This is the video for last Sunday and yes I’ll post today’s later on tonight!

1 – Pagination

Image from smashingmagazine.com

Pagination is a good usability aid to let users see visually how many “pages” of content your  site has and provides away of users to easily browse from new content to very old content. A bonus as well is you also get more page views when users browser the other “pages” advertising score!

2 – Previous Post & Next Post

Image from sindustries.co.uk

A great feature that I think you should use even you already have a “most recent/popular” post’s at the end of your post its the same idea as pagination in which you can view older content or newer content inside of a post but displays the the next newest as well as the older post to that .

3 – Footer with Links

Links in the footer are awesome for users deep linked into your site, helping robots crawl your site and providing a way for your users to find  out where they are and where they want to go.

4 – Banner or Company Logo Linked to Homepage

Image from PSD tuts+

I know this one is a no brainier but for those of you that don’t know always make your website header logo or banner link back to your websites homepage this provides a user a “fail safe” in which they can go back to the homepage and start again.

5 – Navigation Menu

Image from aiburn.com

I cant stress enough how much how much a good GUI on a website is so important.

Design your menu and ensure that your menu looks like a menu make sure your buttons are designed to be clicked on so your buttons/menu doesn’t suffer from”menu blindness” make sure you have a hover and an active state I personally think visited isn’t a requirement for Navigation menus but design your hover and active states with a “change” like a highlight or text becomes bold anything that stands out.

6 – Search Box on Every Page

Image from netmag.co.uk

With your Wordpress site include your search in the header file this way users can search your website from anywhere in your website and from any page.

It is also possible to design a search results page that can also add extra usability

7 – Use Headings Properly in Articles

Image from alistapart.com

The proper use of headlines in articles make sure you use your H1 tag’s and maybe give your H2,3,4,5 a different look however on Sindustries I keep my article “Subs” all the same style.

8 – End of post “Stubs”

image from smashingmagazine.com

Post stubs are great for giving users a visual cue to say “stop and go somewhere else” and getting users to go much deeper into your own website or onto another website owned by you like twitter for example.

9 – Categories & Archives

Image from sindustries.co.uk

This might seem very very trivial but considering even the BBC didn’t have categories or archives the result was it made users finding similar style of stories difficult and you couldn’t even look at the past weeks content because they had no archive !

Now wordpress gathers categories and automatically produces an archives, simple help your website visitor out and use them on your site.

10 – Contact Details

Image from abuzeedo.com

What does contact details have to do with usability I hear you say but its simple.

Its to allow users to contact you! If your site doesnt have a contact page or email address then how are you ment to know about any problems or clients trying to contact you ?

Yes I’m still looking for a web designer role, I’ve been fixing up my CV but that’s getting done as we speak and then next week I’m going to phone & email until I get somewhere.

If you know of any web designer jobs in either Glasgow or Edinburgh please email me.

I’m currently working on a website for a bridal wear shop. I have a little flash work to do for it then its mostly content and picture content that’s left to do, its a simple XHTML/CSS valid site that will use sIFR and probably lightbox for the image gallery it will turn out awesome though.

I’ve been having a look at the release notes for  Firefox 3.5 they are seriously coming on leaps and bounds in the mozilla camp!

I hope they are the first browser to fully support HTML 5. I really want to have a tinker with it!

Recently I installed the latest version of  Tweetdeck an extremely powerful tool for twitter, with such features as being able to view peoples tweets, replies to your tweets and private DM’s and you get notified if someone makes a tweet and able to manage multiple accounts!

Now if that doesn’t get you going then your a little dead inside.

Sindustries takes your through some of the good and more so the bad bits with you in regards to internet explorer 6.

IE6 was released August 27, 2001  that means web designers today are fixing problems 7 years old!

I’ve had many troubles with IE6, it can be the biggest pain in the butt fixing sites broke in IE6 however its the problems and the pains that can make you a much better coder and can help you spot where your going wrong when building a site instead of fixing the problems with the site at the end.

Now IE6 as you know was released on August 27, 2001 and that day was a Monday, It now features DHTML support and in-line frames and partial CSS 1 support.

Coding for Internet Explorer 6

Correcting bugs in IE6 will make you a better coder.

There is a multitude of IE6 bugs such as the double margin bug, step down bug and so now if you build a site today chances are you will have 1 or 2 IE6 bugs.

The majority of the problems are easily fixed however OK it might not make you totally 1337  but its good practice to at least find out where your going wrong.

When you discover you have some problems with IE6 don’t get cross with yourself take it in your stride and start looking on Google for the bug fix’s but do take the time to remember and understand them.

Adding IE6 compatibility will make your site more presentable.

Squashing all the bugs for IE6 will ensure that that your site will be view able in IE6 combine this with cross browser testing and everyone can view your website correctly and the way you want.

The hacks for IE6 are a learning curve.

At some point in time your going to want a site that can use .Png’s and you want them without the Grey border you want them to work!

Now doing this isn’t done by normal means and requires a IE6 Png hack OK you might be limited in regards that you need to insert title and width and you can repeat a .png image but the fact remains it allows you to use .Png’s for IE6

Knowing and understanding the bugs are valuable knowledge.

I really can’t stress enough how valuable it is to actually know the most common bugs and even some of the more uncommon bugs its something you can add to your arsenal and can only make you the stronger and remember time is money friend! The less time you spend fixing problems the more time you have to address other issues.

Not coding for IE6 could affect traffic.

The following figures are from W3C’s latest Internet Explorer user count on the internet (Source: W3C browser stats ).

• 3.5% for IE8
• 23.2% for IE7
• 15.4% for IE6

Even though IE8 has just been launched a lot of the browser market are still using IE6 and I wouldn’t even class the people using IE7 a good thing.

Saying this though If your only getting 3-5 users a month using IE6, I believe  this number is good if you were getting 100,0000 page views a month and that number of IE6 users was 3000-5000 I would strongly suggest you make your site render correctly in IE6.

If you not going to fix your errors at least display a “error”.

If your going down the path of not fixing your website for IE6 you should at least proved a message that shows users there browser is out of date such as this Jquery IE6 error message – Its simple and presentable and allows users to find there way to the most up-to-date browser for them and hopefully user will update the browser and then more importantly come back with a better browser.

Conclusion.

My conclusion is simple Internet Explorer 6 is for now something you cant ignore you can’t just leave it alone to gather and expect the user to update there browseron there own you need to either tell them there browser is out of date or fix your website to render correctly in IE6 from a production and marketing aspect its an issue you must address for time is money friend.

I believe that to rid the internet of IE6 your either going to need a miracle/act of god or come up with IE9 or some sort of warning is made by the W3C,

I have written this article to highlight my thoughts of the industry as it currently stands, with the lines of Graphic design, Web design, and Web development all becoming one.

If you are interested in this article then please leave your feedback here or follow me on Twitter. A big shout out to me colleague Bryan Davis (that’s who runs this site)

Over the last 10 years alone we can see a massive growth in the online sector. Businesses are becoming more aware of the advantages of internet trading and advertising. Why pay for a multitude of costs including, staff, shop rental and stock transportation when it is much cheaper and almost as effective to become a sole online store? Advertising alone can be very costly. A website however is a lifetime advert, provided you renew your hosting and are willing to update product offers and content.

It’s with this growth that new media artists and graphic designers alike are jumping onto the Internet bandwagon and becoming digital (web) designers. Though, as most of us aware this has been happening for some time. Now we have to question what’s in store for the future designers of the online market? We know the web changes rapidly and that it can become fairly daunting to keep up with an ever moving industry, with the birth of the Web 2.0 many of us suddenly found ourselves having not only to master the use of JavaScript but to use it in a much more advanced way i.e. Ajax.

The more technologies that become available the more a client will expect in their website. I foresee that web design and web development will fuse into the one job as did graphic design and web design. Indeed it has already begun. More is being asked of new term juniors within companies. They’re expected to know all about design principles while having the technical skill and aptitude to create PHP and MySql sites, along with designing and skinning the website with CSS. A few years back that would have been classed as a middleweight and even then only a select few individuals would have been capable of carrying out work of that level.

With the current economical climate being what it is, everyone is expected to step up to the plate and to be honest I think it’s a good thing. The more people we have at that high a standard the faster the Internet will evolve and move forward. Times are changing, the web is changing so I guess the question is, are you?

Now have fun reading my first big article.

If at any point I’m totally wrong feel free to correct me + if you liked the article follow me on twitter!

10 Things a Web Designer Should Be Able To Do.

1. Xhtml and Css W3C Compliant Code.

Compliant W3C code is a must these days web designers must be able to code xhtml/css compliant code, I’m not saying you need to do it first time but it shouldn’t take you all day, if your only one doing a small 1-3 paged website.

Now if you look at Sindustries xhtml/css you will notice both aren’t valid but learning by DOING will make me a better coder.

Css – Sindustries w3c Css Results

Xhtml - Sindustries w3c Html Results

2. Basic S.e.o.

Basic S.E.O I would say consisted of the following: -

• Html site-map
• Google Site-map
• Title tags on links
• Alt & title tags on images
• Meta tags and good use of Google Keyword Tool

SEO these days is pretty much as deep as the ocean but the steps above are what I do to help my site get found but ill go in depth in another article as even at a basic level it is still pretty long.

Html Site-map – I use a html Site-map if Google Site-map isn’t available but I often use both (I like to have best of both worlds) and if god forbid should anything happen I’d have my html site-map.

Now on to Google site-map’s with Google Webmaster tools:

Google Site-Map -Now Google says that site-maps are supposed to help with the indexing of large and small websites now there is speculation that having a Google site-map is bad and there is evidence to suggest that having a Google site map hinders pages being indexed but again that’s something for you to look into.

Title tags on links – Give Google a little help with a keyword (oh how we just love them keywords hehe) with the title=”keyword phrase” in your anchor tags and will give Google a little more info for what the link is about.

Alt & title tags on images – Ok now you may think that you only need alt=”” tags on your images well think again!

Alt tags are for describing images in text based browsers and providing and an ALTernitive way for a user to “see” the picture and is also the text displayed if the image is broken huzza!

There is indeed a “but” here and that is the title tag now the alt=”” tag provides an alternative the users needs the title=”” tag to see the image tool-tip when the image is hovered over and provides a description!

Now don’t pack these with keywords but do put keywords in the tags.
Meta tags and good use of Google Keyword Tool – Now-a-days Google doesn’t really require Meta tags as it can grab meta information from the actual page itself.

I use Lee Johnson Google Serp Tool and the Google Keyword Tool now I cant tell you whats best way to write meta tags but just look at how other big companies have done it and take things from there.

3.Make site’s Render Correctly in IE 6 and today’s most used browsers.

I personally think its important that you have your website render correctly in today’s modern browsers, I go for IE7, Firefox 3, Safari and Opera.

I often find IE6 to be my downfall but your site should render correctly in all modern browsers and render at least 90% of how it should look in IE 6.

Use Browser shots to see screen grabs of your site in different browsers!

4.Make sure image’s have a naming convention.

Having a naming convention or even naming you images correctly helps your site in Google image search so instead of

rtjrtjtjotjtojtjojpg.jpg becomes Paisley-Daily-Express.jpg

This helps your site’s images in google image search.

5.Make sure all flash is accessible and searchable.

With all these fancy pants flash websites with their fancy effects…no good if you want a good position in Google and if your wanting people using text browsers and such to browse your site.

1. Window > Accessibility (Path to accessibility panel) – Just fill the boxes in with the information such as a title and a description then publish and bobs your uncle .

2. Google sitemap / xml Site map – Google saves the Day with googles sitemap or any xml site map the robots will still be able to find your content huzza!

3. If your doing advertising and the like always publish a Gif as well just means that people that view your ad even with flash disabled.

6.Make sure a site is user friendly (usability).

If you’re a business and offer product’s or a service you wish to sell you must be concerned about usability.

I personally follow Jakob Nielsen’s Newsletter best source for up-to-date usability tips and you could even read his books.

7.Use Social Media.

Social Media is an ever growing piece of kit web designers.

I personally use: -

• Flickr
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Design:related
• Carbonmade
• Linkedin

I launched this website its already had over 400 page views in few days.

Marketing yourself and your services is a big thing and should not be ignored.

8.Design things for the web and print.

Web designers and Print designers, two totally different rolls you say? I again believe this boundary is getting cross with web designers mucking around in print and print designers typing out there first line’s of css.

These days you got to be versatile and be able to grow in different directions and areas, build up you web and print portfolio and be strong in both areas.

9.Knowledge of CMS architectures.

Personally I think this is very important building Xhtml/Css website’s is fine and dandy but having knowledge or actually using a CMS says to an employer or client that you can handle eCommerce projects or projects that require the dynamic edge to them.

Recently I have also been experimenting with other CMS’s such as Joomla and Movable-type.

10.Be able to work with clients and work in a team.

Working with other people is a skill that many people underestimate. I began my design days on Deviantart and I done collaborations my biggest being one with Alexiuss.

Equinox

This mostly applies to web designers/graphic designers trying to break into the industry work with anyone and everyone; friends, family, charities, small clients, one time only clients and any one else, this all adds up ands builds your portfolio.