The Fate of Internet Start-Ups

 Today as my Facebook page popped up and messages from friends and family displayed on my screen, I had a thought, “Is Facebook really worth $50 Billion?” This number is based on a private market transaction disclosed to TechCrunch Co-Editor and Founder, Michael Arrington back a few months ago in November, 2010.

As I sat typing my daily status of how many cups of coffee I would need to get through the day, I wondered how this site could be worth this much money. Yes, most people have a Facebook account and it has to a large degree become the way we interact with friends and family both near and far, but $50 Billion?

I remember the dot-com era bubble in 2001, how it burst and created near-devastating effects. Most of the companies involved went out of business, many investors lost substantial amounts of money, and a mild economic recession began. Analysts have said that some investors have not been sobered by that burst and have now began to dump mass amounts of cash into what’s been termed, Web 2.0.

Many factors combined to cause the burst. Companies engaged in unusual and daring business practices with the hopes of dominating the market. Most engaged in a policy of growth over profit, assuming that if they built up their customer base, their profits would rise as well. Investors responded to daring business practices with money; lots of it. The American stock market rose dramatically.

Unfortunately for many companies and investors, the growth of the tech sector proved to be illusory. Numerous high profile court cases targeted tech companies for unscrupulous business practices including borderline monopolies, and the stock market began to tumble down in a serious correction. A decline in business spending combined with market correction to deal a serious financial blow to many dot-coms, and tech companies began to fold, one by one.

Fast forward to 2011. Investors say, “everything is different this time.” Getting back to Facebook, the company is valued at over $50 billion, but it is not as profitable as you might think. They make the majority of their money with their advertisements, but Facebook users are not actively searching for products or services. They are not in the buying mode. They want to chat, flirt, socialize, and monitor their friends and family. Users have gained an ever-increasing ability to ignore unwanted banner ads. Some big brand advertisers might throw some money at Facebook, but this won’t allow it to measure up to the crazy valuation that has been placed on it.

This week Mashable conducted an online poll to see how web users feel about current startup valuations and investments. The results show that 62.3 percent of those polled believe that we are headed for another crash. They sited valuations as being too high and investors as being too optimistic as reasons for their speculation.

In my opinion, start-ups are drastically over valued and profits just wont measure up to the projected numbers. Everyone has a great idea, and technology start-ups are popping up all over the place. Caution is key, especially in this economy. It seems that the last thing we need after a failed real estate market is another crash in a major financial market. A more guarded approach to startups is the very thing that could spare us from another devastating bubble-burst.

How Facebook Does Photos

 Technological advances over the past decade have given us the ability to do so much more with photography then we ever thought possible. We can take a photo and view it on our camera screen in just a few seconds. We can load, edit and print photos in under five minutes with tools like photo shop and an inexpensive photo printer. Remember our parents had to take photos into the 24 hour lab to have their film developed.

Over the past year, no one has made photos as fun and easy to manage, than Facebook. They have partnered with Target, whereby you can simply go into any Target store find a photo printing machine and print your photos from your Facebook account, right there without needing any SD card, and certainly without a roll of film.

Photos are by far the most popular content on Facebook. With Facebook Photos, you can upload an unlimited number of albums to your Facebook profile or Page. You can reorder photos, rotate them, and tag your friends in them. Your friends are able to view your photos and leave comments. The Photos application page displays albums recently uploaded by your friends, photos recently tagged of your friends, and links to your own photos.

Another recent idea that will make photo sharing fun is a startup that will be working in conjunction with Facebook called, Pixable. This application allows Facebook users to browse their friends photos without jumping from profile to profile. They will be able to browse photos by categories such as, “most popular” or “our family vacation” and get updates when specific friends add or are tagged in new photos. As apps for sharing photos multiply and photographers upload their snapshots in record numbers, the move to create an organized way to rank and share photos could be a smart one.

Nothing, however compares to what will be the biggest and potentially most controversial photo sharing upgrade ever. Facebook Photos is bringing Facial Recognition software to photo tagging. The product uses technology that was developed by Facebook in house as well as some technology that came from partners.

Here’s how it works. Whenever you’re offered the chance to tag groups of your friends in an album, Facebook will utilize its facial recognition technology to group similar faces together and automatically suggest the friend you should tag them with. Facebook fills in the “Who is this?” box with it’s suggestion, all you have to do is click the “Save Tags” button to accept.

Whatever your opinion on the progressive features Facebook has made to photos and photo sharing, they have created millions of new engagement points and social connections, making it much more fun and a whole lot more organized than the family photo albums of our past.

What Are Web Standards, and Why Should We Care?

 Web Standards is a general term for the formal standards and other technical specifications that define and describe aspects of the World Wide Web.

Basically what this means is that it’s important to have a set of rules that are common among web developers to make browsing the internet a better experience for end users. Should be simple, right?

Enter the W3C. This is the World Wide Web Consortium, an international community that develops standards to ensure the long-term growth of the Web. The W3C typically takes the blame for all that is wrong with the internet, probably because web developers and designers see them as an elite group of people making all the decisions for us, and we feel left out.

The biggest problem is actually the incredibly slow moving way standards are lined out compared to how quickly the internet is changing. If the W3C doesn’t begin to keep up, they will be rendered completely ineffective. There are people who have said that the W3C is obsolete and the only solution is to disband it. If that were to happen, companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google and Adobe, the most powerful businesses involved, will begin to set their own standards, and they share a less than cooperative view of how standards should be implemented. This creates, a breakdown in the interoperability process.

Regardless of any organization’s decisions on a standard for usability, a developer or designer will need to consider their users. If the people who visit your site don’t have a positive experience, they wont return. This is why we have to take a look at what is widely accepted as correct ways of presenting information on the web. 

Here are a few things to consider during the planning and implementation of any website:

Does the site use valid (X)HTML?
Does the site use valid CSS?
Does the site use any unnecessary classes or ids?
Does the site have any broken links?
Are links underlined?
How does the site perform in terms of speed and page load time?
Does the site have JavaScript errors?
Are “alt” attributes uses for all descriptive images?
Are all links descriptive?
How does the site work across all of the modern browsers?
Is the content accessible with images switched off?
Does the site work well when printed?
Does the site work well on mobile devices?
Does the site work well with different screen sizes and resolutions?
Is there a link to the homepage on every page of the site?
Does the site have a sitemap page, and a contact page?
For large sites does the site have a search tool?
Does the site have a favicon?

This is just a quick checklist to help you identify some of the most important attributes of a web site. Without considering these things users can become frustrated, lost or confused when browsing your site. Remember there is no reason to have a website if it has no users, so consider the “golden rule” of web development; “do unto your users as you would want them to present their data to you”.

Leveraging New Trends in Advertising – Part 2 Getting Started with Affiliate Marketing

If you have a website, whether it’s a blog site, a subscription site or just a site about your favorite thing, then getting started with affiliate marketing is really pretty simple. Affiliate marketing is advertising products and/or services for another company. When a visitor to your site clicks a link, visits another retailer’s site then makes a purchase or signs up for a subscription you earn a commission. That’s it. You don’t have to be sitting there and you don’t have to punch a time clock. All you have to do is bring visitors to your site, and present these links or ads in such a way that the person becomes interested enough to click.

There are different ways to place an affiliate marketing element on your site. You have to be creative enough that a visitor will not just disregard it. For example, a great way to add a link for a book purchase would be to write a blog about the book’s topic and provide an affiliate link in the blog to that book. The reward is two-fold. You are providing a valuable resource for your reader and you are creating a potential commission for yourself.

If you have determined that affiliate marketing is right for you, then it’s time to get started. The first step is to get setup with an affiliate network. An affiliate network is an intermediary between the advertisers and the affiliates. You could search for several different advertisers, contact them, figure out how their linking works, and then individually keep track of how much money you are earning from each of them. Affiliate networks do all of that for you, while allowing you to run several different offers and receive one check at the end of each month. What’s in it for them? A very small percentage of your commission that you won’t even realize because it’s figured in before they list the commission you will make for each program.

It’s easy to sign up for an affiliate network. Go to a site like Commission Junction and follow the steps. Once you’ve created an account, they provide you with an easy to use control panel that lists all the information you’ll need to manage your advertisers and keep track of your commissions.

Remember, there are many ways to monetize your site. Google offers pay-per-click programs that can earn you money every time someone simply clicks a link, but Affiliate marketing, if done correctly, can be the most profitable of any internet marketing program. It’s worth the upfront time and effort to begin making the kind of money that can eliminate the typical 9-5 work week that keeps you from having the time to do the things you want to do.

Leveraging New Trends in Advertising – Part 1 Tips on Choosing a Niche Market

 

Everyone wants to make as much money with as little effort and as much freedom as possible. Although making money through online affiliate marketing is a very flexible and potentially lucrative way to make a living, it doesn’t come without a little work. No one is going to post a blog site, throw up some advertising and be rich overnight. If this is how you want to make money, you are going to have to work at providing valuable content, finding relevant advertising opportunities, driving traffic to your site, and building a loyal following. You may not make a lot of money at first but you will spend long hours building your site or blog, and working to build the traffic you need to be successful. No one gets something for nothing. There are many sites out there that will promise you big money overnight with their “proven techniques”, but you will need to put in some work to see a return.

Don’t get discouraged. Once you’ve begun to find success in these areas, the returns can quickly outpace the effort. If you aren’t afraid of a little hard work, value your freedom, and want an unlimited income potential, affiliate marketing could be just the thing for you.

Where to Begin
If you want to make money advertising products or services on your website, the most important thing you can do is provide useful content. Just because there are a lot of people online doesn’t mean they will come right to your site, and even if they do, how will you keep them coming back?  You must provide something they need or want. The site should be visually appealing and easy to navigate. It should load quickly and flow well. If you can’t make these things happen, find a professional who can. Remember, the moment your visitors become annoyed they will leave your site.

Your job is to not only get them coming, but keep them on your site as long as possible, so the need for fresh, relevant content is as important as aesthetics. To do this, you need to find a niche. You’ll need to find something you’re interested in that you believe others would be enthusiastic about. Choose a broad topic, something that you can continue to build on. Remember, building a great site takes time. A website with too narrow a focus will limit its appeal to a wider audience.

Blog, Subscription Site or Web-Software

The next thing to consider is whether you are going to have a simple blog site where you offer your expertise in a free to read blog, or something more like a subscription based site or a web software application. 

Blog’s are the easiest way to get a site up and running. All you need is some expertise in the theme you choose for the blog, some writing skills and a bit of discipline. 

Another option is to create a subscription based site where you offer comprehensive information in blog, audio, video and presentation formats for a monthly or yearly fee. The information has to be so valuable to your audience that they are willing to pay for it. This requires a high level of knowledge, some hard to find information, or some proven formulas.

If you want to develop something more, such as an interactive application, you will either need web developing/programming skills, or the money to pay someone who does to build your site. Either way, the commitment is much higher to build this type of site, and the cost could be much higher than you initially anticipate. Online startups are hot. If you have a great idea, there is no lack of venture capitalists, angel investors, and corporate partners interested in partnering with you to make it a success. 

A good place to start is with contests offered by Microsoft’s Bizspark (http://www.bizspark.com) , Techcrunch (http://disrupt.techcrunch.com/2010-sf/ )and sFund (http://www.kpcb.com/initiatives/sfund/). You can also list your startup idea on sites designed to bring investors and startups together such as http://www.startuproundup.com .

Even without venture capital and partnership opportunities there are good reasons to launch a web-based application. Unlike a blog, which needs new posts to keep traffic high, an online application can generate consistent traffic without constant attention. If your site offers a service others find valuable, they will keep coming back and if you have an application already built you won’t have to do much ongoing work to earn money. 

With any site, if you can give users wiki sections (ways for them to add their own content), its potential for consistently high traffic grows even more! The more you provide people with what they want, and the more you help them interact on a social level, the greater the following! We all know about the success of sites such as Facebook, Flickr, WikiPedia, Twitter and WordPress. They grew overnight into mega sites by adding these key ingredients into the mix of their great ideas. Whatever type site you choose, plan your strategy well before you invest time and money. You’ll be glad you did.

If you still think affiliate marketing could be right for you, check back for “Leveraging New Trends in Advertising – Part 2 (Practical Answers on How to Begin Affiliate Marketing)”

When Should We Start Using HTML5 and CSS3

The answer is now, but the reason we haven’t is clear. Lack of cross browser compatibility. I recently sat down to design a site for a new client and thought about using some new CSS3 techniques I had learned, but ultimately, I didn’t. Instead I thought of how IE 9 is not released yet and the site would not look anywhere as professional in IE8. I thought of how many of my clients and colleagues are still using older versions of IE, and even after IE9 comes out many of them will still not upgrade. I decided to create rounded corners, shadowing and the use of non-web safe fonts the old fashioned way, in Photoshop.

I knew I could use progressive enhancement to design the site, and it would be sufficient. Progressive enhancement is designing a site in such a way that if a user doesn’t have the latest and greatest browser, he or she will still effectively see what they need, and it won’t have overlapping elements or missing text. The problem for me and probably most designers is that we take pride in our work and none of us want users to see a simple design with no depth and no flair. This choice was out.

Another choice was to design two separate sites, one for browsers with support for the newest technology and one for Microsoft’s IE, which is always behind in offering the latest set of CSS standards and currently provides no support for HTML5. I could use simple code to detect the visitor’s browser and render the site accordingly. Here’s the problem, I would have to complete a design for not one but two web sites. I really don’t have the time to double my work-load so I knew this choice was out too.

My fourth and final choice was to go ahead and design for the most comprehensive browsers, the ones who support the elements I wanted to use, and face the fact that true cross browser support would never really exist, leaving my IE visitors behind. After all they had the choice to use Chrome or Firefox, it shouldn’t be my responsibility to worry about those who choose to be left behind. Some users still have JavaScript disabled or images turned off, so how could I worry about everyone?

The truth is, we as designers must begin to embrace the flexibility of the web. The sooner we begin designing with the new technologies, the quicker the wide adoption will progress and the quicker we will get by the incompatibility caused by legacy browsers. I believe in progressive enhancement, but only back one browser version. We cannot continue to worry about every user who still has the defunct IE6 installed on their Windows 2000 machine. We cannot forge a newer more efficient way if we are always hanging back worrying about what was. We must have vision for what is to come.

How To Drive Traffic To Your Website

If you want to make money selling products, building an email list or through affiliate marketing, you will first have to bring people to your site, but how? Here are some of the best ways to drive traffic to your site and start getting the results you want.

Content
This is the first thing you will find when researching how to gain exposure for your site, because it’s the most important. If you don’t have anything to offer your readers, they wont come to your site. Even if you offer subscription based content, offer some useful information for free. Creating content that is helpful and useful will also bring people back. It’s not only important to get them there once, it’s crucial to keep them coming back for more.

Keywords
You can improve your search engine ranking by creating content that is rich with words that describe the information you have to offer. This will help people find your website when they’re searching the web. It will bring users to your site who are looking specifically for your topics, because they’re using those keywords in their search. Search engines use keywords to index your site appropriately. It is very important that your keywords flow naturally with text. You don’t want to “stuff keywords” into your content, or people will get frustrated with reading it and leave.

Submit Your Site To Search Engines
If you want someone to be able to find your phone number in the phone book, you have to submit it to the publisher. The same rule applies if you want people to find you on search engines. Ultimately most search engines will crawl your site and index your content, but it will greatly expedite the process if you give them a heads up that you have a new site or that your content has changed enough for them to take a second look.

Title Your Site And Provide Meta Data
Ten years ago this was the most important way to get a search engine to list you properly. Now, this is not quite as important as it used to be, but it is still a key factor in how your site gets indexed. You wouldn’t publish a book without an eye-catching title, or a colorful description on the back of the book, so why would you publish a website without these elements?

Each page of the site should have a Title and a Meta Description Tag. Since search engines display this in their search results, it is very important that your Title and Meta Tags be search engine friendly.

Link Building
Today the search engines place so much value on whether others find your content relevant. The more sites that link to yours the more valuable your site becomes. This means link building or reciprocal link programs should be your key focus. The challenge you’ll face is building quality links. The search engines don’t want artificially created or useless links. The days of link farms and huge link exchange programs are long over. The search engines want links from other sites that share the same focus and provide relevant data.

You will need to do your research. Finding other sites that share your focus and your vision is critical. If you are a site that focuses on knitting, you don’t want to build a link program with sites that focus on unrelated topics. You have to go out and look for similar sites. This can take time. Once you find sites that apply, you’ll need to establish contact with them. It’s helpful if you already have a link to their site on yours. Let them know in a friendly email that you have linked to their site. State that a link back is appreciated but not required. If they respond back with a yes, send them some HTML, with a descriptive link to your site. For example: Knitting Fundamentals.  This will make it easy for them to add it to their site and it will be descriptive enough to get the attention of the search engines.

Social Media
Once a way to communicate with friends and family, sites like Facebook and Twitter have blossomed into a must have in your marketing plan. Social media is a powerful strategy that will get you links, attention and tons of site traffic.  If you are selling products/services or just publishing content for ad revenue, social media marketing is a potent method that will make your site profitable over time. A great source for implementing social media for your site or business is a book written by Amber Mac, titled, “Power Friending, Demystifying Social Media To Grow Your Business.” I highly recommend it.

Advertise Your Site
There are lots of free ways to promote your site, but if you want to get a bit more serious about promotion then you would need to look into Paid Advertising. There are several types of online advertising. Here are a few methods to get started.

• Pay-Per-Click. This is pretty self-explanatory, you provide an ad banner, ad box or a link to another site, they post it and then you pay a pre-determined amount each time someone clicks your ad. This method is great for trying to build an email list or sell an affiliate product.
• Ezine or Newsletter. Arrange for a personal recommendation within someone else’s newsletter or ezine by the owner. It is important that you assess the author’s value before you ask them to include you. What is their reader base? What topic do they write about? You would want it to be relevant to your own content.
• Google AdWords. You create ads and choose keywords related to your business or site content and Google gives you placement based on the amount you bid and the demand for those keywords and phrases. When people search on Google your ad may appear highlighted in a prominent place in the search results. This is obviously an effective way to drive a targeted audience to your site, because people are specifically searching for what you have to offer.
• Paid Syndication. This involves a sponsorship of a website, whereby your content will be syndicated and integrated into the framework of the site in question. Techmeme is an example of a meme tracker that offers paid syndication and displays sponsor posts on its sidebar and in-between regular content.

These are just a few of the ways you can pay to get your site noticed by the type of people you want to visit your site. Any of these provide a great start to moving traffic in your direction.

Contests And Giveaways
Who doesn’t like to get something for free?! There are some great things to give away that will spark the interest of potential visitors. Try giving away an e-book with your ad on it, hold a free online seminar, get people to sign up using their email address for a free product, let visitors download free software, offer a free consultation, offer free forms, templates or documents. Whatever you choose do it with the best intention. Make sure to follow through with whatever you promised. Integrity is very important online.

Whatever methods you choose to promote your site, be patient. It takes time to produce quality results. Don’t give up, keep trying different techniques and applying new ideas. Eventually all your hard work will pay off, your site will get indexed and people will come.

The Top 10 Things To Look For When Hiring A Web Designer

Our company is on the lookout for a Creative Director to do Web Design for some of our cloud based applications, so I set out to find the most important things to look for in a web designer. This is what I found…

10. Personality. Do You Like Them? Should You Care?
You’re hiring someone for your team that drives a creative process. What type of personality would someone like that have? Probably not the same personality as your lead web developer. Creative minds are not the same as intellectual minds. You may find someone who is a perfectionist and a bit arrogant. He or she may not care about other people’s opinions, and your potential candidate may even be flat-out condescending when it comes to matters of art and design. But are you looking for an amazing designer or a new best friend? After all the traits I just described are those of Pablo Picasso. Talk about colorful, crazy web sites! You should, however, get a feel for whether this person would be receptive to some criticism, or would consider client feedback. Finding a balance between a creative demeanor and an agreeable personality is probably pretty important.

9. Why Does This Person Need A Job?
As I wrote previously, a web designer is not always the best choice for host or hostess of the company Christmas party, but why aren’t they already designing for someone else? Maybe their personality is just too abrasive and they struggle to work with a team, maybe they have a great portfolio but when it comes time to put out the product they have artist’s block, maybe they’re just looking for a better opportunity. Finding out the reason they are not already hot in the online design community is probably something you need to take into consideration.

8. Where Do You See Yourself In 5 Years? 
Do interviewers still ask this question, really? If they’re smart they do. It’s important to know if this person has aspirations that don’t include your organization. If a designer is looking to better their personal portfolio with the work they do for you, great! Obviously the quality of work would be higher than someone who is just using you to finance their freelance career, where they actually build their own brand. You don’t want to hire someone who is looking to fill the same niche that you fill either. If they really want to do what you do without you, why would you want them to be doing it with you? Look for someone who is invested in the quality of their work, while not opposed to building your brand along the way.

7. What Web Browser Do YOU use?
This speaks volumes on it’s own, doesn’t it?

6. References
What was the last project your candidate completed and who was it for? Not only will you want to see it to get a visual understanding of the work, but you will want to talk to the people involved. Why? Because you’re going to be working with this person on their next project and if their entire previous process was a disaster, there is a good chance that’s what you can expect as well. Don’t just ask for references, check them!

5. How Much Do They Cost
People may say, “You get what you pay for”, is just a cliché, but it can be key when hiring a web designer. Why doesn’t it make sense to expect to be paid what you’re worth? If you find someone who can deliver great designs why would they accept less than a fair price for them? On the other hand if you find someone who is willing to work for peanuts, what can you expect in terms of quality? Expect to pay fair-market-value for the person you’ll trust your creative process to. If there is a position in your company you can skimp on, this is not the one.

4. What Industry Sites and Blogs Do You Read?
“Who is Jeffry Zeldman?” If your candidate asks you that after you ask about what industry blogs they read and what trends they follow, don’t hire them! Being in the loop on the latest trends in design and what leading designers have to offer, is very important. You always want to be on the cutting edge of design to stay ahead of your competitors, so choose someone who knows what it takes to get you there.

3. UX? What’s That And Who Cares?
Your potential web designer should care. UX stands for User Experience and it is how easily a visitor is able to navigate your site, or how difficult it is understanding how to use it. User experience is about the most important aspect of web design, because if a user is frustrated or can’t understand how to navigate your site they will probably just leave or find another product to use. Your users should be a focus in design and a designer should have experience gauging how people will view their work from the user’s perspective. If there is no one to see your site, it doesn’t matter how aesthetically pleasing it is, does it?

2. What Other Skills Do They Have To Offer
Most developers are not great designers, and most designers have no idea what a string variable is, but if they do that is a big plus. If you are hiring a web developer these days it is a necessity for them to be proficient with HTML and CSS. Higher level designers often know some jQuery or a little JavaScript. The more development skills your designer has the more they understand what is needed for the project they are working on, and the more they can contribute, which takes some of the pressure off of the rest of your team.

1. Can I See Your Portfolio?
Never, ever hire a designer without seeing their previous work! Why would you? The work that a person has done in the past is indicative of the work they will do in the future. Web designers often have a style of their own that you can pick up if you see multiple pieces of work they have created. If you love what they have done, and everything else checks out, hire them!

What Is UX Design

You may have heard the term UX Design, but what exactly is it and how is it different from traditional Web Design? UX design is short for user experience design and it encompasses a whole group of tasks that happen during the discovery and design phases of a project. Information architecture, information design, interaction design, creating wire-frames and prototypes, marketing, user research, editing, and user testing are just a few of the things that come under the UX design umbrella. During the process it’s important to have a strong understanding of a user’s motivations and behavior. Going out into the field and understanding how users are interacting with software and what their needs are is key.

UX design is a fairly new term and the general market hasn’t really caught up in recognizing it. Traditionally, web designers have been required to understand user experience as well as visual design, but it is often pointed out that the two are not the same. The web is maturing, and thus there is a need for specialization of skills. A strong visual designer may have a specific skill set that someone who understands user behaviors may not have. Most strong visual designers for example don’t have the knowledge to complete any type of dynamic coding such as php or .Net, so why would we expect someone who understands layout and architecture to have strong Photoshop skills and an eye for aesthetics? As professional web design has evolved, and roles and responsibilities have advanced and divided, the professional web design community has had to find ways to differentiate itself from so many entering the field as amateurs, claiming the Web Designer moniker.

UX often goes beyond just knowing how to most effectively lay things out. It can include coming up with concepts for development as well. If my team is creating a small business software application, having a UX designer can be helpful if they come up with ideas for modules and the interface for them. The UX designer is also responsible for researching both users and markets through focused groups, interviews, field investigation, scenario analysis, problem definition, brainstorming, requirements gathering, etc. It takes a lot of time to develop a user experience for a particular site or application. Once a site or application has launched the UX designer typically oversees things like usability testing, quality assurance and getting bugs fixed quickly.

Obviously, it is important for every member of the team to be somewhat focused on user experience. From the project manager to the developer and even the visual designer, but if you have the resources to include a UX designer for your project you’ll have someone to provide specific details about each aspect of the user experience and oversee the process to ensure that everyone is on the same page. Different people use the web differently, and someone who works in web development will have capabilities that a “now and then” user may not have. It’s important to see things through the eyes of every user, and that can be difficult for a seasoned developer or designer. If a visitor to your site can’t figure out how to use it or where to go, they will leave. If you have no visitors or subscribers there’s no point in having a site or application at all. Keep the needs of your users in mind, and the chances of success will increase exponentially.

The Inclusive Development Project

Making a project inclusive development means involving the client every step of the way in the design process and making sure the entire development team is involved in decision making. It’s important to ensure that everyone in the process is on the same page and moving toward a common goal.

Here are some tips for running inclusive processes that can make your project more successful.

Clients Should See Design Ideas Early
The client often has a general idea of what they would like their site to look like, what they want to offer their audience, and what some of the core functionality should be. Getting them involved early on will prevent a lot of unnecessary changes later on.

Brainstorm With The Client
Share with them, in non-technical terms, ideas that could drive traffic to their site, and features that could drive sales or improve customer communication. Give them a list of complimentary things that could help, such as an email newsletter, a social media presence, or a blog for their company. Let them tell you some of the things they’ve found that they would like to pursue as well. Work together to put your ideas into practice.

Include The Developer In The Design Process
You probably wont ask the developer his opinion on which blue to use in the site banner, but giving the developer an overview of your design ideas will ensure that what your planning is cohesive with the back-end functionality the client will need. 

Set Deadlines And Enforce Them
Everyone needs deadlines to keep on task and your client is no exception. You will need to receive things from them such as, image files, photos, content and specifications. If your client doesn’t get these things to you in a timely manner it will slow the entire development process. If the client does not meet their deadlines, they will be less likely to complain when the project is not done on time.

Communicate Effectively And Often
Clients need to feel like you are thinking of their project frequently. They like to know that they are a priority to you and that you care about their deadlines. There is no better way to keep a client at ease then to drop them a quick email about the progress you’re making, or send them a question about what they would like to see happen with something you’re currently working on. It doesn’t take very much time, but it can make a world of difference.

Another reason for communication is to ensure that you and the client remain on the same page all throughout the development process. You don’t want to get to deployment day only to find out that they had something completely different in mind for an entire section. Keep in contact!

Follow these steps and you’re well on your way to avoiding major conflicts and keeping your project on track.