SiteInspire.net has given IDa a little shout out for our website design! It’s pretty cool to be honored with the likes of some heavy weights and favorites, most noteably Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, Nike’s Jumpman, Ork Posters, Chicago University and Dyson. We were filed under: Style, Minimal, Typographic, Corporate, Type, Agency/Consultancy, Design. Seems about right… thanks SiteInspire!
As we all know, squeezing content out of a client or in-house team can be a grueling experience, especially if the content needs to be created for an updated brand. It’s no one person’s fault, it’s just that the project team needs to be guided to the right content. Web content in particular is quite difficult to keep consistent, straighforward, and clear - enter content templates. I first read about content templates from ALA’s article and I have to say, they seem like a good workflow process. Wouldn’t it be nice to hand off a template stack to your writer / content experts and have them understand exactly what you need from the copy? No meandering, no filler - just clear goal-oriented copy that ultimately enhances your understanding of the project and thus helps end-users understand it too.
It’s something we here at IDa will certainly look into; why not have a roadmap for content as well as design? I’ll let you know how it turns out :)
IDa is a firm believer in web standards and the symantic development process, so after Jeffrey’s explanation of the whole matter I got really excited. Not because of the subject (though I could go on for days), but because someone of high regard in the industry can explain it in language developers often fail to realize, or even consideer.
Building a relationship between standardization and the business process needs to revolve around the client’s desire to succeed and the steps that developers and site architects must take to get the client to reach their goals. Believe me, preaching isn’t the best way to go. But showing real examples of successful design and work flow may help ease the client down a more forward-thinking path.
More than harping on “good code”, we need to realize web standards actually makes your site and development process smarter for the client and your team. Consider the following benefits to a web standards-centric approach:
Yes, there are design casualties when development begins. As hard as developers try, you just couldn’t match the visual styles of a design across every browser without grossly going over budget. Browser developers are working with standards experts to conform more closely to an ideal set of rules, but invariably a client may have that one off browser or preference that will cripple a design (chewing up websites is a forté of older Internet Explorer browsers…) So we make trade offs, as pointed out by Jeffrey: lower quality GIF images in place of PNG images for transparency issues, css hacks and browser targeting for box model problems, font replacement (Sifr, Flir, Cufon, etc) for type. It’s important that the product your making your clients deliver what they are trying to say to their audience - effectively communicating their ideas. One of the best concepts you could give your clients is degradability - that is to say, the client’s message will get through, even if the frills fall to the way side.
So, is it more affordable to correlate Google rankings and web standards, as pointed out by Jeffrey? In short, yes. Everyone wants to be popular and get noticed, right? And let’s be honest, the term “Google” is a monolithic buzzword. But the slight of hand you perform on your clients shouldn’t feel like magic. You should educate your client, at least cursorily, about what web standards mean to them outside of rankings so that they know that you’re working towards a common goal a solid foundation. As we all know, an educated client can turn your project into a wonderful experience, and having them realize you put their interests first will ultimately put you and your firm into the forefront of their business.