Allchorn Blog

I’m working at the Realm Digital offices at the moment since they needed some of my skills on certain of their UK clients. A nice change of scene, and it’s always good to meet new people. The guys here all seem pretty friendly and professional.

From The Camera

Our new professional photography business is coming along strongly, with requests starting to come in and a few shoots under the new banner already under our belts. We have a likely shoot for BMW South Africa next week, which will be great and right up our alley (CircuitChaser.com). We did the M3 launch last year for them, and it all went off really well. Holding thumbs.

Every Day Cooking in South Africa

On another topic all together, my fiancee and I have started a blog site revolving around every day cooking in South Africa. The idea being to document our culinary adventures and eventually (once we have enough content) move it onto a properly hosted platform, categorise everything and possibly even publish an eBook or printed publication. If you don’t try, you’ll never know. We eat every day after all… if not why not?

I get to practice my food photography too. Does this make you hungry?

Note: This is my first article on information architecture and will only be a brief theoretical exploration into the topic of website navigation. This is not a tutorial on creating the navigation systems displayed, but an explanation on what and what not to use where.

Navigating a website should be as natural as breathing. Finding what you’re looking for should be immediately obvious, and even when there are large amounts of pages to be linked to, the architecture should give a good indication as to how the desired page(s) can be located.

There are a multitude of options when planning the navigation of a website, and each have their merits and pitfalls. The method chosen should disguise the complexity of the site’s structure (or lack thereof) and serve as an aide rather than an obstacle.

Getting Your Foundation Cast

To begin with, lets get something out the way. I only promote semantic navigation systems that take the form of unordered lists which are styled accordingly to be presented as desired. Here is an example of a well structured, unstyled navigation:

Notice how the unordered list makes easy work of simply and semantically categorising and effectively displaying the navigation in it’s simplest form. For a simple site with not too many pages, this is easy to maintain, and can even be coded into an include file from which you can edit only it to maintain the entire site’s navigation. More about that in another post.

Once you have established your sitemap, your navigation will be simpler to construct and depending on it’s complexity and what you will be displaying in what navigation (main, secondary etc.), you can mark things up to reflect what you need. Then some CSS comes in and you can style the menu in a multitude of ways. Here are some of my favourites.

Popular And Effective Navigation Models

Horizontal
The horizontal navigation is popular, uses little screen real estate and serves to navigate effectively to different sections/pages.

Horizontal with Dropdown
This model allows for a second level of navigation to be viewed without reloading the page. It facilitates slightly faster navigation when there are sub pages/sections that don’t require unnecessary steps to get there.
Horizontal with Dropdown and Multi Level
Feeling frisky with this dropdown thing? Go another level, but stop there. Getting too dropdown happy can create an annoying user experience with usability becoming an issue. Imagine following a trail of dropdowns and you lose the focus and have to start again at the beginning. Not worth the aggravation in my opinion.

Horizontal with Tiered Levels
This model is one of my favourites, but one I don’t tend to use very often. It’s most effective as an “on click” event rather than a “mouse over”, but both work well. As with the model above, don’t make it go to too many levels, or you’re looking to confuse rather than enable your user.

Vertical
This is similar to the horizontal in it’s use of real estate, but offers a top to bottom viewing experience. I believe that anything read from top to bottom left to right is sticking to a certain fundamental that cannot be undermined. Again, nothing complex in this model, but a nice clear and concise breakdown of available site pages/sections.

Vertical with Flyout
Not much need be said about this model. As with the horizontal with dropdown, it serves the same purpose, but is visually presented differently. Effective and clean.

Vertical with Flyout and Multi Level
Getting a bit fancier, adding more levels seems like childs play, but children don’t design effective business focussed websites, so put that GI Joe away and keep things simple! Remember, your users want things to be simple and fast. Don’t confuse them! Two levels max, and if you want three, you’d better have a good reason, or off to the principal’s office young man/lady.

Vertical with Accordian Dropdown
Another of my favourites. This one can accommodate large amounts of links and levels, but displays only two here. An example of this navigation model being used effectively can be seen on this website.
Contextual
Another good method of navigation this, but not very easy to make consistent site-wide. It can work well from a search engine standpoint as well as offering a friendly human approach to visitors. Nice on small sites but normally requires a backup navigation that offers a bit more structure.


Abstract (flash, images, icons etc.)
Avoid abstract forms of navigation. Examples include navigations that don’t show where the link goes until you place the mouse over it, navigation that flies around the screen making you have to chase it, or icons/images that aren’t immediately obvious or aren’t implemented properly (alt attributes etc.).

I’m not going to go into Flash flaming mode, but this technology is a primary reason for these forms of navigation abuse. If you’re thinking of making a flash navigation on an HTML site because it will look “cool” or makes a sound when you are constructing or having your site constructed… I recommend you adjust your thinking and re-evaluate things. Is a twinkly navigation that sparkles and makes magical sounds when you put your mouse over it worth the sacrifice of search engine visibility, client download delays and essentially, lost sales/enquiries. I didn’t think so.

Conclusion

Wow, quite a long one that. At least by my standards. To sum things up, I think I can conclude that creating a simple navigation system that effectively represents your content in as few clicks as possible without rendering your site unusable is your best plan of action.

1. Keep things semantic. A bulleted list is your best bet, and CSS can make it look how you want.
2. Don’t make things too complicated and try to group them effectively and logically.
3. Try to mirror your site’s content (or at least the top 2 or 3 levels).
4. Don’t try to be different or clever in navigation. If people are familiar with certain methods, why throw them into the pit of uncertainty.

Happy navigating, and I hope this article is useful to someone.

Note: When I say design, think copywriter, photographer, programmer, or just about any creative/skilled professional.

With almost all of our work having come in as referrals, we’ve never done spec work, and not even needed to pitch on a job. I don’t say this to brag as pitching and winning is possibly something more worthy of merit since you’re effectively entering and winning in a very competitive market. Spec work on the other hand is something I am completely and utterly against. If you don’t know what it is, it’s explained perfectly at no-spec.com.

I was recently requested to pitch on a job which was print orientated, so I politely declined, but it made me think a bit about the difference between spec work and pitching. I may have been wrong, but I thought the job a bit small for a pitch. Personally, I think a pitch should only entail a certain percentage of the entire project, and if it’s too small, you’re doing about 80% before even knowing you’re going to be paid for it. I reckon about 10% of the work is maybe fair if the job is worth something, but if you’re delivering a photoshop brush stroke and a file name, it’s hardly a pitch is it?

Spending an hour on a possible 2hr project is dangerously close to spec work. Just as a competition is. Sure competitions have their place, but as standard practice for design commissions, I don’t think anyone can present sound proof that it does not damage the industry. My key thoughts as to why spec work damages the industry are:

1. It devalues the designer by demoting them to a commodity rather than a skilled professional.
2. Unless you are an accomplished creative director, how can you effectively choose the right design without just basing your choice on emotion or maybe even your ill-conceived design opinion?
3. Your design will likely not receive the correct amount of research and consideration to result in as effective a finished product.
4. You get what you pay for. So even if you pay what it’s worth, through incorrect choice, things can go wrong, which can lessen your opinion of the industry in general.

Sometimes things go right… for the client. My personal opinion on the subject, since I have been there, and I make use of freelancers a lot, is that spec work is downright rude and demeaning. I morally object to it, and would not even consider doing spec work let alone request it of someone else. I guess I’m just a nice guy

I didn’t want to approach this topic as a whiner, but more from an information standpoint and to educate designers and clients alike. If someone pitches on work with any regularity, or even does spec work (heaven forbid), please fill me in on your opinion. By the same token, if you make use of spec workers or request companies/freelancers to pitch, please have your say on the topic.

For some of you more in touch with the mobile world, this won’t seem like much, but I am pretty excited that I can blog from my mobile phone.

I recently got my paws on a Nokia e61i with a full qwerty keyboard, connection to my wireless LAN and a much improved internet user experience over any mobile phone I’ve ever owned before.

There are a few quirks that I have not got to grips with yet, but on a whole I am very impressed.

I will follow this up with a bit more of a review of the phone, but in the meantime, I have lots of playing to do…

PS: this post was written on my phone while sitting on the couch watching tv.

Note: This review is intended as a comparison of these two online gallery systems from a business and usability perspective. Not overly technical.

Online photo galleries. Specifically the type that allows you to sell your pictures online. This is a topic which has led me to many sleepless nights and many… many of hours of research and testing. I’ve narrowed things down to two systems, both of which are very capable, but both have their pros and cons. One is a system developed by a very talented individual called Jamie Longstaff and it’s called Pixaria. The other is an open source system quite aptly named Gallery.

I’ve had the pleasure of working on both platforms quite extensively, although admittedly I’ve spent considerably longer on Gallery (over 12,000 pictures on one of my Gallery sites). I did also spend many late nights in the Pixaria system and I’m surely set in my ways to a degree, but once I got my head around things it was business as usual.

Unfortunately my Pixaria installation on Mediatemple’s (gs) offering had a nasty reaction to their one click Wordpress installation and effectively destroyed it. Good thing I keep backups, but it still means a lot of time uploading and re-linking things. Not Pixaria’s fault, but I’ve said it to you as a warning, so be careful in this regard.

Installation

Installing both systems was relatively simple. Pixaria requires a little more technical knowledge, but is documented so well that if you can’t get it up and running using the instructions, you probably shouldn’t be installing software on a web server anyway. Any web dev worth his/her weight in salt can install either without hassle.

Both require a MySQL database and PHP to run. A few other server configurations and plugins like gdLibrary are also required… or enhance your site. Versions of which can be found in the documentation of each system respectively.

Configuration

Making your installation of a gallery system is quite a personal process. Exactly how you want your gallery to look, how many images to show per page, how you want people to order, how you want to track those orders and anything else you want to have working just the way you want it.

Configuring Pixaria is relatively straight forward. The interface is quite intuitive but I sometimes found configurations take a number of steps where in Gallery they are amalgamated into one. I found the pricing setup a bit tricky and in testing the assigning of prices to items when importing them I think I must have gone back and forth and done things a number of times to get things how I wanted them.

It has been considerably longer since I configured Gallery, but I remember it being very straight forward. After installation, you are presented with a site admin navigation on the left (default skin) and from there it just a matter of clicking around and seeing what it does. The themes in Gallery are especially easy to change as well as the plugins, all through the admin interface, which is essentially the site front end with more options.

Both systems work with a templating system with which you can customise things to your liking with the skills of a good HTML/CSS guru. If you’re not one of them, I recommend you hire one or you’ll likely break either system.

The Admin Interface

Pixaria has a separate admin interface that looks slightly different to the default theme. It’s very elegant and user friendly. Gallery has it’s admin integrated into the look of the front end. In other words, once logged into Gallery, you are seeing the same aesthetic as your visitors as well as the options to administer your content.

Personally, I quite like the Gallery method since you can edit items/albums from one location and you are essentially testing things as you work with them. The drawback to this is that you are permanently logged in and see things as an administrator. I sometimes have to log out quickly to see how it looks without the admin dropdown menus etc.

Pixaria’s admin interface has the advantage of you being able to keep two tabs open, one with the admin, and the other with the front end. For testing this is better and removes clutter from an administratory(sic) front end.

Adding Albums of Images

I use the same method of adding images with both systems and that is to first upload via FTP to a designated folder on the server, and then have the software process the files (create thumbnails etc) on the server. Both seem to work equally as well, but in Pixaria, you are limited to I think 100 images per batch. Since I sometimes add up to and over 300 images per set, this posed a problem.

In Gallery, if you set your timeout for server processes high enough (quite techie this, but ask your host/developer), the number of pictures is incredibly high. I have not tested how high it can go, but I’m comfortable with about 350 images at 640×48px.

I’ve got the process of adding albums and images down to an art in Gallery and once I’ve sorted my images and uploaded, it literally takes a couple of minutes to create a new album, give it a name, some keyword tags and import a couple hundred images. I found the process on Pixaria a bit more laborious and the limit of 100 for processing really made things take longer on larger albums.

In Pixaria’s defense here, the (gs) server was ridiculously slow (not the software, I tested) so my patience was already stressed to the limit.

Copyright & Selling The Pictures

Selling images on the web. Where do I start? Some people think my pictures should be free for them to download. Sorry, I have to eat and as George Bush says “put food on my family” (honestly). As such, the images are watermarked to prevent theft and I offer the ordering of images using a shopping cart, credit card payment facility and other methods of payment. Through bandwidth restrictions in this godforsaken country (Hellkom), I don’t put the full size images on the server as I’d pay through the nose for the privilege, and if I went for international hosting, it would be tooooo sloooow for my market.

Watermarking in Gallery requires me to pre-process the images in something like Acdsee and then upload them. A serious bonus in Pixaria is that the system watermarks the large versions for you. This is great if you want people to be able to download the un-watermarked image. Call it unmonitored sales (no human intervention).

Both systems have the ability for a shopping cart and eCommerce, although in Pixaria it is by default (it is it’s core competency as far as I can make out) and Gallery as a plugin.

Currency options are limited in Pixaria, and I had to change the AUS$ in the code to an R symbol to represent Rands. Not ideal, but it worked. The Gallery plugin that I’ve been using actually uses this method but more generically and doesn’t require a hack. For proper eCommerce, I assume the Pixaria system can face problems here to site owners with odd currencies like mine. Luckily, we do things slightly differently.

I have a “checkout to email” option which leads the customer to our payment page using Gallery and I managed to configure things quite similarly in Pixaria. One thing I like about Gallery is that I edited the email template to show all the details, including thumbnails of the images and instructions for payment. Pixaria is more web based and just sends a brief notification email for most functions of the site. I find it preferable to have the email to print and file like an invoice. Call it a hard-copy.

On mentioning this aspect to Jamie from Pixaria, he said he will look into it and shouldn’t be too large a customisation. Being a one man band, it would be paid work (I assume), and nobody will know the system as well as he. In Gallery you’ll likely find a few people bidding on your project if you post it in rentacoder.com. Beware though. Some of them are charlatans. I won’t get into that now.

Overall, I think the Pixaria pricing structure for your images/products is superior, but with some customisation you can reach your goals with Gallery too.

Price

This will come as a surprise to people who think the freedom in Open Source means you don’t pay for anything, but I think Gallery properly installed, configured and set up will come at a higher price than Pixaria’s minimal $195 (US).

My reasoning is that for you to purchase, install and make some minor tweaks in Pixaria, you should be up and running within a couple of days if you do things methodically and just use your nut. Although Gallery is free and the installation process is simpler, your time configuring, installing plugins, revising the looks to suit what you need and setting up all the shopping cart functionality, your time, or money spent on someone else’s is going to be more.

I would say, the differences will be marginal, and Pixaria’s code does seem to be more elegantly written. I am no programmer, and as such, it’s much of a muchness… if it works, it works.

Conclusion

Who is Pixaria for?
If you’re a professional photographer who wants to sell pictures online. Not for $1 per image, but more in the region of 50 or 100 times that and even needs to have the ability for clients to request a quote for using an image in a publication or ad campaign, then Pixaria is probably your best option. Your ability to customise will be inhibited, but with a built in blog system, if you’re just selling pictures, you should do so very effectively using Pixaria.

Who is Gallery for?
If you’re the person above, but want the ability to change almost anything (for a fee) then you’re possibly better off with Gallery. It integrates with an number of other open source systems (Joomla, Wordpress etc.) and a developer is a bid request away on rentacoder. It has it’s pitfalls, but with the right person/team, you can mold Gallery into what you want.

Both systems are brilliant, and as I mentioned, I am using and intend to likely continue using both of them. This comparison is hastily written and if you spot any errors or oversights, please feel free to let me know in the comments.

If you came to this site and were expecting something looking more like this:

Fear not… for we have published a backup copy of it for you to view it in all it’s glory. There was some valuable content there, which we’re re-writing and migrating across to this new version of the site, but it’s mostly still relevant, and not worth removing from the intarweb.

Note: This post is written for contractors and clients alike. I tend to jump in third person between my opinion, the client and the contractor. Bare with me.

Whether you are writing your own copy, taking your own pictures or getting it done by someone else; it is the heart of your website and without it, even the most talented, skilled design and development team cannot create something that will perform and realise your expectations.

The reason I’m writing about this today, is because a close friend of mine just vented a little over his one client moaning that their site is not live. He is still waiting for content. Maybe his communication with the client is lacking, but this seems to be a very common occurrence and a bit of a problem in this industry.

I would say in the last 8 years or so, about 90% of clients that come to me to replace their current designers say “(s)he has been working on the site for months and months, and we still haven’t seen anything!”. Since we usually need to make contact with this company/freelancer to get things like ftp details etc. we more often than not find that they are just waiting on content and their (now obsolete and old) design is done and coded.

Like I said above, this is often a lack in communication between the designer and the client, but sometimes is actually a sign of incompetence on either side. Communication being the case more often than incompetence.

I guess this is just an observation post, but for designers and clients alike, here is my advice.

Business to Business Relationships are Peer Relationships

Firstly, a mistake some contractors and clients both make is that one is above the other. If you are looking for website design, you find the best person for the job and once all negotiations and paperwork is complete, you are exchanging money for service.

If the service and resulting product is good, the remuneration should also be good, and aside from maintenance contracts and further work, the client should benefit from the creation, and the contractor should be a little more financially better endowed.

Communication Cannot Be Underestimated

Keeping your client up to date and informed as to what you’re doing, and when, as well as what you need from them and by when is part of your job. Unless you’re just a creative or a code machine (in which case, get a job with a project manager) you should stay in touch with your client’s designated contact often. A paper trail (these days email is sufficient) will cover the aspect of proof that you requested what and when.

It works both ways and communication is best kept between those who need to know. The old saying “too many cooks spoil the broth” is as true as ever. If you ask too many people something, either nobody will do it or comment on it, or everybody will give you something different. Try to keep your collaboration between you and one person. CC others that need to know and they can respond if necessary. Always address the email to your contact (Dear Joe…).

Assumption Is The Mother of All F**ckups!

Don’t assume that just because you’re paying someone to design a website for you that they are also going to pop into your place of business with their digital camera, take pictures, interview your CEO and write reams of copy for you. That is unless they tell you they’re going to do that of course. There is a reason people do photography only as a profession, or copywriters for that matter. They’re good at it, and charge accordingly.

By the same token, don’t assume that your client is going to email you everything the day after the contract is signed. They need to know what you want, and by when.

Deadlines Are For Everyone

Does your client know what format you need/want. Do they know when you need it by in order to not delay the project? Do they know the penalty of them not giving it to you in time (possible overtime charges to meet deadline or delays in going live)?

Just as a contractor needs to have set milestones and deadlines, so does the client. I’m yet to experience a project that does not require some form of feedback/approval of designs, copy or images. If a design is sent, a deadline for feedback in order to stay on schedule will help ensure that feedback is prompt and delays are reduced.

I read a rather amusing post on Clientcopia recently which will illustrate just how badly things can go wrong when communication lapses. In this situation, it sounds like the client just didn’t listen, but the guy who wrote it might be telling some porky pies (lies).

To sum up, I felt like writing this because it seems to be happening so often, hopefully both clients and contractors will not fall into this trap after reading this post.

I am aware that Wordpress is no silver bullet CMS for everyone, but really, this is one seriously evolved and elegant system. I am quite astounded at the amount of plugins, themes and whatnot that is now available. Also the quality of it’s construction considering the fact that it is open source.

I’ve just installed the Google Analytics plugin by Wilfred van der Deijl. I’m yet to experience any problems. It was a mere task of uploading a PHP file to the plugins directory and some activation and configuration from within Wordpress’ admin interface. Honestly couldn’t be simpler, aside from maybe uploading the file from the admin area.

Actually everything has been pretty straight forward and bug free from the get go. I made one mistake in installation by using the incorrect URL to run the installation, but I quickly flushed and re-started. The setup couldn’t have been easier.

A New Platform Looming

That having been said, for more advanced requirements, including support, training and a seemingly endless list of features, I still have my eyes set on the looming public release of Platform by Realm Digital. I have had a few meetings with the director Wesley Lynch of Realm already and they seem to be the way of the future for serious webtreneurs. Unfortunately for systems like Joomla, this platform is what you do best, only better, and then a whole lot more.

I have no reason to pimp Realm’s Platform, but in my personal honest opinion, most anything else doesn’t come close at this stage. More on this in time.

Having only now been exposed to tag clouds, in so far as actually using them, I guess they’ve intrigued me somewhat. I’ve known what they are and how they work for some time now and if you’re not sure, I’ll try to sum it up.

Essentially tag clouds are a bunch of words or phrases known as tags that relate to some piece of content (article, blog post etc.). The tags are presented in what is called a cloud. The tags representing content items that more frequently featured are visually larger than the others to assert their popularity.

What I was interested in finding out, since the concept behind these structures are pretty simple, is if and how they could positively or negatively effect your SEO. In my research, I have not found anything which would constitute tag clouds having a negative effect, and quite to the contrary, they seem to be quite a healthy and beneficial asset to a website with frequently updated content.

If you stand back and think about it, they are all keywords/phrases pointing to an article pertaining to them. Isn’t that what we suspect to be one major part of the search engine’s algorithm? At least Google’s?

Personally, I’ve very rarely used a tag cloud as my browsing a site has normally consisted of navigating using the traditional vertical or horizontal navigation or typing a search string and hitting enter. I think I’ll embrace this concept however and see if it makes things easier or more difficult for me in the long run. I guess that means there will be a follow up to this.

Anyway, an interesting, topic for me anyway.

It feels good to be back on Wordpress. Such an elegant platform. This is the first post on this, our fresh, newly installed website.

I’ve chosen to use a theme for now and it’s called Cutline. A nice basic theme that allows you to focus on content rather than the frilly edges. To coin a rather old phrase in saying “don’t judge a book by it’s cover”, I intend to make things a little more worthwhile for all by steering a little more away from unnecessary frills and embellishments. I’m not scrapbooking here after all am I?

Well, I hope you stick around, bookmark, subscribe to my feed, or do whatever you do to keep up to date with your favourite sites. I’ll post again shortly.