easily into an existing site. If you are only selling one or two items this is perfect. The alternative is shopify10. This is a little more sophisticated but incredibly simple to setup and run.
Neither of the questions today are subjects I know much about and I am guessing there are people groaning at my advice. If that is the case, get in touch and we will put you on the show.
19 Comments
Comments are for the discussion of this post. If you have other questions / comments then post them to the forum or send me an email
Paul> You need to create Marcus a better website for his band ;)
He built that all by himself. Leave him alone lol
I kinda figured that part out…hehe
Love the show guys, love the quirky humour and innuendos!
Re the simple shop. There are some great little plugins that will let you turn a textpattern installation into a webshop which can easily grow with your company.
Finished listening to this show, as first Boagworld show ever. I heart it! Thanks guys (& girls, if applicable)!
I think one of your links are broken above.
Feature: Friendly web addresses “this weeks feature” http://boagworld.com/usability/friendly_urls/ I get your disturbance in the force 404 page.
This week’s feature is actually at http://boagworld.com/technology/friendly_urls/
I won’t mention the irony.
Whoops! :)
My favourite stats program is Mint from Shaun Inman. http://haveamint.com/
Hey Marcus, welcome to the Logic Pro/Mac fraternity! Perhaps you could slip Paul some sleeping pills and sneak in a segment on your Mac audio doings. (You did the new podcast opening music right? Hence, it’s as much on topic as anything else.) Lick the Toad rules! Um, what?
Thanks also for the look into friendly URLs. See, back in the old days (last year) I thought I was only cool and “pro” if my URLs were totally unreadable (e.g., http://www.mysite.com/9isf8_3hjows_fj9iae90j.php).
I’m currently enjoying Reinvigorate. http://reinvigorate.net/ They’re in beta so you’ll have to wait for an invite. But it’s really nice and does live tracking as well. Comes with a desktop app as well as an online one.
I’ve given it 2 eps before making a comment but this idea of giving out separate links to each news item is…how can I put it…seriously crap. The words mountain and molehill spring to mind :-)
Surely the listeners of boagworld are smart enough to simply go to the page for the episode and get all the links in one hit? Why complicate things?
Still love you Paul and Marcus!
PS It did sound better in the hotel room.
I agree about the links. It just doesn’t work. I was trying to
find a way of avoiding people having to go to the show notes. However the solution is worse than the problem. I’ll drop it in future.
The audio was better than normal because the room was not a cold echo filled meeting room. Unfortunately we cannot hire a hotel room every week.
Anna Joe, regarding your question about shopping carts etc. Lately we have been playing with http://www.magentocommerce.com/. It looks excellent and a world apart from the pain we have endured in the past using OS Commerce or Virtuemart. You would be able to just use the standard template, change the colours and add your logo etc. There is also excellent integration for all the major payment processors.
Good Luck!
I’m listening to show 117 and wanted to let you know that I am, indeed, listening to it while working out in my home gym. We’re not all loafers! :P
Hi Paul and Marcus. I agree about the book on web forms. I’ve been looking forward to reading it since LukeW announced it last year. I am also a fan of his work on web design patterns and his talk on this subject on last year’s SXSW was excellent. Keep up the good work guys. Love your show!
I liked your item on the frienly urls, and I will probably change the structure of my own site which I’m currently rebuilding. One point of critisim on how you’ve impemented it though: I tried to find podcast #118 bij typing boagworld/podcasts/118, which gave me your 404 page. As there are more podcasts in the directory, I expected it to be called “podcasts” (plural), but the correct directoryname turned out to be “podcast” (singular). I think you can set up a serverside rule that sends anyone who has typed podcasts instead of podcast to the proper link.
1st a quicky,
You said that ‘PCs’ don’t have gamma correction ‘built in’ well again you made the same mistake that to many users do. First Macs are PCs too. All PCs now are either Intel or AMD based. Mac OSX is simply an operating system that runs on certain Intel hardware configurations, ones that Apple’s blessed w/their holier than thou symbol. Windows Vista runs on more hardware configurations &Windows XP on even more. But you forgot Linux, yes people use it. Esp. web designers &developers &given different X setups most will have gamma correction just fine, depending on the display adapter &drivers support gamma correction. Okay just a quick friendly shoeing as I’m getting caught up on boagworld. Please don’t forget us Linux developers & designers.
But here’s why I was really distracted to post &its just a quick link. For any one looking for a nice way of tracking stats on their sites I’d highly recommend Piwik @ http://piwik.org/ , no it is not a wiki. Its actually a very nice open source analytics package. Any one familiar w/Google analytics specifically should feel at home. But even those who’ve never used it may find it easier than just using more powerful Apache HTTPD log monitor/analytics packages that I’d recommend for more power users, like developers, designers, &dbas.
I wish i could use Woopra on my rhythmcandy.com website, i am still on there waiting list :(