Our Mindfly Blog

Twitter: Tweeting Twits or Tailor-Made Tool of the Trade?

by Karina Beattiger 8.May 2008 08:18

Alliteration aside, I am what some may call a rabid hater of all blog and networking sites whose main method for gauging interest is akin to a high school dance.  (You may choose your own details.)  Facebook, MySpace,  DeviantArt, LiveJournal -- I can talk here, I used to be an eeeeeaaaaaaarly adopter, with a username people tried to pay me to give up -- and other such 'friendslist driven' networking sites.  You know what I'm talking about.  For years, I've managed to stay away from the sheer ridiculousness that is "What do you mean, I'm not in your top 10?" and "Did you see what Nancy posted in her blog about George, who posted in his blog about Ray, who posted in Nancy's blog about that kid who set his pants on fire?"  (C'mon, Youtubers, you've seen it, too...)

So when Twitter started making an appearance a couple years ago, I subconsciously filed it under 'don't care' and moved on.  It was, to my way of thinking, just another popularity game with not-so-subtle hints of obssessive stalking and a continuation of the 'let's plug in to the internet and never leave' theme that's been creeping up on us (avalanched?) for the past decade or so.  Yes, as a web designer, I can't talk too loudly, so I won't.  About that, anyway.  This time.

Except... Then I learned that WD Weems had his own Twitter.  And that he was incorporating it into his blog.  And that, now knowing you can do such a thing, he was incorporating it into his blog in a pretty awesome way.  Oh, ho, ho.  I am intrigued.  And then he upped the ante:  did you know Andy Clarke has a Twitter feed?  I bet you do -- he's got 1,682 followers (in Twit-speak, it means 1,682 people are watching his feed).  You're one of them, aren't you?  It's okay; stand proud.  I am, too.

This is where Twitter starts to feel vaguely stalkery to me.  On the one hand, I'm the kind of person who watches my IMs to see what everyone's away messages are.  If they're sufficiently clever, I leave a message with them.  If not, the tiny part of me that is a frothing-at-the-mouth Virgo is at least content to know what everyone is doing in some vain attempt at controlling the schedules and whereabouts of my friends.  (Why I am not dead in a ditch somewhere is beyond me -- my friends are tolerant and kind.)  On the other hand, it's pretty fascinating to get a glimpse into the daily lives of people who are, for all intents and purposes, nothing more than pixels on a screen to me: Kyle swears Andy is flesh and blood, but maybe he's just a really excellently crafted virtual reality rock star with fingers in every port worldwide, leaving clever comments like Alice, only with personality.

And then here's where Twitter starts expanding from simple stalkery.  Andy isn't the only web guru on the system.  Eric Meyer, star of meyerweb.com; Jeffrey Zeldman, of A List Apart fame as well as his own self-named blog; and so on.  I could keep going, but I'm on a time limit here.  My tea is getting cold.

There's a point to all this name-dropping, though, I promise:  all of these gurus are linked through Twitter.  Of course, Twitter isn't the only application that does this, but bear with me here.  The beauty of Twitter is that it only allows for a few lines at a time -- there's a 140 character limit.  This doesn't allow for very much room.  It forces the Tweeter to keep it short and concise, either dabbling in the mysterious one-liner or laying out a thought-provoking statement of opinion or fact.  Or, my personal favorite, engaging in the slow, yet fun to watch, exchange of comments to each other, a la the all-purpose @ sign.  When they all meet up for a conference or event, the back and forth of Tweets and Twitterers takes on a uniform subject -- from the saga of the disappearing underpansuitcase to the travels and travails of getting to and from and surving the conference in question.

As if this wasn't cool enough, the sheer PR capability of an easily maintained mini-blog is mind-blowing.  Not only can you single-handedly let people know that you're active, alive, and feeling chipper (or not), but you can always take the opportunity to network with your peers, as well.  You can input the code into your website, or blog, or whathaveyou, offering a neat and easy way to inform your non-Twitter stalkers that you're up and about and busy as a bee, or you can simply use it as a kind of periscope into everyone else's lives.

...It really does sound a little stalkish, doesn't it? 

So, a brief recap, then. Twitter:

• A Toy: Fulfilling everyone's undying need to stalk somebody.
• A Tool: Networking, idea-sharing, and a kind of GPS on the pulse of the community.
• A Guilty Pleasure: Because I admit to an undying need to stalk people.

All in all, like any tool, you're going to find your fair share of twits as well as tradesman.  The key here is to find the community that you're interested in to begin with.  When used sparingly, and without the popularity-driven fanaticism of MySpace's friends list-padding mindset, Twitter can be a useful and effective tool of the trade.  As well as a guilty pleasure.

...What?  I've got my cake.  Now I'm going to eat it, too! 

Potential Business

by Theresa Carpine 6.March 2008 11:25

First of all, Karina gets 5 Gold Stars just for working Jane Austen into a blog post about web design. As a Lit major, nothing really makes me happier than a good P&P reference.

But she also makes some great points about what the first priority when creating a website for a client: aesthetic or programmability? And what’s most important when working for that client: giving them what they want or giving them a website that will work? And Rusty reminds us that many clients don’t know why they need a website, so how do they even know whether they need a designer or developer? They might not even know that there is a difference—I certainly didn’t until I started working at Mindfly.

It’s pretty interesting that Karina and Rusty focus on what the “customer” wants, meaning the customer that has hired us to design the site. As someone who never really thought about web design until about four or so months ago, I would think of the customer as someone who visits a site, searching for potential business (like the person who hopefully is reading this blog after a doing a Google search of “Bellingham web design”). The only time I ever considered that a website didn’t just exist or emerge fully-armed from Zeus’s forehead was when my favorite sites would undergo a redesign and I’d have to figure out how to work my way around again. At the time, I always considered it an inconvenience to me—a loyal and frequent visitor of the site. But once you get used to things, you can’t imagine it being any other way. Or that’s what you hope people think, if the design is in fact an improvement.

The good folks at Mindfly have to serve a variety of masters when creating a site: the limitations of programming, visually innovative design, the client, and the client’s clients. And it’s great that Mindfly has a variety of people with a diversity of skills to bring to the table, but there can also be the issue of having “too many cooks in the kitchen.” We manage to work all of these things together to make attractive and functional websites. And when you think about the significance a website can have, that’s exactly what needs to be done.

According to this video by faculty and students at Kansas State University, people in my generation (currently in college or just joining the workforce) spend about 3.5 hours online every day and read 2,300 web pages a year (as opposed to eight books). The Internet is where we get our news, our entertainment, it’s how we network and communicate with each other. I can only imagine what the next generation will expect, as they are being raised (quite literally) on websites.

Without being too sales-pitchy, here are just a few things you might want to ask yourself if you’re in the market for a website. They’re pretty basic, but for a novice like me—someone who is a potential customer of the site itself—they’re probably the first things I consider when I’m looking at a site for the first time.

• Who is the audience and what will they use the site for?
• Is content on the website clear and easy to find?
• What is innovative about this site, both in regards to the design and programming?
• How will the look of the site reflect the business or organization behind it?

Re: Right developer can craft an attractive, functional Web site

by Rusty Swayne 4.March 2008 16:57

It was great to see that the Bellingham Herald Tech Guys published an article entitled Right developer can craft an attractive, functional Web site in which they describe the process of selecting a Web designer/developer.  In my opinion, however, the article brought up a few points that could contribute to the overall confusion in regarding web projects. 

It is often the case that a customer knows they need a website but has little understanding (or interest in thinking about) what is actually involved in creating a website.  (That's like opening a business, then turning it over to someone else to create your business plan.)  First time customers tend to overlook identifying the basic reason they need a website in the first place.  In other words they may think they need a website but haven't answered the question, "why?".  Is it essential to business to have a web presence?  Is it a component of a marketing plan with an identified end objective?  Is it intended to gather data or conduct sales?  Many people lose sight of the fact that just having a website does not guarantee anyone will visit the site and it is not immediately intuitive that it takes more than pretty pictures and animated flash objects flying around to help their website be successful, i.e., drive more business, more readership, etc.

Content first! Creating a great website is all about having great content.  The site needs to be created in such a way that it can be easily indexed by search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN.  It needs to be Search Engine Optimized (SEO) and it should be written in a way that is accessible so that people with disabilities can access the content.  Because websites are interactive, they differ from print brochures in that they speak to individuals rather than to a broad/generic group.  In addition, there are multiple types of viewing platforms that need to be considered in the design, such as mobile devices, screen readers and printable versions.  How can the information be presented in order to encompass all the different methods of viewing a webpage?

The authors suggest that one should try to figure out what type of website they are going to need and choose either a Web designer or a Web developer.  They describe the choice as one that would be determined by the volume of dynamic content the site contains and the frequency it is updated.  One cannot look for either a Web designer or a Web developer, instead they need to recruit a team that has all of the skills that their project requires.

I agree that most people do not know the difference between a designer and a programmer.  In our industry, you don’t have to have any sort of credentials, and there is no licensing board.  You can simply throw out your shingle and call yourself whatever you please.  I found the Tech Guys description of the two skill sets totally wrong.  Designers may or may not know Flash and JavaScript (at least very well) and still be great at Web design.  Further, in my experience most programmers have very little to no aesthetic sense or any sort of proficiency with graphic design and layout. 

By the Tech Guys' definitions, I would be both a designer and a developer.  I have been building websites since 1995.  I can create graphics (and think I have somewhat of an aesthetic eye, although our designers would cringe if you asked them), do server side programming, JavaScript, some Flash … yada, yada, yada … but I call myself a web developer and more specifically a server side programmer.  I am a very necessary part of a bigger team.  If you look for a single person to build your website you are likely to find the “Jack of all trades, master of none,” because the longer someone has been in this industry the more likely it is that they have specialized in what they are the most interested in, and there are just too many skill sets for any one person to remain suitably proficient across the board.

To their (Tech Guys') credit, I strongly agree with the checklist provided (see below) which outlines points for clients to consider prior to approaching a Web Design & Development team.  At Mindfly, we use a lengthy survey that helps our clients think about these issues in depth before we start working on their project.  The more information the clients bring to us at the beginning, the faster we can be on track to a successful project. 

1. Site structure – check!
2. Materials - check!
3. Site copy - double check!
4. Ability to update site - check!