Drupal is a highly customizable content management system. If more designers were able to get past the programmer-speak, we'd see a lot more Drupal websites out there. WordPress is great, too, but Drupal may be more versatile and flexible, able to power small brochure websites, blogs, as well as vast social networks and online communities.… Read more »

Small achievements may be hurting your success

I first heard the phrase while on a job interview. The owner of the company had very non-discreetly parked his fancy Audi R8 by the entrance to the building, and his license plate read, "BHAGS." When inside, the interviewer asked me if I knew what it stood for, and proceeded to explain the meaning: Big Hairy Audacious Goals. Some time later, I was reading Fast Company magazine which mentioned BHAG and referenced it to the original source in Jim Collins' book, "Built to Last." So, I finally knew where it was from, and added it to my reading list. (And you should read it, too!)… Read more »

I see I get some inadvertent traffic from people searching for how to create a testimonials page in Drupal. Since that's what people want, I'll be glad to tell you how! I'll assume you're somewhat familiar with Drupal 6 and web design, in general, and with the basic concept of installing modules. You'll need to have Drupal 6 Views and CCK installed for this one.… Read more »

I've seen some very interesting experimentation with illustrating with CSS3 which reminds me of the good old days of ASCII art. It's fun and interesting and takes an incredible amount of time and attention to detail. It's not practical, but it's fun. I've seen it on some production sites, even. To me, this is as bad as designing with Tables. Don't do it!

Illustrating with CSS3 is certainly creative, and a fun way to push the limits of what CSS3 can accomplish. It starts with creating sometimes dozens and dozens of divs and spans, creating any number of rounded corners, rotating the divs/spans, adding drop shadows, and presto! Scalable image that can't be seen on Internet Explorer. Here are some interesting examples: http://ping.fm/5coll http://ping.fm/ouEPW http://ping.fm/UGMwn… Read more »

I first heard about Cornify just today. Apparently, they won SXSW 2010 People’s Choice Award. I had no idea what I was in for when I decided to take a look-see. My eyeballs started to bleed from all the Comic Sans and pink everywhere, but I decided I need to have a look, before I passed judgment.

So, I went through the cornify wizard and cornified my young hapless son (the one who's too young to complain about it). Here's what I got:… Read more »

Drupal is awesome. I've been a big fan for a couple years, now, and I'm convinced that there's nothing it can't do. It's biggest problem, however, has been the learning curve. With the latest version of Drupal 7 out on the horizon, I think we finally have a WordPress-killer, since getting a website design up and running is now just as easy as the famed blogging platform. Don't get me wrong, WordPress is great, but it has a very narrow use-case. I think with Drupal 7, we'll see many more web designers venturing into what was once Programmerland to create stunning, beautiful and versatile websites.… Read more »

Unfortunately, I encounter many stories of clients who were bamboozled by other less scrupulous web designers. Designers who charged a lot and did little, or outright cheated. Designers who lacked basic understanding and knowledge about the craft. Designers who simply did not listen to their clients, and twisted their arm to agree to something that was not in their best interest, by pulling out the "I'm an expert" card. That's often when I come in, usually at the recommendation of another past client, to rescue the poor and abused chap. It's my philosophy that if you provide a good and honest service your business will thrive, Chicago, India or anywhere in the world. There's no reason to take advantage of people, and in the end, you will have a pile of cash, and no more clients.… Read more »

I'm a huge fan of doing pro bono web design jobs. I do tons of work for local Chicago non-profits and charities I believe in as a way to boost their design quality and website functionality where they would otherwise have gone with something inadequate. It's also a great way to flex my brain muscles and sharpen my skillset and do some good. For example, when I decided to learn Drupal, I took on a number of Drupal projects as a way to learn the system. That said, there are a number of challenges faced by designers when attempting to start a pro bono project. Here are some guidelines to make sure you and the client get the most out of the pro bono project:… Read more »

User testing is often seen by business owners as an extra luxury to craft the perfect website, and unfortunately not seen as necessary to create a good website. It can be expensive, and add a lot of time to a project. User testing, though, is an invaluable tool which is often vital to the success of the web site or application. Without it, you never really know if your website was designed properly - you never know if it accomplishes what it needs to.

There's no reason basic testing can't be done for cheap. With Amazon Mechanical Turk, any website design can at least go through some form or user testing for less than $10! Spending as much $50 or $100 will enable you to go through a few iterations, and get results from dozens of testers.… Read more »

My good friend, Aaron Friedman of Digital Highrise made me aware of Google's search story generator. I decided to see what I could come up with! For some reason, search results I got from Google directly differed from the results presented in the story generator. Regardless, my own website made it to the top of the results.… Read more »