Simplify the Web

I don't have an employer who pays for my continuing education, I have to purposely set aside time to keep up to date on my industry. It takes hours each week to keep up on what's new, but that's part of what separates us from the rest of the pack.

One of the blogs I read is Smashing Magazine. The posts are (sometimes incredibly) long, but they're usually topical: one post might be nothing but different ways to design/code the same thing. That's very helpful for designers, who often look for inspiration in a sea of 'just like the other one' websites.

For those of you who make/edit/design/hack your own websites, here's a good article showcasing some of the recent advances in CSS: Powerful CSS Techniques.

I bookmark some of these articles in a folder called "Design Bits", and for others I simply paste the code I like into my default stylesheet. I'm particularly impressed with the code that allows for opacity for all browsers. I've been waiting for that one for a long time!

- Tony

Let's face it, the number of people out there in the world that can "design" a website are many. And there are just as many, if not more, that can develop for the web as well. So why is Design Agnostic Development so hard?

Design Agnostic Development is a term meant to say that developed code and output is done in a compliant manner and with minimal structure. This allows the developed piece of code to be inserted into any existing design with minimal effort. Why is that so important? Because ultimately things will change, people will change their view of your application and you will want to change how it looks and feels, but may not want to change the way it works. If you can do it with DAD then you would be able to change either the way it behaves or the way it looks WITHOUT affecting the other.

Design Agnostic Development is a method that is similar to "object oriented programming", only we're creating pieces of an app that don't have structure to them. We're designing an app that doesn't have a personality to it, just a simple output that can be customized and included accordingly.

If people would take more time to make sure their efforts are Design Agnostic, then they would actually spend LESS time developing and there wouldn't be as many issues between the designers and the developers on how thing interact. Make it DAD and you make it easy. Ultimately, that's what it's all about. Keep It Simple!

Lots of bloggers like to add video to their websites. Most of the time, those videos come from sites like YouTube, Google Video, and the rest.

Lots of blog readers like to read the blogs they've subscribed to in feed reader programs. Some popular feed readers include Bloglines, Google Reader, Newsgator, and the rest.

I recently noticed something interesting: Newsgator shows Google videos in their feeds. They do not show YouTube videos in their feeds.

What does that mean? Simple: those who like to read your blog in their feedreader might not experience it in the way you expect. I use Newsgator, and have recommended it for several years. I really like the fact that I can view somone's blogged video in Newsgator, rather than seeing a blank spot and having to click through to their website to see it.

Why should this matter to you? Because, as bloggers, you're trying to get and keep readers. If you make reading easy, your dropout rate will be low. I'm not sure which feed readers show or don't show which kinds of videos. If you use a feedreader other than Newsgator, we'd love to hear from you: which videos show up in your reader?

Conversation Marketing did a great post about some simple things to remember when building your online marketing and ultimately your business. 15 Online Marketing Tips are given in the article; they are very good to remember. Two of them really stuck out:

IT is not marketing. Don't make them run the web site. It's not fair to anyone.
A web site does not equal an internet marketing strategy.

They go hand in hand. IT is your tool for getting your information and ultimately our persona out on the net. Why would you leave that up to a department or group of people that don't necessarily understand where you are coming from? Don't leave it in their hands to build your content and run your site, they can keep it up and running and improve how your site behaves and interacts with people, but if you don't have say so in how you think it should look, behave and feel and say, then why have a site at all?

Just 'cause you have a site doesn't mean you have an online strategy. What is your site trying to do? Can you make it better somehow? What type of site do you have? Where are you trying to be found? If you aren't being found then why? Do you know how many people come to your site and read your content? Do you know if maybe you might need a better Call to Action on your site? Those are some of the questions that get the juices flowing on how to start an online marketing strategy...don't give up at "Yay! I have a site." It's just the beginning!