Posts Tagged ‘design’

Web Development – “IN DEMAND” jobs

Posted by Eric on December 19, 2008  |   2 Comments »

As I’m sure anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock lately has heard, there is an economic recession going on around the country.

But, what I find very interesting is how despite the “recession” certain areas of the economy seem to be holding their own or even growing.  

Web Development might be one of those areas (interesting that a web developer would notice this).  According to odesk.com, several areas of web development continue to grow.  Odesk is an outsourcing job board sort of web site.  They match up freelance people to available projects – sort of a job board deal.

So, on the Odesk blog, they just recently talked about how web development jobs are growing rapidly:

“Knowing and being professional in at least some of the skills below to maximize your prospects for being employed.”

Odesk says jobs in PHP, AJAX, Javascript, XML, MySQL, CSS and Graphic Design are all growing.

According to their information, PHP related jobs are growing the fastest

fort wayne web deisgn chart Web Development IN DEMAND jobsFrom their own blog:

“PHP is by far the most in-demand web development programming language right now. As you can see from the graph, it has enjoyed a steady climb from November 2007 leveling off in July 2008 at a spectacular 1400 jobs posted. The demand for PHP development work has tripled over the period of a mere 9 months.”

You can read the whole article here:

http://www.odesk.com/blog/2008/12/stay-employed-web-developer-skills-in-most-demand-php-ajax-mysql/

Of course, here at EH Design, we specialize in exactly these areas – PHP, mySQL, CSS, Javascript, and more.  We are a Fort Wayne based Web Design firm that specializes in web development.  CONTACT US if you would like to talk!

Things Learned at 37 Signals

Posted by Eric on September 18, 2008  |   No Comments »

Just started reading through an excerpt from a talk given by Jason Fried  (founder and partner at 37Signals).  In case you don’t know, 37signals is the web software company that has made some incredible web applications like: basecamp, highrise, ta-da list, writeboard – really like a ton of great stuff.

They’ve talked about how they did it and how they did it different than most other companies.

 

Here’s a link to the article:

http://www.krisjordan.com/2008/09/17/jason-fried-10-things-weve-learned-at-37signals/

A few of the points he makes:
  1. Interruption is the enemy of productivity
  2. Always be Questioning
  3. Work less (my favorite)
He also has a bunch of other great options…
Check it out….

Another Survey?

Posted by Eric on August 15, 2008  |   No Comments »

While listening to Avinash Kaushik on JMP’s podcast (www.jmp.com), I heard about 4Q – a very simple (and free) suvey tool to start to gather some information from you site visitors.

You sign up to use the service, make some basic customizations, upload your logo and voila – you are ready to go.

I’ve got it instlalled on this site.  About 30% of you should get an invitation.  30% of those who visit the site will be presented with an overlay that says they have been picked to answer a very simple 4 question survey (hence the name 4Q) about their experience with this site.  If they agree, a new window opens up at the bottom of the screen ready for them to answer once they are done at the site.

I haven’t had the service installed for any time yet, so I have no idea about how effective it is.  But, we’ll see.  According to Avinash, something simple like this is a great way to gather data. 

Typically when we think about analytics, things like muti-variant testing, A/B Comparisons, Regressions and all other sorts of complicated statistical things pop into our minds.  But, by simply asking people visiting our site - 

1.  Why did you visit our site

2.  Were you able to accomplish your purpose

3.  Why not (if no)

By simply asking people answers to these questions, we can figure out a tons of information.

It looks like a great service.  I’ll keep you up to date on what I find out.

One Less Reason To Hate Flash?

Posted by Eric on July 2, 2008  |   3 Comments »

As some of you may know, Adobe just recently announced that Google and Yahoo will now finally be able to index flash files (read press release).  So, I was thinking about this and reading about this just recently.

Ran across this quote:

“As anyone who has had the pleasure of doing web design and development through marketing agencies knows, Flash tends to be wildly popular among clients and wildly unpopular among, well, pretty much everyone else.”  (from ars technica)

I loved the quote and I think it is basically true.  Flash is really loved by designers in hip marketing agencies (I know of a couple in my area – Fort Wayne).  But, just about everyone else hates it.  Why?  

  1. It’s slow – I HATE that – please wait – loading – bar that shows up on Flash sites – I usually leave
  2. It’s violates “normal” navigation and usability standards.  It’s flexibility is one of it’s weaknesses.  It allows designers to put navigation anywhere – breaking all normal conventions.  Making us wonder – just what does this do?  I wonder where the navigation is on this page – I usually just leave
  3. It has to be updated by a designer.  Need to change text in a flash site?  Great – hire the designer.  There really aren’t any good Content Management Systems for flash – no way to have authors, editors, etc.
  4. It’s not searchable – If you want a cool looking site, great – go with Flash.  But if you want visitors, go with something else.
But, no number 4 is no longer an issue.  My worry is that it will just encourage people to make bad use of what is a nice technology – just not for developing sites.