Professional Web Design

Why Web Monkeys Need to Swing.

December 10, 2006

Web monkeys are web designers who make their living designing websites. That may seem like a redundant statement, but there are many out there who are just casual web designers …

I wanted to point that out because this article targets the full time web designer (web monkey) and not the casual web-nerd.

SWINGING WEB MONKEYS

Swinging web monkeys are those few smart web designers who don’t rest on the laurels – they continue to learn.

.. If you want to stay competitive and pull ahead of the pack (of nerds,) you ought to spend time learning new technologies, techniques and even be brave enough to graduate to ‘code monkey’ status.

CODE MONKEYS

I defined what a code-monkey is in a previous post. But in a nutshell, code monkeys are nerds who are inclined to code and not design.

For these people, I strongly suggest that they learn to program – especially PHP. But even if you are a great web designer, I still suggest that you become a little ‘code-monkeyish’ and learn some PHP – it will make your web design better.

SWINGING: CODE MONKEY STYLE

It is even better to learn several programming languages because with each new language, you will gain a better overall understanding of programming – and that’s just the half of it!

When you learn a new programming language you will:

Gain a deeper understanding of languages in general.
Learn new methods of solving problems.

I was reminded of this just recently when I took a serious look at Ruby. As a played with this nifty language, I found that it expressed concepts (that I had trouble with in Java,) in such a way that it was finally made clear.

.. Because I bothered to learn a little Ruby, my understanding of Java got better!

Beyond the conceptual level, I also picked up some practical programming strategies that I could apply to both my Java and PHP programming.

CONCLUSION

So there you have it; it makes sense to learn new techniques and technologies, if you want to stay ahead of the game.

Thanks,

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com
www.killerphp.com

December 2, 2006

Recently on the killersites.com forum a question was put the the group:

“Do you use a template as a web designer, it does save time, and you can add your own design on a template etc……”

You can read the other members comments on this, but for me, I found that templates are an essential tool in the web design process.

–

Back in the late 90’s, when I ran a web design firm, we actually developed our own set of web templates that cut down our production and cost considerably. At the same time, the web sites themselves became better and better since the code in the templates got more and more refined.

So if you are a web designer and you want to save time and money, build your own mini-collection of web templates or start shopping at a web template shop.

Once again, I’ve included a podcast / mp3 for those who like to listen.

Thanks,

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com
www.killerphp.com

November 28, 2006

The Web standards zealots have been running rampant on the Web, spewing their tripe of how you must follow the Web standards no matter what is happening in the real world.

… Why pay attention how (the most popular) web browsers read and understand code? To hell with them, so says the Web standards zealots.

No, instead of pulling our heads out of the sand, we should follow the W3C wish list of how code should be rendered, and use a bunch of fragile hacks to make our pie-in-the-sky code work.

DON’T BE FOOLED

As you read this, you may be asking yourself why would anyone ignore reality? If it’s raining, it makes sense to use an umbrella – even if the weather man says it ain’t raining!

Well, I would have to agree with you. After I read the weather reports, I look outside…

Unfortunately, many in the web design community haven’t. They blindly follow the teachings of the web standard zealots, despite the facts their websites are hacked up, require more work than necessary, and add no real value or advantage to the web site.

WEB STANDARDS MYTH DEBUNKED

I will not go into the details here, I’ve covered that elsewhere. But consider these myths:

By following the Web standards you will save money on bandwidth: yes, bandwidth is expensive (sarcasm) and saving a few kilobytes is going to make a difference … ya right!
By following the Web standards your code will be forward compatible: except for your hacks where many have broke in IE 7 – I hate to say it, but I told you so!

Clean code (regardless if it is Web standards compliant or not) makes for easier to maintain pages. Most (99.999%) of us are building average websites where bandwidth limitations are not even being approached – hosting is dirt cheap and getting cheaper all the time!

In the days of high-speed Internet, video (Youtube) and mp3, to quibble about 5k savings on a web page is a classic example of the old expression ‘penny wise and pound foolish’.

XHTML FOOLISHNESS

Along with Web standards foolishness comes XHTML foolishness. First a little background:

Nerds, being what they are, love to get the ‘latest and the greatest’ – makes them feel special. So it is only natural that they gravitate to XHTML – the new and better HTML. Yes nerds, I know XHTML is XML.

The point is that XHTML is not ready for prime-time … if you know what I mean. It has two major flaws today:

IE6 and IE7 will not render XHTML properly, so all the supposed advantages are totally lost!
XHTML makes working with the DOM (and thus AJAX) a real pain. Since AJAX is the future of web application development it would seem silly to me to hinder DOM scripting in any way.

I mention XHTML because many Web standards zealots are enamored with XHTML, and so the pattern of continued denial of reality goes on. Tisk, tisk tisk.

WEB DESIGN NIRVANA

I hate it when people bellyache but don’t offer a solution, so here it is:

Use the latest HTML and just be sure to close your tags and that the code is properly formed. This makes the pages easier to maintain and makes DOM scripting work easier.
Don’t use hacks! Use IE conditional comments to deal with browser issues like IE6’s problems with CSS positioning etc.

The real world Web standards are found in the browsers being used, not what the W3C would like them to be.

Best,

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com
www.killerphp.com

October 23, 2006

One question that comes up every so often is whether you need a degree to get a web design job?

The short answer to this is: it depends!

THE TOP 3 FACTORS IN GETTING WEB DESIGN JOB

When I’m talking about a web design job, I am not talking about becoming a contractor or opening your own web design business. I am talking about going to work for some company.

Now that we’ve cleared that up, here are the top 3 factors:

Design ability: can you make the web page look nice.
Work experience: I’m talking about doing real commercial work; your own pet web projects don’t count.
A Degree: some sort of IT degree is best but any degree helps.

How important the degree is depends on how big the company is. The larger the company, the more bureaucracy you will have to deal with … that means company policy will factor into this, and that usually means degrees are important.

That said, highly skilled and experienced people can get around this … even in the biggest of companies.

What about coding skills?

Some of you may be asking, how about knowledge of web standards, CSS, HTML? Sadly, the only people who care about those skills are other web designers and to a lessor extent, web programmers.

But why is this so … how can good technical web knowledge be so unimportant? The reason is simple my young weblings:

… the people hiring web designers are looking for design ability and not coding ability. After all, the job title is ‘web DESIGNER’ and not ‘web coder’.

Beyond that, most of the people hiring don’t have a clue about code. They may know a little bit about HTML and CSS, but they would probably have kittens trying to create a hyperlink!

Code-Monkey’s Can’t Design (typically)

Some people enter the web design world only to find out that they can’t design worth a dime … but these same people are typically much better coders. Or as I like to call them: ‘code-monkeys’

You see, if you are a born ‘code-monkey’, chances are you will never be able to design a good looking page … or draw a straight line.

From my 14 years experience doing design and web design work, I’ve found that design ability is something you are born with … you either have it or you don’t, and no amount of training or schooling is going to help you if you don’t have the talent.

With that in mind, it is important that you figure out where your strengths lie and play to them.

… if you are a code-monkey (as I am,) then you need to look into the profession of ‘Web Developer’ and forget about being a ‘Web Designer’.

Web Developer vs. Web Designer

What’s the difference between a web designer and a web developer?

A web developer is someone who builds web applications – sometimes called ‘database driven websites‘.

Esssentially, a web developer is concerned about the functionality of a website and not neccesarily the look. When I’m talking about functionality, I am talking about things like, contact forms, shopping carts and anything else that takes a website from just being a series of pages, to being an engine that preforms some task.

These types of sites are built using languages like PHP, PERL, Ruby and many others.

… read the article on database driven websites for more details.

THE WEB DESIGNERS DESIGN TALENT CHART

I’ve slapped together this web design chart that illustrates how talent relates to your potential of landing a good job. I’ve also included information on when PHP should be considered.

The trick is to figure where you stand on this chart!

Thanks,

Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
www.killerphp.com

August 2, 2006

This book should probably be on any web designers/developers desk.

Web design has changed drastically since this book’s first edition came out … and thankfully Web Design In A Nutshell has been updated accordingly.

As with all of Oreilly’s ‘Nutshell’ books, Web Design In A Nutshell covers each topic in a concise and yet complete manner making it both a great learning title (for people with some web design skills,) and a great reference.

Some of the topics covered:

CSS – basics, page layout methods, hacks, tricks etc
HTML, XML and XHTML
Accessibility
Web graphics

… and so much more.

Besides the core coverage of the material itself, this book is also packed with great references to web sites and other good books on web design.

Get the book.

May 16, 2006

NOTE: SEO is the acronym for: â€™search engine optimizationâ€™. This is the process of making your web pages more search engine â€˜friendlyâ€™ by tweaking code and content.

Choosing a proper domain name can have a huge impact in terms of how it affects your positions in the search engines and your overall traffic.

THE 3 CRITICAL FACTORS

The domain name should contain key words.
The domain name should be as short as possible – easy to remember and easy to type in.
The domain name is slightly better off as a .com over say a .net, org etc …

1. KEY WORDS IN YOUR DOMAIN NAME

No one knows the exact algorithms that the search engines use to determine who ranks higher. But you can learn a lot when you have several websites that get a lot of traffic …

One thing I have discovered over the years, is that keywords in a domain name do have a serious impact as far as the search engines are concerned. That said, MSN seems to hold it as being more important than the other 2 major search engines: Google and Yahoo!

The point is that you should start your SEO (search engine optimization) work BEFORE you even register your domain name. Try to choose a domain that contains a good keyword.

2. SHORT DOMAIN NAMES ARE EASY TO REMEMBER

I think this one is obvious … if your domain name is:

www.fantabulousefluffyregistereddogs.com

… chances are people will have a hard time remembering it! Instead something like ‘www.fandogs.com’ would be much better.

3. WHY ARE .COM DOMAINS BETTER?

Less to do with search engines and everything to do with the fact that most people will type in ‘.com’ before .net or anything else.

For that reason alone, try to register a .com before anything else.

Stefan Mischook

April 5, 2006

When people think of Java, they think of some mighty indestructible language/environment that never goes down – well at least less than other platforms like PHP or .NET.

REALITY CHECK

After running my own servers for 6 years (IIS with Resin) with few troubles, I moved hosting to outside sources. I had to go through several hosting companies before I found one that could even run my simple POJO based applications!

Now after a year has passed, my experience with shared Java hosting can be summarized:

Tomcat seems to go down at least once every 7-14 days.
Contrast this to PHP – never goes down.

FINAL COMMENTS

The Java community tends to dismiss PHP as some scrappy scripting language that can’t be counted on … I must confess, I used to think that too.

Now after a year of using both Java based and PHP based applications, I have personally found PHP to be much more stable and reliable. I am actually nervous that my Java applications (and Tomcat) will fail regularly and am moving to migrate everything to PHP.

I have no axe to grind, just speaking the truth based on my experience.

Stefan Mischook (The Web Design Heretic)

KillerSites Blog