Over the next few weeks I will be in and out of the office for a couple family vacations and some on location client projects. My good friend and collaborator Jamie Orillion did a blog post a few months back about running your business from your phone. I thought it could be helpful to do a [...]
There is tons of buzz in the web business right now about social media. I have clients calling me about new websites asking about social media every week. They all want to have a “social media presence” on the internet. Most of them have no idea why, they just want to be on Twitter and [...]
As we noted last week with the launch of WordPress there are a few simple little interface tweaks that make it lighter and faster. We are now offering with all new projects free 30 day access to our extensive video training series (see screenshot below). The video library is kept updated automatically when versions or [...]
To say that the internet has revolutionized the accessibility of information is a gross understatement. The web has very quickly become one of the most important and widely used socio-technological advancements well, ever. As the number of stuff on the web increases, the variety of stuff on the internet also increases. More pertinent here is that the number of junk or noise on the web also increases. Utilizing web standards is a way to optimize the so called stuff on the web to be more than noise but rather, a melody.
Why do web standards matter? It can feel like the advocacy of web standards support the suppression of individuality while pushing for a conglomerate of conformity. Certain groups such as the Web Standards Project definitely don’t hold this view. Uniformity can be good! No, I am not saying you need to be a member of the communist party or anything. Rather, consider how web standards can increase your web site’s usability, accessibility, and all around function-ability (pushing for that 3rd –ability there).
Just having information on the web is not enough. Somehow, that information needs to do something; to inform perhaps. The Web Standards Project describes Tim Berners-Lee’s dream for his invention, the World Wide Web, as “a common space where users can share information to work together, to play, and to socialize.” In this dream we see information doing something, being accessible and useful. Web standards allow for web designers to address several constraints of the web including those of search and devices.
The surfing metaphor is extremely overused when describing how people use the internet and will be further overused here. So, you put a web site up, a wave if you will. How will you get surfers to that wave? One of the greatest and underappreciated things to come out of the web is Google. Search engines are an integral part of how people use the web. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a way to organically optimize a web site to work with search engines, effectively bringing your wave to the surfers. Google provides so many great tools to assist you in SEO even if you are not an SEO expert. What this gets to is attracting a bigger audience to your site. Basically, mais get on dat Google!
An interesting thing to point out about surfing is that people use so many different types of boards to surf. Your wave may behave very differently from those taking their time on the long board (beefy desktops) to those looking for quick access on their new boogie boards (iPhones & Blackberries) . Web standards matter in that they allow you to work with the variability of the numerous devices out there that search the web. Amazingly enough, following web standards allows you to optimize your web design for a multitude of devices without a lot of effort on your part.
Moving on from the surfing metaphor, let’s consider how web standards can affect load time. Even with the behemoth processors that are out today, the fact remains that messy code will increase load times. Web standards emphasize simple and elegant coding methods which produce faster load times. This allows for optimal processing for everything from the long board to water skis to pirogues (ok, had to use the surfing metaphor just one more time).
Staying informed about web standards is yet another way that web standards do matter. This allows you to stay on top of the technology that’s out there and effectively utilize what works from the hassle of experimenting with what doesn’t for future proofing.
For these and many other reasons, web standards do matter. They don’t suppress individuality as much as they provide an optimal paradigm for expressing that individuality.
Web Standards Projet: http://www.webstandards.org/
A List Apart: http://www.alistapart.com/
World Wide Web Consortium: http://www.w3.org/Consortium/
Web Standards Entry on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_standards
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Well it has been about a year since we had a site redesign so we decided to dust off the site and spruce it up. I guess I should say that we did more than “spruce” it up. We did a complete brand overhaul. New logos, colors, vision, etc!
The new vision of Crucé is centered more around the idea that “we” are a group of designers, developers, writers, and yes, geeks, that care deeply about the connection or cross between communication and design. Our goal is to provide our clients with a unified perspective about their web and graphic marketing to help speak their message to the masses.
Website: With a new focus on web development as well as print and graphic design, we wanted to launch a site that gave users bigger pictures of our work. We also added the feature of a blog to help clients get a better picture of the skills and philosophy that drives our business.
Logo: Our new logo, crafted in vision by the collaborators and illustrated by Black Sheep Studio is actually the face of owner and lead geek Daniel Kedinger. We wanted people to feel a connection with the business, to feel you know us before you ever meet us. The hair and glasses strives to impress upon our clients that we are trendy geeks.
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