Show 88: Two fat ladies

Posted in Classic shows on July 31, 2007 by Paul Boag

On this week’s show: Paul shares some thoughts on recording your creative ideas, Marcus discusses setting up a web design company and we review the Principles of Beautiful web design by Jason Beaird.

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Housekeeping

Before we get into the news there are a couple of housekeeping items I want to share with you all…

Eric Meyer Competition

In last week’s show we ran a competition to win a free ticket to Eric Meyer’s upcoming London workshop. The response to the competition has been truly phenomenal with a surprising mix of answer to our question…

“In which episode of the boagworld podcast did I first mention the subject of web standards?”

The answer was actually the very first show although we did have many suggest it was show 2. Although Show 2 was dedicated to web standards they were actually mentioned in the very first episode. Very well done to all of those of you who spotted that little trick in the question.

Anyway the winner, selected at random from the correct answers is… John Thixton.

Congratulations John, we will be in contact shortly to get you signed up.

Thanks very much to the guys over at Carson Systems who were kind enough to supply us with the free ticket. Don’t forget that even if you didn’t win you can still sign up for the workshop on the Carson systems website.

100th Boagworld

Next up, you may remember that a few weeks back we talked about the fact that we wanted to have a little celebration to mark the 100th episode of the boagworld podcast. Well, thanks to the organizational skills of Ian Forrester we now have a date and a venue. We will be recording the 100th episode of boagworld live at Ye Old Cock Tavern, London on Saturday 20th October 2007.

As well as recording the show live we are going to put a big wad of cash behind the bar so there should be free drinks for a while. We really appreciate all of the support you guys have given us over the last couple of years and want to in some way say thank you.

If you can possibly turn up it would be great to see you. Book it in to your calendar and sign up on upcoming. Please take the time to sign up on upcoming because it gives us an idea of how many people are coming.

News and events

Web redesign is a bad strategy

My first news story of the week is yet another post by Gerry McGovern. This article definitely makes up for his previous post about the best sites being ugly sites! This time around he talks about a particular passion of mine. He argues that website redesigns are nearly always a bad idea and that it fails to address the underlying issues.

This is certainly a position I have held for a long time. I believe that sites should evolve instead of going through a succession of wholesale redesigns. McGovern argues that redesigns too often happen for the wrong reasons such as changes in management, boredom, or a feeling the site has fallen into disrepair. I couldn’t agree more and would encourage people to think twice before complete overhauling their website.

YSlow for Firebug

Those lovely folks over at the Yahoo! Developer Network have been kind enough to produce a great plugin to the firebug firefox extension. I have spoken on the show before about how firebug provides loads of useful functionality to web developers including the ability to edit, debug and monitor both CSS and Javascript on live sites. However YSlow adds to that already impressive line up of functionality.

YSlow analyzes web pages and tells you why they’re slow based on the rules for high performance web sites. It analyzes any web page and generates a grade for each rule and an overall grade. If a page can be improved, YSlow lists the specific changes to be made. It also calculates the total size of the web page for both empty cache and primed cache scenarios, as well as information about cookies. Finally, it lists all the components in the page allows you to view the HTTP response headers for any component.

Find redundant CSS selectors

Talking of useful development tools for firefox, you might want to check out the Dust-me selector which has been released by the sitepoint guys this week. The dust-me extension helps you find unused CSS selectors.

You know what it is like. Maybe you are working with somebody else’s CSS file or maybe you are working on an old website and can’t remember what you have done. Whatever the case you don’t know what half of the CSS selectors do and so dare not remove any just in case they are used somewhere. Enter Dust-me.

Dust-me will monitor the pages of a website you surf around making a list of any unused styles it finds in attached stylesheets. The list is constantly updated as you move from page to page. Once you have looked around the whole site you end up with a definitive list of styles which can be safely removed. Nice!

Although this is useful I am sure there must be something out there which scans all of the HTML pages and saves you the effort of navigating around the site. If you know of such a tool post it on the show notes.

Marcus’ bit: Setting up a web design company

We got this question from Ali:

Have you done any podcasts on how to start a business? More specifically a web design company such as the one you have. Just a request if you have not done a podcast, could you have a whole one dedicated to starting a web design business. I mean how to start one, start with business plan or just start one day building websites for various people and build your own portfolio?

We have previously discussed the aspects of running a web design company, recently covering who you should look to employ and a little bit further back a fairly long piece where Paul and I reminisced about setting up Headscape. However, we haven’t really looked at the initial set up properly.

Though we’re not going to dedicate the whole podcast to it, I thought I would cover some of the things you need to think about.

Business plan?

To be totally honest, unless you are looking for funding, then I think writing a business plan is a waste of effort. I do think it is a good idea to write down what you want from the business and how you think you want the business to be viewed – in essence, a mission statement (though it has to actually mean something!).

It is also worth asking yourself where you want the business to be in 2, 3, 5 and 10 years time. Keep reviewing and don’t be afraid to change as your views and your business changes.

Coming back to funding; unless you are looking to develop a product and therefore require R&D time (and therefore backing) you shouldn’t really need any funding. If you can run your business from home the set up costs are fairly minimal.

Forecasting

Running a web design company, from a business point of view, can be a fairly nervy existence. Put simply, there is only so much work you can take on at any one time and clients will rarely wait for you to be ready, so there is always a point in the not too distant future (1, 2 maybe 3 months) where the work ends.

Therefore, not only do you need to be out there pitching for work, you also need have a good idea of what you need to make each month to break even. This takes thought and usually the input of someone with some accountancy experience. Producing an annual financial forecast has been invaluable to us as we know exactly where we stand throughout the year.

Keep a close eye on productivity as this is the bane of the fixed price service business. It’s very easy to get excited about a big new contract but they are usually the ones that end up being priced badly, take much longer to complete than originally expected and therefore ending costing you; not only on the visible bottom line but also in lost sales because you couldn’t take on new work.

Keep searching for new clients

When a business starts it tends to rely on a handful of clients to survive. This is perfectly normal but it means that young businesses are placed at risk if they lose one good client. I have always said that sales get easier and easier as time moves on based simply on numbers. In other words: the more clients you sign up, the more referrals you will get.
So, in the early days, make a particular effort to gain new clients as well as relying on existing ones.

Ok, that covers some general good practice, but what about some of the more detailed stuff.

Decide on branding

Here’s a few fundamentals:

Company name
URL – Obviously relates hugely to the previous point!
Logo/ corporate ID – you will need letterheads, business cards, invoices etc
Build your website – much as this is the biggest pain possible, it is fundamental. In the beginning it’s that old rock and hard place scenario where you can’t win new web design work because you only have a holding page, but you can’t build the site because you are working on precious paid work. I wondered recently why I tend not to work so many evenings as I used to – now I remember!

Boring stuff

You will need to register your company. In the UK this costs money, not a great deal but you will need to do it.
Limited company, partnership, sole trader? Take advice from professionals on this and other items here.
Insurance – I covered this in a recent podcast so I won’t go into detail, but you do need to look at:
- Professional indemnity
- Public/product liability
- Employers liability
- Key man
Contracts – you need to sort out your standard contract documentation before you start and make sure that it is used for all jobs.

Pitching early on

Even though it can feel like you don’t stand a chance against more well-established agencies, you do hold a few aces:

You have fresh ideas
You’re keen
Even though your company doesn’t have a much of a portfolio, there is no reason at all why you can’t demonstrate work done at previous companies as long as you’re honest about it and explain, in detail, about your role
You’re cheap! However, don’t continually undercut your own margins or you won’t be in business for long. Be prepared to walk away… be prepared to walk away!

Initial prospects

This is when friends, family and old work colleagues come to the fore. Even though I have just pointed out some of the good points relating to early businesses, gaining some business ‘easily’ through your contacts is highly recommended.

The cost of sale is usually much less so, again, you are helping out that bottom line and giving yourself more time for production work and pitching.

Consider outsourcing

Finally, try to build up a group of trustworthy contacts that you can outsource to a) when it gets really busy and b) if there’s a part of a project that is outside your skillset.

Paul’s corner: Recording creativity

I like to think of myself as an ideas person. I guess that is another way of saying that I am crap at implementing the ideas I have. One problem I used to suffer from was recording the ideas I had in a form that I could refer back to later. Overtime I have developed a couple of techniques that help me manage my ideas better. Whether you are a designer, developer or website owner, we are all required to be creative in our jobs. We are all looking for ways to become more creative. With that in mind I thought I would share some of those techniques with you.

Review: The Principles of Beautiful Web Design

This week I have received probably the most sarcastic and rude question ever to be sent to me. However, at the heart of all that cheek there was actually a very good question…

Once you have got to grips with the basic of HTML and CSS where do you go next?

Its a good question and there are a lot of potential answers to it. However one of the more sarcastic comments that surrounded the question made me think that perhaps the next step is to ensure a good grasp of basic design principles such as layout, typography, imagery and colour.

This in turn made me think of the book I am reading at the moment, “The Principles of Beautiful Web Design” by Jason Beaird.

Jason’s book really is a basic introduction to good design practices for the web. It is ideal for developers, amateurs or indeed anybody looking to improve the look and feel of their website. It is made up of 5 chapters each dedicated to one aspect of good design; layout, colour, texture, typography and imagery. It really is very good and talks a lot of real sense. I could imagine this being very useful for web site owners who want to understand the design process better and be more informed when signing off designs submitted to them by an agency.

However, what surprised me the most was how useful i found it myself (as somebody who calls himself a designer). I was intending to have a quick flick through the book so I could get the gist of what was being covered. However, I found myself being drawn in by Jason’s friendly writing style and by finding myself continually going “oh I forgotten about that” or “I really should spend more time doing that”. In short it works as a useful reminder service to designers too.

Check it out. Its a worthwhile read if you want to go over the basics.

My journey with books

Posted in Reviews on June 24, 2007 by Paul Boag

For me that is the key. Whether I am reading a work book, a novel or a christian book, I always look for something that will inspire and spark my imagination..

Its funny how I have begun to see patterns emerge in the types of emails I receive. One of the most common is an interest in what I read. I am not sure whether people mean just in terms of web design or generally speaking, but I thought I would share my somewhat erratic relationship with the written word.

I used to hate reading. As a child I had serious reading difficulties and to this day I am a painfully slow reader. I occasionally listen to audiobooks but somehow that doesn’t compete with the pleasure of turning a page.

I have a very mixed feeling about printed books. On one hand I hate them because you cannot search them or copy and paste particularly inspiring segments, but on the other hand nothing beats sitting in bed late at night winding down with a decent book.

In answer to the constant trickle of emails about my reading habits, I read four types of books…

Web design related books
Work related inspiration
Novels
Christian Books

Web design related

I have posted before my recommendations on web design related books, but if I had to pick a single title I would go with Steve Krug’s “Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability”. User centric design should be the core of all websites whether they are developed in tables, css or even flash. Its a great book, written in plain english that really engages with the reader.

Work related inspiration

These books are not exactly web design related but have an effect on how I work day to day. Again, were I to make a single choice in this category it would be “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-free Productivity” by David Allen. I have spoken about this enough in the past, so I won’t bother repeating the impact this has had on the way I work.

Novels

I have to confess that most of the novels I read are trash. They are how I wind down. Most of them are scifi/fantasy related, such as “Wintersmith” by Terry Pratchett. However, other genres do occasionally creep in. One of my favourite authors is Douglas Coupland, a superb writer who has written some amazingly insightful observations about Generation X. His titles include “Microserfs”, “JPod” and my all time favourite “Life After God”. Coupland has always had a disturbing ability to describe my life, from the wall of coke cans in Microserfs to this amazingly powerful quote from Life After God…

My secret is that I need God – that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind , as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love.

which brings us nicely on to…

Christian books

If you read this blog regularly you will have gathered by now that I am a Christian. However, outside of the Bible, I never used to read Christian books. Nevertheless, recently that habit has changed following somebody giving me the very powerful and provocative book “What’s So Amazing About Grace?” by Philip Yancey. This book is a no holds bar commentary on the failure of the church especially within the US (although most of his points apply in the UK too). This book not only made me seriously reconsider how I express my faith but also has spurred me on to search out other Christian titles.

Currently I am reading “Mere Christianity” by C.S. Lewis. Until I read this book I don’t think I fully grasped what an astounding thinker Lewis really was. This book is without a doubt the best defense of the Christian faith I have yet encountered.

Ultimate favourite

Its strange though, because where I to pick a single book out of everything I have read as a personal favourite, it would be none of the above. Instead it would be Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”, not because it is the best written or most powerful book I have ever encountered but simply because it was the first book I ever read for pleasure.

Before Lord of the Rings I only read when forced at school. I hated books and found them nothing but boring. It was a school teacher friend of my parents that realized I needed a book to capture my imagination, something that would make me read for pleasure and not out of obligation. Even though I read at a snails pace and struggled to read more than a few pages at a time, she decided to give me a massive tome of a book, simply because she knew it would light my imagination. I will always be grateful to her for that realization on her part.

For me that is the key. Whether I am reading a work book, a novel or a christian book, I always look for something that will inspire and spark my imagination.

It is strange that I have gone from hating books to the point now where it is looking very likely I will end up writing one. Hopefully I will be able to spark the imagination of my readers in the same way that the authors above have done for me.

Show 81: Money Matters

Posted in Classic shows on May 29, 2007 by Paul Boag

This week on Boagworld: Paul gives advice to those who work with content management systems. Marcus finally talks about charge out rates and we talk to Dan Mall and Mark Huot about swfIR.

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News and events

37signals in Time Magazine

I notice that 37signals have made it to Time Magazine. This is exciting stuff because it shows the growing awareness in mainstream media of the explosion of web 2.0 businesses. However, the real reason I mention this article is because of what it tells us about how 37signals work. You get to learn about their focus on simplicity, the fact that innovation can happen outside of Silicon valley and their approach to a distributed company.

The one part of the article I personally found particularly interesting is how 37signals’ current suite of products was born out of a need they had to communicate across a distributed company. The idea of building a product that meet a personal need is a good one. It is particularly interesting to me as Headscape has started development of a product which does exactly that. I don’t want to say much more at the moment (as it might never happen), but this article contained a lot of valuable lessons for us.

AJAX tools

I seem to find myself doing more and more ajax and javascript these days. One of the more tricky areas is keeping the user informed about what is going on. I am encountering two specific problems:

How to draw the users attention to content that has changed
How to inform the user that content is still loading

The latter is fairly straightforward as you simply display a loading graphic. However, I am a lazy sod and can’t be bothered to hand craft a beautiful animated gif. Fortunately this week I came across AJAXload which generates those pretty web 2.0. loading graphics for you. Very nice.

Informing users of changing content is a bit more tricky. I have been aware of the fade to yellow technique for a while but that requires a white background, which my designs don’t ways have. What I didn’t know until I finished Jeremy Keith’s “Bulletproof Ajax” is that there is also a fade to anything technique. This is basically the same as the fade to yellow approach but the background colour doesn’t matter. Simply download the code and away you go :)

Waves of creativity

I stumbled across an article this week talking about the relationship between brain waves and creativity. This explained a lot about my own personal creativity! The gist of the article is that your brain needs to be relaxed in order to be at its most creative. This makes sense for me personally as inevitably I am at my most creative when I am lying in my bed at night.

The sad truth is that we spend most of our lives in a more agitated state and so creativity is hard to achieve. This dove tales nicely with my experience of implementing “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-free Productivity” (David Allen). Since reading that book I have felt much more relaxed and in control and hence I have been considerably more creative.

Eric Meyer explain why forms controls can’t be styled

A big thanks to Eric Meyer who has been kind enough to look into the incredibly confusing area of form controls and then explained it to the rest of us. Many web designers express a real frustration with the fact that you cannot consistently style form elements. Although personally I think it is generally unwise from a usability perspective to start mucking around with form elements, I have still always wondered why browser developers have chosen to give us so little control. In a recent post Eric goes into extensive detail about why form controls are “weird” but the upshot is that you are simply better off not styling them.

Agony uncle: Web Design rates

Another question from Bob in Iceland:

“Hi guys, I am becoming increasingly bewildered with what I should charge for web design work. I also do a fair amount of copywriting and content research. What should I charge? Should my rates change for different work? I am a one man band.”

Firstly, I should say that there is no real fixed figure for web design related work. It depends very much on a number of factors, such as:

Experience e.g. proven capability to deliver
Ability to deliver specialist services e.g. usability testing
Size
Diversity of staff
Location
Portfolio

However, to use a real example as a baseline, a survey carried out by eConsultancy a couple of years ago showed that English web design agencies employing 10 to 20 people with a turnover of approximately £1M, charged between £500 and £800 per day for most services. I expect this gone up a little since then.

Setting your rates is partly science, partly weighing up what the market will bear for what you offer.

You do need to work out to the best of your ability what your daily break even cost is but in, in theory, your annual figures should be able to tell you that. The biggest drain on any web agency, unless you have marble and gold clad offices in central London, will be your staff. Good creative/technical people don’t come cheap.

Be realistic from a number of different angles:

Don’t try and charge a grand a day if you’re straight out of uni with no experience under your belt
Don’t expect to have 100% effort allocation – 70% is excellent
Price projects as honestly as you can but remember that clients are human beings and really don’t like paying for project manager anywhere near as much as they do technical development

So should you charge different rates for different services. Again… it depends. Some jobs require a lower level of skill as part of the project. For example, recruitment (though an absolute pain) for any type of testing requires basic organisational skills and not,say, years of experience in project management. If you can outsource that work at a lower rate, then charge a lower rate, but if your PM ends up doing it then you have to charge at your PM rate.

For years we charged a flat rate across the board because it was simpler to manage and we felt clients liked it. Over the past couple of years we have done a lot more consultative work that has placed pressure on the timetables of the directors. This has led us to having the following rate categories:

Creative director – Paul
Consultancy – IA, business analysis, testing etc
Standard – design, technical, pm

We charge a fixed uplift (per client dependent on geographic location) for on site work – kick off meetings, testing etc.

Client corner: Advice for CMS users

I have been putting together a document for work that provides some basic advice for people who work with content management systems. It covers things like accessibility and writing for the web so I thought there might be some value in sharing it on the show. For complete notes on everything I cover check out the CMS user blog post.

Ask the expert: Dan Mall and Mark Huot on SWF image replacement

I was fortunate enough to get some time to chat with Dan Mall and Mark Huot the creators of SWF image replacement. We talked about:

What exactly swfIR is and how it works
What kind of scenarios they imagine it being used in
What inspired them to create swfIR in the first place
A little bit about the process of applying it to a site
What the future holds for swfIR
What it is like working at Happy Cog

No show next week

Just a quick note to say there will be no show next week as I am off on holiday to sunny cornwall. However, please continue to send in your suggestions for the show and don’t forget you can always check out the forums if you want your boagworld fix :)

Show 79: Despise the listener

Posted in Classic shows on May 15, 2007 by Paul Boag

A great line up this week with Paul, Marcus and Andy Clarke.

Podcast: Download (21.4MB)

We have a great lineup this week: Paul talks about getting things done in web design and an alternative approach to your reading list. Marcus explains the exciting area of insurance for web designers and we have Andy Clarke on the show to give us an update on CSS 3.

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News and events

Google Analytics gets interface upgrade

Like so many who join Google, Jeff Veen has been forced to be somewhat tight lipped about what he has been working on. However in the last week we have finally been able to see the fruits of his labors with the relaunch of a new and improved Google Analytics. You would be forgiven for thinking that a load of new functionality has been added to the service. In fact that is not the case. The only changes have been to the user interface. The difference is that you can now find everything quickly and easily.

If like me you found the old Analytics service confusing and difficult to use then you might want to take a look at the new revised version. It is a definite improvement.

Great new articles on A List Apart

For a while I have been a little disappointed with the articles coming out of A List Apart. Perhaps they were simply too “high brow” for the likes of me but they lacked any practical application. However this issue is different. It has two great articles about handling clients.

The first entitled “Stand and Deliver” provides some superb advice on presenting your designs to a client. The second called “Educate Your Stakeholders!” talks (unsurprisingly) about educating the decision makers in a web project so they make more informed choices.

Both are really superb articles and I would definitely recommend you check them out.

Teaching the traditional web

We are all acutely aware that the web is changing at a rapid rate. At the moment the focus is very much on web applications however we cannot afford to ignore the massive number of page based sites that still need to adapt to the changing way people are interacting online. In a post called Teaching the traditional web, Keith Robinson discusses how we need to alter our approach to page based websites based on deep linking, RSS feeds and mobile access. A very enlightening read.

Baselines and vertical rhythm

Having Richard Rutter on the show a few weeks back made me acutely aware of my shortcomings when it came to web typography. Although I promised myself I would look into the subject in more depth I was a bit vague as to where I should start. Fortunately Richard has given me a starting point with a list of resources on his site that look at the subject of baselines.

I know that many people find web typography an uninspiring subject but good typography can have such a profound impact on how people perceive design that it really is worth your attention.

Client corner: Getting things done in web design

I have just finished reading “Getting Things Done” by David Allen. Not only has it seriously helped me to get control of my workload but its also made me rethink how I approach web design projects with clients. In this week’s client corner I suggest some techniques that designers and clients should use when a new project is starting.

As seems to be the default approach these days I blogged on this earlier in the week so if you want more information on what I said in the show then be sure to check out that post.

Ask the expert: Andy Clarke on CSS 3

Following Andy Budd’s recent criticism of the W3C CSS Working group it seemed appropriate to have Andy Clarke on the show to talk about the progress of CSS 3. Andy is an invited expert on the CSS working group so has the inside track on what is really happening. In the show Andy talks about…

Some of the cool layout features available in CSS 3.
The modular nature of CSS3.
The slow progress made by the group.
And the need for the web design community to contribute in the process.

Agony uncle: Insurance for web designers

We received the following question from Brian last week:

As an avid listener to your podcast – and having spent the day catching up on them while travelling! – I was very interested in a particular segment where your good self and that Lillington chap mentioned your Terms and Conditions and having, ‘…all the right insurances in place…’, with regard to setting up a business.

I’ve recently done some work with a mate – a few hopefully not-too-shabby websites – and although we think we are getting the hang of sorting out contracts now, we have never been able to settle on what to put in our Terms and Conditions. Every time I start to do it I either glaze over or start putting stupid things in due basically to boredom!

As for insurance we never assumed that we would need any for web design. Its not like we’re making nitroglycerine or heart bypass machines… so we assumed the basic rules of common sense prevailed.

To this end, if you have any advice on what insurances might apply or what sort of thing should be covering in T&C’s?

Firstly I’ll cover the terms and conditions issue, much as I don’t want to appear protective over our ts & cs, we have reached the conclusion that by providing them we are in effect providing legal advice.

This is not what we do and it’s not a path we wish to tread!

We suggest speaking to your lawyer or maybe a local chamber of commerce who could provide a standard terms and conditions contract template. I also droned on about the different aspects of terms and conditions in episode 65.

Insurance, however, is another matter. Though, again, I am concerned about making stuff up here (as is often the case!) so the majority of the following content is from Business Link. This is what we currently pay good money for:

Professional Indemnity

If you are in the business of selling your knowledge or skills, you may want to consider taking out professional indemnity insurance.

This protects your business against compensation sought by a client if you have made mistakes or are found to have been negligent in some or all of the services that you provide for them. Professional indemnity insurance will also cover any legal costs.

Public Liability

If members of the public or customers come to your premises or you go to theirs, you should think about taking out public liability insurance. This type of insurance covers any awards of damages given to a member of the public because of an injury or damage to their property caused by you or your business.

Product Liability

In product liability insurance (PLI) terms, a product is any physical item that is sold or given away.

Products must be “fit for purpose”. Under the Consumer Protection Act 1987, you’re legally responsible for any damage or injury that a product you supply may cause. PLI covers you against compensation awarded as a result of damage to property or personal injury caused by your product.

Employers Liability

Employers’ liability compulsory insurance (ELCI) enables businesses to meet the costs of compensation and legal fees for employees who are injured or made ill at work through the fault of the employer.

Key Man Insurance

Key man insurance is designed to cover you for the financial costs of losing key personnel. We still have this for Paul….goodness knows why! ;-)

Review: Looking beyond web design books

This weeks review section isn’t so much a review as a recommendation. At SXSW you are really spoilt for choice as to what to attend. In fact there is so much choice it is overwhelming. After much consideration I decided to take an interesting approach. I decided to mainly attend panels on subjects I knew nothing, or little about. Instead of going to panels on CSS or design I went to sessions on marketing and strategy. The result was an incredibly enjoyable and enlightening week.

On my return to the UK I decided to take a similar approach in my reading. Prior to this the majority of books I read where either on CSS or Javascript. However I am now trying to broaden out the range of books I read to encompass other subjects like productivity, business process, and even some sociology. As with SXSW it has been an incredibly rewarding experience and something I would encourage others to do. I have been amazed at just how much of what I have read has related in someway to my job and I believe it has genuinely improved the quality of my work.

I would really encourage others to try the same thing and would like to suggest three books to break you in gradually. Although none of these books are directly to do with web design they all include valuable lessons that you can apply to your work on a daily basis…

Investing in your staff

Posted in Web strategy on February 23, 2006 by Paul Boag

Commercial web design is barely a decade old. The entire industry is evolving at a tremendous pace with both technology and methodology changing daily.

Unsurprisingly my last post generated a huge amount of feedback. By far the majority focused on the learning curve involved in adopting web standards. Many complained they simply didn’t have the time to “get up to speed”. The following is directed at those who employ web developers/designers…

The cost of training

As an employer myself, I know that the word “training” can make your wallet scream in pain. If you are a small business, the thought of staff taking time out to get trained up can be scary. There is the cost of the training itself, the travelling expenses, the cost associated with adopting what has been learnt and the time away from paid projects. All in all, it is easier and safer to go with “on the job training” which equates to no training at all!

You may also find the constant demands from web designers for training (or simply time to learn) rather unreasonable. After all, nobody else seems to require so much time to sit around doing nothing! In short, training can often be hard to justify.

A unique position

Although I can feel your pain, it is important to release what a unique position most web designers and developers are in. While many other professions have existed for hundreds of years, commercial web design is barely a decade old. The entire industry is evolving at a tremendous pace with both technology and methodology changing daily. I once heard it estimated that the average web designer has to relearn his skill-set every 18 months. Although I believe this is somewhat of an exaggeration it isn’t far off. With things moving so fast, having time to keep up with the latest developments is essential to your web site’s success.

For in-house designers too

You might think this is all well and good for a professional web design agency. After all, they need to be on the cutting edge of their industry. However, your company might just employee a couple of in-house designers to keep your own website in order. Surely, there is not as big a need for training in that situation? Unfortunately, this is simply not the case. There are no guarantees that your competition are not using an external web design house and so your internally produced website still has to compete with “cutting edge” design agencies. In addition, as I have said before, it is important that your site evolve with the rest marketplace otherwise, it will quickly appear out of date. Unfortunately, the web is very like the fashion industry. A nineties style website looks much like eighties style fashion… horribly dated! Users are constantly demanding more and more from websites and if your staff aren’t up to date with the latest developments they are going to struggle to deliver.

The good news

However, it’s not all doom, gloom, and expenses! Although there are a growing number of training courses available on various aspects of emerging web technology, they are not the only way to get your developers up to speed. The most cost effective thing you can do is allocate them time each week for “self learning”. The web is crammed with valuable resources to help people learn about things like Unobtrusive JavaScript and web standards. All you need to do is set aside some time for them away from their normal workload. Admittedly, this has some productivity implications but these will be quickly outweighed by the productivity gains provided by these emerging methodologies.

All your developers need is a few hours each week to work on their own projects. Google has adopted this approach with incredible results. No travel expenses, no training courses, just a few hours a week. You can’t say fairer than that!

Web standards at all costs?

Posted in Web strategy on October 13, 2005 by Paul Boag

So should you always build sites using web standards? Should tables really only be used for tabular data? Is it CSS at all costs?

I received an email today from a web designer called Keir with a question for the podcast. It is a question I have heard many times before, but because of work I am currently doing for Headscape, I have had to think twice about the answer.

Here is what Keir wrote:

Why would I want to design using CSS considering the amount of work that has to go into building a CSS site that is compatible with all major browsers, using hacks and work arounds when I could build one straight forward design through tables in a fraction of the time that would look practically identical in all browsers (aside from the ease of updating design?)

Actually taking time to think about the answer

Under normal circumstances, I would have just referred Keir to the article I wrote on the benefits of web standards, but today was different. Today I was building a disposable wireframe for usability testing, which for the sake of speed was being produced using tables for layout. Today, I have also been thinking about Headscape’s business strategy and the impact of web standards on some aspects of our productivity.

Not all approaches suit everybody

Sure, web standards have a huge list of benefits but is it always the right solution for every web design agency? Possibly not. Let’s live in the real world here, building table based sites is quicker for small, flat sites that rarely (if ever) change. Okay, you might have headaches later on but for some web design companies that is not an issue. Take for example a small web design company that is building cheap, flat sites for estate agents. Estate agents are not willing to pay more than a few hundred pounds for their site and care little about accessibility, or future proofing. All they care is whether it looks okay in Internet Explorer. Now, the web design company has a choice. They can do one of the following:

Explain to the client the benefits of web standards and why they should pay more for their site to be built properly
Take the risk of running at a loss and build the site with web standards anyway while still keeping the price low.
Churn the site out, tables and all, using a WYSIWYG like Dreamweaver

Commercial reality matters

I am sure some of the web standards evangelist would argue that the web design company should take the first option. I would suggest that in the real world of commercial design this would be a mistake. Not only would they probably loose the work but also even if they did win it I am not convinced that the estate agent would really feel the benefit. After all, will it help to sell more houses? Possibly, but I doubt it would generate a big enough return on investment to justify the extra expenditure.

So what am I saying?

I am not suggesting that if you are a small web design agency (or freelancer) who works on small websites, you should not bother with web standards. What I am saying is that you have to be pragmatic and that you can introduce some elements of web standards while leaving others aside. For example, probably the majority of delays with web standards come from positioning. Having to use floats and absolute/relative positioning can sometimes prove a lot trickier than simply adding the odd table.

Mix and match

Maybe for some it is simply easier to use tables for the basic layout and then use web standards for things like fonts, colours and design details. This does not have to be an either or decision. The transition from odd school design to web standards can be a gradual process and you can judge how far down the web standards root you go on a per project basis. Like all aspects of web design, the use of web standards has to be a compromise and it should be used as and when appropriate. However, remember, you cannot choose when you use web standards if you have never taken the time to learn it. Web standards should be another tool in your tool belt that you choose to use when appropriate.

For more on getting the balance right between business drivers and technical considerations read "the missing pillar of web design"