To kick off the new year in Web Design, I thought it would be best to go through a couple of my tell-tale signs that can help you gauge if and when your website’s design sucks. Obviously, “Website design” in this concept does not only include the graphical elements of the page, but of course the Information architecture, usability, accessibility, etc. So without further ado– Let’s get going with round one of “Your website design sucks because…” with Your website design sucks because users can’t find crap!

1. What the heck are you thinking?!

Whether or not you are running a corporate information site or a 15,000 page e-Commerce store- your content should be easy to find! The biggest problem is people think that you ALWAYS need a search box. Search on a website comes in many flavours, and sure; a search box would be awesome- as long as the results are easy to understand and filter to the right place. Having said that, not all great websites have search boxes or website search for that matter – but most if not all of them [great websites, that is] make the user experience worthwhile by making their content easy to find. Here are a few tips:

• If you are running a blog, make sure there is at least a way for the user to find an archive of all your content. After all, one of the main calling-cards, if you like – of a blog, is the fact that it is a chronological listing of posts or entries. Other important elements that help users searching for content is Tags and Categories. Try to make sure your posts only belong to one parent category. I.e. Not “Sydney Web Design” AND “Web Design” — after all, 99% of the time, one of the two (or more) categories makes the most sense. Tags help users by allowing to search for other posts which they might find interesting based on a common interest; i.e. Usability.
• If you are running a website; other than a web log , make sure that there is a common, geographical structure to your pages. I.e. there should always be the same header and footer on all pages – including any side-navigation or side elements. Doing this makes sure that users learn where things are and helps elevate any problems in looking for things all over your website.

2. Some conventional wisdom

Most webmasters and/or designers usually get search from a UI point of view under control. I mean come on! It’s basically three elements– A label “search for:”, a text box, usually pre-filled with “type query here” or something of the sort, and finally a “go/search/find” submit button… Easy, right? Wrong! Whilst the front-end features of site search are seen as simple, most websites/intranets (even the big players) crash and burn on the search results page.

3. A case study in Search Usability: Australia Post

Ahh, good old Australia Post! I love the fact that they deliver to anywhere in the world and the prices are not too bad — and I haven’t had anything major get lost whilst sending out *so far*. However, one thing that drives me insane about Australia Post is their website; http://www.austpost.com.au — not only is this website in need of a “major” overhaul. Let’s start with the essentials of this particular topic; Search.

The search on AustPost is located at: http://search.auspost.com.au. Nothing wrong with that so far- In fact, it’s smart to have search on either a sub-domain or a sub-folder at search.domain.com or domain.com/search. Moving right along. Oh wait! That domain does not work (Under Construction!!) unless you append the following to it: “/cse/auspost/” making the FULL-URI http://search.auspost.com.au/cse/auspost/ – Tsk, tsk AP!

If you type “test” in the search box and click the search button of the main page you get diverted to a search results page; which is okay so far– However, the diverted results page is a TOTALLY DIFFERENT website (in terms of overall look and feel). Check it out for yourself.

Australia Post Search Box - Main Page

All good so far… Let’s see what happens when we get diverted to the ‘actual’ search page.

Australia Post Search Results Page - Search.austpost.com.au

Oops! Something went completely wrong. Did I, as the user kill the site? Or is it meant to be a completely different site followed by a completely different user experience? [Both valid questions you don't need a visitor to your website, especially your search page asking!].

As Homer Simpson would say in a time of crisis; Doh! Different Logo, Different colour scheme, Different tab system, Different IA… Well, at least the logo is generally in the same place as before. Granted, I don’t know the reasoning behind this– Maybe they are in the process of moving sites across to a newer(?) design – but nonetheless, I think being a government corporation, this is pretty bad usability!
Anyway, let’s move right along… As if that first problem wasn’t bad enough, let’s see the search results form. Below is a screenshot of the “general” search form. By general search form I’m referring to the non-advanced variety!

Search Results Box

Wow, okay — where to start, where to start. Let’s rattle off some of the issues with this search box/form.

1. Why have a “Show search options >>” as well as “‘Advanced Search”. That is not only confusing, but a waste of visual space/real estate. Why not make general search easy to use with no extra-ordinary features, and leave advanced search for those people that need to dig deeper into the data mine. Ahhh, I slowly started to realise why, and you will see why soon!
2. See the “Select All” and “Clear All” check boxes? They only select/deselect one option — and that is the “Australia Post Website” check box. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING AUSTPOST DESIGNERS/DEVELOPERS!!! Give me three good reasons why this is necessary on this page (in its current format) and I will stop using Facebook for a month… Okay, a week! Not only is this stupid from a usability/IA point of view, but it’s NOT needed here. Why?, you ask?
   1. When you actually decide to click on “Search” you really DON’T end up having a choice in the matter, because the “Australia Post Website” check box is auto-ticked when the page has reloaded with the search results! Oh Oh!
   2. It’s a waste of a control to begin with! The same thing could be easily achieved with one button which toggles through the selections. I.e. starts off as “Select all options” then changes to “De-select all options” upon click… However…
   3. There is NO need for the control at all since there is NO other option/area to search from. I.e. If there was “Australia Post Website” and “Australia Post PO Box Search”, etc., then it would make sense — however, there is no other option!
3. The “Exact Phrase” check box control is USELESS in all formats of the word! In theory, the “Exact phrase” should let you search for the term “test” instead of the term test. What this ultimately means is that in reality, “Exact Phrase” should only find the search query if it exists EXACTLY in that format, and not part of other words, or as part of a phrase, etc. The only problem with this is that selecting “Exact Phrase” does NOT change the result set; in essence, returning the SAME number of results as well as in the same order! Yay for happy searching — Not!
4. Clicking “Show search options >>” reveals two fields/controls which are apparently meant to help the user whilst searching but not be enough to warrant the name “Advanced Search”. When you click this link, two new fields pop down; a) Format, and b) Modified. Fair enough, you say. They are letting the user choose what type of file format to search; i.e. PDF, Word, etc. as well as the ‘age’ of the document(s) in question or when they were last updated. So what’s the problem here? Let’s take a peek!
   

   Search Results - Modified drop-down

   Wow! That’s probably the best word to describe this drop-down. Sure, Australia Post must feel great giving thier users so many options to choose from, but on what planet would you be from if you need THAT many options in sorting last modified periods? Surely, a) “Anytime”, b) Past 24 hours, c) Past week, d) Past month, and e) Past year – would suffice? No? Granularity of options is something worth your time as an Information architect or Website designer/developer investing in! The more options you give the user that they don’t necessarily need or will never use, the more they have to think. The experience should not make them think! Just give them results, and quick!

5. Don’t even get me started on the “Advanced Search” link! Let’s just say that it’s a little more advanced than what an “advanced search” needs to be. So much so that a PhD in Comp. Science would definitely help! I mean for Pete’s sake, there is a field called “Custom query” which lets you, quote “Create a query using search operators (and, or, not, near, quotes and parenthesis) and system fields.” unquote! WHAT THA?!?! Sure, I may get it, hell you might even get it as a developer or designer, but your average Joe who might need just that little bit more input into his or her search would most likely freak out! Take it off PLEASE! I’m not searching the CIA Central Repository here, people!

3. In conclusion…

Okay, so I must admit at this point in time that I’m getting a little bit more critical and more importantly a touch “harsher” in my blogging and reviews — but I think it’s important to look at problems like these that normal web browsers would AND DO encounter on a day-to-day basis surfing the Interweb! So hopefully you have picked up a few pointers from this blog post that will help you with your upcoming search page design/re-design. Remember, these are above all just some ideas of what not to do, but the field is huge! Make sure you get people with limited Internet experience to trial all software you create (if possible!) but more importantly, keep in mind some of these ideas for next time and I’m sure your users will thank you!

Thanks for comin’ back guys. Please leave your comments or critisisms below – and be sure to Subscribe to the RSS feed so you can keep up-to-date on all the latest goss and posts from C2.0 Web Design Blog. Till next time, Cheb.

I’m back and it’s time to blog again. Today we are going to kick things off by talking about Project Management; What is it, methodologies involved and breaking down the life cycle. In this, part 1, we will be dissecting the first two phases: Project Initiation and Project Planning. Hang around for part 2, which will finalise the phases with Project execution and control, and Project closure.

So without further ado, let’s kick things off.

What is Project Management?

Put simply, project management is the discipline of planning, leading, monitoring and organizing a team and resources in order to effectively bring about the successful completion of a project based on predefined budget, time, quality, scope and resources allocated.

What is the project management life cycle?

That’s a question I get asked quite a lot when consulting with firms on project management and procedural process management alike. In theory, the project management life cycle is dependant on the industry, the methodology used by the manager and other factors – however, there are generally four stages of the project management life cycle. These include Project Initiation, Project Planning, Project execution and control, and Project closure. Let’s take a look at the first two:

1. Project Initiation

In kicking off a project,  the scope of the project is considered very important. Depending on the scenario and the work environment, a project manager is usually chosen with a number of pre-selected team members whose skills the company believes will meet the objectives required to be completed for the project to be successful. However, there are times when the project manager also has the oppurtunity to select his/her team, or just has to settle with who ever is free to be resourced at that time; (generally what happens in the Sydney Web Design and general web design industry).

It is at this stage of the game that the tools required or methodologies which are to be followed (for example PRINCE 2) are selected.

Some documents you should expect as a project manager to complete or work on include:

• Project Charter/Definition
  • This will be a document containing a statement of the scope (the total work needed to complete a project), the projects’ objectives and a listing of team members involved in the project.
• Business Plan
  • A plan of the business goals and how they are going to be acheived – whether short term or long term. I.e. drop legacy systems, etc.

2. Project Planning

The second phase of project management, the planning phase is one of the most important phases. Planning a project correctly can truly mean the difference between failure and success!

Project management planning IDE’s and applications such as Microsoft Project will help you to lay out your project in WBS format. WBS stands for Work Breakdown Structure; an important, principal project management tool which help you to structure a project in a way to define groups of work to be done.

For example, generally speaking a project working off the general SDLC (Software development life cycle) would probably be laid out in the following tree-line structure:

1. Planning
2. Analysis & Information Architecture
3. Design
4. Implementation/development
5. Support/Quality Assurance/Launch

What WBS allows you to control is everything from the subordinate costs for each task as well as materials needed and resources to allocate the work to. In essence, what you see above will obviously then be broken down into smaller, objective-based tasks; hence the ‘breakdown’.

if you are interesed in getting more acquainted the Work Breakdown Structure, head over to another article discussing the Critical Path Method of Project Management.

So there you go guys! Keep clicking around for part 2 which will talk more about project planning and the last two phases of the project management life cycle – as well as more exciting blogging coming up soon!

Don’t forget to Subscribe to our RSS feed for more content as soon as it gets posted!

Thanks for reading, C2.0

The keyword reach associated with building a website is limitless, but essentially – as ghastly as it might sound; building a website without planning, can – and most of the time will mean danger ahead and ultimately less success in the long run!

So without further ado, here is Cheb’s guide to building a successful website.

Planning/Scoping

The “Ahh, guys? What are we building again?” phase

So, you want to build a website? It’s not rocket science – but it is a science, and an art! Just like baking a cake you have several ingredients: A handful of designs, a dash of slicing, a teaspoon of code, a sprinkle of love, and ‘bob’s your uncle’ – or, ahh, not! What many people in the web industry however don’t realise is that the planning phase of a website is so crucial, that it really can dictate how well the build of the website is. Essentially, if done correctly, the planning phase – or more importantly, the scoping sub-set of the planning phase, should setup the site’s structure, navigation, as well as functional specifications for the web site build.

Scoping (also referred to as Information Architecture) should reveal not only the clients’ objectives for the project and what they would like the site to achieve – but more importantly, extrapolate all the detail, business rules, as well as technical adjustments which will be needed down the track in order to successfully design, build and launch the website.

Without mentioning any names, I’ve worked with around six web firms, in some way or another, in Australia alone – and the sad thing is, only 65% of them actually ‘recognised’ the importance of getting scoping/Information architecture right! Obviously Wiliam Web Design is in the 65 percent that got it right! Overall though, not really the statistics you’d like in the field of web design and development – right?

At the risk of helping the competition too much – to be counted up with the ‘best of the best’ you’d be expecting your Information Architects/Business Analysts/Usability Evangelists/whatever you want to call them – to be able to at least come up with the following pieces of documentation in this phase of the web build. As a side note, the documents listed below will be discussed in detail in an upcoming post so stay tuned!

1. Requirements gathering documentation
2. Requirements analysis documentation
3. Functional specification documentation
4. Prototype development

You read it here first ladies and gentlemen! From this day forward, let it be known that Cheb D coined the term “The GASP Method for scoping/information architecture” which will be used to outline the bare minimum in terms of documentation/deliverables; that the planning/scoping phase of a good website build whether in Sydney, Melbourne, New York, or London – should deliver. I will outline the massive importance that these documents play in the successful build of a website in an upcoming post – for now, let’s kick on to design.

Design

The “Wow! so all you needed was good documentation and you came up with THAT?!?” phase

Never thought this would be a part of this post, yeh? Okay, so nothing overly-crazy here. You can’t build a website without design. The situation is that everything that happens from this point forward will start to effect everything else throughout the project. Think of it as the literal view of ‘The Waterfall Model‘ for software development.

Further to that – everything that was done right in the previous phase will already have a dramatic affect on the project as a whole, because the difference between a good and bad design decision does not always start and end with the designer! Whether you are building a web design blog or an E-Commerce shop-front, I think that holds true.

Designers as a collective, love to think that they understand everything about usability simply because they know good design! Sure, they would be one of the few people involved in the web design process who could have a say in how and why things will work – but having a designer nutting out the usability of their website as well as designing it, without the assistance of:

a) an objective individual such as an Information architect, and
b) an objective individual such as an Information architect with previous experience in online user experience design (UXD)/User interface design (UID), or usability and accessibility analysis;

is comparable to getting a developer to bug-check his own code or bombing for peace!! Good luck with that!

The issue however is that we have come to realise that good design is not necessarily always good usability, and more importantly that good design practices is not the same as usability. Something as simple as having a login box pop-up as a div overlay upon click, as apposed to always being on the page and distracting the user from more important areas of the page, such as a call to action – can be a big talking point.

It’s a double-edged sword! Do you hide the login box to begin with under a ‘login button’, or do you go with the norm and leave it showing on the front page, but risk it being a total distraction due to its positioning? A question that a designer shouldn’t have to, and probably can’t figure out on their own without some interaction from an information architect.

There is absolutely no doubt though how important this phase is in a good website build! It’s paramount that design is not only up to standard, but that is ‘sets’ the standard! New techniques, interactions as well as connectives to modern technologies such as Ajax should all be encouraged and not frowned upon as ‘making more work for developers’.

Slicing

The “Do you seriously expect me to cut this PSD up for you in THAT many hours ONLY?!?!?” phase

Slicing is one of those things that in the past has taught me can greatly change how upper management think about the whole design process. Some managers think the hours dedicated to it are way too much, others think that’s just unscrupulous and without merit that it ‘generally’ is allocated the least amount of hours dedicated to it out of the whole web site design build process.

Which ever way we look at it, years of experience has taught me that not only are designers getting ‘crazier’ with rounded-corners, drop-shadows, beveled-edges and more; but Web 2.0 calls for all that snazzy stuff, and unfortunately, I don’t see that stopping, coupled with, we can’t stop technology – means we have to find a half-way house!

I personally think more time needs to be dedicated as a whole to the slicing process. Not only do slicers need to give the PSD (design) some life using CSS and JavaScript, on top of HTML – but cross-browser testing is a freaking arduous and taxing process – if nothing else! So respect to all you slicers, or Interface Hackers as I like to call them… I feel your pain!

Development

The “Okay, so I take the source files from here, and connect it to WHICH database?” phase

Development and slicing somewhat go hand in hand.. Whether the web site is being developed in C# (.Net), PHP, Ruby on Rails, or Perl for that matter – the task is simple and complex – or better yet, simply-complex!

This phase is important and hence why most of the time, you will find a good chunk of the hours allocated to a web-based build will be allocated to development. Unfortunately, that’s the nature of code! What you want to do, is make sure that there are adequate hours for the design and slicing – but ultimately, depending on the scope, budget and size of the project, actual development of the sever-side application as well as all the database connectivity as such should be the biggest chunk of the collective ‘development/build’ pie.

Obviously, if the project is just design and slice, then there’d be no time against development phase, or minimal (for testing, etc).

Testing/Quality Assurance

The “Yikes… You found HOW MANY bugs?” phase

It’s not easy to fight technology. Somehow, no matter how hard we try, Testing and quality assurance will (unfortunately?) always be a phase in the successful build of a website. To aid in keeping this short(er) than I expect it to be, I would just make the following suggestions in dealing with this phase.

1. Make sure the project plan/milestone outline clearly shows the testing phase as part of the project (from the get go!). This is important because the client has to realise that no matter what happens during the life cycle of the web build, how fast the build is, how many functions they take out, or whatever it may be – this phase is not going anywhere!

2. Treat it like you would any other phase. You wouldn’t get your delivery man to code your website, would you? Don’t get your secretary or janitor to ‘run through the site and tell you if they find anything out of place’. Believe me, it is sad but trust me – I heard that statement being said about two years ago and it’s been ringing in my ears ever since! Pay for a tester, they are worth the dollars you spend on them! and finally,

3. Make sure the quality assurance/testing is being done off a functional specification! For god’s sake people! Cardinal rule of unit/website testing. Go in there with a plan! Do NOT just pretend you are a user and ‘click around’. In my experience, around 60% of bugs found in this phase are always business rules that either the tester didn’t know about, or were simply forgotten. If they are on a document that has a signature on it, it WILL save your behind!

Deployment/Launch

The “So does that mean we can get paid now?” phase

Website design and development; once again, whether in Sydney, Australia or Sidney, Montana, USA – even though sadly many people don’t see it that way, is really an art. Wiliam has definitely set a precedent (and a name!) in the web design industry in Australia for not only delivering websites that work, but delivering websites that work great, and boy is that not a cliche!

It’s really about how you learn from your mistakes, co-ordinate change management in an ever-growing industry, and more importantly control technology that will ultimately dictate how you represent yourself as a web design agency/freelance web builder and best of all, how your competition view you in such a bloody competitive market.

So we’ve made it all this way. Launch the bugger! You’ve come all this way though and apparently you’ve survived. Don’t lose it all now! You want to make sure you take your time to get the launch right. Just like a top-secret launch sequence, make sure testing is complete, you have document listing where everything should go (server wise) – your databases are working fine and everything is connecting to where it should be – and then hit the switch!

Damn, wait.. Did you kill something? refresh, clear cache, refresh again, is it all still up? post to that forum that you created; is it threading correctly? Point is, make sure it doesn’t just stop when the last file is transferred. Building a great website involves a lot of co-operation from many people. It won’t happen overnight. Heck, sometimes it won’t happen over a six month period; but when you get it right? It’s a feeling like no other – or at least you’d hope so!

And that’s just about it… Happy web building people!

So, that was a long one. What are your thoughts? Do you agree on this model for effective website/web page design? let us know. Please drop a comment or if you like the posts, subscribe to our RSS feed to be alerted whenever a new post is available.

In a move that probably didn’t come as shocking as it could have, considering the reign game developers such as Electronic Arts (EA) have long held in the gaming industry, Activision is definitely merging with Vivendi Entertainment, gaming parent of Sierra, Blizzard and more! According to Vivendi’s press release, quote “Vivendi will contribute its Vivendi Games business, which it valued at $US8.12 billion, and provide $US1.73 billion in cash for the 52 per cent stake in Activision Blizzard. These terms value the combined company at $US18.9 billion.” unquote.

Now here’s the rub. Vivendi – parent company of Blizzard, which makes the uber-popular subscription-based role-playing-game (RPG) World of Warcraft – has 9.3 million subscribers worldwide. Activision, on the other hand, makers of the highly-successful Guitar Hero and first-person-shooter (FPS), ‘Call Of Duty’, posted net revenues of $1.5 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2007 and if that wasn’t enough, has more than 2000 employees wordwide! Talk about a lethal combination!

Seriously though… How cool could the outcomes of all this be?!? I mean think about it!? Overnight, big wigs at the new camp could be coming up with new game titles. Perhaps something like this:

• Crash Bandicoot’s Guitar (a mix of Crash Bash and Guitar Hero?)
• Call of Warcraft – a role-playing-game which is setup as a first-person shooter. Now that’s WoW!
• Tony Diablo – a mix of skateboarding, magic spells and demons – of course!
• True Crimes: 50 Cent – a mix of Sierra’s (Vivendi) 50 Cent game with Activision’s True Crimes series.

So what do you reckon? This must ultimetly mean good news for games. Will the now cool-sounding Activision Blizzard take my possible game titles above and put them to good use? Do we really need another game giant? Will EA run out of business? Share your thoughts!

Founded in 2004, the ‘social utility’ affectionately known to just about everyone you know as Facebook, run from Palo Alto in the United States was valued at no less than $US15 billion ($AUD 16.36 billion), and whilst only trading for a relatively short-lived four years employs 300 staff. One would think Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft would be over the moon today. His bid to win a stake in other successful Web 2.0 endeavours such as Internet ad service DoubleClick Inc. and YouTube were battles lost to Google Inc. By sealing the deal, Microsoft could finally say they have a stake in Web 2.0; because if the past is anything to go by, previous Web 2.0 endeavours by the Redmond-based company such as Spaces and the Zune Marketplace have experienced fairly insignificant take-off speeds.

Its not rocket science to see that Microsoft has a lot to win with the Facebook deal. According to Wikipedia, during its fiscal year ending in June, Microsoft’s online ad revenue rose just 21 percent to $1.84 billion compared to Google’s ad revenue soaring 64 percent to $13.3 billion – Clearly meaning owning a stake in Facebook is a big deal for ‘William’ and his mates.

If nothing else, at least finally the big fish have realised the importance that Web 2.0 plays in today’s information-packed world. Will this lead to Google giving up on their own social network – Orkut? I guess it’ll all be revealed sooner rather than later.

How much do you think this will change what we know and love about Facebook?Was it worthwhile for Facebook as much as it obviously was for Microsoft? Let us know your views.