Tag: web design

Web Designer vs Web Developer

Carl Setzer
apple monitors

Someone recently pointed out that I should label my studies “web design” not “web development”. Now, this was not meant as a troll! But to better describe what I’m studying, and what I offer.

My coursework does NOT dive DEEP into code. Edmonds College does offer an associate’s degree with a similar title that does. That program includes two quarters of Java programming after the Introduction to Programming course I took. In addition, that program covers the same website coding elements I did: JavaScript, jQuery, and PHP. My program spends that time diving into design (two quarters of design). The design courses were what made this program interesting to me. I love studying design!

So, I’m quite happy with labelling myself a web designer vs a web developer. Actually, finding an accurate label for what I love, what I offer and what I “bring to the table” is exactly what I want. I don’t want potential employers to think I have a skill-set I don’t have. That doesn’t end well for anyone.

Some More Thoughts On Databases

Carl Setzer
white caution cone on keyboard

Man, this quarter had so many “aha” moments for me. The biggest for me? Well, just how little I knew. Databases have been a key part of my studies at Edmonds College. Though I did a lot in Access, I worked with MySQL several times. In PHP, we spent (I thought) a fair amount of time on MySQL. Now, as I hit the end of the quarter, I KNOW I’ve learned a lot, but I see huge gaps in my knowledge. If nothing else, I have developed a huge appreciation for database administrators. 

Help your audience find your stuff

Carl Setzer
man holding mug in front of laptop

A few days ago I was scrolling through Instagram, as we’re want to do these days. On a rather popular site (for some pop-star) was a post featuring some product. Whoever crafted the post wrote the standard “link in bio”. Then the top comments were asking “where’s the link”? Interest piqued, I followed the link. The landing page showed links to a blog and plenty of pages, but where to find this specific link, this product was unclear at best. This caused me to cringe. People are interested in this item and they’re having to play “hide-and-seek”. You don’t want to do this with your fans!

I am reminded of a developer maxim (I believe it was said by Jeff Hawkins, creator of the Palm Pilot) about minimizing the number clicks you need to access information. I can’t remember the specifics of that quote, but the basic premise is the fewer the better. Each click builds frustration, which is worsened when the process isn’t clear. Also, having to guess where to click next is a key element of bad UX. I assume they shared the information in that post hoping to engage their audience and sell some stuff. Clearly, that wasn’t successful, or at least not as successful as it could be.

There are a number of ways that this could’ve been executed better. Now, I understand that Instagram gives you one link. One! And no links in the content are allowed. Plenty of folks have developed solutions, however. The easiest (to me) is linktree. Elegant in it’s simplicity, linktree simply collects your links and serves them up in a clean, clear list. This is a highly used tool: you see it in many profiles. Here’s mine for example.

Another, perhaps slightly more complex solution, is to create a landing page on your site with all the links you reference in your posts. I would itemize them in list, with the dates and post titles and also the images of the Instagram posts to make it very clear which link goes with each post.

Put a little thought into your anticipated user flow, into how you want them to find your information. How easily do you want to make it to buy your stuff? To interact with your latest “thing”? Providing clear calls-to-action, clear directions, and clear paths to finding what they want makes your user experience good and enjoyable. That helps good ol’ conversion, which ensures your project keeps moving. Great things, right?

WordPress vs Joomla

Carl Setzer1 Comment

This upcoming quarter I’ll be taking JavaScript, System Analysis, and a class on Joomla and SEO.  Funny, really, that I never heard of Joomla until seeing my degree plan, and was surprised by that. Thus, I opted to spend a little time learning more. I am trying to be a good student, after all.

My research pulled me to this, somewhat dated, article (2018): Joomla vs WordPress. Turns out Joomla is, essentially, a competitor of sorts with WordPress. Of sorts is important. Joomla has been around as long as WordPress but holds a fraction of their market share. This puzzles me since I’ve been hovering around web design and site creation for years. I’ve created many sites, mostly with WordPress, but I’ve also used HTML as well as tools like Netscape Navigator and FrontPage. So, I’m disappointed I’ve never even heard of Joomla (or Drupal, for that matter). Time to learn, I guess.

I do find it interesting that the class is working with Joomla, and not WordPress. For me, it’s cool to learn new (to me) tech. But with only 5% deployment, vs WordPress’s 60%, along with that 5% share decreasing, I still find it puzzling to focus on a tiny tool. I expect that this will become clearer as the quarter progresses.

Social Media, Platforms and Control

Carl Setzer
Social Media

I’ve been kept in the loop about the different groups encompassing the #StopeHateForProfit initiative and their meeting with Facebook a few days ago (here’s a recap of the situation if you need it). Other folks have written about Facebook’s strategy and risks, so I really have nothing to add there. However, one element has given me pause. What happens if the site collapses?

No, I don’t think that Facebook is going to fail simply due to this issue. However, there are a huge number of challenges that Facebook faces, from privacy to a lack of public accountability.  All of that makes me wonder what the breaking point will be? Ultimately, I believe Facebook’s Waterloo will be a combination of all the issues facing it, along with the natural conservatism that comes with huge success and an IPO, and the creation of a challenger. And I have something of a fatalistic view: that the end will come for it. Not that it will suddenly vanish. It’s a well-run business. However, I expect it will simply fade from relevancy once the new thing appears (i.e.: MySpace).

For me, this speaks to the importance of having my own website, my own place on the interwebs. One where I control everything. My own personal brand, I guess. Mainly, though, where my presence is independent of decisions made by some random group of individuals.

I realize that, in many ways, this is a fantasy. This site is hosted by a company, built on WordPress…external factors that I don’t have much control over. However, I can move my site to another host. I can port my blog from WordPress to some other platform if need be. Everything on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc, will simply vanish if those sites end.

Now, maybe this makes sense as I’m currently studying web development and design. As I was told many years ago, “having your own domain is the height of being a nerd” (I own that with delight). So, I guess this might be my inner geek. But I see deep value in having my own site, using it as a hub to the rest of my internet presence. And I see the value for you, too.

Need To Reduce A Video’s Size? VLC’s Got You!

Carl Setzer

I’ve used VLCfor years, since it’s a powerful video player (has most every codec out there…can play pretty much anything), but wasn’t aware I could use it to change formats or compress files. As I had some huge videos to upload to a WordPress site (which limits me to 500 MB…even after editing the php.ini file), I explored ways to shrink the files. Of course, I came up with a bunch of pay options. But, buried below the fold (fortunately on page 1 of SERP) was this video. And, boom, problem solved! I loved VLC before, and an am even bigger fan now.

Animated PNGs

Carl Setzer
Yesterday, it took me ages to figure out how to convert a .mov to an animated PNG. One of our services can’t use gifs at all, only pngs. (Here’s more insight into the format.) I remembered that there were such things, but damn, I’d never created one before. It looks like browsers don’t support then that well, so that Adobe doesn’t support their creation natively. I saw in several forums that you can download a plug-in to do that, but no one linked to one. I found EZGif.com, a free website that let me do the conversion. It’s not the most elegant process. It works fine if I open it in a browser, but not if I try to open it in Windows. My, what a pain!

Tech Research Pet Peeve

Carl Setzer

Currently, I’m looking at an online service for the Snohomish County Youth Chorus (my son sings with them, and I’m on the board). One of the first things I always want to do is look at pricing. I want to avoid spending hours of time researching features and whatnot, when the product doesn’t fit into the org’s budget.

When it’s not available, or not easily findable, I get annoyed. I don’t want to sign up for a “free trial” to answer the most basic of questions. A couple of thoughts with this:

  • If you won’t tell me the costs plainly, I expect that I will need to worry about being “sold” to all the time. Sure, it might make it easier for you to sell to me, but it both annoys me and erodes my trust.
  • If you won’t tell me upfront so that you can apply high pressure sales, what other things will I need to endure to get basic service.

Anyway, if you craft content for a business, these are a few things to keep in mind.