Show 72: Neverending Beta

Published on: March 27, 2007 by Paul Boag

On this week’s show: web stats meet usability testing, Apollo and why it is important, working with corporate colour palettes and how to sell your web design services.

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News and events

This week appears to be the week of never-ending betas however I have managed to squeeze in some pointless fun and an article about accessible content management systems:

Click2Map

There seems to be a growing number of tools out there that make the management of Google Maps easier. One that I have just discovered this week is Click2Map. You can easily and quickly add custom markers by entering an address (even if you are outside of the US). It is still in beta and needs a lot of work (for example you cannot integrate the maps directly into your site) but it is still great for a quick and easy way of linking to locations.

Popuri.us

Another “beta” service I spotted this week is Popuri.us. This site provides SEO reports on your site including rankings on Google, Yahoo, Alexa, Delicious and Technorati. Currently it seems to be suffering from some performance issues; nevertheless it gives a good indication of your online visibility. Of course if you are a Firefox user you may find the SEO add-on more convenient.

Finding an accessible CMS

One of the biggest complaints against content management systems is that they are often not very accessible. Gez Lemon has been kind enough to do an analysis of a whole bunch of them for us and provides a great article on the pros and cons of each from an accessibility point of view. If you are considering implementing a CMS and care about accessibility (which you should do) then check this out.

Arial vs Helvetica

So you think you know your typefaces? Maybe you are even a bit of a typography snob? But, can you tell the difference between Arial and Helvetica? Of course you can, at least that was what I thought until I actually tried.

Selling your web design services

So this week’s client corner is seriously lacking advice for clients (sorry about that). Instead Marcus takes a look at the subject of selling your web design services. Surprisingly for Marcus, he has written fairly comprehensive notes on what we covered so here you go…
You may build the best websites in the world but if you do not know how to sell your services then nobody will hire you. Web design, like nearly everything, is a competitive marketplace and simply being a good designer/developer is not enough. You also need a sales and marketing hat.
That said, it does seem that there is more work out there than agencies to do it.

Cold call?

Don’t buy databases of ‘quality’ contacts in a particular sector. I may be cynical but I reckon the vast majority of these ‘leads’ were tricked into supplying their details. You’re trying to sell solutions to your potential clients’ online problems not pallets of dog food. I my experience, cold calling is a waste of time and effort – the only way you’ll win work is if you’re lucky enough to call someone when they’re about to release a tender.
The only exception to this rule are local businesses where picking up the phone and saying ‘hi, we’re just over the road from you and we’re really good at what we do. If you ever need the services that we provide please do include us in any suppler selection process you intend to go through’. If they’re friendly why not meet up for a beer (see Love Your Clients)…

Focus on a specific market sector

If your only case study is a sewage works site then go after other sewage works sites first. This is common sense: you have a proven ability to produce a website with probably very similar features to the one the other sewage site wants. You have a real, live working example to show them and a client who will (hopefully) say nice things about you.

Tender sites

I get asked about these a lot. They are (I think) better than straight cold calling but not much. Golden rule – don’t do any speculative design work as some may be a scam. I think most of these are simply there because a lot of tenders are required to be competitive but the client already has a preferred agency. I have generated a ‘nose’ for when we are making up numbers so, if you get that feeling, be brave, walk away…
Of course, try to talk (and I mean talk not email) to the client. Be bold, ask questions about how many others are going for the project, what is the budget (we need to know to be able to provide the most appropriate solution), are the deadlines set in stone etc etc etc… If you’re getting negative feelings… guess what… walk away…
If you do decide to go for something off one of these sites, I recommend the following as a response:

boiler plate ‘Why Us’. You should already have this in another proposal. Up to 10 pages of skills, experience, examples of design work and above all USP.
No more than 2 sides of A4 of ‘your solution’ i.e. a summary.
Tasks by task breakdown of price (inc. payment terms with at least a third up front (‘on delivery’ if you’re really worried about the client!)

The trick here is to start at the bottom. Do the task breakdown first (it may put you way over budget if you know it – if so, walk away) which will lead to an obvious solution summary then tack the ‘aren’t we great’ on the front.
The idea is to put as little effort in as possible without making it look that way.
Much better idea to…

Market, market, market!

There are so many ways to market yourself. For example, you can drive round your local neighbourhood shouting through a loud hailer if you like! Headscape’s marketing effort is focussed virtually solely on Boagworld now. The point is, try to find something that you can do that you feel passionate about and will get people either ringing you directly or, just as good, recommending you to others.

Know when to walk away

It is the hardest thing in the world to do, but it is important that you know when to turn down work. There are times when the clients requirements are unrealistic or the job is simply too big. On other occasions, the chance of winning a job does not justify the investment involved in pitching for it. There is a natural tendency to want to run after every piece of work, but sometimes you just have to say no.
I got the impression listening at SXSW that the agencies I most admire (e.g. Happy Cog) simply wait around for projects that they are interested in and the clients should be damn grateful! Or maybe that was the impression that Mr Z wanted to convey.

Ask an expert: Aral on Apollo

Aral Balkan is one of my favourite speakers and this week in the “ask an expert” section he puts his enthusiasm and humour into an insightful introduction of Apollo. Apollo is a new development platform from Adobe that allows web designers to start developing desktop applications.

Working with corporate colours

This week’s agony uncle question is based on something I found in the boagworld forum. Pecko asked whether we should use Photoshop to convert corporate colours for the web or whether we should do it by hand. A lot of the people on the forum argued that you should allow Photoshop to take the strain but in the show I argue that we should do it by hand. My argument was based on something I had read before and yet I couldn’t for the life of me remember where I had read it. I eventually found it was from a brilliant article by Jason Santa Maria on 24 Ways. I hope he will forgive me for not crediting him on the show.

Review: ClickTale

I was recently asked to beta test ClickTale, a new statistics-tracking tool. Not only does it provide you with all of the basic web stats you would expect, it also allows you to watch recordings of how users interact with your site. You can see their cursor move around the screen, watch them scroll and even move between pages. The product is currently in closed beta but it is definitely worth keeping an eye on because it is extremely powerful and acts as a passable alternative when usability testing is just not an option.

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

Post by William Knelsen on March 27, 2007 8:26 PM

Thanks again guys for the valuable information.

I was just going to do a bit of research about Apollo, as I had no idea what it was. I am quite excited about the unlimited possibilities that Apollo will create.

I was also in the process of doing some research into options for a CMS for our company, and you have saved me much research time!

Marcus: if you had a Mac you could simply hop over to your Dashboard and grab a joke from a widget: ;)

http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/justforfun/daisytracker.html
Post by Sam England on March 27, 2007 9:18 PM

The Apollo information is great, and I remember mentioning the Arial/Helvetica thing on the forums :P

Keep up the good work.

Sam England
http://www.ivirtuaforums.com
Post by Dustin Noe on March 28, 2007 8:25 AM

I must be smarter than a monkey. I got 6/10 on the font test.
Post by Marcus on March 28, 2007 10:44 AM

I'd better get a mac then. It's the best reasoning I've heard so far ;-)
Post by Alex on March 28, 2007 5:34 PM

Great podcast - I loved the Adobe Apollo introduction!

One minor thing - turn off Skype sound notifications as people were obviously logging in and out while you were recording!

I'm still looking for a free recording software for Skype so I can record a multi-party podcast in the future!

Thanks
Alex
Post by Arik on March 28, 2007 11:34 PM

Thanks for the great review and for respecting the embargo. We are glad that you enjoy the service. Arik.
Post by Matt Newboult on March 29, 2007 12:07 PM

Apollo sounds like an odd idea to me. At a time when we're busy writing desktop-style apps for browsers, Adobe are working in the opposite direction.

It's useful to explore the potential of these sorts of things, but I have a feeling that Adobe are moving in the opposite direction.

One of the advantages I've read/heard is that this technology helps those with dial-up. People who use the web in a serious way are not likely to have dial-up.

I know little about Apollo, but I'm very sceptical about RAD tools like this. To me the best way to write desktop apps is to invest time in learning desktop technologies and the best way to write web apps is to write invest time in learning web technologies.
Post by Ryan Behrman on March 29, 2007 7:36 PM

Great episode as usual.

Thanks to Marcus for the freelance advice. Always useful.

Apollo is sounding more and more convincing. I spoke to an e-business company owner last night who is moving his entire development platform over to Apollo. He himself is from a very longstanding and strong development background.
Post by Devin on March 29, 2007 11:11 PM

I believe that Apollo won't lead to a bunch of widgets like you anticipate it to. Nobody wants or needs a ton of dashboard widgets and nobody needs a ton of these applications. Plus it would clog up the dock.
Post by Fido Gesiwuj on March 30, 2007 7:45 PM

Was it me, or did you introduce yourself as Tim Boag in this episode...?
Post by Pecko on March 31, 2007 11:13 AM

Good on you Paul for telling it like it is on the subject of colour matching. Your considered approach to this issue proves your value behind your decisions, especially around design and for anyone who takes you on for your services.

We see too many people who haven't had the training or just the drive around understanding the craftsmanship in design. More so in print/branding but it's clear there are a lot of interactive designers who are not anywhere near those levels.
Post by Eric Gauvin on March 31, 2007 8:17 PM

Paul is right. It's not a good idea to rely on the Pantone translations into web. However, any company that's serious about their brand guidlines will have a styleguide that includes hex equvalents for all the colors in their pallette, and in my experience there's no tweaking allowed. That way if the web red doesn't match the print red exactly at least all the reds on the web that were made by different people will be consistent. What you were describing sounded like a designer should use instinct or intuition or peronal taste in translating from print into web.
Post by Pecko on April 1, 2007 11:47 AM

This is it Eric, I'm coming from the place who builds the guidelines not designs with them, so I agree with you and Paul entirely.
Post by Eric Gauvin on April 2, 2007 12:58 AM

Pecko,
My comments were directed at Paul, not your last post necessarily. Sorry for the confusion...
Post by Pecko on April 2, 2007 8:51 AM

My mistake, all good
Post by Chris Prakoso on April 2, 2007 10:53 PM

Question for Marcus. Where can I get an example of this so-called 10 pages 'Boiler Plate' ? Could you point me to the right direction ? Thanks a lot !
Great Show as usual !
Post by D.Joseph Design on April 3, 2007 7:31 PM

The Arial vs. Helvetica test was fun. One of my strong suits has been recognizing fonts. In the test, I scored a perfect 10/10, though I must confess that I completely guessed on two of them.

I'm not a Flash developer or in any way a web programmer, but I am kind of like Sylar from Heroes in that I can figure out how things work. Apollo greatly interests me for making basic CD-ROM interfaces that will do simple things like launch a PDF, download a file, link to a website, or load another program.
Post by John Dana on April 8, 2007 11:24 AM

Question for Marcus:

In your segment on how to sell yourself, you mentioned creating written proposals including 10 pages of boilerplate about your company, including several case studies the company is particularly proud of. I’ve noticed that many web design companies tend to include these case studies (with screenshots) in their proposals. Our company however is normally bound by an NDA that prevents us from making public any details of our previous projects. I wondered how you (and seemingly everyone else) manage to get around this legal requirement.

Thanks,

John Dana
Colombo, Sri Lanka
Post by Peter Bennett on April 17, 2007 10:28 AM

Everything looks great, heard one of your podcasts on a friends Ipod on the train today, Pitty I dont own an Ipod, my works PC is having trouble downloading any mp3 files, do we have any alternative?

peter
Post by Peter Bennett on April 17, 2007 10:39 AM

ah i think ive sorted it, please take time to review my website, its on its way to be better than myspace! :)
Post by Ed on April 21, 2007 12:38 AM

I think I've found what Apollo can be used for:

A reflective CD on your desktop!

http://pghbloggers.org/node/97930

Incredible :)
Post by David on August 20, 2007 5:32 PM

BETA podcast seems to be having some technical issues. I can't wait to hear it! Keep up the great work.

David
Post by riz on September 23, 2007 5:40 PM

hey nice freelance stuff... i would like to share a very good freelancing article... link is

http://www.sitepoint.com/article/first-steps-freelancing-2

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