Posts Tagged ‘web design’

Would You Build A House Without A Plan? Why Your Web Developer Shouldn’t Either.

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

Having a clear concept of what you want your website to be, what you want it to do, not only makes the job of your web developer easier but it also helps them to provide you with exactly what you want.

A good idea is a good start, but it shouldn’t be the only thinking that you do about your future website.

Imagine driving in a strange place with no map or GPS, knowing that you have to get to a certain town but not knowing where it is.

Throw in some dense fog, and this is exactly the job that you are assigning to your web developer if you don’t have a clear concept of what you want them to do.

A builder wouldn’t construct a house without an architectural plan, and your web developer shouldn’t either. Attempting to do so will lead them into not realizing your idea, either partially, or even worse, completely. It will result in inefficient use of time and delays and most likely leave you unhappy with the result.

Fleshing out your idea, crystallizing the concept in your mind, drawing up those architectural plans for your new website will make the entire process of developing your site smoother, and help your developer give you exactly what you had envisaged.

A good web developer knows this and can help you through the process of taking your idea to the level of a fully fleshed out concept, but the more you bring to the table, the easier this process will be.

Ecommerce Internal-Only Product Management Interface

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

Especially because the odds are highly stacked against you ever seeing these in person, here are two different interfaces for a Business-2-Consumer website that I designed and developed. The website has an e-commerce presence (that I also designed and developed from the ground up), and in order to not have to the technical side of messing around with dealing with products on the site whenever the merchandising department wanted to make any changes – I put together these two interfaces:

Union Workers Credit Services Merchandising Interface Main Menu

Union Workers Credit Services Merchandising Interface Main Menu

This is the main menu for the Merchandising interface where the user can determine the function that they want to perform. The ‘planner’ design stems from the fact that the head of the Merchandising department always seems to be carrying around an overstuffed real life version, and it made for a good way to lay out a menu system. [View Larger]

Union Workers Credit Services Merchandising Interface Add A Product Menu

Union Workers Credit Services Merchandising Interface Add A Product Menu

This interface is one of the functions and allows the user to add a new product. Unfortunately, what is half chopped out of this screenshot is the power button on the monitor – when moused over the power indicator changes from green to red, and when clicked it returns the user to the main menu (shown above). [View Larger]

Release of the Redesigned Chapman Data Services, Inc. Website

Thursday, January 21st, 2010
Screenshot of the redesign for chapmandata.com
Screenshot of the redesign for chapmandata.com

I’ve just released the re-design of the Chapman Data Services, Inc. website that I co-designed, and developed with Rob Busby. I am very happy with the end results – a huge improvement over the previous site that I inherited from the previous web developer. I would appreciate it if you took a moment to check it out, and if you have any feedback, I would be happy to read it.