Webmasters Gallery

There are a ton of web design galleries available on the web, and we’d like to know which web design, CSS/XHTML, Flash gallery you frequent the most to get inspiration and your creative juices flowing.

Two prizes to give away!

To make things interesting, SnobbySlice, a top-notch PSD to XHTML service for coders and by coders, is offering two lucky winners a 2-page PSD to XHTML/CSS conversion service, a $498 value. Two participants of this survey will be selected at random to win their excellent PSD to XHTML service. You can see the SnobySlice prices here.

How to vote

To vote, simply leave a comment below in the following format:

vote: http://urlofwebdesigngallery.com

For example, my personal favorite is The Best Designs, so my vote would be: vote: http://www.thebestdesigns.com/

The details

• You must leave a valid email address when filling up the comment form so that we can contact you if you’ve won.
• You can only cast your vote once.
• Contest ends on April 13, 2009, after which comments will be disabled.
• Winners will be selected at random using a MySQL query similar to other contests.
• Format your vote as specified or you risk the chance of not being able to participate.

About SnobbySlice

SnobbySlice takes your design, in many formats, and then converts it into “code” which makes it ready for the web (XHTML/CSS). They promise high-quality, rapid, timely, and very competitive prices for all projects they partake in: here’s where you can learn more about their services.

Working with web designers is a nightmare. You will never meet a more opinionated bunch of snobs. They are always going on about ‘white space’, ‘composition’ and how they went to art college (like that counts as a proper education!). When it comes to choosing the design of your site, they are the last people you should listen to.

What follows are 10 things you need to know about managing a web design project, that no web designer will ever tell you!

1. Always request speculative design up front

Before you pick which web designer to work with make sure they submit some designs for your site upfront. Whatever you do, don’t pay for this work. If they really want to work with you they will swallow the cost.

Some of them might start bleating about not doing ‘speculative design’ and that only designers desperate for work would do design for free. Personally I ignore this BS. If they are ‘so successful’ that they can’t spare the time to do unpaid work for me, then I don’t want to work with them.

What is great about speculative work is it is not constrained by ‘understanding the business’ or ‘user feedback’. Its all about creativity. Surely a good web designer can come up with great work out of thin air, even if they don’t know who the target audience is and have never spoken to the client. I want something that makes me go wow. Who cares if it ‘fulfils my business objectives.’ The more bells and whistles the better!

There is actually a campaign against doing speculative work on projects. Can you believe that!

2. Don’t get hung up on end users

Web designers are always obsessing about the end users. They worry that users won’t like this or that they won’t understand that. Its pathetic.

People like to be told what to do and they will ultimately follow your lead. I once had a web designer complain because I wanted to collect users phone numbers on a sign up form for our newsletter. Apparently ‘users’ don’t like being asked for unnecessary personal information. Can you believe it! How the hell am I going to cold call these people if I don’t have their phone numbers. Sometimes you wonder how these idiots survive in business.

Instead of focus on user needs, focus on what you can squeeze out them. Times are tough these days and so you need to maximise your returns on every one of these sheep. You have to be tough in business.

You have to admire these people. Before users can watch a demo of their product, the user has to provide contact details.

3. Rely on your gut instinct, not testing

Talking of users – what is this obsession with user testing? Just sounds like a way for web designers to charge more money if you ask me.

After all you have probably been working in your job for years. You know all there is to know about your audience, right? Even if you did run user test sessions, stakeholder interviews or whatever other made up technique is the latest fashion, its not going to tell you stuff you do not already know.

Admittedly, these sessions occasionally turn up stuff you might not expect, but can you really trust the results? Surely your years of experience count for more than a few hours of testing.

Of course, the other problem is that user testing is massively expensive. I heard from a friend that it involves usability labs, videos, two way mirrors and ‘facilitators’ (whatever those are). That all sounds pricey to me!

Some web designers will tell you that they do it by going into user’s homes and talking with them in their own environment. They justify this by saying you learn more because the user is relaxed and you can see where they live. Personally, it doesn’t sound very professional and if it isn’t expensive, how could it possibly give good results?

useit.com is the website of usability expert Jakob Neilsen. If usability testing produces websites that look like this you are best avoiding the whole thing.

4. Form a committee to provide feedback

Admittedly I maybe sounding a little arrogant, but I really am not. I think it is important to get the opinions of other people. I just think web designers are not the people you should be asking. They live in a techy bubble and do not understand what it is like to be an ordinary user like us.

I suggest forming a committee to approve any designs produced. After all web designers keep telling us that design is subjective. That means you shouldn’t rely on the opinion of just one person (especially if that person is a designer). What you need is a committee to thrash out what the site should look like.

Ideally you would call a meeting with the designer in the room and get them to produce something there and then under the direction of the committee. However, most designers tend to get ’emotional’ when you suggest that. So instead I recommend giving them the freedom to produce something themselves and then discuss it as a group.

Now inevitably this will lead to disagreement. Some people will like the colour, others will hate it. This is natural. What you need to do is seek a compromise that will please everybody. If you can have the designer on hand to try out new ideas in the meeting this will really help. Before you know it you will have a design everybody can tolerate (although admittedly not everybody will like it).

The best way to produce a design is to work together as a committee to reach a compromise that everybody can tolerate.

5. Become obsessed with detail

"The devil is the detail they say. Nowhere is that more true than on a website. Unfortunately you cannot rely on a web designer to have that attention to detail. Its hardly their fault. They are ‘arty’ people after all and their brains just don’t work that way.

If you want your design to be ‘just so’ you will need to micro manage every aspect of the design process. Don’t be afraid to tell your designer exactly what you need them to do. Be as specific as possible. After all, they call themselves pixel pushers.

Web designers love you to tell them how to design. They even refer to themselves as pixel pushers.

Also insist on consistency across all browsers. Web designers tend to be sloppy in this area. It might look great in Safari (apparently this is a browser – who knew!) but in Netscape 4 it looks awful. They will give you some rubbish about not all browsers being capable of rendering modern design. They will say that as long as it is usable on all browsers, that is what matters. The hell it is! You don’t put up with that kind of rubbish in print design, so why should you on the web?

6. Enforce corporate style guides to the letter

Your organisation has a corporate design guide for a reason and yet web designers think they can flaunt the rules. They will talk about the differences between print and the web. They will go on about colour on screen, web typography and dots per inch. However, the real reason they want to ignore your guidelines is because their egos will not allow them to work within limitations.

You must take a firm hand over this issue and stick to the letter of the law. Enforce pantone numbers and ensure they use corporate typefaces. They might mutter something about limited fonts on the web but this is just not true. I know for a fact that sites built in flash can use any font you want. With that in mind I always recommend that sites are built entirely with Adobe Flash.

Oh yes, and watch out for abuse of the logo. Most style guides say that the logo must have a certain number of millimetres around it to allow ample white space. I recommend taking a ruler and measuring the space around your monitor on screen. Better still, print out the design so you can be even more accurate.

Renowned web designer Jason Santa Maria is brazen in his rejection of Branding Guidelines.

7. Fit as much on the homepage as possible

Let’s take a moment to discuss the design of your homepage in particular.

Without a doubt the homepage is by far the most important page on your site. If I look at my own website statistics the majority of people who come to my site never get further than the homepage (I have no idea why this is the case!) This is a problem.

The solution is obvious when you also consider the importance of minimising the number of clicks a user has to make to reach content – Put as much content as possible on the homepage.

This also solves the problem of everybody within your organisation wanting homepage real estate. Instead of endlessly discussing whose content is most important, simply put it all on there.

Of course with so much content on the homepage people might complain their content is lost in the crowd. The best solution in such situations is to either make it bigger or animate it. I find flashing text particularly effective.

HavenWork reduce the number of clicks by putting all their content on the homepage. An effective use of space.

8. Ensure all content appears above the fold

Unfortunately you are limited in the amount of space available on the homepage. This is because all content has to sit above the fold.

The fold refers to the point where users have to start scrolling. As we know users do not scroll. In 1994 Jakob Nielsen found that only 10% of users would scroll when presented with a web page. 15 years on I see no reason why this would have changed.

Some designers will tell you that the fold is a myth. They will argue that it does not exist because different browsers, resolutions and toolbars all effect the vertical available space. All I know is that on my computer I have 470px of vertical space before I have to start scrolling. I am a fairly typical user and so you should ensure all content is within this area.

The only exception to this rule is if your boss has a different amount of vertical space. If he is going to be looking at the website I suggest designing for his browser. Alternatively simply print out the site for his approval.

This clearly disturbed individual is encouraging other web designers to protest against the fold!

9. You only need to test in Internet Explorer 6

Web designers like to claim they need to spend hours testing on every browser combination. However, in reality this is just another way to extract more money from you.

All you really need to do is build the site so it works on Internet Explorer 6.

Internet Explorer is the most dominant browser having by far the largest market share. Although there are different versions of IE most companies run IE6. As corporate customers are the people with the real money you should concentrate your testing on their browser. Also surely if it works in IE6 it will work in IE7! You can trust Microsoft not to break the web.

If you want to be super cautious, add a message to your site telling users it is optimised for internet explorer. Users can then download that browser if they want to see your site.

Why waste time testing in different browsers? Just instruct your users to download Internet Explorer.

10. SEO is more important than design

Getting the design of your website right is important. However it is no use if nobody sees it. Your number one priority has to be driving traffic to your site.

The best way to do this is through search engines. Fortunately there are a plethora of tricks and techniques to fool Google into ranking you highly. You can use hidden text, cloaking pages, redirects, doorway pages and keyword stuffing to force you up the ranking. Google kindly list these techniques in their Web Master Guidelines.

The problem with some of these techniques is that they undermine the design and content of your site. They can also affect the usability and accessibility. However, this is a sacrifice worth making in order to keep those new users rolling in.

Some web designers place a higher emphasis on repeat traffic. However, in my experience it is hard to get a user to return a second time. This is almost certainly because they have seen everything already. Why would they come back? Concentrate your efforts on creating a steady stream of new users.

BMW maintained their high quality design (left) by sending Google to a separate keyword heavy page (right). Although this technique eventually led to their site being banned from Google it did prove very successful for a time.

By reviewing what’s changed and what’s stood the test of time, we can make general assumptions of web design principles that will work going forward. Things have moved on in terms of interface design and graphics, some websites more than others. Looking at the examples below sites such as Amazon, eBay and Craigslist have changed comparatively little (Craigslist has hardly changed at all), a testimony to their forward thinking at the time, whilst others such as the Whitehouse have come a long way.

Whitehouse 1997 – 2009

Microsoft 1999 – 2009

 

Digg 2004 – 2009

  (note 2004 CSS styling maybe missing)

CNN 2000 – 2009

 

BBC 2000 – 2009

 

Facebook 2006 – 2009

 

SmashingMagazine 2006 – 2009

 

Ebay 1999 – 2009

 

Amazon 1999 – 2009

 

Craigslist 1999 – 2009

 

Apple 1999 – 2009

 

WordPress 2003 – 2009

  (note 2003 CSS styling maybe missing)

Oakley 2000 – 2009

 

Techcrunch 2005 – 2009

(note 2005 CSS styling maybe missing)

Google 1999 – 2009

Yahoo 1997 – 2009

 

Other patterns can be seen, design centric companies such as Apple and Oakley consistently focus on design, whilst news based websites such as CNN and the BBC have only modernized the traditional news & picture format.

Whether you just want to put your class homework or participate in the discussions about HTML, you can’t participate if you don’t know how to post.

Difficulty: Easy

Time Required: 10 minutes

Here’s How:

1. Click on the "Forums" link in the navigation of any About Web Design/HTML page.
2. Login using your About member name and password. If you don’t have a member name, you will need to sign up in order to post messages.
3. At the top of the list of messages on the right is a link that says "New Post". This will take you to the post editing menu.
4. First select a folder to post your message in. For XHTML 101 class work, post it in the HTML class folder. Otherwise, find a folder that fits what you’re going to post about.
5. Give your post a descriptive subject. NOTE: if you are posting for the class – it’s better to give a subject that explains your question, rather than simply saying "lesson 1".
6. Unless you have a specific reason to address your message to someone in particular, leave the "To" message set to the default "All". Do not address class posts only to the Web Design/HTML Guide.
7. Type in your message in the large box.
8. Click "Post".
9. Your message will be posted in about 5 minutes or so.

The advent of spring got me in the mood for some spring inspired web designs. The sun is out… was out and now gone back in again but at least the temperature has improved, just!

The blue skies and blossom led me to putting together this little list of stunning web designs that caught my eye.

The list contains Boompa and Getting Crazy, my favourites for their use of water colour paintings which really make them stand out form the crowd.

Hopefully it will give you some inspiration for future designs.

9 Spring Web Designs

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately, I am not able to make it to SXSW this year, but to pay homage to Austin’s greatest music/film/interactive festival, this evening I created a site you can send to your friends who may seem a little down about missing the big show. For those who are lucky enough to be able to make it down, congratulations. For those of us who work for companies that think it’s one giant party instead of an educational and informational conference, we’re stuck in our tiny cubicles.

The site is VirtualSXSW.com and allows you to track the latest action from SXSW on Twitter. I might add some more cool stuff to the site… or I might not, it all depends on how much time I have to goof around with it.

A large part of being a capable web designer/developer is learning from people who’ve been acknowledged for their expertise and authority.

Finding and reading information about effective web design is part of being a web professional.

With this in mind, here’s just a few compellingly-sound advice and viewpoints from recognized personalities in the field of creating kick-ass websites.

1. Design with the users in mind

"Although there are lots of elements to consider when designing compelling Web experiences (writing style, look and feel, information organization -to name just a few), there is one "knowable" element that can be used to appraise the rest: audience. A detailed understanding of your target audience provides you with an effective metric by which to evaluate all your design decisions: structure (content and organization), visual presentation (personality and tone), and interaction (functionality and behavior). From cultural dimensions to computer expertise, the more you know about your audience the easier it becomes to design for (and communicate to) them."

– Luke Wroblewski, Interface Designer, from LukeW: "Understanding Your Web Audience"

2. Apply the right technology at the right time

"Sometimes people hit an idea right on the nose. My wife brought home this comic strip and it’s so pertinent to what we do.

Sister – ‘Mom says you’re designing a web page for school.’

Little brother – ‘Yup.’

‘And not just any web page, but the ultimate web page.’

‘I’m using every tool in the box. HTML… XHTML… CSS… XML… SOAP… AJAX… Flash… Perl… JavaScript… you name it.’

Sister – ‘What’s the page going to look like?’

Little brother – ‘I’ll figure that out when I’m done.’

– Fox Trot

It’s funny because it’s true. We often put the technology horse in front of the cart. It’s not about building the solution before there’s a problem. It’s about having a problem and using the right technology to solve that problem."

– Jonathan Snook, Web Developer/Designer and Author, from Snook.ca:"The Ultimate Web Page"

3. Why web usability is important

"On the Web, usability is a necessary condition for survival. If a website is difficult to use, people leave. If the homepage fails to clearly state what a company offers and what users can do on the site, people leave. If users get lost on a website, they leave. If a website’s information is hard to read or doesn’t answer users’ key questions, they leave. Note a pattern here? There’s no such thing as a user reading a website manual or otherwise spending much time trying to figure out an interface. There are plenty of other websites available; leaving is the first line of defense when users encounter a difficulty."

– Jakob Nielsen, Usability Expert and Author, from Alertbox: "Usability 101: Introduction to Usability"

4. Why web designers should write

"It’s time we designers stop thinking of ourselves as merely pixel people, and start thinking of ourselves as the creators of experiences. And when it comes to experience on the web, there’s no better way to create it than to write, and write well."

– Derek Powazek, award-winning Web Designer, from A List Apart: "Calling All Designers: Learn to Write!"

5. Accessibility is oftentimes in simplicity

I’m going to start my technical advice with something that seems to have been buried in the teachings of accessibility—simplicity. If you want to reach the greatest number of users possible, it’s best to write clearly and simply and design your interfaces to be consistent from page to page. For some people, simple usability advice like this is an absolute accessibility need. Many people with cognitive disabilities can fail a task simply because it hasn’t been laid out well enough for them. And anyway, people of all abilities fail tasks that are confusing. Why should we all suffer an interface that proves itself to be unusable?

– Matt May, Web Accessibility Specialist, from Digital Web Magazine: "Accessibility From The Ground Up"

6. Consider how people look for information

"Observe how your users approach information, consider what it means, and design to allow them to achieve what they need."

– Donna Maurer, Information Architect/Interaction Designer, from Boxes and Arrows: "Four Modes of Seeking Information and How to Design for Them"

7. Educate clients/employers about good web design

"Some who don’t understand web design nevertheless have the job of creating websites or supervising web designers and developers. Others who don’t understand web design are nevertheless professionally charged with evaluating it on behalf of the rest of us. Those who understand the least make the most noise. They are the ones leading charges, slamming doors, and throwing money—at all the wrong people and things.

If we want better sites, better work, and better-informed clients, the need to educate begins with us."

– Jeffrey Zeldman, Editor in Chief of A List Apart, Author, and Web Designer. from A List Apart: "Understanding Web Design"

8. Find inspiration from places beyond the web

"It’s always helpful to look outside of the web for your inspiration, to places where you might not at first expect to find a solution. The world is a collage of inspiration, from newspapers, magazine publishing, and advertising to product design, architecture and the fine arts."

– Andy Clarke, Web Designer and Author, from Peachpit: "Creating Inspired Design Part 1: I Am The Walrus"

9. Design for an international audience

"Despite the fact that the Web has been international in scope from its inception, the predominant mass of Web sites are written in English or another left-to-right language. Sites are typically designed visually for Western culture, and rely on an enormous body of practices for usability, information architecture and interaction design that are by and large centric to the Western world.

There are certainly many reasons this is true, but as more and more Web sites realize the benefits of bringing their products and services to diverse, global markets, the more demand there will be on Web designers and developers to understand how to put the World into World Wide Web."

– Molly E. Holzschlag, Web Designer and Author, from 24 Ways: "Putting the World into ‘World Wide Web’"

10. Focus your client’s feedback

"A clients natural inclination will be to give you his personal opinion on the design. This is reinforced because you ask them what they think of the design. Instead ask them what their users will think of the design. Encourage them to think from the users perspective."

– Paul Boag, User Experience Consultant, from 24 Ways: "10 Ways To Get Design Approval"

11. On the topic of the "designer" vs. "developer" label

"On the about page of this site I used to call myself a "developer/designer/occasional writer". It’s a bit confusing, and I still find it hard to know what to answer when someone asks me what I do for a living. Am I a Web designer? A Web developer? A Web programmer? All of them? Neither? It really is a difficult question to give a simple answer to.

My answer depends on who is asking, when, why, and under what circumstances. Sometimes I’ll say that "I work with the Web" or "I build websites", both of which are true but don’t really say what I do. It would be easier to be able to give a short, simple, reasonably precise answer.

[…]

As an alternative, I’ve been using "Web developer" for some time. The problem with that is that many people assume that a Web developer does mostly back-end programming, which I don’t do a whole lot of. It does sound more professional than Web designer though."

The internet has given the web professional a plethora of venues for seeking project-based work. With lots of places offering freelance gigs such as allfreelance.com, classified listing sites such as craigslist, and job boards on popular weblogs such as FreelanceSwitch and Smashing Magazine, the resourceful web builder can scout and find jobs that extends their geographical boundaries.

An effective creative questionnaire allows you to gain relevant, focused, and helpful design information without taking up a lot of the client’s time. I use the term “questionnaire” because it’s a familiar term, but as you’ll see, some examples aren’t questions.

This article is primarily about developing a one-way questionnaire where you aren’t there to explain or expound on the questions you’ve asked the respondent, though the same concepts apply whether you’re communicating via email or during a face-to-face meet.

Keep it as short as possible

Long questionnaire forms, in my experience, tend to result in rushed responses. Keep questions and the survey as short, concise, and clear as possible. We have to respect the client’s time. Typically, a demand for a website arises when a business is just starting out or when current solutions can’t meet increasing demands; either way, they’ve got a lot on their plate already.

Instead of:

“Think for a moment about your company’s mission statement – How does that traverse into the online world and how will a website achieve your mission statement?”

simply say:

“In your mind, what’s the business value of having a website?”

The latter example is terse and unambiguous. Let them do the writing, keeping yours to a minimum.

Include creative questions, preferably in the beginning

A creative question, in this context, refers to unconventional questions that have two goals:

1. to extract information indirectly – “If your website was a car, what car would it be?”
2. to get the respondent in a mood where they’re comfortable to say anything without restraint.

An effective questionnaire gets the client’s uninhabited, raw thoughts and emotions. Including them at the start can set this tone early on in the process.

Examples of creative questions

• Imagine a typical user browsing your website, what would they be thinking right now?
• Use one word to describe your website.
• What features of your website would your competitors be most envious of?
• If your website disappeared for a week, what would your users miss the most?

Provide example responses to focus and clarify your meaning

Your questions may seem crystal clear to you, but to the client, it may mean another thing. Provide sample responses to direct your client’s answers.

Some examples:

• List down key words that you associate with your company. Without prompts, you can get very colorful responses like “awesome”, “da bomb”, “where I get money for my gambling debts”. Adding “For example, a Spanish restaurant may use ‘paella’, ‘international’, ‘culture’” would make your question less vague.
• What types of designs do you like? You can indicate your expected answer by saying instead, “Please view these websites [then, list down some website addresses]. What do you like about them? What do you hate about them?”

Avoid unfocused open-ended questions

An open-ended question is one that allows the respondent to answer in a less-structured fashion. For example, an open-ended question would be, “what do you think about web 2.0?”. In contrast, a closed-ended question would be, “What’s one thing you like about web 2.0?”

Open-ended questions are a necessity in design questionnaires, but avoid ones that are vague and overly generalized.

Examples

• Describe the design you want. You can focus the respondent’s answers by saying instead, “Write specific design features that you’d like to see in the design mock-up”.
• Describe the nature of your business. This can be revised to: “Describe a typical day in your place of work”.

Evolve (tailor) your questions

Web development projects typically take week to a month’s worth of work. This means that you can—and should—take the time to customize your questionnaires for each of your clients. If you use a web-based form, this can be a bit more tedious, but it can be done by sending more questions in an email. Not only will this allow you to gain information unique to the client’s industry, it also shows that you’re giving personal attention to their needs.

Typically, I prefer to have only ten questions per questionnaire, seven of which are my standard questions and three are tailored towards the client’s particular organization.

What to do after you receive a response

Internalize it. What I do after getting a questionnaire back is I read it thoroughly, once or twice. I digest the information I’m given by rewriting and rephrasing the responses on a text file that I keep open as I design the mock-up. Embrace the subtleties of your client’s responses, take notice of grammar or spelling mistakes, all of this can be significant in helping you learn about the people you’re working with.

Example:

Website name: My AWESOME Company
Tagline: This is so awesome that I capitalized "Awesome"
Preferred colors: none specified, but described as  “high-impact”
Look and feel: Web 2.0, gradients, large text
Key words (design theme): fun, young, colorful

Ask for clarification if needed. Don’t be timid in following-up on answers that seem unclear to you. Ask as soon as you can so that your client still remembers the questionnaire-answering session.

Use it to strengthen your mock-up presentation. Use the responses while presenting your initial design mock-up to explain the design direction you took. Quote responses verbatim, if appropriate. For example, if you chose a sans-serif font face, you can say “In your response, you indicated that you wanted a clean, modern, professional design, which is showcased in the mock-up by the dark-gray, Arial font…” If you chose green hues, you can say “You mentioned that you needed a website that ‘evokes a feeling of cleanliness and ‘eco-friendliness”, so I decided to use green hues to…”

Use their responses to explain why you decided to use certain colors, a certain layout, why you avoided particular elements, etc.

Some other tips I’ve found helpful

Outline the purpose and relevant information in an introductory paragraph. Describe the purpose of your questionnaire. Assert what you expect to get as a response. Indicate the importance of the questionnaire. Typically, I’ll say something along the lines of “You are a very important part of the design process so your responses here will prove to be a valuable asset throughout the project”.

Let the client know how much time to take. Most of the time, this avoids rushed responses. I ask each respondent to take between 30 minutes to 1 hour so that they may properly answer the questionnaire.

Leave out the tech jargon. It doesn’t impress anyone, and it will only annoy them if they don’t know what you’re talking about. Use terms that are common knowledge.

Fix flawed questions. Every few projects (usually I do it every three projects or so), I take my most current questionnaires and I evaluate each question for its usefulness and clarity.

Fill out your own questionnaire. I’ve found it very enlightening to fill out my own questionnaire form. When you write the questions yourself, you don’t really think too much about the effort and the process of responding to them. I’ve found questions where I thought, “Man, I don’t want to answer this, it’s too damn long and I’ve got so much stuff going on”. Try it, at the very least, it’s a fun activity.

Being at an age where I’m just beginning to carve my path in the real world, I tend to have many peers and co-workers who constantly think about making an income besides sitting in front of the computer eight to ten hours a day in a windowless room.

I’ve had thousands of conversations about initiating startup companies, selling IT products or services online, creating profit-generating web applications (like a derivative face book site), and putting up blogs. Eventually, I began to see characteristics that I feel are needed in order for your own project to succeed, and I present them here.

Don’t be afraid to commit.

If you’re comfortable with your current salary and you need the promise of eating at least one meal a day (sans ramen noodles), why change it? If you can’t commit whole-heartedly to your endeavor, things won’t happen, and you’ll constantly put your project second on your to-do list (i.e. right below playing “teh gamez”). In addition, when you have other obligations that take up the majority of your day, you won’t be able to commit the time and resources needed to get things rolling. Who wants to sit in front of their computer after work to design the UI interface of your application or draft a business proposal to pitch to a small-business venture investor when you’ve already used most of your thinking and creative energy at something else?

While talking to a friend of mine who’s in the midst of developing a startup company, I heard the ultimate startup killer, “I think I’m gonna try and get a part-time job somewhere, just to help pay the bills”. To which I responded with, “There isn’t a better motivation then ‘hungry’”. Put yourself in the situation where there’s no other alternative to success. You can ask anyone who knows me, one of my most-used phrases is a rip-off from Nike, “just do it”. Take a leap of faith in your ability to succeed and overcome the obstacles of your projects.

I’m not unnecessarily asking you to quit your day job (that would be hypocritical of me), but you may have to consider (a) scaling down your project to something you can manage on a part-time basis, (b) adjusting your commitment to other duties and responsibilities, or (c) coming up with something else that you’re equally passionate about, but can manage do to in your spare time.

Before doing anything, set your goals and develop your idea in a presentable way.

Right on the onset of your project, there should first be a clear definition of goals and what it is, exactly, you’re peddling. When you’re asked about your idea, you should be able to respond in a concise, clear, and marketable way. If it takes more than five minutes to describe your idea, it says that the concept is either (a) too complex — so you should consider simplifying, (b) you’re clueless as to what needs to happen — so you should develop your ideas further, or (c) a combination of both.

Whether you’re talking to an acquaintance about your idea (i.e. a random person you met at the bars) or pitching it to a potential investor, you should always be prepared to cover these questions:

• How do you describe your project in two to three sentences?
• Who are you selling to and what’s your plan-of-attack to reach and market to them?
• Why would people attain services or products from you, or how are you different from what’s already out there?
• Who are you working with, and how does it compliment your skill set? In other words, do you have the right people to make it happen?

Besides helping you conceptualize your idea in a more graspable way, these points give your audience the basics of what you’re trying to accomplish, and allows them to comment/suggest things constructively.

Avoid going solo.

There are several reasons why a single founder is bound to fail. For one, hard decisions are going to be tough to settle without another person (or two) calling the shots. Things won’t happen and there will always be impasse’s between you and yourself.

Also, there won’t be enough diversity in generating ideas and problem-solving processes. If decisions were made in a group, person A’s idea of “let’s make a myspace derivative… only we give the user even more freedom to customize their page” might be swayed by person B’s more even-keeled reasoning.

Additionally, with a partner, you can motivate each other to keep things going, akin to having a workout buddy to force yourself to go to the gym.

But there’s the other extreme, and it’s the “too many cooks/chiefs/shot-caller” team. This runs into the problem of things being argued constantly, a lot of profanity-slinging, and important decisions not being made in time.

A good-sized decision-making team (drawn from observation and experience) is two to three diverse (but like-minded in the end result) individuals. Personally, I believe a three-person team is the way to go because there won’t be any ties when issues are being decided upon.

For example, I, being technical, simplistic, and lacking business/marketing sense, would choose a more open-minded, “full-of-big-ideas”, business-savvy peer to be in a startup with. Then, I’d pick someone that falls in the middle, someone I’d dub “the mediator”, the person who’s in between the two extreme personalities. We will all have varying skill sets and personalities that compliments each other, and we each “fill in the blanks”, so to speak, of what the other partners lack.

Hire (and pay) well.

When your startup relies on other people (programmers, graphics designers, business school MBA grads), you have to pick the right people, and once you do, you have to keep them on the payroll. Being a cheapskate when it comes to human resources will cost you a lot in the long run. How would you expect employees to commit to developing your idea when you won’t commit to keeping them on board? When your employees jump ship, you’ll be stuck in the water. Your success hinges on the people working with and for you.

Don’t make money your sole goal.

You have to be passionate (borderline obsessive) about your idea. You can’t be in it just to make a boatload of cash. Look at profit as just one of the benefits of accomplishing your project. If you’re not passionate about your plan, come up with something else, because this shows your lack of interest (and most probably your lack of expertise) in your chosen area.

For example, I’ve been trying (for almost two months) to launch a blog that my brother and I co-founded (about consumer-related topics such as mobile phones, PDA’s, cars, etc). Although these are things I’m knowledgeable and deeply involved in, I lack neither the extreme fervor to get it up and running, nor the expertise that, say, a professional consumer technology editor working for a magazine, has. With Six Revisions, it took me two days to launch, design, set-up, and start publishing stories. When you follow your passion instead of chasing after the dollar bills, things happen quickly and successfully.

Be confident and unyielding, but listen to what other people are trying to say.

You have to believe in your idea, you should have the mindset of proving your naysayers wrong… but always listen to what your peers have to say. Believe it or not, other people are smart, reasonable, and experienced too. Don’t miss out on an angle that you failed to see, or make a mistake that your super-PHP-expert friend warned you from the start about SQL injections — listen keenly and avoid the temptation to shut them out just because they’re not saying what you want to hear. If you feel their criticisms or suggestions are wrong or won’t work in your case, simply say, “Thanks for the input, but I think I got it”. This says that even though you’re not going with their idea or suggestion — it still indicates that you appreciate their input and that you’re always open to any ideas they may have in the future. If you shut out these valuable resources, in the end, you’ll have no one to else to blame but yourself.

All in all, I think these are things you should keep in mind and try to have when you’re thinking of that next big project that will oust digg.com’s spot in the social bookmarking arena. My biggest suggestion is to believe in yourself and don’t doubt your abilities… if you don’t think it’ll work, I can almost guarantee that you’ve killed your idea right there.

In the workplace, we hear a lot about work-life balance and the need to be a well-rounded person.

For many freelancers language like that is reason enough to never work for another person again.

We aren’t very social animals and most of us aren’t normal workers either. Some of us do our best work at 2:00 in the morning after a feverish round of Halo 3.

Perhaps this T-shirt from ThinkGeek says it best:

Unfortunately there comes a time in the life of every freelancer when they must deal with that most dreaded of all creatures – other people. In order to prepare for this inevitable event, you have to look at your workday as a series of planned events. Sort of like a Warcraft raid, but only in real life. While we usually don’t have time to do anything but work, we have to make that time in order to keep our sanity.

WTF This is Too RL. Noob.

Most of us aren’t large enough yet to have an office, or we simply don’t want the added overhead of having an office. If you have enough clients and you’re making money, why have one unless you are working towards an agency business model? There’s nothing wrong with working from home if you work on the internet and in our case clients expect that we do just that. While we all work from home for a reason, there are some downfalls to working from home that we need to overcome in order to be successful.

Socialization

When I first started working from home, my mother-in-law asked me if I would miss socializing at the office. I thought it was a crazy question. Of course I wouldn’t miss the office. While I hardly hated my co-workers, I’ve always been the type that considered office socializing to be a massive time suck and useless in the bargain.

 

 

 

Any Closer and I Stuff Live Ferrets In Your Pants

Since I started I can’t say I miss socializing at the office, but I definitely need to get out and do something every day. Whether it is a quick coffee with a friend, a stolen half hour at the gym, or a quick drive, I make an attempt to reconnect with society for at least a few minutes per day. This process is apparently called “socialization” and it is defined as the process of learning our own culture and how to live within it.

It can be argued that we function in our online culture just fine, thank you very much, but I think you’ll agree that getting out to see people once in a while isn’t a bad idea. Apparently Plato, Montaigne and Rousseau all thought that socialization was necessary. We’re going to accept that one of those guys knew what they were talking about.

Srsly Go OUTSIDE!!!

What happens when we aren’t properly “socialized”? I think you all could come up with at least one example. I have always had an amazing capacity for saying the wrong thing. Before someone told me that it wasn’t quite appropriate, I told two children that whenever Hannah Montana sings, God kills a kitten. I did this because I thought, and rightly so, that it was hilarious. But think of the kid – I made the poor buggers think for a few seconds that God had a rifle range set up and was poling a kitten whenever Hannah warbled an unholy note. That just wasn’t cool. What’s worse – I came up with the idea from a piece of FaceBook flair. There’s nerd, and then there is anti-social nerd.

Please Hannah Noooos….

I Socialize Online. What’s The Difference?

When we socialize online, we tend to aggregate in groups and forums that represent our own interests. The negative aspects to socializing online are that we can create identities and roles for ourselves that are actually a far cry from our real characters. Most of us don’t even do this intentionally – we just have a different character online than off. In “The Social Net” by Yair Amichai-Hamburger, he writes about this role playing and alternate self as both a negative and a positive.

We are free to explore areas that we may not explore offline, but that can also lead to some anti-social behaviour as well. While Amichai-Hamburger is not trying to demonize online culture in his book, he turns the cold third-party eye of a team of psychologists on the whole affair with some interesting results. You can read excerpts over at Google Books.

 

Since we tend to form groups with those of similar interests, we are often not challenged with opposing viewpoints as we may be offline. This can lead to a fundamentalism in belief structures, political ideals and just about anything else that we communicate about on the internet. While online socializing has its place, it should always be supplemented with real life socializing to keep yourself balanced.

Socializing online with something like Twitter is another issue entirely. This tool gives you up to the second insights into the lives of those of your tribe, such as other web designers and other freelancers. You may actually find yourself making some real life friends over Twitter if you aren’t careful.

Getting Resocialized

For those of you who are seeing themselves in my Hannah Montana debacle, you may want to do something a little more drastic than getting out to the gym everyday. You may want to join a group of some kind that encourages you to do public speaking such as Toastmasters or a similar organization. You may want to join a local volunteer organization, such as Rotary or the Kinsmen. Basically if you have absolutely nothing going on in your life except work, you need to give yourself some time away. This process is called resocialization. The term is usually applied to a major life change, such as going away to University or joining the military. If you’ve been at home working with nobody around for years, you may just find it to be extremely useful.

 

They Won’t Look Like This. Promise.

The Mobile Office is Not the Answer

A lot of people recommend changing your surroundings by taking your laptop and going to a cafe or a quiet room such as a museum lounge. While it can’t hurt to mix it up a little bit like this, you are still effectively in isolation. I’m sure that the odd freelancer has found work happiness in a cafe or in similar surroundings, but this only works if you have the concentration of a ninja master. Changing your surroundings usually won’t do much except reacquaint you with the negative aspects of human nature such as loud conversations about private medical issues and the need that some people have to talk in order to hear themselves. These types prefer coffee shops of the pricey variety *cough*(Starbucks)*cough*. If you need to go out, just go out. Leave your laptop at home.

That being said sometimes you do need a place to go if the family aggro is driving you to distraction. The best place to go is the library – no loud conversations, no distractions and no impossibly hot baristas.  Wait a minute – maybe that cafe isn’t looking like such a bad idea after all…

Your Spouse is Not Your Socializer

If you are lucky enough to have a spouse, you can’t use them as your socialization mechanism, regardless of how easy it is. Your spouse expects you to bring your own personality and beliefs to the table. As it is unfair for them to come home and complain about work, it is unfair for you to expect them to introduce you to the entire world around you. That’s your responsibility. As a freelancer it is almost more vital that you set up date nights for you and your spouse as it is too easy to just hop on the box after dinner to tighten up some code. You may find yourself tightening up your belt when the divorce papers are served.

Just in case you were wondering, the impossibly hot barista is not your socializer either. Just walk away.

Date Your Friends

Set up an ongoing meeting once a week with at least one of your friends during the day. If you know a mom who is at home with the kids, she’s probably dying to get the heck out of the house too. Change your location and activity from week to week. Go shopping, have lunch, go to a free lecture. Whatever you do, don’t do anything to do with work. Does once a week sound too often to you?  OK – that’s a sign that you need to do it.

Socialization and Sales

Even if it seems like work is coming in faster than you can finish it, there will come a day that you will have to conduct some sales-like activities to bring in new business. One of the first rules of sales is to not talk about sales. While you don’t want to waste your client’s time, if you are at a meeting it is expected that you start off with some small talk about family, current events or friendly banter of another sort.

This is where your socialization comes into play. If you are adequately socialized, you’ll ace all the nuances of a standard business meeting. If you aren’t, your prospective client will probably pick up on this fact with negative results for your business deal.

Sales Techniques

Sales techniques for the freelancer are a little different than the standard ones that you read about in your “Get Rich Quick” type books. It is much easier for a web developer to get clients than it is for an encyclopedia salesman to get clients. All you really need to do is pick up the phone, which is one of the main reasons for this article. Most web developers view the phone as an antiquated device that only troglodytes use. If it makes you feel better, hook yourself up on Skype and call with your computer. Whatever you do, commit yourself to one morning a month of picking up the phone and calling people you don’t know to get business.

 

This = $$

This method of getting business is so much easier than bidding on contracts on online bid sites and answering ads on Craigslist because you are competing with nobody. You are the first one “past the post” in the eyes of the business owner that you are talking to and therefore the favoured one. You may find that most contacts made through your cold calling don’t even shop around – they just have you do the job. Don’t feel restricted to cold calling in your local area either, although you may want to start there.

Contact people in other states, provinces and even other countries. Check to see how the dollar is doing against the Euro and the British Pound. If it is lower you may find yourself to be the discount option of choice for a UK customer. Make sure that you are respecting the time difference and calling in the equivalent of morning for them.

Don’t think that mass emails can replace cold calls either. Your effectiveness rate will be much better talking to someone on the phone than it would have been if you had sent an email. A phone call is more personal and feels more honest in the eyes of your buyer than e-mail. You’ll be assuring your buyer that you simply aren’t a design mill and you have interpersonal skills. I don’t know about you, but I am sick of unwanted e-mail filling my inbox and I am always happy to get a relevant telephone call.

While many of us are not adequately socialized human beings due to the nature of our work, most of us are remarkable human beings. Think of what you are depriving the world of if you don’t get out there. It’s actually almost criminal that people are not yet aware of the awesomeness of you. Especially that barista. Go get ‘em, tiger.