Since 95%+ web users are viewing sites using PCs and MS IE, wouldn’t it make sense to design web graphics on the same type of computer with similar monitor color temperature, resolution, aspect ratio, browser and gamma? Designers I work with often do not like how their work looks on PCs when compared to Macs. Web sites meant for public consumption should be designed for PC display. The easiest way to make things look good on a PC is to design on a PC. If you love your Mac, you can create designs that view well on a PC, but there must be some compensation and adjustment.

Gamma

Pertaining to computers and the web, gamma is the tonal curve that a monitor displays: shadow detail, highlight detail, contrast and color temperature. Default gamma for a Mac is 1.8 while a PC’s default gamma is 2.2, much more contrast. You can change a Mac’s gamma to 2.2, but it just doesn’t seem the same. Shadow detail viewable on a Mac is often lost on a PC, same for highlights.

Brightness

PC monitors are generally brighter and flat panel monitors are even harsher. When creating graphics on a Mac the brightness needs to be adjusted.

Color

PCs are much colder, or bluer by default. Be cautious about skin tones, and earth tones such as olive, taupe, dark red, and ochre.

Scale

Since Mac went to the wonderful wide screen OS X monitors, some designers have had difficulty with scale. Sure it’s easy to say my layout is 750 pixels wide, but on that huge screen designers new to that environment can design elements larger than they expect them to look. Mac monitors have a default resolution that does not match the conventional 800x600 or 1024x768 sizes of most users’ screens. It is important to check size on a PC. Type and detail in graphics may be difficult to read, or not be in balance with HTML type sizes.

Type Anti-aliasing

Mac’s display web type anti-aliased, not bitmapped. Some new PCs also have this option as a default setting. Most users do not view sites this way. It is important to see how type looks bitmapped. It affects the clarity and size of the characters and general copy volume. If type is supposed to be bitmapped make sure it is checked on a PC to see if it has the desired appearance.

Fine Tuning Color

Color management on the web is a difficult battle. There are huge variations between monitors, settings, and color profiles on user’s computers. Even different browsers can render colors differently.

The best approach is simply to test on various computers. What may look good on your screen may not on others. Remember, acceptable is not perfect; there has to be some compromise. Create images that look the best for the widest number of users. Techniques that work with print color management are not standardized for the web.

I’ve owned and used both Macs and PCs. I love the Mac brand. The machines look great. The GUI is slick. Steve Jobs is cool. Their stock price is way up. Why do I still like PCs better? I have designer friends that will fight over dissing a Mac. I ask them, “Have you ever used a PC long enough to be comfortable with one?” “No”, they reply. Such loyalty. If it weren’t for font availability and compatibility, and this passionate loyalty, Macs would not exist today. Since the Intel PIII processor, PCs do graphics as just well. 

I'll admit Microsoft does make some really clunky GUIs for some of their software. Ever use PowerPoint, or for heaven's sake Visio?

Now everybody is excited that Macs can run Windows. Why is that such good news if the Mac OS is superior to Windows as Macs pundits tout? Could it be that deep down Macs lovers are tired of being the minority?

Can people finally have their cake and eat it too? Imagine a cool guy at Starbucks on his Mac laptop wearing his headphones. The stereotype is creative, iTunes loving, individualist. Further investigation reveals he is running Windows and listening to some right-wing podcast while doing his taxes. What is happening?

My prediction is the Macs OS will become another OS one can run on their Dell. Open Type fonts will take over. Steve Jobs has a coronary and people will be sitting around remembering the good old days when they lost four hours of beautiful design work because their Mac crashed again.

It’s tax time. I think I’ll buy a Mac laptop and a cappuccino, but only if I get one on sale.

A question I sometimes hear when first talking with prospective clients is, “Which technology platform and programming language is best for my site? Then, in the same breath they’ll say, “I heard Footron Version 3.0 is the best.”

We’ll examine some factors to consider when making this important decision, but first a few truths to think about.

• You can do almost anything you want to with ASP, ASP.NET, PHP, RUBY, PEARL, JSP, PYTHON, CGI, Cold Fusion, or any other popular web programming language.
• Microsoft Internet Information Services and Apache are both good web servers.
• Microsoft and SUN are good platforms.
• Most web languages have similarities since they have been derived from lower level languages like C, C++.
• Some are more prevalent than others.
• Some are more robust in features than others.
• Some lend themselves to rapid application development (RAD) better than others.
• Some are more robust in features than others.
• There is no best. It depends on the project.

Site Requirements

A site’s requirements are derived from its purpose, the resulting functionality and audience demands. If the site contains all static content that simply acts as an online brochure, the platform is not very important. HTML, which is what creates web pages, is platform independent. The web server does not need to do much work to display the site. If your site has any dynamic content, a content management system, or e-commerce, then more importance is placed on the platform and web server’s role.

Functionality for such features is provided by programming from scratch, purchasing pre-built applications, or leasing services. While making these choices is beyond the scope of the article, the platform to choose is tied directly to which of these alternatives are used. If you’re programming from scratch, there is flexibility to use any reasonable web platform. Leased services are also somewhat independent of the platform of the web server because of APIs and web services that allow for interoperability. If you buy a content management system or shopping cart the platform is largely determined by that application. Any other applications used on the site should be of the same platform. It can create a lot of problems to mix technologies. Don’t to it if you don’t have to.

The amount of traffic to the site also influences platform decisions. Sites with few visitors (5-2000/day) can usually handle the load with one web server and single tier architecture. Sites with a lot of traffic (2000-1,000,000+/day) may need several servers to distribute the load and processing. Some technologies scale better than others.

Where’s the site going to live?

A site resides on a web server. How it's developed is determined by the type of server, or the type of server is determined by how it's developed. Companies can host their own sites, lease dedicated servers, or lease space on shared servers. These options come in all platforms and are closely priced.

There are basically two factions of web platforms: Microsoft and everyone else. Apache is the most popular web server. It is most often found on non-Windows computers (Linux, Unix, Macintosh, Sun). Second, is Microsoft’s Internet Information Services, IIS, it follows Apache in market share across the web, but leads in business use because of Microsoft’s focus on business computing and development.

Who’s going to work on it?

Vendors are usually specialized and have a platform and programming language of choice. They sell what they know and can usually justify their preference. It is important to make sure there are other resources available to work on the site than just the vendor that built it. Choose a technology that has an abundance of development resources available in your area.

Common Choices

Microsoft Internet Information Services, IIS (Windows) Languages
Active Server Pages, ASP – Microsoft’s core web scripting platform can be developed using VB Script, a language derived from Visual Basic, or JScript, JavaScript. ASP has essentially been replaced by ASP.NET, but there are a lot of sites still on the web using this technology.

ASP.NET – Microsoft’s pride and joy. A true paradigm shift in how web sites are developed. The .NET framework provides a huge arsenal of objects (namespaces) with robust functionality and the speed of compiled assemblies versus interpreted script. ASP.NET can be programmed in C#, VB, and JavaScript.

PHP – This is the most popular and arguably the best open source scripting language on the web today. It's mostly used on non-MS web servers, but there is a version for IIS too. It is also made to go with MySQL database server the most popular open source database server. The language has nice syntax and structure with quite a few built in objects, but nothing compared to ASP.NET.

Pearl – Pearl was very popular in the open source world, but it has been surpassed by PHP.
 
Ruby - Ruby is the new kid on the block. It is gaining popularity because it’s easy to learn and Ruby On Rails, a RAD framework, created by 37 Signals. Purists love its simplicity.

Cold Fusion – Cold Fusion is part of Adobe’s suit of development products. It is a super easy to learn, RAD system that uses a tag structure, like HTML, to provide functionality. Before Macromedia (now Adobe) purchased it, Cold Fusion’s future was uncertain. They kept it alive and Adobe plans to make improvements and reestablish it as a major web development alternative.

Common Gateway Interface, CGI – This was the first technology to provide server functionality on the web. CGI apps are programmed in C, C++, Java and other primary development languages. This technology is still out there, but outdated.

Apache Web Server Languages
ASP – There is a version of ASP created for Apache, but why? It’s kind of like trespassing.
PHP – This is PHP’s true home.
Pearl – ditto.
Ruby – ditto.
Cold Fusion
CGI

Enterprise Systems

Large businesses today are using software systems that manage information and provide collaborative tools for a wide degree of business services that include web publishing. It gets really complicated on projects of this scale. IMB’s Web Sphere, Oracle’s JD Edwards, Sun’s J2EE, and Microsoft’s Family of Servers all have web publishing components. There are hundreds of smaller development firms that have their own systems built with several of the languages listed above.

Most Importantly

Whatever platform is used the application can be developed well using best practices, or end up being a mess.  When choosing a vendor and subsequent development technology look for a team that can deliver a well designed and executed application while keeping things simple.

Feast your eyes on these selected works.

http://awards.fitc.ca/pc/

Forms are always a pain. They are difficult to design and difficult to make user-friendly. Here are a few rarely used tags that can be incorporated into page XHTML mark-up that will improve the usability and accessibility of forms.

Label

<label for="firstName">First Name</label><br />
<input type="text" name="firstName" id="firstName" />

The label tag used in the code sample above relates the descriptive text to the form control. This is important for screen readers.

<input class="input" type="checkbox" title="Select Color" name="color" id="color1" value="red"><label for="color"> Purple</label>

When used with checkboxes it allows users to click on the text to check the checkbox, similar to desktop applications.

Fieldset & Legend

<fieldset>
<legend>Pick a Color</legend>
<input type="radio" id="color1" name="color" />
<label for="color1">Red</label>
<input type="radio" id="color2" name="color" />
<label for="color2">Blue</label>
<input type="radio" id="color3" name="color" />
<label for="color3">Green</label>
</fieldset>

The fieldset tag is used to group form fields. With a little CSS it works well for humans and machine readers alike. The legend tag provides a way to give the grouping a title.

Optgroup

<select name="Colors">
<optgroup label="Reds">
<option>Crimson</option>
<option>Brick</option>
</optgroup>
<optgroup label="Blues">
<option>Azure</option>
<option>Sky</option>
<option>Navy</option>
</optgroup>
</select>

The optgroup tag groups options in drop down lists. They can have CSS styles applied to them.

Other Techniques

Tab Index

input type=”text” name=”field1” id=”field1” tabindex=”2” />
Adding the tabindex attribute to a form control sets the tab order. Make sure your form element tab in the correct order for those who do not use a mouse.

Access Key

<label for="field1" accesskey="f"><span class="access">F</span>ield 1:</label> <input type="text" name="field1" id="field1" accesskey=”1” />

CSS    .access {text-decoration:underline;}

Adding the accesskey attribute to a form’s label control allows users to press a key to focus the form element – again useful for those who don’t use a mouse. To indicate what the accesskey is for a form, underline the corresponding character in the field’s label.

Nice article on common sense SEO and site content published on the Internet Search Engine database site.

http://www.isedb.com/db/articles/1401/1/SEO-versus-Marketing:-The-Fine-Art-of-Copywriting

Back in 2003 Microsoft was sued by Eolas Technologies for a patent infringement. The technology in question is how Internet Explorer handles the inclusion of objects (ActiveX controls) such as Flash, video and Java applets in web pages.

On April 11, 2006 Microsoft is scheduled to release an update that makes the browser compliant with the lawsuit’s requirements. All IE browsers shipped after that date will also have the update installed. This change will affect thousands of sites with embedded content. This content will no longer automatically display in web pages. Users will have to click a prompt to view the content. This will greatly affect the user experience.

The Fix

Sites will have to change how objects are included in the HTML mark-up to prevent this rude disruption. Click here for a Google search on the topic. Here are some resources with more information:

MSDN Instructions on How to Activate ActiveX Controls

MS Knowledge Base Article

Adobe Developer Center

What about other browsers?

They are also in violation of Eola’s copyright, but they haven’t been sued yet. Netscape, Firefox, Opera and Safari have not done anything. Time will tell what will happen to them.

Top 6 domains in terms of page-views in February 2006 according to Media Metrix were: 1) Yahoo, 2) MySpace, 3) MSN, 4) Ebay, 5) Google, and 6) Hotmail.

4 of the top 6 sites (MySpace, MSN, Ebay and Hotmail) run on IIS and Windows.

Linux and Apache may have market share, but enterprise, mission-critical sites rely on Microsoft

Source: Scott Guthrie

I ran across this excellent resource for building standards compliant web sites using ASP.NET 2.0. The information presented here is useful for any platform. It covers doctypes, mime types, broswer issues, accessiblity and some good tips for forms.

I read so much Microsoft bashing online it was refreshing to read how they have addressed a lot of problems with server control rendering in the new version of ASP.NET.

While watching Bela Fleck the other night, I was thinking about how precise and structured the music was yet organic and improvisational at the same time. This balance is the core of a good jam and exemplary of building a good web site. There are logical, learned aspects and emotional, intuitive ones. In web development project planning, database design, programming, and testing are usually the methodical parts while the graphic design, content creation and rich media are more exploratory. My favorite aspect of web development is the blending of technical and creative activities into one homogeneous entity. The better this happens, with careful balance, the better the results.

Both technical and creative people can learn from each other. Technical people thrive on structure, but when creativity is added amazing things can happen. The opposite is also true for creative folks. Applying structure to their process can allow them to concentrate on being creative while maintaining uniqueness to their approach. Technical folks can improve their problem solving skills by approaching tasks in new ways. Try having a developer learn a new programming language, or code something by hand not using the software they usually use. Creative folks may be able to improve hard skills such as using complex software and networks. Have a designer work with someone who is organized and efficient. Pair a creative with a technical person to share knowledge. Learning to be proficient within one's working environment allows them to concentrate on the core problem at hand. Being independent of one’s crutches fosters original thought. Different perspectives result in different solutions improving overall team performance.

http://www.metacafe.com/

DropSend helps you do 2 things:

• Send files of up to 1 GB
• Store files online

Handy-dandy!

On Wednesday, March 22, 2006 I posted comments on the closing of Arnold Worldwide in St. Louis and the state of the ad market here.

In today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper there is an article about the changing industry. I wanted to bring the article up because it supports some of my observations.

It also has some vague information on Kupper Parker Communications morphing into a new entity. Too bad Kupper isn't as good at producing good ad work as he is at corporate shananigans.

I failed to mention in my post that two large ad firms are recent new comers, J. Walter Thompson and VSA Partners, but I'm not sure how much creative is actually produced here.

I was involved with a project last year that brought to light a major decision that needs to be made early in a project’s initiation.

Do we build onto our existing application, or start from scratch?

As developers we always would like to start with a clean slate, but web projects are often part of ongoing operations and legacy systems greatly influence the how they are planned. There are times to extend systems in place and times to begin anew. Too many times companies throw good money after bad. Let’s look at some things to consider.

How Old Is It?

Spend resources to maintain systems first. If the platform, application, database, infrastructure or hardware is deprecated, or even a few versions old perhaps it’s time for an overhaul before thinking about adding onto it. Whether it’s lack of money, downtime, or human resources it's important to keep your core systems up to date. Technology changes fast. If too much time passes between upgrades it is more costly and difficult to bring things up to date.

How Compatible Is It?

The system should still have significant market share. One year Sun as the best solution and five years later Microsoft is the market leader. Software manufactures are making compatibility improvements with every version, but interoperability may still be difficult to achieve. It makes little sense to spend development dollars on utility software to connect outdated or obscure systems with new ones. This adds tremendous costs to project budgets and the problem still isn’t fixed. It’s impossible to predict the future, but try to choose a platform that will be around.

Does It Suit Your Needs For The Future?

Never build something for today, build it for tomorrow. By the time a project is finished it may already be outdated so it is important to build ahead, or at least plan ahead. Your web server may handle the load today, but what happens when your company doubles in size, or you want to add e-commerce?

What Are The Alternatives?

It may not be necessary to abandon the system entirely. Upgrading to the current version may be enough. Are there products offered that are clearly better for your needs, or are there more cost effective solutions? Should I build, buy or lease? Do due diligence. Explore options. Compare solutions. It takes work to make the best decisions. The less expensive route now may cost more in the long run. Get help doing the homework and making quantified analysis. It pays to put off a project to do it right rather than making this situation worse by employing any less than best practices.

Sometimes I over look the obvious. I'm always looking for good people to help me with web projects: developers, designers, Flash experts, writers... I find some by word-of-mouth, but most by using the web.  Franki Durbin, a designer friend, turned me onto to Creative Hot List the other day when I was looking for a Flash animator. It's a good resource for finding freelance talent and folks between gigs, and since it's run by Communication Arts, the design community is well aware of it.

I'm new to blogging and just found this. Cool.

Technorati

Currently tracking 31.9 million sites and 2.2 billion links, Technorati is the authority on what's going on in the world of weblogs. Technorati is a real-time search engine that keeps track of what is going on in the blogosphere — the world of weblogs.

http://www.shauninman.com/ -  Shaun Inman is the designer/developer responsible for Designologue, Mint and IFR. Originally from the Boston, Massachusetts area, he now resides in Baltimore, Maryland.

The IFR technique is very cool. Limited font selection on the web is always the bain of the designer and this is a slick way around it.

ASP.NET offers an easy way using GDI+, the .NET Framework wrapper assembly for Microsoft's GDI (Graphics Device Interface) technology, to generate dynamic jpgs to use for dynamic text if that's your platform of choice, but the Flash method is completely client-side and platform independent. It's probably a bit faster too.

Is TOKY That Good?

Yes, TOKY is that good. The best graphic and branding shop in STL.

"TOKY took home 19 out of 79 professional awards in the 11th annual AIGA Awards, more than any other firm." - from TOKY.com

What is important to me is they are good at web - way better at web than most shops. TOKY has risen from the ashes of Influence, which at one time was the leading web shop in town, and has eclipsed its success.

How?

1. Eric Thoelke, the leader, and great designer in his own right has built a team by thinking bigger than St. Louis. Most of his talented resources are from out of town.
2. They measure their work on a global scale.
3. Every project is executed as it if were a dream job. They make them dream jobs.
4. Style with substance that meets qualitative and quantitative measure.

Kudos to Kuhlmann-Leavitt, Inc. for also creating kick-ass design, but I don't think they do web as well as print. Too bad.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

It has always perplexed me to look at what is possible to bring to the marketplace compared to what is accepted. So much work sucks and so much more is so bland it has no meaning. Is it the fault of the creator or the buyer, perhaps both. On one hand the creator, because more often than not the person paying for it doesn't know better. On the other, companies should have more savvy buyers. It's a complex issue for which I have no answer other than don't do work you are not 100% proud of and put 100% effort into.

A Call to Arms

Let's use the caliber of work produced by these 2 firms as inspiration to help us do better work. Be proactive and take the expert approach to get good creative out of the conference room and into the public domain. Teach your clients what is good and what should be.

St. Louis is loosing ground in the world of creative communications. Agencies are closing. Talent is leaving. Clients are going out of town for work. No one can stop this cycle except the people doing the work. Do your part to do your best.

A conversation to have with clients during the planning phase of a project is whether, or not to have a content management system (CMS) for all, or part of their site versus having a maintenance agreement to make updates. It grossly affects the budget and it has an impact on the relationship with the client - pay upfront for the CMS, or pay over time for service. A good rule of thumb is, if content is not updated more than 4 times a year don’t get an administrative tool for it. The idea of the ongoing relationship with the maintenance agreement can be a good thing. It almost always grows into something better than just maintenance.

A scenario that happens all the time is a client thinks they need a content management system (CMS) so they can update the site themselves and save money. A few weeks pass and they call to have the vendor make updates using the CMS system because they don’t have the resources to do it, or need something fixed they messed up. In this case they pay twice: once for the CMS and once for the update labor. No money saved there.

Whether it’s a designer or client making the changes, a web site evolves. It’s one of the benefits of the medium. It’s important to plan how a site’s content is going to change. Decide what control method meets client needs, has the biggest impact on budgets and ensures the site remains effective.

The client relationship is the single most important part of any project. They are key stakeholders. Yet, it is often the most under managed part. A good client-vendor relationship is like a good person-to-person one, but many businesses do not treat it in this respect.

Would you like fries with that?

How many times have statements like these been said?

“The client is always right.”
“Just give them what they are asking for.”
“The client said to….”
“All they want is…”

Many companies preach to their sales staff “Excellent service is our business.”, but for some reason the term, “service”, is embodied into sales people becoming glorified order takers. This is bad. It’s bad for the client; they do not get the benefit of the vendor’s expertise. It’s bad for the sales person; they are unable to truly gain the client’s respect. It’s bad for the people actually creating the work; they get forced into producing substandard work and doing a lot of rework which is very frustrating. It’s bad for the management; they loose control of a project.

Jerry Maguire Rocks!

“Help me help you.” Truer words were never spoken when it comes to providing service and helping your clients succeed. Like a healthy person-to-person relationship where there’s communication and respect, and both are the better for it, the client-vendor relationship should be the same.

Sales people please take note. You will be far more successful by managing your clients rather than allowing them to manage you. The approach to take is to assume the role of the expert, establish the ground rules of the relationship early, manage expectations, and communicate openly and honestly throughout the entire project.

Being the Expert

By assuming the role of an expert the other aspects often just fall into place. If your client won’t play this way don’t do business with them, or charge a premium to put up with the added stress, but with the latter you have already really submitted and have lost a great deal of leverage.

Expert behavior wins business. The cutting-edge shops producing the best work have it. It’s not arrogance, but an approach that adds value by becoming a partner with the client.

Expert behaviors:

• Be a teacher. Teach your clients what, why, and how.
• Understand the clients’ perspective and make sure they know you understand it.
• Make sure they understand your perspective and why you have it.
• Have a process and stick to it. Explain the importance of process and how it will produce the desired results and save them money.
• Over communicate. Explain everything thoroughly. Make sure clients understand why it’s done that way and what the consequences are for not doing it that way.

Manage the client with the same effort as managing other aspects of a project. The relationship will be stronger. The work will be better. Your team will be happier. You and your company will make more money.

The St. Louis Web Developers Organization has an annual awards show. I am please to announce that a site I created won second place for Best Non-Profit Site. The site is the Walter C. Richards Collection, an online gallery of photography from the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. It is part of the Webster Groves Historical Society's site and also included in the Missouri State Libraries Digitized Collections database and ViruallyMissouri.org. Thanks for the recognition.

I looked at the other winners and I have to say the work this year was very average. This organization has lost traction in the community the last couple of years and the best work was not entered - what a shame. It's nice to have strong industry communities. Perhaps it will come around.

I had been involved with a similar group, the Not Just An Art Director's Club. It was difficult to get people to help run it and it fell by the wayside. Small organizations are hard to sustain. It's always a few core people that keep them going and they get burned out.