So, take your time with this step.  Research the market.  Get a feel for the type of impression you’re trying to make (see Part 1).  Then, make sure that impression resonates with your target audience (see Part 2).  Allocate a decent portion of your budget to this step and GET IT RIGHT!

For the sake of this post, I’m using “design” as an umbrella term that includes such things as: logo, CSS, branding, site colors and site images (buttons, etc.).  Site design should NOT be confused with site content, as this is an entirely different topic of discussion (which I’ll cover in a future installment of this seemingly perpetual “guide.”).

Logo

The logo is the graphical representation of any website (or company…or corporation…or association..you get the point).  It represents your voice, your content, your intentions and most importantly, your integrity.  Great logos reinforce great companies.  Bad logos can project negative connotations on an otherwise great company.

The logo should take certain design cues from the general topic of your given industry.  At very least, it should make a statement.  If you’re branding strategy calls for a bold look, keep masculine accents and features in mind when designing it.  Also, be sure to make several drafts (meaning 10 or 20 or 30).  Then, seek the approval of others.  Don’t be discouraged if you’re sent packing back to your computer  after the first round of opinions have been heard.  Each revision brings you closer to the “look” that everyone is expecting.

Layout/CSS

After you’ve got your logo nailed down, it’s time to start constructing the overall layout of your site.  Again, this is where your initial research will come into play.  If you’ve got a general idea of where you want to display pertinent information and what type of features you want to incorporate into the overall site design, this portion of the deployment should be quite painless.

Yet, if you haven’t put in the wrench time in the preliminary stages of your site planning, this process can be an absolute nightmare.   If you’ve come this far with intentions of “winging it,” STOP.  RESEARCH. GET A CLUE.  PROCEED.  Or, you can carry on and ultimately wind up with an expensive collection of words and pictures no one cares to view.

Site Branding/Graphics/Effects

After you’ve perfected the layout of your site, it’s time for the fun stuff.  You’ve likely already determined your site colors when designing your logo, so now, you’ve got to figure out where to implement these colors.  Keep this simple.  Too much clutter can confuse the reader.

You’re looking to tastefully employ subtle accents throughout the site that enhance the user experience.  Heavy gradients and an overuse of Flash animation will not only cause page load issues, but can also deter repeat visits to your site.

Some things to keep in mind when creating graphics and effects are as follows:

• Repeat images when possible (repeat-x, repeat-y, etc.)
• Rely upon CSS for solid colors and borders
• Keep Flash to a minimum
• Use PNG files when possible
• Use JQuery/Javascript as a Flash alternative

Also, before starting this phase of the deployment process, you will also want to keep a few things in mind regarding the actual production staff:

• Print designers are not welcome in the web domain.  They don’t understand web and likely never will.  DO NOT EMPLOY THEM!  Hire a web designer that knows print, as this will cover all of your bases.
• Cross-browser CSS is extremely important.  Constantly test your layout in all major browsers when assembling your layout.  You don’t want any big surprises or angry emails from readers.
• File sizes determine your page load time.  Compress images when possible.

This above discussion should give you a general idea of what is to be expected during the design process.  Did I touch on every issue you’ll likely encounter?  Hell no!  That’s why there’s Google.  Oddly enough, that’s probably how you got here in the first place.   Which brings me to Part 4 of this deployment guide, aptly titled, “SEO.”

Image by DavidErickson via Flickr

This is the portion of site planning that can either make or break your deployment effort.  This is the foundation for success…or failure.

I once had a professor in ad school teach me a very important lesson:  you can have the BEST creative in the world, but if your objectives and strategies suck, your efforts are wasted.

Simply put, objectives are WHAT you plan to achieve and strategies are HOW you’re going to do it.  So, in true action plan format, I’ll now present you with another round of analogies!

Objectives

Ok, say you’re building a website that sells golf clubs.  You’ve already establised that your
target audience is 40-65 year old males in the middle and upper-middle classes.  Now what?

Your preliminary objectives will state modest and attainable goals for your site and your audience.

So, let’s say you want to:

Now that you’ve got your objectives, how will you see to it that these goals come to fruition?  You guessed it!  Strategies!

Strategies

This portion generally caters to marketing and advertising vehicles, as these will be your primary
methods for generating a response from your target audience. So, with that being said, let’s say our primary strategies are as follows:

Although purely for the sake of example, we can now actively see how objectives and strategies work hand-in-hand and how they can determine the performance of any given brand.  If you give extra attention to this portion of the deployment process, success is almost inevitable.

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1. The Quick and Dirty Guide to a Successful Website Deployment – Part 1: Research So, you’ve been charged with the responsibility of giving your...

Let’s be honest. You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you and the next 3-4 months are going to suck. But, before firing up the ol’ Photoshop, before nesting 37 div tags into a single wrapper, and before punching your fist through the wall, consider the following bits of advice that may make this project a bit more tolerable.

Research

Every time I embark on a new site design, I always go hunting for prime website examples within the industry at hand. The goal here isn’t to start ripping off the competition’s site design, graphic design, copy or product images. You’re looking for ideas and inspiration.

Perhaps Company “X “ has a great slideshow that engages the user the moment he/she visits the site. Perhaps Company “Y” has some very helpful widgets on the homepage that display their newest and most popular products. Perhaps Company “Z” has an exceptional method of generating leads (such as a non-intrusive “Request for Information” form that’s shoved in an I-frame or Lightbox). You get the idea.

Your goal is to create a general site layout in your head and have a running tab of ideas you can present to the development team BEFORE the coding and design processes even begin.

If you can pull it off, you’ll be hailed as a brilliant project manager that KNOWS how to get things done in a timely manner. If you fail, prepare to be called every name in the book. Prepare for your co-workers to doubt your abilities and prepare for your bosses to doubt your competencies as a manager.

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Image via Wikipedia

I’ve just gone through hell and back to share this information with the world, thanks to a little help from phillw on freenode.

I was trying to determine where LXDE stores menu items for the applications menu, and wasn’t having any luck. But here’s what I found.

/usr/share/applications stores files called “.desktop” files. These files are a container for the actual application. They look similar to this:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Adobe AIR Application Installer
Comment=Adobe AIR Application Installer
GenericName=Adobe AIR Application Installer
MimeType=application/vnd.adobe.air-application-installer-package+zip;
Exec=”/usr/bin/Adobe AIR Application Installer”
Type=Application
Categories=Utility;
Terminal=false
Icon=AdobeAIR

/usr/share/desktop-directories contain .directory files. These files map the different “directories” you see in the applications menu between the many different languages supported. A single .directory file could look like this:

[Desktop Entry]
Comment=Desktop accessories
Comment[af]=Werkskermtoebehore
Comment[ar]=ﻢﻠﺤﻗﺎﺗ ﺲﻄﺣ ﺎﻠﻤﻜﺘﺑ
Comment[as]=ডেস্কটপৰ ব্যৱহৃত আনুষঙ্গিক বস্তু
Comment[be@latin]=Aksesuary stała
Comment[be]=Настольныя інструмэнты
Comment[bg]=Набор от помощни програми
Comment[bn]=ডেস্কটপের আনুসাঙ্গিক অ্যাপ্লিকেশন
Comment[bn_IN]=ডেস্কটপের ব্যবহৃত আনুষঙ্গিক বস্তু
Comment[br]=Mavegoù ar burev
Comment[ca]=Accessoris de l’escriptori
Encoding=UTF-8
Icon=applications-accessories
Name=Accessories
Name[af]=Toebehore
Name[ar]=ﻢﻠﺤﻗﺎﺗ
Name[as]=আনুষঙ্গিক
Name[be@latin]=Aksesuary
Name[be]=Інструмэнты
Name[bg]=Помощни програми
Name[bn]=আনুসাঙ্গিক
Name[bn_IN]=আনুষঙ্গিক
Name[br]=Mavegoù
Name[ca]=Accessoris
NoDisplay=false
Type=Directory
X-Ubuntu-Gettext-Domain=gnome-menus

Rest assured that there are approximately 40 other languages not listed here for the sake of brevity.

The final piece of the puzzle is the .menu files, stored in /etc/xdg/menus. I won’t include those here, because they could be massively different depending on your flavor of linux. These files contain the names of the directories that will be displayed, and a series of categories that are included/excluded. Categories you say? What are those used for?

The .desktop files, if you’ll notice, have a Category entry in them. This allows applications to be automatically included/excluded from a menu, without the user having to do too much.

The final piece of the puzzle was having user specific applications, in user specific folders. Those files live in ~/.local/share/applications, ~/.config/menus, and ~/.local/share/desktop-directories. Any of the files from the systemwide directories may be copied to the user-specific directories and modified, and will override whatever is in the systemwide directory. Just know that /usr/share/applications is overridden by ~/.local/share/applications, /etc/xdg/menus is overridden by ~/.config/menus, and that /usr/share/desktop-directories is overridden by ~/.config/local/share/desktop-directories, and you’ll be in business!

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We saw Iron Man 2 over the weekend. The movie had some solid special effects, including some high speed flying chases. However, I disliked the character that Mickey Rourke played.

He came across as the “typical” Russian super-genius (beginning example, genius bruiser also), capable of building anything, taking control of anything, an surviving almost anything.

I didn’t like the movie as much as the first one, even though it opened up some more story lines within SHIELD.

I’d give it a 3 out of 5.

Image by jeromejtk via Flickr

Yesterday, I managed to delete the primary database that we use at work.  I won’t go in to how this happened, other than to say: Fuck you MySQL Workbench.  I was trying to get a map of the table relations within the database.  Needless to say, it didn’t work.  After the immediate pants-wiping, I restored the database from the backup. But the backup was from the previous morning, as the current backup hadn’t finished.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the files from the mornings backup.

In short, losing data sucks.  How often do database “pros” backup their data?

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