My last post was about finding a healthy balance between client- and server-side technology. My friend sent me a link to an article about SEO and Google’s “reasonable surfer” patent. Though the information regarding Google’s methods for identifying and appropriately assessing useful links on a site was interesting, I am quite concerned about what the SEO crowd was encouraging because of this new revelation.
It is important to consider search engines during the site building process, however I feel the SEO guys often get carried away. In this article it is suggested that you de-emphasize navigation and forget footers along with lots of other questionable advice.
These two suggestions alone are enough for me to consider this article, at best, a crackpot spouting extremist ideas. SEO experts often seem to forget a very important element on the web: the user. Continue Reading »
Earlier this year I discussed progressive enhancement, and proposed that a web site should perform the core functions without any frills. Last night I had a discussion with a friend, regarding this very same topic. It came to light that it wasn’t clear where the boundaries should be drawn. Interaction needs to be a blend of server- and client-side technologies.
Ultimately, it is rarely clear where boundaries are in a project. What is too much, what is too little? Somewhere between too much and too little is just right, much like what Goldilocks wanted in her porridge. We know that even the most limited of users should be able to access our sites within certain considerations. A photo gallery is, ultimately, little use to a blind person, but alt tags should still be in place. Sound clips of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra would be useless to a deaf person, though a caption or indication as to what each sound clip is would be quite handy.
Coming back to the point, finding a balance point is critical to providing rich, meaningful interaction between your user and your site. Perhaps the first question which should be answered is “can this be done without Technology X?” Continue Reading »
Through all of the usability, navigation, design, various user-related laws and a healthy handful of information and hierarchical tricks and skills, something that continues to elude designers and developers is pretty URLs. Mind you, SEO experts would balk at the idea that companies don’t think about using pretty URLs in order to drive search engine placement. There is something else to consider in the meanwhile:
The user.
Several articles I found talk about the SEO benefits of pretty URLs and whether it is very important to consider using them with a site as they don’t encourage a major boost anymore. “It’s ten years too late,” they say. It’s never too late, I say. Continue Reading »
There has been a lot of talk about graceful degradation. In the end it can become a lot of lip service. Often people talk a good talk, but when the site hits the web, let’s just say it isn’t too pretty.
Engineers and designers work together, or divided as the case may be, to create an experience that users with all of their faculties and a modern browser can enjoy. While this goes down, the rest of the world is left feeling a bit chilly.
What happens is, the design starts with the best of intentions and, then, the interactivity bug takes hold. What comes out is something that is almost usable when slightly degraded, but totally non-functional when degraded to the minimum. Continue Reading »
I just read a short, relatively old blog post by David Naylor regarding why he believes XML sitemaps are bad. People involved with SEO probably know and recognize the name. I know I did. I have to disagree with his premise, but agree with his argument.
I say XML sitemaps are good!
The real issue with XML sitemaps does not lay in the technology but the use. If a site is well designed, well developed and has a strong information architecture, it should spider well and indexing should occur. Moreover, if the HTML/XHTML supporting the information on the site is well formed, the site should get decent rankings. This is where I agree with David. Continue Reading »
Nothing like a nod to the reverse mullet to start a post out right. As I started making notes on a post about findability, something occurred to me. Though it should seem obvious, truly separating presentation from business logic is key in ensuring usability and ease of maintenance. Several benefits can be gained with the separation of business and presentation logic including wiring for a strong site architecture, solid, clear HTML with minimal outside code interfering and the ability to integrate a smart, smooth user experience without concern of breaking the business logic that drives it.
The benefit that engineers will appreciate is the ease of maintainability. With business logic abstracted from the presenation, engineers can maintain the infrastructure without worrying about breaking the look and feel of the client experience. This alleviates stress and sleepless nights they might experience otherwise. Continue Reading »
User self selection is a mess. Let’s get that out in the open first and foremost. As soon as you ask the user questions about themselves directly, your plan has failed. User self selection, at best, is a mess of splash pages and strange buttons. The web has become a smarter place where designers and developers should be able to glean the information they need about the user without asking the user directly.
The innate problem with asking the user about what they want is, they will invariably give you the wrong answer. Sometimes it happens because they don’t know what they want. Sometimes they don’t care. Sometimes they misunderstand what you really want to know and sometimes they flat out lie to see what happens.
The question has hit my desk a few times now, “how does the user self-select in a nice, fluid manner?” The answer: they don’t. Continue Reading »
I make no secret of the fact that i’m not a huge fan of Flash. It’s not really because I feel there is anything inherently wrong with Flash. I am opposed to the gross overuse and misuse that happens every day. Sometimes only Flash will do, and in those circumstances it is the answer. Sometimes Flash is the answer to a question that is totally incorrect.
When someone proposes making a website, I immediately start asking questions of scope, regularity of updates, audience, intent and so-on. Typically I don’t ever ask what technology the client is interested in using. When it comes down to brass tacks, I’m typically uninterested in the technology the client wants because the user is the important piece of the puzzle, so the tech that fits is the tech that gets used. I can only imagine what goes through the minds of people before building a website that is run only with Flash.
“Hey Joe, what do you think of building a site using only Flash?”
“Cool idea! How do you think users should interact with it?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it. I just think it would be neat to have an all Flash site.”
“Let’s do it.” Continue Reading »
It’s been a while since I last posted, but this bears note. Search engine optimization, commonly called SEO, is all about getting search engines to notice you and people to come to your site. The important thing about good SEO is that it will do more than simply get eyes on your site, but it will get the RIGHT eyes on your site. People typically misunderstand the value of optimizing their site or they think that it will radically alter the layout, message or other core elements they hold dear.
First, what SEO isn’t. I think it’s best to get this out of the way early so we can get into helping you do good stuff without a bunch of “but-but-buts.” So, SEO isn’t cramming a bunch of keywords into the bottom of your page. It also isn’t redesigning your entire site so it looks like garbage but Google can read it like a dream. SEO is not putting your site on every link farm in the world and it is not spamming people on social networking sites. SEO is also not spamming people on message boards. SEO is not about fads and fast grabs. It’s not about people coming to your site and then bouncing immediately. SEO isn’t about a bad web experience, plain and simple. Continue Reading »