Hi Stefan,

I found your article while doing a search about sitemaps, so I figured I’d see what your take on it is.

I work at an agency that does small business websites, some as small as 5 or 6 pages, like an online brochure. I know sitemaps are useful, and help with SEO, but it’s part of our standard design to put text links to each page in the footer of each page. I think a sitemap page with 5 links on it is kind of silly, and a waste of space. Should we continue with the sitemaps or do the footer links suffice in those cases?

Thanks a ton!

I agree. Sitemaps are really useful when there is a lot of content in a web site – if you have a really simple site, it is probably overkill.

That said, if you anticipate that the site might grow (in terms of content), I would create the sitemap and use it as the 404 page. Once the content builds and you deem it necessary, you can link to the sitemap that will already be ready to go.

When considering any aspect of a web site, keep this rule in mind:

Design for people and not for search engines.

… After all, search engines in the end, are trying to find the best websites for people!

Hope that helps,

Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com

1. Using a site like Youtube.
2. Embedding the videos directly using a Flash video player.

I also get into the video formats you can use to embed video in a website:

1. Flash FLV
2. H.264
3. Quicktime video
4. Windows WMV

For details and pro’s and con’s, watch the video:

As you probably noticed, I am using Youtube to deliver this video as part of an ongoing experiment. If you can’t see the video, it is probably because your work place is blocking Youtube. Let me know and I will release another copy of the video on the killersites.com servers.

Thanks,

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com

With the economic crisis is in full swing, many have been laid-off or are about to be laid-off, and are now looking at new ways to make a living. Web design is a great choice.

Why is web design a good choice?

I imagine people could come up with many reasons (don’t be afraid to list them in the comments) but for me, it comes down to a few simple things:

• Web design as a profession is growing as quickly as the Web itself continues too grow. The future of business is on the Web, and Web technology continues to evolve as well. That means there will be an increasing need for web designers for the foreseeable future.
• Web design is an open market. No corrupt associations and fake certifications are required to jump in. All you need is dedication, a strong portfolio and a touch of talent. You got to love a true meritocracy!
• Web design does not require a huge investment to jump into the game. There is no need for expensive equipment or ultra expensive training. Your home computer and some free or inexpensive software … and you’re on your way!

So, how do you land that lucrative web design job?

Assuming skill wise, you have all your ducks in a row, you need to just follow these simple rules to landing a web design gig:

1. Have a good portfolio.
2. When meeting with people, be polite and listen.
3. Show up 10 minutes before any meeting or interview.
4. Dress well.
5. Try to figure out how you can make your prospective employer’s life easier.

-

If on the other hand you want to start a web design business, you should listen to my Business of Web Design podcast series.

Hope you find the above useful.

Listen to the podcast (MP3).

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com

I’ve been a advocate of website templates in commercial web design for years now, because it saves the designer a lot of time and in saves the clients a good chunk of cash.

… There are occasions where from-scratch custom design makes sense, but for most web design projects, templates are a great solution – especially with a little customization to make it look unique.

How to use Templates in the Web Design BUSINESS process?

I was recently asked by a web designer how I would show clients the templates that are out there? Do you send them to a template site (free or commercial) or do you do something else?

My suggestion is to meet with the client, figure out basically what kind of style their project needs, and then you as the web designer, go out there and take a bunch of screen captures of templates that you think could work. This way your client doesn’t have to sort through thousands of templates blindly – most clients don’t have much in the way of design skills …

Don’t show too many templates!

I would not show them more than say five templates. If you give them too many options, nothing will get done. You will find yourself in design-paralysis because the client will have a heck of a hard time making up their minds.

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com

This will be just a short post.

Someone recently wrote to me, frustrated about their web site, where the project seemed to never end … there was always something more to do. Basically, this person was wondering if they were up to being a web designer since they just couldn’t get it right the first time.

Web Design is an Iterative Process

The point of this quick little blog post is to remind you that web design is typically an iterative process. What I mean by that, is that a web site is oftentimes, built in stages where you ‘finish’ the design from a-z and then, you go back and polish the layout and the structure of the site in a second, third and sometimes even a forth pass.

… So don’t get too flustered if your site is not turning out exactly the way you want the first time you take a crack at it. Eventually, you will get it were you want it to be and then … it will be time to redesign again!

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com

I don’t want to argue the issue again, but in a nutshell: I always felt it unwise to ignore the practical realities of the browsers actually being used in favor of the Web Standards. I argued that the Web Standards, though noble in thought, were not reflective of the reality on the ground. As such, I advised web designers (years ago) to pay much more attention to browsers that people used, rather than to the Web Standards and the W3C validator.

Heresy!!

“… When people start surfing the Web with the W3C validator, I’ll start testing my sites with it. In the meantime, I will test with IE and Firefox since that’s what people use!”

The forward compatibility myth and the Web Standards

One of the big arguments put forth by the Web Standards zealots was that if you follow the Web Standards, your pages would be “forward compatible” … your web pages would more likely render properly in web browsers that have yet to be created.

Well, recent evidence is showing me that these academic shills were wrong once again.

The PS3 web browser prefers tables!

Being a hardcore nerd, I went out and bought the best blu-ray player on the market: the PS3. One of the reasons I got the PS3, is that it is equipped with a web browser. Yes, I like to surf the Web on my big tv.

Anyway, what I’ve discovered is that the PS3 browser screws up only on ‘forward compatible’ Web Standard compliant web sites. Whereas with old school table based layouts – never a problem.

It seems to me that the fine people at Sony (like so many others) realized that there are hundreds of millions of pages that are built with old school techniques and that they better support them. One thing academic nerds can never understand: pragmatic business decision making. Instead, they are defenders of the faith and thus, are very dogmatic in their decision making.

… Reminds when IE7 came out and it broke all these ‘forward compatible’ websites because they were using CSS hacks rather than safe and sure (non standard) IE Conditional comments. Man, many CSS books had to be corrected and reprinted!

Conclusion

I think this post is best summed up by what one my assistants (and formally Web Standards zealot) said when he started actually having to produce web pages in the real life:

“It’s hard to believe that these zealots are actually building web sites!? … When you’re trying to follow the strict standards in real day to day work … it simply isn’t always practical.”

Happy new year!

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com

Now that we are entering into a recession, potentially the worst economic crisis since the great depression (!!), web designers are probably wondering if their jobs are safe?

… This all comes down to whether or not companies will be spending money on web design? The answer:

- Short term: they will spend less.
- Medium term: they will spend more.

My reasoning is based on my 18 years experience as a business owner and on my observations of the current market.

The Short Term

People are nervous now. They hear all the negative news and so they pullback on spending and wait to see what will happen. The REALLY nervous people out there load up on gold, guns and dried fruit … while most of us just rent a movie at Blockbuster and cut back on trips to Vegas.

So what does this have to do with Web Design? Well, for the first several months of the recession, you will see a slowing down in the web design game. Companies are nervous too.

So what can a freelance web designer do?

Go cheap!

Instead of offering from-scratch $2000-$3000 web design jobs, offer more affordable $1000 packages.

You can easily provide this by using a blog as your base (Wordpress for example) and then leverage a pre-made theme that you would modify. With this type of package, you can offer clients the functionality found in a blog/CMS along with a great layout/theme for a fraction of the cost. You can do this because it will take you a lot less time to put out the web site to begin with.

Go for quantity and not quality!!

Now is the time to go for volume, rather than trying to be a snooty web designer. With many smaller clients calling on you to update their modest websites over time, you will find that this approach is not only profitable but also liberating: It is always better to have 20 small clients than 5 big clients!!

The Medium Term

I think that once the initial shock of the recession wears off, companies will start to look at inexpensive ways to get new clients and to cut cost. The Web is perfect for this and so the money will flow that way.

I think that for branding sites, web designers will need to be able to provide some Web Marketing skills so that the business will be able to more effectively leverage their web sites to help build business. Understanding how Google Adwords can be used with a well built website, is something worth looking into.

If instead, the company is using their website to cut cost (for example: to provide support for their clients) you will need to have a better handle on dynamic Web technology like PHP and AJAX.

Conclusion

The current recession does not spell disaster for the web design profession. What it does mean though, is that you will have to adapt to the current reality. And for those who do, this can be a very profitable time!

Remember what biologist say: ‘The most adaptable species are the most successful.’

Thanks,

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com

No, you’re not stupid … CSS for page layout is.

What?! CSS is flawed?

Indeed. CSS for page layout sucks hard because the logic behind CSS page layout is weak at best, and perhaps, even flawed. I can say this with experience in other languages like Java and even VB. Not that I am saying CSS is a programming language.

Anyway …

For web designers used to the craziness of CSS layouts, they would be flabbergasted at how easy creating layouts/views/screens are in VB or even Java when compared to CSS.

What’s the main problem with CSS?

The main problem with CSS (and HTML) is that it was not conceived as a user interface technology. Rather, it was considered and engineered as a document/page technology.

Think about it, we talk about web pages and not web user interfaces.

Despite the original intention of the Web being a bunch of documents, today the Web is largely a bunch of user interfaces. Yes, most web sites these days are much more like a user interface that we see in software than they are simple ‘pages’. So therein lies the core of the problem:

CSS was designed to style pages and not to build user interfaces.

-

So what has happened?

Well, because web designers realized the advantages of CSS for laying out pages, they figured out how to bend, stretch and sometimes break the very limited CSS technology to create modern web pages.

The problem is that you have a bunch of methods and practices that don’t really make much sense … logically speaking. That’s why when you are new to CSS, it is hard as heck to create many common layouts as compared to doing it in tables.

Think about it, a center aligned liquid layout with three columns is a snap to do with HTML tables. With CSS though, it took the community a long time to figure out how to get this to work.

… It shouldn’t take the efforts of a community to get common layouts to work. That is a sure sign of a broken technology.

Even the CSS nerds know it.

Like most human beings, nerds are loath to admit when they’ve screwed up. So it’s pretty telling when you see the invention of CSS tables. Yes, CSS tables are basically tables created with CSS rather than with HTML.

CSS nerds finally realized that for user interfaces, you need a grid structure sometimes … tables are essentially grids. Problem is that CSS tables are not YET widely supported in the major browsers.

So why not use HTML tables if they are so easy?

Because you would be missing out on the two big reasons for using CSS for page layout:

1. CSS based pages are much easier to update and maintain.
2. CSS based pages are much more likely to work any many devices like iPhones, PDA’s, your printer etc…

I want to comment on the touted advantages of CSS. First, most devices today have powerful browsers that can read just about any type of web page (CSS or not) … so you have to question the 2nd argument. You also hear other arguments about why you should use CSS:

• Your pages will be lighter in KB’s.
• Your pages will be forward compatible.

… Both these arguments have proven to be what I said they were years ago: total crap. So forget them.

So if HTML tables should not be used and CSS is crappy for page layout, what is a nerd to do? As always, I try to come to you with real solutions. Check it out …

The Big Two CSS strategies:

1. Use templates
2. Use IE conditional comments

Comments:

Since nerds have already gone through the trouble of figuring out the nuances of CSS, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel! Use a template and just build out from there.

If any issues should pop up where Internet Explorer is not working handling/displaying the CSS like FireFox, then just use IE Conditional Comments to solve the problem.

Thanks for reading,

Stefan Mischook (a.k.a.: The web design heretic)

www.killersites.com

With the new (and hot) Apple iPhone on the market, web designers might be considering what they should do to accommodate the fast growing audience of iPhones users.

In a nutshell: probably not too much.

The iPhone web browser, is Apples’ Safari and it reads any web pages – even table-based websites! Gasp! Web standards zealots around the world are eating crow now.

Anyway …

It will come down to what kind of site you are running; I think that most websites will not be the target of iPhone users while on the go. My guess, is that it will be limited to:

• Social networking sites.
• News sites.
• Mapping applications.

At the end of the day, surfing the web on hand held devices will always be limited by the small screens. Though the iPhone has a kick-ass browser and all, I think the nerd-euphoria will pass in time when people realize that surfing the Web on a tiny device ain’t much fun.

… Especially with those heavy data cost!

What about the new Blackberry Bold?

The new Bold from Rim has a lot of smartphone gadgetry that make nerds happy:

• Camera
• MP3 player
• Better Web browser

But I don’t think these extra capabilities will really be that important for most Blackberry users. … They just need to send emails easily and quickly.

So for most web designers, I don’t think you should be so concerned about the Bold, because the Bold is for business and not for surfing the Web.

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com

Side note: I have to tell you, as an old-school web nerd who likes code, it was really hard at first to let go and let others do the work. Fortunately, it’s getting easier with every project!

Anyway, I do have my assistants here at killersites.com, who by the way, are a tremendous help. Nonetheless, sometimes I get outside help for whatever reasons.

Crazy quotes from Java nerds

I decided recently that I wanted to contribute back to an open source project that I have used in the past … by throwing the people involved in that project, some work. I also agreed to release the additions/modifications back to the community.

Anyway …

The modifications I wanted were relatively simple – a couple of filters, some rearranging of the UI etc ..

So I get back the quote for this project. I want to mention that I could do it myself in say two days – and my Java skills are rusty! The point is, this was not a big project.

… And yet in the quote, we had a project manager budgeted in and crazy time devoted to testing. For example:

For a button that took the user to a screen/view that already existed … just a button: 8 hrs of testing!

??

Now we all know that Java guys love to over engineer, but this is crazy! When will Java nerds learn that you don’t need an aircraft carrier to move a rocking chair.

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com