Adobe is killing off GoLive.

This is a somber day for me, because while I have not used GoLive in years, it was integral in my development into a professional web designer. All through college, my only means of HTML coding was hand-coding within a UNIX session. Just as I was graduating, the University purchased GoLive Cyberstudio for the computer lab. It was like a whole new world had opened for me.

Suddenly, with the speed and power of the WYSIWYG supported by hand-coding, I could build out my Photoshop mocks in record time. It allowed me to not only improve me personal site, but build out fan sites for numerous shows or groups and take on small freelance sites, which became the pieces of my first portfolio that in turn got me my first job as a web designer.

In later years, I made GoLive the mainstay of the design department at our agency and even got myself Adobe Certified Expert status with the product. But even as I was acquiring that level of mastery I was becoming aware of the limitations of the WYSIWYG and understood the need to switch to primarily hand-coding. By the time Adobe GoLive 6 came out, I did not push to have the company purchase it.

So, it would be inappropriate to be upset at todays new. I will not be missing GoLive since I haven’t touched the product in nearly four years, but I will say, in eulogy, that I will always remember those last days of college when I discovered GoLive and suddenly realized I could conceivable becoming a real web designer… and I have.

 

No, not like that, it’s CSS Naked Day, the day to dive under the hood of your website, rip out the stylesheet and see if your content is still accessible. If you have a W3C valid site, then chances are really good you’ve designed the site well enough that it could live without the branding and styles, at least for a day. The new styling of Robleto.com will be back tomorrow, but until then have a happy naked day (more…)

When you are freelance designing, the soundest approach is typically to charge an hourly rate. The better you are, the more you charge per hour for your work, it’s an increasing scale. But what happens when you are competent enough to no longer need many hours to complete the work?

I went to the National Symphony Orchestra here in DC. They played 90-minutes of intensely complicated music from three symphonies. In the talk-back session that followed, their conductor Maestro Slatkin, noted that they only had three days to prepare and five rehearsals. That means these professionals, the elite in their field, spent approximately 20 hours of preparation to learn and master three symphonies.

When you are that proficient, at the top of your game, charging by the hour starts costing you money. I can’t fathom the exorbitant hourly rate these musicians would have to charge to be properly compensated?

Anyone who designs emails knows that the current landscape of compatibility and rendering from the many different email clients makes the Netscape/IE browser wars of the late 90s look like a sandbox skirmish. Many of us have come to terms with having to continue to use antiquated <font> and <table> based HTML to get a consistent rendering in email, and with the regression of Outlook (now using MS Word for rendering instead of Internet Explorer), that consistency is becoming less and less reliable.

Thankfully, someone has stood up and said enough. An advocacy group has just launched a site to follow in the footsteps of the Web Standards Project, to try to educate designers about best practices and to reign in the multitude of email clients (Outlook, Eudora, Hotmail, Gmail, YahooMail, AOLMail, etc.) to agree to support these common standards and practices.

Best of luck Email Standards Project, you have my support.

Spec. documents are faulty, they are often too cumbersome to read (let alone write). They dive into such specifics that the developer may assume that all the details is addressed. That’s when pragmatic thinking and common sense are taken out of the equation.The preferred method is to tell the development team a story; a very simple one sentence story. This story has a single character who is trying to achieve a single task, such as “As a frequent flyer, I want to be able to check how many mileage points I have” or “As a parent, I want to be able to see my student’s grades”.   That’s all that’s needed that’s the story.

Unlike a spec document, this story is not contractual, it is the desired goal, which can be complimented with the criteria of how this was be deemed acceptable (i.e. “All grades are displayed together; Parents can see grades, but public can not.”).

Suddenly, the development team is back to doing what they do best, providing solutions.  They are driving how they will technically achieve this goal to fulfill the story, based off the acceptance criteria.

I am working on trying to get the father-in-law-to-be’s brick and morter store online. I have a site design put together, and because it’s a competitive industry, it needs to be good to get any hope of attention.

Here’s my issue. I need a shopping cart, and most of the ones I see are either 1) too complex to be able to be maintained by someone who isn’t web savvy and 2) built on really constricting and ugly templates that beyond be subjectively horrible will diminished any consumer confidence.

Can anyone recommend a good shopping cart for a new online business that is intuitive and allows some non-templetized styling?

Update: I found it. A shopping cart that has an obvious care for marrying good clean coding with a simple and functional cart application. It’s Shopify.

Traffic on I-95 in Delaware has always been surprisingly terrible, made worse by the fact that you have to pay a two dollar toll for the privilege. So, when driving home from Delaware yesterday, I was excited to see this billboard:

DelDot is stepping up to improve the experience, dial down the congestion. I am on board. What’s the new plan? What’s the 5th lane? Upon arriving home, I quickly went to my computer to see, and disappointed and embarrassed found this:

Let’s go through what’s wrong here…

THE HOME PAGE
What it should be: A synopsis of what the project is, a map of the area it will impact and a timetable of when work will be ongoing, as well as an area for breaking or current news, such as where and when to expect construction delays.

What it is: An oversize version of the same horrid logo used on the billboard (it takes a rare stroke to make a logo that works equally poorly on both a black and white background).

THE INTERIOR PAGES:
What they should be: Presuming we want to keep the six links to different areas of known congestion in Delaware (which isn’t the best navigation, but works effectively), the subsequent pages could be a more focused look on how and why each of these areas will be impacted by the project, an explanation of where they fall in the overall timeline, and a map or diagram of what the results should look like.

What they are: Photo galleries. Each page has a series of photos of the current state of that area. No context (as in “Before” with “Projected After (coming soon)”), no explination and of no value to anyone.

I take that back, the photos and the information buried somewhere on the site about the winning bidder on the project are likely relevant information for contractors who want to ascertain as much as they can before they put in their bid. But, if the site is for contractors, then WHY BUY OUT A BILLBOARD ON 95 TO PROMOTE IT?

The costs of even one of those billboards (and there are more than one) for just one month will cost well beyond the cost of hiring a freelance web designer to properly architect, redesign and add real value to this site. And if you were thinking that perhaps DelDot will add that information once it has it defined, I will link you to this 43 page Powerpoint proposal in PDF format, buried on the site that includes relevant information, diagrams, maps, timetables and details that people will actually want to know about The 5th Lane Project.

On page 11 of the PDF it is mentions that this current state of I-95 is Level of Service F (for failing). I have to submit the same grade for current state of the I-95 DelDot website. I hope that as they put millions of dollars into fixing the former, they think to put a few hundred dollars into overhauling the latter.

One of the primary concepts of modern web design is the separation of style and content. For many years when table layouts, tags and inline attributes likeroamed the web, it was impossible to disconnect the two; but, with the advent of stylesheets, separation it became an achievable goal.

I have spent years advocating building web sites that render legibly when stylesheets were turned off: because it is how some mobile browsers or antiquated browsers will render the site; because many people require accessible website that can be rendered by text-reading browsers; because it just seemed like the right thing to code.

Many web designers agree, or will at least say they do. But one day a year, we all are asked to prove it. For 24 hours we, the site owners, are asked to turn off their stylesheets and show the world if truly all that’s left is content. That’s CSS Naked Day, and that’s today.

So, this is what my site looks like naked or sans-design. All the stylistic elements, from color to typography to background imagery, all contained in the CSS, have been turned off. If you think its hideous looking, you are right, but you were able to read it. (You’re already through fourth paragraph), and that’s what counts.

The stylized version will be back tomorrow, until then, enjoy the naked version of Robleto.com, and click here to learn more about CSS Naked Day.

After I finish writing this post, I am closing down the laptop, putting it in carry-on and heading out to the airport to attend the South by Southwest conference. I am particularly excited to get to hear discussion about the latest trends and techniques, and being able to network with like-minded peers who all share the interest of better web design. Four days in 80 degree Austin won’t be bad either. Here’s my Upcoming.org page if you are going to be there, so you can find me and tell me what I can be doing better with this blog.

The January issue of Fast Company lists the 10 Hot Jobs for 2007, and on the list is Web Designer. I also have experience with viral marketing, art direction, blogging and experience designing, so I am all over the hot map.

10 Hot Jobs for 2007