Last week I attended the Future of Web Apps conference in London.  For those who haven’t been before – this event is run by Carsonified (a web agency based in Bath) and covers the latest thinking around developing Internet applications.  I went along to the FOWA event in Dublin earlier in the year, but this one was much bigger and spread over two days.

The event covered topics such as how to market your web applications, new development methods to make development quicker, HTML5, accessibility and cloud computing.

For the benefit of those that couldn’t make it to FOWA, or want to refresh their memory, here are some of my (very) rough notes from day 1 of the event.

Kevin Rose (Digg) – Taking your Site from One to One Million Users

This talk was all about how to get the most out of your users, based on Kevin’s experience with Digg.  Communication is key, but it also helps to feed user’s ego a bit!

View the notes

Mike McDerment (FreshBooks) – Three Vital Marketing Systems for a Successful Web App

Mike’s talk outlined three elements a site needs to help you market your application: tracking, storage and reporting.  While Google Analytics does a fairly good job of the tracking and reporting, you can’t drill down to a per user basis (based on your user accounts).  Nothing quite makes up for having your own raw user data.

View the notes

Dustin Dias (Twitter) – The Future of JavaScript Design Patterns

Dustin talked about JavaScript with a surprising number of references to corn.  The thought was that JavaScript frameworks are not necessarily the best way to go as they frame and affect the way you work.  Either way, the best thing to do is love the language, because JavaScript is not going anywhere.

View the notes

Addison Berry (Lullabot) – Passion and Paychecks: Open Source Lessons

I don’t really have any notes from this talk, but Addison was talking about open source and money.  Essentially, it is a myth that there is no money to be made in open source.  It is also important to be passionate and happy about what you are doing.  If you are not passionate, and if the people who are working for you are not passionate, then you won’t do a good job.

Francisco Tolmasky (280 North) – Introducing Atlas: A Visual Development Tool for creating Web Applications

Again, no notes for this one, but Francisco showed off a new visual development tool.  280 North are the makers of Cappuccino, the open source framework for building applications.  Atlas is a visual editor for making these applications (there will be both Windows and Mac versions).  With Atlas, you can produce an application in minutes, and it looks fantastic.  Can’t wait for this to be released.

David Prager (Revision3) – Get Niche, Rich, and go Mainstream

David’s talk was all about how to start off your web application.  The overview is to pick a niche (or “nitch” as he pronounced it), and build out from there.

View the brief notes

Osama Bedier (PayPal) – Payments innovation will unlock the Web’s potential

Osama talked about micropayments and PayPal’s new APIs.  PayPal believe that micropayments will change the way the web operates.  Their new APIs will make this possible.

Chris Abad (Spymaster) – Advanced Web App Marketing Strategies

Chris talked about the annoying but very successful Spymaster game on Twitter and how they planned it.  It is essentially a standard viral marketing technique – make something interesting so people will share links (or better still, just post it to their twitter stream automatically).

Cat Lee (Facebook) – Going global: The Future of Facebook Connect

Facebook showed off the latest extension to Facebook Connect.  Now any website can make use of their crowdsourced translation engine to make their sites multi-lingual.  While the talk was pretty much a sales pitch for Facebook Connect, the topic was interesting.  I’ll be having a play around with this when I get the chance.

Bruce Lawson (Opera) – The Future of HTML5

This was probably one of the most interesting talks from the event.  Bruce showed off some of the new aspects of HTML5, explained the new tags, which browsers they work on, their accessibility and their backwards compatibility.  There is some fantastic stuff coming out of HTML5, but I can’t help but think it is a slightly backwards step and we could end up with horribly messy code with unclosed tags.  That is one of the reasons why I like XML and XHTML.  Anyway, HTML5 is not yet ready for production environments, so we will have to see how it is used in real life.

View the notes

Chris Thrope (The Guardian) – How The Guardian is using APIs, Frameworks and Tools to Build a “Mutalised” Newspaper

Chris talked about the Guardian’s efforts to embrace new technology.  Unlike some other newspapers, they are embracing the new way of dealing with things.  Chris also talked about how they built some of their online applications such as their MP expenses site and their twitter conversations engine.  I’m probably going to come back and write a seperate entry about the expenses site shortly, as I had a bit of my own experience in this area!  Chris showed off their Guardian DataStore and how people are using it to produce other data and statistics.

View the notes

I’ll be posting my notes from FOWA day 2 tomorrow.

There has been a lot of talk on Twitter today about the launch of the new Birmingham City Council website.  Without a doubt, Birmingham have successfully launched one of the most delayed and expensive websites of the last few years.  After being delayed for 6 months (original launch date was expected to be March 2009), and going significantly over budget (costing a total of £2.8 million), you’d expect the site to be the best thing ever developed.

Unfortunately it isn’t.  The site is riddled with problems; suffers from poor build quality, lack of thinking, and technology that wouldn’t be out of place in the early part of this century.  Here are just a few of the problems I’ve come across after browsing the site for a little over 10 minutes:

• Absolutely no thought given to SEO
• Frequent broken incoming links
• Incomprehensible alt tags and title attributes for links and images
• Lack of validation on many pages
• No modern technology

In thought I’d take a very brief look at a few of these.

Search Engine Optimisation

There really is no excuse for not using SEO optimised URLs on a public site anymore.  Your URLs should be human readable and understandable.  This helps with not only search engine optimisation, but with your website’s users as well!

Unfortunately this website has stuck with the horrible model of using exceptionally long and completely indistinguishable URLs throughout the system.  Here is an example of one of the pages:

http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/cs/Satellite?c=Page&childpagename=Highways-and-Maintenance%2FPageLayout&cid=1223092719662&pagename=BCC%2FCommon%2FWrapper%2FInlineWrapper

I count this URL at 166 characters long – a simplified human readable URL for this site could be as low as 47 characters long (http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/transport/highways)

From the first URL, I have no idea where that page really goes; the second URL is much more obvious.

Broken Incoming Links

Almost all incoming links to the website have been broken with this re-launch.  Even the Google Sitelinks which appear when you search for Birmingham City Council no longer work.  This is not only bad for search engine optimisation, but any bookmarks or links to content on the site will no longer work.

Incomprehensible Alt & Title Attributes

This is probably the most disturbing part of this website.  While looking through the website, I’ve come across title tags such as “BNE /cs/Satellite/v?packedargs=AlphabetValue%3DA&rendermode=live”, “TLE contactus” and “BNE copy”.  These links go to the A-Z website index for the letter A, a contact us page, and the copyright statement respectively.  The first is quite obviously the most incomprehensible, but I’d love to know what the TLE and BNE stand for in the others.

Title attributes are really important – these are used by screen readers (the sorts of things used by those with no or poor visibility) to identify where a link goes.  Without a descriptive title tag, you have no idea where you are going.

Alt attributes are equally important – these describe the content of an image if the viewer can’t see it.  There are quite a few images around the site with no, or incomprehensible alt attributes.

Like the SEO URLs, there is absolutely no excuse for this – in fact, its purely negligent.

Lack of Modern Technology

This is less important, but I felt it had to be said.  There are no RSS feeds whatsoever – who builds a website with no RSS feeds?

Overview

This website cost a lot – significantly more than any other website I’ve come across.  It is badly built, suffers from accessibility issues, and it generally pretty poor.  To whoever signed off this development – you should be taken out and shot.  To the people of Birmingham – I’m sorry, but you’ve been had.  Your money has been wasted, and you should hold your council to account for this farce at the next election.

You can follow more discussions on this redesign on the Birmingham Post website, and by following the Twitter hash tags: #bccwebsite, #bcc and #fail.

The general opinion is split into two areas – freelancers and contractors/employees.  If you are a freelancer, the answer seems pretty simple. Unless you have signed an agreement with a client that hands over all rights to them, you are the copyright owner, and so you can use it in your portfolio.  If you are a contractor or employee, things are much more complicated.  This isn’t helped by the UK’s outdated copyright laws, recently declared to be the worst in the world by Consumer Focus – the new public organisation responsible for campaigning for consumer rights.

If you are a contractor, you should check the terms and conditions of your contract. If there is a clause handing all copyright to your employer, then there is nothing you can do.  If on the other hand, there is no condition, you might be covered by fair use (this is a part of copyright law that allows certain actions that would normally be regarded as infringement).

For employees, the picture is even bleaker. Anything you create during work hours belongs to your employer.  This even covers things like photographs taken during work time using your own camera!  In these situations, fair use might still come into play.

In the past, when the printed portfolio was king, this issue wasn’t that important. After all, who would know that you are using work you produced while in employment in your portfolio?  Now that it is essential for a developer / designer to have a digital portfolio open to everyone, this is issue has come up time and time again.

I would argue that your portfolio is covered by copyright fair use as you are not selling on the work, and not causing the copyright owner financial harm.  Additionally, you may be providing your employer with free publicity.  If you do go down this route, it is important to credit your employer.  Also remember that claiming full credit for something you didn’t do or only had a part hand in comes under a different issue – plagiarism (you can see my thoughts on this here).  You could also argue that as a website is in the public domain, there is nothing wrong with a screenshot of it – sites display screenshots of other sites all the time – it is accepted practice.

Recently I’ve been talking to lots of designers about this topic. It seems that lots of web companies don’t mind their employees showing work on their portfolio. Some even seem to go as far as to encourage their employees to do it because of the extra publicity it provides.  There are, however, a minority that see things differently.

Of course, I’m not a lawyer, so you shouldn’t take anything I’ve said as legal advice. However there are plenty of places on the internet that do offer this advice and these are well worth a read (1, 2, 3, 4).

If you are an employee and leave to take on another job or become a freelancer, you need to seriously consider the legality of your portfolio. Also remember that what may have been OK while you worked for the company, may not be once you leave.

What do you think? Should a designer be allowed to display a copy of the work he/she has done in their digital portfolio? Have you had problems with your online portfolio?  Let me know – I’d be interested to gather a better picture about this issue.

Following his election in November, his team continued their use of aspects of social media to keep people informed during their transition to government. Visitors to their Change.gov site were encouraged to submit their ideas and join in the discussion.

As he was being sworn in at the official ceremony, the new White House website was launched, featuring the new, clean look we have come to expect, simple navigation and the all important blog. This website is perhaps the best website from a government I’ve ever seen. I can only hope that this trend continues not only in the US, but here at home in the UK.

Throughout this week, social media has been making the headlines – and one site in particular has been getting a lot of attention. It is of course, Twitter – the addictive micro-blogging service which allows you to post 140 character updates about what you are doing, and things that interest you. The site has finally hit the mainstream, being discussed on radio, in newspapers and on TV. Various figures show that UK visitors to Twitter have skyrocketed in the last few months.

Not only are we now starting to see a proliferation of celebrities on the service, but also MPs, and members of local government. A fantastic site called Tweetminster has been set up to allow people to locate members of parliament and prospective parliamentary candidates (PPCs) who are using the service.

I think it’s brilliant to see government start to use social media. I feel that it is important for government and the people that are supposed to represent us connect with the country, listen to us, and respond to our ideas. I believe that the use of services like Facebook and Twitter will help reinvigorate politics and get people involved in how their country is run.

I hope that this trend continues, and if it does, 2009 could turn out to be the year government finally ‘gets’ the internet. In the meantime, I’m going to do all I can to help it along.

More recently, the blog network has taken on another new look.  While the latest redesign has kept a number of elements from August’s look, quite a bit has changed, and not all of it for the better.

The first thing you notice when you visit the new site is the revamped ‘network’ bar that links to all the TechCrunch websites.  Although located in almost the same place as last time, the background has been turned black, making it much more prominent.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and might help convince people to visit other parts of the network.  However, I think the black stands out so much that it draws your eye away from the main content.  It unnecessarily overpowers the rest of the website.

In addition to making the network bar more obvious, the large banner advert has been moved into the space next to the site logo.  This has meant that size of the logo has been reduced to make way for the advert.

The website homepage now includes three ‘promo’ items along the top of the main content.  While this makes it easy to jump to what the TechCrunch editors rate as important content, the placement of an advert next to the three boxes first made me think the whole bar was one big advert.  After a few visits, I finally realised that it actually showed content – although nothing I couldn’t get from just reading down the page.

Another change to the homepage has been the reduction in width of the article excerpts and provision of a number of ‘tabbed’ boxes listing active and recent entries.  These boxes used to live beneath the 125×125 pixel advert blocks on the far right hand site.

Overall I think this design is a serious step backwards for the website.  They’ve taken what was a very clean and easy to read design and cluttered it up with adverts.  The more ‘space-efficient’ top bar including advert and logo now has less white space, but is just crowded.  The ‘promo’ bar is badly designed, making it seem like one big advert.  The reduced width of the actual content and increased number of adverts on the right hand side just makes the site seem even more cluttered.  I don’t think they could fit any more stuff in if they tried.

Hopefully next time they do a revamp, they’ll go back to the short-lived clean and consistent design across all their sites.

You can see the new design vs old design from the screenshots below. Although the old screenshot comes from a different site on the TechCrunch network, you can still get a good idea of the changes.

In typical fashion, I’m over a week behind in this obligatory post marking the start of the new year.  In fairness, I had the notes written on New Year’s eve, but for one reason or another, didn’t actually write it up until today.

So, here we are, a brand new year.  What have I got planned for the next 12 months?

My first big aim is to complete a number of personal projects that have been pretty much on hold for the last 6 months.  The most important of which is a completely revamped Govilon village website.  By the end of February I intend to launch a redesigned site, complete with updated content, improved functionality for the history site, and a new community blog.  We’ve hopefully got a few influential people in the village lined up to contribute to a news-style blog about things happening in the village.

My second aim is to blog more regularly.  I’ve set myself a target of at least one entry a week this year.  These entries are not going to be your typical ‘this is what I’ve been up to’ posts, but more focused towards web design and development.  Coincidentially, it turns out that a few of my friends (Tobeon, Shepherdnick, Jonhurlock, saya) and my brother have also settled on the same resolution.

Another resolution is to be more active in the web design / development community.  Part of this will be achieved through more regular blogging and better use of twitter.  However I also intend to start attending industry events such as the Future of Web Apps in Dublin & Future of Web Design in London conferences this year.  I’ll also be going along to a number of events run by Cardiff Web Scene.

My other resolutions revolve around my work life balance.  I’m hoping to begin working from home at least one day a week, which should give me some more free time.  I’m also going to force myself to make better use of my gym membership over the next year.

So, there we go.  New resolutions for a new year, lets hope I can stick to them!

Normal service should resume this week with the first of my blog-a-week articles.

No matter what I did, I couldn’t think of anything.

The next day, I came across an article on Spoonfed Design with tips on how to avoid designer’s block.  At least next time I suffer from the block, I can try and find a way around it.

In the end, I managed to put together a design I’m quite proud of – and hopefully it’ll see the light of day sometime over the next month or two.

So, how do you keep your head above the water?  Well, everyone has their own ways as you can see from the discussions over at Freelance Folder.  I have a number of methods I use:

Read blogs
I subscribe to a large number of blogs from other web developers from both the design and development ends of the industry.  A huge amount of useful information comes from people who are facing the same struggle to keep ‘fresh and new’.

Twitter
Twitter is a fantastic resource for developers – how we all coped before it existed I have no idea!  I follow many designers, developers, freelancers and technologists on Twitter.  These people regularly point me in the direction of new and interesting things on the web which help me to produce better sites.

CSS Galleries
I find that looking at CSS galleries such as CSSMania or Best Web Gallery help inspire me to create better designs.  They show off some of the web’s best websites and really help to formulate ideas.  There are plenty of galleries around the web, covering all sorts of niches.

Magazines
A few people say that magazines are a waste of time – by the time they’ve been written, subbed, edited, printed, distributed and read, the industry has passed them by. I don’t agree, the internet moves so fast that it is easy to miss out on important information if you happen to blink (literally).  Magazines help fill this gap.  I have a subscription to .net magazine which is a fantastic resource for designers. (But then again, I would say this – my partner is a magazine journalist… but no really, mags are an invaluable resource).

Conferences
This is probably one of the most expensive parts of keeping up with the industry, and something that until now, I haven’t been able to afford.  There are a huge number of web related conferences throughout the year and across the world, from Future of Web Apps in London, Miami and Dublin, to DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper! in Reading.  Conferences enable you to hear from some of the most influential and knowledgeable people in the industry.

Contribute
Probably the most important thing you can do.  The web is shaped by the people who produce it – whether designers, developers or writers.  If you don’t contribute, you can’t make an impression.  If you follow people on Twitter, respond to them, talk to them.  If you read blogs, comment on them, or better still, write a full response.

So how do I fit all of this in?  It is very difficult – you have to strike the right balance.  Spend too much time keeping up with the web and you don’t get any work done, spend too much time working and you drop behind the curve.
On the train into work in the morning, I read blogs, and last night’s twitter messages.  At work, I have TweetDeck keeping track of twitter for me – letting me know when new messages arrive.  When I have a bit of downtime (such as when I’m waiting for something to load or compile), I look at new blogs that have been posted.  In the evening, I read things in a bit more detail, and at some point I find time to sleep!

As I said, trying to find the right balance is difficult a challenge, but whatever you do, don’t fall behind or you’ll discover it is difficult to get back on track.

This strikes me as a great idea – not only could it save money by just having one brand instead of 200, but it could help people recognise the work that government does.

After reading the article, I decided to take a look at branding used by our government here in the UK.  I surprised to learn about the sheer scale of central government and the huge number of brands in use.

The UK Government is comprised of around 45 departments & ministries (such as the Department for Transport and HM Treasury).  It also has approximately 72 executive agencies – these are organisations that have a degree of autonomy but are still linked to a particular department (such as the Food Standards Agency, Office of Fair Trading and the Crown Prosecution Service).  In addition to these, there are at, last count, 827 Non-Departmental Public Bodies (source: Cabinet Office, 2007).  These are agencies that are sponsored by government to deliver a particular public service such as the Environment Agency, the various arts councils and the British Potato Council.  You can find lists of the various departments / agencies on wikipedia (1 & 2).

It should be pointed out that this is just central government – it does not include local government (council councils etc), or the regional governments of Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland (or their associated public bodies).  Furthermore; it does not include organisations such as the Police, Fire department or the NHS.

A large number of these organisations have their own branding – that’s nearly 1,000 different corporate images!  The amount of money spent developing; maintaining and re-developing these brands must be astronomical.

The cabinet is regularly re-shuffled, which sometimes brings with it department splits, mergers, disbanding and creation.  In the last few reshuffles for example, the Department for Constitutional Affairs merged with some parts of the Home Office to create the Ministry of Justice; the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) was split in half, becoming the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) and the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS); the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) was created; and the Office of Deputy Prime Minister became the Department for Communities and Local Government.  Quite a few changes!

With each of these changes, an old brand has been retired, and new brands created.  Gone are the Department for Constitutional Affairs, Department for Education and Skills, and the Office of Deputy Prime Minister.  Now we have five new brands in government.

If the Government just had one brand – “HM Government” or “UK Government”, with just one logo, one typeface, one style, the amount of money that could be saved during each reshuffle could be huge.

Now I’m not suggesting that we replace all 944 brands with just one – that would be a bit draconian, however, a substantial slimming down of brands within central government makes a lot of sense.  What do you think?

As a web developer, keeping on-top of changes in the industry is almost a full time job in itself. Dropping behind the curve is not something you can afford to do. When it does happen, getting back on-top of things is especially difficult.

I already follow a large number of the feeds that Selene suggests, and will definitely be adding the rest. I currently use netvibes to keep track of my RSS feeds – primarily because I use so many different computers throughout the day it allows me to keep everything in one place. If anyone has suggestions for a better reader, let me know.