- Above the Fold: Understanding the Principles of Successful Web Site De
- Adapting to Web Standards
- Art of Non-Conformity
- Art of Readable Code
- Art of SEO
- Back to the User
- Beginning PHP6, Apache, MySQL Web Development
- Book Notes
- Books to Read
- Bored and Brilliant
- Born For This
- Choosing A Vocation
- Complete E-Commerce Book
- Content Inc
- Core PHP Programming
- CRM Fundamentals
- CSS Text
- Dealing with Difficult People
- Defensive Design for the Web
- Deliver First Class Web sites
- Design for Hackers: Reverse-Engineering Beauty
- Designing Web Interfaces
- Designing Web sites that Work: Usability for the Web
- Designing with Progressive Enhancement
- Developing Large Web Applications
- Developing with Web Standards
- Economics of Software Quality
- Effortless commerce with php and MySQL
- Epic Content Marketing
- Extending Bootstrap
- Foundation Version Control for Web Developers
- Guerrilla Marketing for a Bulletproof Career
- HACKING EXPOSED WEB APPLICATIONS, 3rd Edition
- Hacking Web Apps
- Happiness At Work
- Implementing Responsive Design
- Inmates Are Running the Asylum
- Instant LESS CSS Preprocessor How-to
- jQuery Pocket Reference
- Letting Go of the Words
- Lost and Found: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World
- Making Every Meeting Matter
- Manage Your Day to Day
- Marketing to Millenials
- Mobile First
- Monster Loyalty
- More Eric Meye on CSS
- Official Ubuntu Book
- Organized Home
- Pay Me… Or Else!
- Perennial Seller
- Pet Food Nation
- PHP 5 E commerce Development
- PHP In a NutShell
- PHP Refactoring
- PHP5 and MySQL Bible
- PHP5 CMS Framework Development
- PHP5 Power Programming
- Preventing Web Attacks with Apache
- Pro PHP and jQuery
- Professional LAMP
- Purple Cow: Transform Your Business
- Responsive Web Design with HTML and CSS3
- Responsive Web Design with HTML5 and CSS3
- Rules of Thumb
- Saleable Software
- Search Engine Optimization Secrets
- Securing PHP Web Applications
- Serving Online Customers
- Simple and Usable Web, Mobile and Interaction Design
- Smart Organizing
- Smashing UX Design: Foundations for Designing Online User Experiences
- Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
- Talent is Not Enough
- The 10x Rule
- The Benefits of Working with Git In Your Software Projects
- The Clean Coder
- The Herbal Handbook for Home & Health
- The Life-changing Magic of Tidying up
- The Modern Web
- Think First
- This Is Marketing
- Traction
- Version Control with Git, 2nd Edition
- Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Cus
- Web Site Usability: A Designer's Guide
- Web Word Wizardry
- Web Word Wizardy
- Website Owner’s Manual
- Whats Stopping Me
- Work for Money, Design for Love
- Your Google® Game Plan for Success: Increasing Your Web Presence with
- Checklists I Have Collected or Created
- Crafts To Do
- Database and Data Relations Checklist
- Ecommerce Website Checklist
- Learning Stuff From Blogs
- My Front End UI Checklist
- New Client Needs Analysis
- Newsletters I Read
- Puzzles
- Style Guides
- User Review Questions
- Web Designer's SEO Checklist
- Web site Review
- Website Code Checklist
- Website Final Approval Form
- Writing Content For Your Website
- Writing Styleguide
- Writing Tips
- 7 essentialls of graphic design
- Accidental Creative
- Choosing the right color for your logo
- CMS Design
- Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and
- Designing for Web Performance
- Eat That Frog
- Elements of User Experience
- Flexible Web Design
- Forms that Work: Designing Web Forms for Usability
- Homepage Usability
- Responsive Web Design
- Seductive Interaction Design: Creating Playful, Fun, and Effective Use
- Strategic Web Designer
- Submit Now: Designing Persuasive Web sites
- The Zen of CSS Design
- Complete Book of Potatoes
- Creating Custom Soil Mixes for Healthy, Happy Plants
- Edible Forest Garden
- Garden Design
- Gardening Tips and Tricks
- Gardens and History
- Herbs
- Houseplants
- Light Candle Levels
- My Garden
- My Garden To Plant
- Organic Fertilizers
- Organic Gardening in Alberta
- Plant Nurseries
- Plant Suggestions
- Planting Tips and Ideas
- Root Cellaring
- Things I Planted in My Yard
- Way We Garden Now
- Weed Decoder
- 101 Organic Gardening Hacks
- 2015 Herbal Almanac
- Beautiful No-Mow Lawns
- Beginner's Guide to Heirloom Vegetables
- Best of Lois Hole
- Design in Nature
- Eradicate Invasive Plants
- Gardening Books to Read
- Gardens West
- Grow Organic
- Grow Your own Herbs
- Guerilla Gardening
- Heirloom Life Gardener
- Hellstrip Gardening
- Indoor Gardening: The Organic Way
- Landscaping with Fruits and Vegetables
- Real Gardens Grow Natives
- Seed Underground
- Small plot, high yield gardening
- Thrifty Gardening from the Ground Up
- Vegetables
- Veggie Garden Remix
- Weeds: In Defense of Nature's Most Unloved Plants
- What Grows Here
- Activities for Kids
- Animals In My Yard
- Baking & Cooking Tips
- Bertrand Russell
- Can I Get that on Sale?
- Cleaning Tips and Tricks
- Colour Palettes I Like
- Compound Time
- Cooking Tips
- Crafts
- Crafts for Kids
- Household Tips
- Inspiration
- Interesting
- Interior Design
- Keywording & Tags
- Latin Phrases
- Laundry Tips
- Learn Something New
- Links, Information, and Cool Videos - Stuff for My Kids
- Music Websites for Parents and Kids
- My Miscellany
- Organizing
- Quotes
- Reading List
- Renovations
- Silly Sites
- Things that Make Me Laugh
- Videos to Watch
- Ways to Be Nice
- YouTube Hacks
- Bug Tracking Tool
- Business Tips
- Code Packages I Like on GitHub
- Content Management systems
- Creating Emails & Email Newsletters
- Games
- I Made A Framework
- Open Source
- Patterns, Textures and other media
- PHP Coding Standards
- Programming
- Project Verbs for to do lists
- Qualities of Creative Leaders
- Scalable Vector Graphics
- SEO
- Software Design
- The Shell, Scripts and Such
- Writing Instructions
- Accessibility
- CSS Frameworks
- CSS Reading List
- CSS Sticky Footer
- Design of Sites
- htaccess files
- HTML Tips and Tricks
- Javascript (and jQuery)
- Landing Page Tips
- Making Better Websites
- More Information on CSS
- MySQL and Databases
- Navigation
- Responsive Design
- Robots.txt File
- Security and Secure Websites
- SVG Images
- Types of Content
- UI and UX and Design
- Web Design and Development
- Web Design Tools
- Web Error Codes
- Website Testing Checklist
- Writing for the Web
- Writing Ideas for your website
- Animations and Interactions
- Being a Better Designer
- Bootstrap Resources
- Color in Web Design
- Colour
- CSS Preprocessors: Sass and Less
- CSS Tips Tricks
- Customer Centered Design Myths
- Design Systems
- Designing User Interfaces
- Font & Typographical Inspiration
- Fonts, Typography, Letters & Symbols
- Icons
- Logo Designs
- Photoshop Tips and Tricks
- Sketch
- UX and UI and Design Reading List
- Web Forms
- Well Designed
Customer Centered Design Myths
- Good Design is just common sense. Why are there so many bad sites? Web design teams have to remember they are not the customer. They cannot predict how customers will think or act.
- Only Experts Create Good Design.
- Web Interfaces Can be Redesigned Right before Launch.
- Good Design Takes Too Long and Costs Too Much. The customer-centred design does add some up-front costs because you have to talk to customers, make prototypes, get feedback on prototypes, etc. But it reduces back-end costs - the costs incurred as a result of responding to customer dissatisfaction. Reduces total development time and costs because it focuses on finding problems in the early stages of design,
- Good design is just Cool Graphics. Graphics are only on part of the larger picture of what to communicate and how.
- Web Interface Guidelines Will Guide You to Good Design. These are a good checklist but they only address how the site is implemented not what features the site should have the organization of the site or the flow between individual web pages.
- Customers Can Always Rely on Documentation and Help. These are important but customers are not patient enough to sift through them to find help.
- Market Research Takes Care of Understanding Customer Needs. It is helpful for understanding customer attitudes and intentions but does not explain customer behaviour. What the customer does with an interface is critical.
- Quality Assurance Groups Make Sure that Web Sites Work Well. The purpose and focus of quality assurance are different from those of customer-centred design. Software testing is often technology-driven, not customer-driven.
- When technology becomes the central factor in web design, it becomes technology for technology's sake.
- Avoid using computer-based tools in the early design stages. Iterate more and explore the design space more broadly on paper.
- Avoid gold plating the site (making it perfect before deploying), deploy features in stages, and plan for future growth.
Discovery - Customer Analysis Document
Process
-
- Discovery
- Exploration
- Refinement
- Production
- Implementation
- Launch
- Maintenance
- The motivation of customers to visit the site or the value proposition
- Task analysis of intended customers, describing the people, their tasks, the technologies they use, and their social and organizational issues.
- People - who are the customers? What are their interests? What are their ages? Etc.
- Tasks - What tasks do your customers do on other sites? What do they come to your current website to do? What specific tasks do they want to do there? Etc.
- Technology
- Social issues
Business Analysis Document
- Business plan- business goals of the site and client's needs
- Competitive analysis- determines features of competition's sites and identifies features important to customers. What is the competitive advantage of the site (high-level goals)
- Metrics for success- how will success be measured? Examples: attract customers, keep them coming back, the conversion rate of visitors to customers
Requirements/Specifications Document
- Project Description- describes the common purpose and ultimate goals for client and customer
- List of Tasks, Scenarios, Storyboards- number of tasks depends on the complexity of the proposed work. Label tasks as easy, moderate or difficult
Comprehensive List of Proposed Features - 'must haves', 'should haves', 'could haves'. Use competitive comparisons, surveys, market research. Each feature should have a statement on how it will be evaluated or tested. - Overall design Goals
- Metrics- measure if the team reached goals and requirements. State how features will be evaluated in the final site.
Be Brief and concise, use lots of diagrams, make it interesting because these documents are often tedious to read.
Exploration
- Generate and explore designs, reflect ideas on-site structure and navigation.
- Generate several prototypes.
- Deliverables: site maps, storyboards, and schematics (in sets). Each set shows a design alternative addressing issues in customer analysis document, business analysis document and specifications document
Refinement
- Choose one idea and develop it further. Highly detailed prototype. Refine, detail and informally test the design. Break the site down into classes of pages.
- Deliverables: one site map, storyboard and schematic (in more detailed form than previous).
Production
- Interactive prototype, written descriptions, guidelines, and specifications.
- Include as much detail as possible on layout, navigation, visuals and content for each page.
- Deliverables:
- design document -describe how the site works in great detail.
- Interactive prototypes
- Technical specifications
- Design guidelines - general rules to prevent inconsistencies
- Writing style guide
Implementation
- Create parts of the site to create a polished and fully functional site
- Determine naming conventions for files and folders
- Useful tools - revision control system, bug tracking database
- Test site rigorously
- Deliverables: completed sites, maintenance document, test plan document, updates
Launch Phase
- Minor polishing:
- Check for spelling and grammar errors
- Verify all links
- Check for broken images
Maintenance
-
- Changing code and fixing bugs.
- Collecting usability and satisfaction metrics
- Verify all links
- Check for spelling and grammar errors
- Ensure pages follow design guidelines
- Periodically backup site
- Update FAQ
- Check team is writing for search engines
- Maintain server logs
- Deliverables:
- Periodic website metrics (total hits, conversion rates, number paying customers, usability evaluations)
- Bug reports
- Periodic backups
Writing for Search Engines
Write distinctive page titles for every page.
Write keyword-filled descriptive text near the top of each page. Include keywords in context.
Use keyword meta tags for:
- Terms customers use most frequently
- Main site themes
- Synonyms
- Common misspellings
Make the site accessible to web crawlers (similar barriers as for site accessibility).
Use robots.txt file
Strategies to avoid:
- Repeated keywords
- Keywords that do not describe the content on the site
- Keywords owned by other sites
- Coloured text the same as the background colour to hide words
- Repeated URL submissions to search engines
- Fake pages for search engines
- Slow pages
- Pages with the same HTML title
- Pages with the same content but different URL
- Special characters in URL (& and %)
This page contains information I gathered and thought were very useful. See more notes on design.
Just to let you know, this page was last updated Monday, Dec 02 24