So I’ve been sat on this project for a few months now, with all sorts of important and pointless activities distracting me from launching these sites. This did however mean I didn’t rush the projects to launch and find myself with two broken websites that quickly needed putting right (although that may yet happen).

The sites are When is Mother’s Day and When is Father’s Day

What do they do?

Not alot. Truthfully I don’t know how useful these sites may or may not be but I did see the opportunity to design and build a couple of sites that served a single purpose in the best way possible. When coming up with the idea there appeared to be nothing that presented the information so directly that the user would find the information they were looking for even before they had to look around the page.

But there was a problem

Not only does the date that Mother’s Day and Father’s Day fall on move each year but it’s also different for a lot of countries. To solve this issue the simple little website had to be beefed up behind the baby blues and pinks.

An IP database was added to the website so that a user’s location could be determined upon visiting the website. This then allows the correct date to be displayed for the location of the user. Then for the foreseen and unforeseen issues with such automated technology there’s also a country select box so that simple user selection is possible.

Design

There is really little to say about the design. I wanted something that looked well designed and suited the limited content but with space for elements like some content and ads.

I wanted to makes sure that the website was a usable experience so a few JavaScript niceties were thrown in as well as Cufon for font replacement and some CSS3 which included my new hobby of putting border-radius into everything.

Here’s hoping

Hopefully the sites will see a bit of traffic and maybe generate revenue but even if they don’t it was good to work on a project without a client which isn’t my own website either.

Now all this is done I hope I can now get back to writing blog posts a little more often than late as well as get back to the redesign of this website that’s been slowly simmering in a Photoshop file for a while.

Post from: Kean Richmond

When is Mother’s Day?

The two sites are rather small and the timeframe above shows more about the delays caused in working on the project rather than its complexity. That being said there were a few things I had to implement that were new territories for me.

As can be seen the sites have a similar layout with their primary colour being the big difference, possibly signifying each is gender specific, or is it the colour of candy floss? Who knows?

Next up is a couple of more tweaks and a bit of testing then it’ll be time for a soft launch on twitter, once that’s done it’ll soon go live so long as no big problems are found.

Post from: Kean Richmond

Personal Project: Teaser

A New Project

Truthfully creating a WordPress theme was the easy option as I knew I wanted to do something but couldn’t think of a decent enough idea that did not require a lot of time. That was until a few months back when I got the idea for a couple of sites that would serve a very specific purpose and one that did not seem to have been tackled in quite the same way elsewhere.

What is it?

You’ll have to wait to find out. So far I’ve got one of the websites pretty much finished and I’ll be looking to release a few teasers and possibly soft launch it through Twitter soon. In the meantime I will be working on its sister (or brother) site.

The main purpose of the website is simply to serve a very specific purpose but provide information specific to the user quickly and succinctly. Although the websites will look small they have a fair amount of functionality behind the scenes to serve a smooth interface that is hopefully well designed and usable.

To keep up to date on the projects follow me on Twitter.

Post from: Kean Richmond

Personal Project: An Update

Registration

Due to late attendees last year and subsequent queuing the registration period was extended by an hour this year. For early arrivals this meant a fair amount of time waiting around as well as a reduction in the overall time for the conference by an hour. Given the costs involved in attending conferences you hope to have as much time as possible listening to the speakers. I’m of the opinion that if you’re late then you miss out and you should have arrived earlier.

The Speakers

Whether a conference fails or succeeds in an attendees mind is down to the speakers and how engaging they are and how much information they impart. This year’s conference had a mixture of new speakers, engaging speakers and informative speakers. However having engaging speakers is not enough, they must be able to educate you, or others if you know the subject already. Unfortunately there were a number of speakers that spoke more about their own experiences and career than any clear subject matter. In doing so this reduced the educational value of the conference which for me is the most important part of attending.

Other speakers did provide some educational worth, even if some spoke of processes and theories that may have applied more specifically to themselves than the majority of the room. Yet it is still good to learn how others can go about things and how they may apply to you.

There was one session that did not set the day off too well for me and that was the short session about Agile development that Ryan Carson himself said had to be shoe horned in because of it’s incredible worth. Personally I’m a little sick and tired about being told Agile or any other process is the best way to work as I always get the impression you’ll spend more time crying over the process rather than doing the work. Not only this but I still feel that few methodologies or processes other than Waterfall suit the normal client relationship.

and the rest…

This year I didn’t attend the workshops so can’t comment on those, the after party went well enough and the lack of a pre party was unfortunate I think, although it did make for a more sober conference morning. There were some nice extras such as vouchers for snacks at the conference and free journal and bag for conference attendees (even if the bag was breaking apart within 2 days).

Overall my views of the conference are mixed as I truly believe having speakers talk more about themselves than a specific subject is inexcusable. Of course all speakers will refer to their own experiences to inform or justify their views on a subject but with little or no subject you are simply listening to someone stroking their ego, something you do not want to be paying the privilege for.

Of course I do not organise conferences, speak at conferences and this is only my second ever conference so of course I probably would not be able to do better myself, but this post and this blog is built on my opinions whether right or wrong. Hopefully the FOWD tour later this year and FOWD London next year will be a return to last year’s standard which I felt was much better.

Post from: Kean Richmond

Future of Web Design 2009

From a design stand point the website provided little room for experimentation or innovation but then for heating products you don’t need this. These products are not luxury items or impulse buys so when someone visits the website they need to be able to find and buy a product as quickly and simply as possible. To ensure the website does this we removed the need to register in order to buy, simplified the navigation and rebuilt the Room Selector present on the old website.

Not only did we do this but we removed a lot of the non product content from the main website to blog.floorheatingonline.com. This way the main site was focused solely on the products but the content was still available and linked to from the new Information bar at the head of the website.

The final website is a clean and simple website that ensures users can access products quickly as well as clearly highlight offers and promotions. But most of all the team behind the website are happy with the final product, having trusted us to provide them with a system that best serves theirs and their users needs.

Since the website went live the guys have paid us the ultimate compliment and recommended us to other companies as the place to go for their new website. Our business is driven by referrals so pleasing our customers is our main goal, beaten only by ensuring the best experience for the websites users.

Post from: Kean Richmond

Website: Floor Heating Online

Following last year’s conference I was straight in when it came to getting tickets for this year’s conference. Although this year I’m not attending the workshop day as I did last year I am massively looking forward to the conference day and the couple of extra days hanging around the capital.

What will make this year more enjoyable is that I’ve got my good friend Scott Mallinson tagging along for the ride. It’ll mean I have someone to remind me of the stuff I forget in the conference and someone to relieve the boredom in the quiet times when the conference isn’t on.

This year the conference appears to be lacking some of the names, subjects and personalities that last year did, but I’m sure I’ll be pleasantly surprised and hopefully come away with the same wealth of new knowledge that I did last year.

Although I’ll not be live blogging the event I’m sure I’ll be twittering way too much and will blog my views of the conference similar to what I did last year after last year’s event.

Post from: Kean Richmond

Future of Web Design 2009: The Beginning

Previously the only method of using a wide range of fonts on the web was to use image replacement. This however can be time consuming, difficult to maintain and bad for SEO, especially if used for all the text in a website. Over a year ago I came across Sifr as a more workable solution but found it to have a number of downsides mainly to do with its dependence on Flash and its inexplicable ability to resize text depending on the size of containing elements. All this frustrated me, limiting the situations I felt comfortable in using it.

The past couple of days however I have been giving Cufón a try after seeing it working its way around the twittersphere. This essentially is a JavaScript only solution that so far has been a little easier to handle. It still has its issues such as inconsistent line-heights in Firefox 2 and issues when using inline elements such as span (namely because Cufón outputs into span tags). Also you are unable to select the text Cufón outputs as yet, but all this being said it’s an easier to handle solution than Sifr in my experience so far.

Although I tend to avoid text replacement where possible, namely because it leads to code bloat and increased load times I will be using Cufón when necessary (unless it frustrates me in the same way Sifr did). Hopefully however by that time some solution to the licensing issues that plague @font-face will be found so that we can a lightweight and final solution to web fonts, but that’s probably another post entirely.

Post from: Kean Richmond

Cufon

Breaking the Web

One of the mantra’s of the Internet Explorer team is to not break the web. To many within the industry this may sound a little ironic as they blame Internet Explorer’s many versions to be the root cause of broken websites. The compatibility mode and compatible meta tag were engineered to help smooth the transition to Microsoft’s most standards compliant browser. Yet is a few weeks enough time to give Web Developers time to get to grips with IE8 and update sites with the compatible meta tag (where necessary) before what should be the mass adoption of the new browser?

From Three to Two to One?

Unfortunately the IE8 update is not a forced update and users can decline the update or block it altogether, yet many expect this to be the end of IE7 and a return to a time where only two versions of IE were necessary for web developers to test with. Yet as with IE6 we will be lucky to be totally rid of the browser for some time yet, and this is not something we cannot control.

Although it’s most certainly a good thing that Microsoft are now using their update technology to roll out IE updates it’s unlikely that we will be able to test in only a single version of IE for the majority of websites for a long time yet.

Post from: Kean Richmond

IE8 Automatic Update

Today I managed to pick up the first issue of the new Wired UK magazine that launched on April 2nd. Essentially it’s the same as the US version but run by Brits with content and adverts tailored primarily for a UK audience. When hearing that Wired would be crossing the pond I must admit I was concerned about how different the magazine would be from the US version.

The design of Wired has always been very unique compared to other UK magazines using a rough matt cover and being very design focused from cover to cover. Although I’ve yet to start reading the magazine it seems all these seem intact, but one thing concerns me at the moment.

Within the first issue of Wired UK is an article about a group of men employed to save the Cougar Ace shipping transporter that has capsized and without drastic measures was about to sink losing the transporter and it’s valuable contents to the North Pacific deep. This is an awesome story about men risking their lives for big rewards; in fact not everyone entering the boat came out alive, showing really how dangerous the job is. Yet how do I know the full story without having yet read the magazine. Because the article was featured in the US version of the magazine, issue 16.03 (March 2008) to be exact.

Now with a US and UK version of the magazine I have no problem with the crossover of articles, you shouldn’t feel as if your missing out on too much by buying one over the other, but this article caused me some concern. The way I see it a large percentage of people buying the first issue of Wired UK will be aware of the US version and very possibly will have bought the US version much like I have done on and off over the past couple of years. So with the majority of the audience currently being those that have read the US version would it be the best use of time and paper to reprint something that a large majority of people will have already read. Although this doesn’t damage my opinion of the magazine it does sour its UK launch a bit.

However like I said I can see cross over articles being suitable in the future as with both magazines available those buying the UK version may longer buy the US version and as such not have read certain articles released in the US. But articles published prior to the UK launch should really be off limits as surely no one wishes to part with their money, especially with the economic climate as it is, to read something they have already read.

Post from: Kean Richmond

Wired UK

When you speak to people about work you seem to get a large percentage driven by the salary they earn or some by how enjoyable their job is. Unfortunately you can’t measure happiness so a person’s salary can become a marker for a person’s success. When asked about my salary I’m fairly forward about what I earn, and at times am met with the response ‘I earn more than that’. I know there are people doing a similar job to me that earn more and I would be lying if I didn’t admit that a higher salary is tempting. However when I think of what I’ve got at Bronco I realise how lucky I am, and that to get the same elsewhere would be difficult.

Although I’m not going to go into the details of exactly what I earn in such a public forum, I thought I would list some of the perks that I remind myself of when I think about just how great it is to work at Bronco:

Christmas Bonus

Nothing unique here, though with the economic downturn most companies have had to drop this luxury. Last year however with our Christmas bonus generated on how long we’ve worked for the company and our profits we got another good Christmas bonus, driving us on to work even harder the following year.

Petrol Allowance

As petrol prices sky rocketed a petrol allowance was introduced for those travelling over a certain distance to make sure the daily commute wasn’t affecting our take home pay as much. As the petrol prices have dropped so has the allowance but it does still remain making the petrol bills a little easier to manage each month.

Healthcare

Since starting at Bronco I’ve had Bupa healthcare, and before that I had healthcare whilst working at a popular fast food chain. In all that time I’ve never had a need for it, but others at work have and it’s a great comfort to know it’s there is necessary. So if anything happens to me I can get fixed up nice and quick and get back to doing the things I love.

Supplies

At work we have a little kitchen area filled with all sorts of supplies including drinks, biscuits and beer (for nights out). Personally I could live without these; certainly the temptation of chocolate covered biscuits can be too much but the fact that it’s all there shows the thought and the appreciation the company have for their employees. It creates a comfortable, homely environment for us to work in.

Holidays

Officially we get 20 days holiday as well as bank holidays. This is of course nothing unique to Bronco, what is a little more rare is that we get the time off between Christmas and New Years for free. This gives us a chance to recharge the batteries before the next year and means we don’t have to factor in these days into our holiday allowance.

Conferences

This year is the second time I will be going to the Future of Web Design conference and both times work has offered to pay for me to go. Although they don’t know exactly the in’s and out’s of this exact conference or the prominence of the speakers attending, they do know that the benefits gained from attending such conferences can be invaluable.

Broadband

As a company so heavily reliant on the web Bronco even make sure we’re tooled up at home. All the staff are provided free business grade broadband that can easy save us a few hundred a year.

Nights Out

I think on average we have a work night out once every two months. The things we’ve done have been wide ranging from going to the horse racing, to a simple DVD night round Dave and Becky’s. In all of these occasions all the costs have been covered by work, from the food and drink to betting money at the races. It’s all these small details that mean a lot.

No deadlines (almost)

In my time at Bronco we have had only two concrete deadlines in which to have work finished. Many companies enforce deadlines to ensure certain work is done on time and within budget. This can work well in some companies but at Bronco the lack of deadlines doesn’t give us an excuse to slack off instead it ensures everyone is stress free and because of this we work through the project to ensure we produce websites to the highest standard.

Self Management

Although we obviously have a management structure at Bronco we all are given certain free reign in which to manage ourselves. When work comes in we will be brought up to speed on the project and left to assess its priority within the work we currently have. If something is important we are obviously told and if we get something wrong then we don’t suddenly find ourselves micro managed. A certain amount of freedom is always good in a job, and shows a level of respect and trust.

Doing it all

When I started at Bronco my job was Web Designer. This meant I could design a site, mark it up and leave the rest to the developers. Instead my passion in all areas meant I would do a certain amount of the development work and I was always allowed to do this without being bound by my original job title. In many companies you have a single role and do nothing else, but I enjoy doing the range of work I get and hope that will never change.

It’s Fun

There are few employees that when asked what the biggest distraction is in the office they can say the boss. When Dave enters our office we can end up all downing tools. Hopefully not to inflate his ego but when Dave talks you can’t help but listen. Having such a fun and relaxed environment to work in means you don’t worry about getting distracted, 8 hours is a long time to stare at a screen. Having these distractions means when we are working we work hard, rather than burning out.

That’s It…. I think

The truth is I’m not rich, nor do I earn a huge salary, but what I do earn is enough to pay the bills and enjoy what’s left. But not only that but I enjoy going to work, I still love the job and I like the people I work with. All this makes me push myself to get better, to work hard to help the company be the best it can be whilst working with other talented people where I feel we all contribute to produce some really good stuff.

Post from: Kean Richmond

My working life