From the monthly archives:

October 2008

Web Design for ROI: Rocking Your Landing Pages-Interview with Sandra Niehaus Closed Loop Marketing

by Fred on October 30, 2008

Greetings WOW members and Web professionals everywhere. Bill Cullifer here with the World Organization of Webmasters (WOW) and the WOW Technology Minute.

Today?’s podcast is a continuation of the media coverage of Web Builder Conference, that took place in Las Vegas earlier this month. I had the pleasure to sit down with Sandra Niehaus, Creative Director and Vice President of User Experience, Closed Loop Marketing, a Web marketing and consulting firm based in Northern California.

I asked Sandra to summarize her session Web Design for ROI: Rocking Your Landing Pages. In her practical session Sandra covered real-world examples with actionable recommendations to improve the performance of your landing pages. Sandra also provides insights on the book “Web Design for ROI” that she co authored and a few tips for Web designers looking to sharpen their skills.

Check out today?’s four minute podcast on WOW Technology Minute website.

Today’s WOW Technology Minute is sponsored by Adobe Systems and their series of MAX conferences for 2008/2009

MAX is an experience unlike any other — an opportunity to connect with thousands of designers, developers, partners, executives, and Adobe staff for education, inspiration, and community. MAX 2008/2009 will be held in San Francisco, Milan, and Tokyo. Be sure to mark your calendar for this important global event.

MAX is an experience unlike any other — an opportunity to connect with thousands of designers, developers, partners, executives, and Adobe staff for education, inspiration, and community. MAX 2008/2009 will be held in San Francisco, Milan, and Tokyo. Be sure to mark your calendar for this important global event.

Follow these steps to receive your Adobe MAX North America WOW registration discount:

Step 1: Visit the MAX North America registration listed below
Step 2: Select the button for “Yes, I have a registration code.”
Step 3: Enter registration code [WOW844]
Step 4: Complete the steps for online registration.

Register today on the Adobe Max website!

Transcript of Web Design ROI

BILL CULLIFER: Bill Cullifer here with the World Organization of Webmasters (WOW) and the WOW Technology Minute, here at the Web 2.0 Las Vegas Conference. I have the pleasure to be interviewing and talking to Sandra Niehaus. She is the Vice President of–

SANDRA NIEHAUS: User Experience and the Creative Director for Closed Loop Marketing.

BILL: Great. Thank you. I appreciate that. You did a session today entitled…?

SANDRA: It was “Rocking Your Landing Pages.” So I talked about landing page design and testing.

BILL: Right on. What were some of the walk-aways? Can you summarize that session for us?

SANDRA: Yeah. I hit on some high points that have really been top of mind for me recently because they keep coming up again and again with clients. First of all, I hit on some basic elements that you must always have on your landing page. You always need to communicate who you are. You need to support your credibility while you do that. You need to make sure it?’s immediately communicated what your offer is. And you need to immediately communicate what the visitor should do next. So those three things – who you are, what you?’re offering and what the visitor should do next – should be immediately, instantly viewable and understandable when someone hits your landing page.

You go to so many landing pages and it?’s not clear, your identity isn?’t clear or it?’s not supported by credibility, credibility pieces like quotes or “as seen on Oprah” or something like that. The offer is often not clear and it?’s often really dense text or it?’s confusing, there?’s too many things on the page. Often the action itself, that you want people to take, is not clear. And that?’s usually because either the company is not clear on what their business goal is for the page. They don?’t know what they want it to do so of course that shows in the page design. Or it?’s because the designer didn?’t know what the business goal was so they didn?’t know how to emphasize the elements of the page properly. So those are three of the things I talked about at some depth today.

BILL: Yeah. I appreciate that. And also, you wrote a book, or co-authored a book, on Web Design ROI. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

SANDRA: Sure. “Web Design for ROI” is about designing websites with return on investment in mind. Not just because you need to check a checkbox, “Do we have a website? Yes” Check! Or not because it?’s a creative outlet, but because it?’s a business vehicle.

There are so many businesses now that have a web presence but they don?’t know why. They don?’t know why they have a website, honestly. And it drives us crazy. So Lance and I got together to write the book, “Web Design for ROI” because we wanted to help correct that. We wanted to help business people understand the power of the Web and Web Designers understand how they need to work towards business goals, that?’s the whole reason for the website being in existence.

So taking a look at your entire Web strategy, and we put together sample Web strategies for companies to look at. What is your Web strategy? Businesses have business plans, why don?’t they have a website strategy plan as well? They know what their goals are for their business, why don?’t they know what their goals are for their website? It?’s just a really frustrating situation but one that we think can be corrected with a proper mindset.

BILL: Excellent. Well said. One last question, a closing question if I could for you. For those designers listening to this podcast, those artistic individuals that are out in this economy, concerned or struggling about where they?’re going to get their next job or how they?’re going to interact with the corporation that they?’re currently employed with, do you have any closing advice on these tough economic times?

SANDRA: Sure. I think if you?’re looking to improve your skills and your salability as a professional Web Designer in this economy there?’s two areas to look. One is usability. There are a lot of designers out there who are very creative and talented but they don?’t know how to make things very useable and that?’s going to be crucial in Web design and all sorts of interface designs, whether it?’s games, whether it?’s other types of interactivity, all sorts of things. That?’s going to be very crucial coming up.

The other piece is for designers to understand about business. They should educate themselves as much as they can on different business models, what drives the business that they work for now. What are they trying to sell? What are their goals as a business? And educate themselves about other types of businesses too.

So those two things. Being a designer is one thing, being talented is one thing, but then adding to that, understanding how to make things easy to use and understanding what the business reason for that is, why you?’re making it easy to use, why are you making it beautiful. If you can educate yourselves in those two areas you?’ll make yourself much more saleable as a professional.

BILL: Very well said. Sandra, thank you so much for your time today.

SANDRA: Absolutely. Thanks Bill.

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Practical Social Media-Interview with DL Byron, Principal, TEXTURA design

by Fred on October 27, 2008

Greetings WOW members and Web professionals everywhere. Bill Cullifer here with the World Organization of Webmasters (WOW) and the WOW Technology Minute.

Today?’s podcast is a continuation of the media coverage of Web Builder, Las Vegas. I had the pleasure to sit down with and to interview with DL Byron, Principal, TEXTURA design a Web design and consulting firm based in Seattle, WA.

Byron summarizes his two sessions: A Blog-Oriented Architecture and his Mini-Workshop: Practical Social Media.

Everyone knows blogging is mainstream. But did you know it’s also gaining traction inside the firewall? Byron?’s an experienced blogger and his efforts at Textura Design’s has helped Boeing, Intel, and other Fortune 100 companies. Organizations of all sizes are using internal blogging as a conversation tool, and his session covered how standards and technologies have made intranet user experiences richer.

Check out the three minute interview on today’s WOW Technology Minute website.

Today’s podcast is sponsored by the Webmaster Survival Guide. Check out all of the great resources and links on the Webmaster Survival Guide website.

Transcript of Practical Social Media

BILL CULLIFER: Bill Cullifer here with the World Organization of Webmasters (WOW) and the WOW Technology Minute here at Web Builder, Las Vegas. I have the pleasure to be sitting down with DL Byron. He?’s the Principal at TEXTURA, an author, a noted speaker and a Web 2.0 specialist dealing with a variety of topics. Good morning Byron and thanks for agreeing to this interview.

DL BYRON: Good morning.

BILL: I have a question, you?’ve been around this base for 15 years, you?’ve been a designer, a blogger, you?’ve written a couple of books, can you summarize the session that you participated in here today? Can you specifically hone in on some of those walk-aways, those business tips that Web designers can think about.

BYRON: Sure. The main take-away, what we?’re talking about now is practical social media where we?’re getting down to the business of social media, which is separating it from the hype that you hear about it, the “What does Twitter mean? How to use Flickr. What possible ROI would I get off of Facebook?” What we really try to do is just talk about how businesses can use these tools to their advantage, to help sell their products, help increase their brand awareness and help their marketing. That?’s really what it?’s about. Because there?’s a difference between what a social network can do for your friends, keeping in touch with your friends, than your business. That?’s really what we talked about.

BILL: What were some of the best practices? If I?’m a designer and I?’m sitting out in the Web world watching or listening to this podcast and I want to know, “Listen, that sounds great but I need to start making some money at this right away.” What would you recommend?

BYRON: Well I think at a minimum for a designer, for a business, I think, because the uptake is still not as much as you think. As much as you hear about blogging and as much as businesses are blogging, there?’s still a lot of hesitancy to do that. I think what we always recommend is at a minimum turn on blogging technologies that can help your audience. Give them the data they want, podcasting, enable RSS or Atom technologies, turn on features that can help your consumers or your customers get the data. And also start rethinking about how your site looks and what you?’re doing and how you?’re producing sites for clients because blogging has changed design in the sense of making stuff much easier to get to, making stuff much faster and most of that is driven from Google because people are now looking for information, they?’re drilling down into your site and they want to get what they want right away. They don?’t care about your mission statements, they don?’t care about your ‘about page,?’ they don?’t care about your flashy, wiz-bang homepage, they want to find out what are your operating hours, “I want to give you a request for a proposal.” Boom, they want the information and they want it now. Bubble that all up to the top is the main thing. And that comes directly from blogging, which is being able to find stuff quickly on Google.

BILL: Excellent. Now you?’ve got a book out, or a couple of them. Can you–

BYRON: Yes we do. “Publish and Prosper: Blogging for your Business” is the book. It actually came out a couple of years ago. Two years on, the same thing we were talking about two years ago, which was practical business blogging, now we?’re talking about practical social media, which means there are a lot of new tools out there. I have a difficult time following all the tools and I do this for a living, but those tools, some of them can help you, some of them you have no reason to need or talk about or use, but it?’s looking at these and saying, “OK, I can use Twitter to talk about events that I?’m doing. I can use Twitter at sales meetings. I can use Flickr to put out product photos, people love that. I can use blogging technologies to do this.” Facebook, probably not a lot for you to do on there. YouTube, absolutely. Stuff like that.

BILL: Fair enough. Well I certainly appreciate the time and all that you do for the Web profession.

BYRON: Absolutely. Thank you very much.

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Designing User Interfaces and Reaching Stylesheet Nirvana-Interview with Dan Rubin

by Fred on October 22, 2008

Greetings WOW members and Web professionals everywhere. Bill Cullifer here with the World Organization of Webmasters (WOW) and the WOW Technology Minute.

WOW participated in the Web Builder 2.0 Conference last week in Las Vegas, NV. as a Media Sponsor. For today?’s podcast, I had the pleasure to sit down with and to interview with Dan Rubin, Founder and Principal, Webgraph a Web design and consulting firm based out of Fort Lauderdale, FL.

In addition to bringing a wealth of knowledge to the conference, Dan’s truly a great guy and the kind of Web professional that loves to share what he knows with others. I asked Dan to summarize his session. “Designing User Interfaces: Details Make the Difference” where he talked about grids, typography, abstraction, ornamentation, and photography to create aesthetically pleasing, sexy interfaces. Dan other session Reaching Stylesheet Nirvana discussed working to improve the maintainability and efficiency of your style sheets, planning for the future, and mastering your work flow. In his interview, Dan shares his thoughts regarding managing clients for those that freelance.

Check out today?’s six minute podcast on WOW Technology Minute website.

Today’s WOW Technology Minute is sponsored by Adobe Systems and their series of MAX conferences for 2008/2009

MAX is an experience unlike any other — an opportunity to connect with thousands of designers, developers, partners, executives, and Adobe staff for education, inspiration, and community. MAX 2008/2009 will be held in San Francisco, Milan, and Tokyo. Be sure to mark your calendar for this important global event.

MAX is an experience unlike any other — an opportunity to connect with thousands of designers, developers, partners, executives, and Adobe staff for education, inspiration, and community. MAX 2008/2009 will be held in San Francisco, Milan, and Tokyo. Be sure to mark your calendar for this important global event.

Follow these steps to receive your Adobe MAX North America WOW registration discount:

Step 1: Visit the MAX North America registration listed below
Step 2: Select the button for “Yes, I have a registration code.”
Step 3: Enter registration code [WOW844]
Step 4: Complete the steps for online registration.

Register today on the Adobe Max website!

Transcript of Designing User Interfaces Dan Rubin

BILL CULLIFER: Bill Cullifer here with the World Organization of Webmasters (WOW) and the WOW Technology Minute here at Web Builder 2.0 at Las Vegas. I have the pleasure to be interviewing and discussing a variety of topics with Dan Rubin, he?’s a speaker here at the conference. He?’s the Principal of Webgraph and wears a variety of hats. He?’s a Web guy going way back. He participates in a lot of events and we?’re pleased to be interviewing him on a variety of topics including the two sessions that he did here today, “Designing User Interfaces: Details That Make A Difference” and “Reaching Stylesheet Nirvana.” Good evening, in this case Dan, and thanks for agreeing to this interview.

DAN RUBIN: Thanks for having me Bill. I appreciate it.

BILL: You bet. Can you summarize the sessions for us and could you give us a couple of walk-a-ways that we could use today?

DAN: Sure thing. Thankfully the presentations that I put on tend to all be about take-a-way and there?’s just a lot of filler and explanation and discussion that goes on in between. The first session, again the title is “Designing User Interfaces: Details Make the Difference” and really what it?’s about is all the subtle details that take an interface from plain and boring to something more. The emphasis throughout the entire session is about that subtly, that something should be felt more than it?’s seen, whether that?’s something simple like a drop shadow or a highlight or a bevel, anything like that that of course if you use a default setting on a filter to apply those it looks obvious. Well, our goal when adding things like shadows and highlights and texture is to make something feel like it does in real life. In real life they aren?’t obvious, they just feel like whatever the texture looks like. We can tell by looking at something what it feels like, usually without even touching it. If it looks smooth and polished we know what it feels like. If it looks like burlap we don?’t have to touch it to know. So it?’s all about applying things in a subtle way to go for feel over look.

Some of the take-a-ways as well even go down to a more basic level for folks who aren?’t designers. So I talk a lot about patterns that are easy to apply to take something from being just a jumble of disorganized content on a page into something that has some form and has been designed, even if someone isn?’t artistic. So some of those things are using pattern and design. Patterns can be something like relative margins and padding, for instance. Coming up with a base scale that you?’re going to just multiply in order to get consistent, relative proportions. For margins and padding, for instance, you could have 5, 10, 15, 20 pixels and go on beyond that, 10, 20, 30, 40, all of those are going to be related to each other.

One of the examples I gave was the cnn.com site where their base type size is 12 pixels, that?’s where the content renders out to, so all of their type sizes are relative sizes, larger sizes 15 or 18 or 21 or 24, all multiples of 3, basically using 3 pixel intervals. Their margins and padding are likewise, based on 12. So you?’ll have 6, 3, 9, 12, 18 and you see these measurements used consistently. It creates a coherent interface. It doesn?’t require any creativity. It actually requires the opposite.

The use of patterns we talk about a lot, even ways to use tools like Photoshop to use the patterns that the tools allow you to use. So layer styles create a look and feel of something, like a button element, once and don?’t recreate it each time and risk having it be something different throughout a given design. Copy and paste the layer style to a different layer. It allows you to be more consistent. Basically the core concept of patterns in this way is patterns make it easier for you to do the right thing. You?’ll make less mistakes by using these patterns because you have to work less. You can spend your creative time on creativity, not on the things that make a good interface, a good, solid, balanced interface. And that?’s really the gist of it.

BILL: I appreciate you sharing. I?’m curious to know, you?’ve been a designer for a number of years, I?’ve heard you earlier talking about freelancing, can you give some tips, any recommendations that you?’d share with those sitting out there listening, wanting to know how do I improve my overall design workflow, how do I reach out to my customers and just be overall better designers?

DAN: Well the biggest thing that?’s worked for me, I run a small agency, small being that it?’s a family agency, myself and my younger brother, we?’ve been running that for over 10 years and before incorporating as that agency I worked freelance since I was 16. So I?’ve been doing this, and doing freelance, for a long time. And I also work with folks at Sidebar who are all small agencies, they?’re just slightly larger than freelance, but we?’ve all been doing it a long time and the trick is being selective with the clients you take on. That?’s counter to your instinct which is, especially when you?’re starting out, “I?’ve got to take on everything that I possibly can,” because you don?’t know when the money?’s not going to be there. That?’s what everybody tries to do. What you end up doing is you take on a lot of clients that either don?’t really want to pay for services, your quality of services and they stress you out and degrade your quality of life because of that, and you end up taking on a lot of small projects because you can?’t take on a lot of large projects at once and handle them. The small projects are the ones that tend to disappear when the economy goes bad. The large projects for the better clients, the higher-end clients, are the ones that don?’t disappear. Those are the ones that stay consistent. So the combination of picking clients that you want to work with, that you can be passionate about and not worrying about the volume, focusing more on the quality and also targeting higher-end clients. If your goal is mom and pop stores, be prepared for them to not want your business when the economy goes south. If you?’re focusing on big corporations, larger organizations, then typically the business will not falter with the economy. That stuff stays pretty consistent.

BILL: Yeah, very good advice. We certainly appreciate that and your time. That you so much Dan.

DAN: Certainly. Thanks Bill.

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Documentation 2.0. Designing the Rich Internet Experience-Interview with John Yesko

by Fred on October 20, 2008

Greetings WOW members and Web professionals everywhere. Bill Cullifer here with the World Organization of Webmasters (WOW) and the WOW Technology Minute.

WOW participated in the Web Builder 2.0 Conference last week in Las Vegas, NV. I sat in on a number of great sessions offered by some of the best minds in the Web profession and was fortunate enough to interview a handful of them.

For today?’s podcast, I had the pleasure to interview John Yesko – User Experience Lead, Roundarch based in Chicago, IL. I asked john to summarize his session regarding his Documentation 2.0. Designing the Rich Internet Experience.

As websites are moving farther away from the “page” metaphor and toward richer, more interactive experiences, designers are faced with moving beyond the site map and static wireframe. We need to be able to communicate more fluid interfaces and interactions. Sometimes this means documenting very detailed functionality and almost infinite “states,” or representing motion in a static medium. But it can also mean stepping back to paint a broader picture—establishing and communicating the fundamental approach for a site’s interactions – to build consensus before the detailed work begins.

John?’s hour long session covered several highly-visual documentation techniques, which attempt to communicate the exact right amount of information—to the right stakeholders—at the right points in the project. From presenting a high-level concept map or user experience brief to an executive, to producing a usable functional spec for visual designers and developers.

Check out the two minute interview on today’s WOW Technology Minute website.

Today?’s WOW Technology Minute is brought to you by WebProtraining.org, offering a complete solution for all your Web professional training needs including WOW certification options. Check it out at Web Professional Training website.

A transcript of this podcast will be available in twenty-four hours.

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8 Things Every Web Team Should Know-Interview with Lance Loveday, CEO Closed Loop Marketing

by Fred on October 17, 2008

Greetings WOW members and Web professionals everywhere. Bill Cullifer here with the World Organization of Webmasters (WOW) and the WOW Technology Minute.

Earlier this week, WOW participated in the Web Builder 2.0 Conference, Las Vegas. I had the pleasure to spend some quality time with a wide variety of incredibly bright and practicing Web pros from around the U.S. My interviews and the sessions that I sat in on ranged from those that practice and teach at the university level in the areas of Web Design, Web Development and Web Business.

For today?’s podcast, I sat down with Lance Loveday, author of the best seller, Web Design for ROI. Lance is a ten year Web veteran, notable speaker and the CEO of Closed Loop Marketing, a Search Optimization consulting company based in Granite Bay, CA.

Lance?’s keynote entitled, “8 Things Every Web Team Should Know: Lessons from a Grumpy Web Consultant” hit the mark on many levels in my opinion. For example, Lance expanded upon his “in the trenches experiences” that has led him uncover that, “anyone who has worked in the online space for long realizes that many of the obstacles web teams face have little to do with technology, and everything to do with the humans”.

Lance also addressed such tough issues such as, “Why are web projects so easy for some organizations to get right but so excruciatingly difficult for most? Here’s his top eight:

8 Things Every Web Team Should Know

* Kick ass or suck
-Either pass is OK. But you have to choose
* Don’t hump the shark
* It’s not about you
-Its about Users
* Have a leader
-Design by committee is a disaster
* Opinions are worthless
* Little things matter
-Ask Steve Jobs
* Metrics are your friend
-Use them to your advantage
* Web work is hard
-We deserve some R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Check out today?’s three minute podcast on WOW Technology Minute website.

Today’s WOW Technology Minute is sponsored by Adobe Systems and their series of MAX conferences for 2008/2009

MAX is an experience unlike any other — an opportunity to connect with thousands of designers, developers, partners, executives, and Adobe staff for education, inspiration, and community. MAX 2008/2009 will be held in San Francisco, Milan, and Tokyo. Be sure to mark your calendar for this important global event.

MAX is an experience unlike any other — an opportunity to connect with thousands of designers, developers, partners, executives, and Adobe staff for education, inspiration, and community. MAX 2008/2009 will be held in San Francisco, Milan, and Tokyo. Be sure to mark your calendar for this important global event.

Follow these steps to receive your Adobe MAX North America WOW registration discount:

Step 1: Visit the MAX North America registration listed below
Step 2: Select the button for “Yes, I have a registration code.”
Step 3: Enter registration code [WOW844]
Step 4: Complete the steps for online registration.

Register today on the Adobe Max website!

Transcript of Lance Loveday

BILL CULLIFER: Bill Cullifer here with the World Organization of Webmasters (WOW) and the WOW Technology Minute at Web Builder, Las Vegas. I?’m here with Lance Loveday, the author of “Web Design for ROI” and a notable speaker and the president of Closed Loop Marketing in Granite Bay, CA. Lance, your keynote today was on eight things that all web teams should know, correct?

LANCE LOVEDAY: That?’s right.

BILL: Can you summarize that session for us?

LANCE: Sure. First I?’ll start off with why I wanted to talk on that topic. It?’s a session I?’ve wanted to give for a few years. I?’ve been around the block and in the business for about ten years and found that a lot of the problems that plague a lot of web projects and web teams have nothing to do with technology and everything to do with the people involved, and when I say people it?’s not the people themselves it?’s how the projects are managed and how the personal interactions come together that cause things to if not fail, at least under perform relative to their potential.

So today?’s talk focused on the things that we do that cause us to really shoot ourselves in the foot sometimes when managing these projects. I?’ve made some recommendations that I?’ve put into a list of eight things.

BILL: We?’ll post those.

LANCE: Oh, great. That I like to refer to. Some of them might not make too much sense without the context but…I tried to have a little bit of fun with it. I tried to hopefully give people some ideas of how to approach their organizations, their bosses and hopefully enable people ultimately to work in a way that is more meaningful to them, more fulfilling and obviously helpful to the organization too.

BILL: Fair enough. Throughout that was professionalism. As Web professionals we need to think in context of “Is this a serious profession?” And we need to take it seriously, right? If we?’re going to expect it. Can you comment on that?

LANCE: Sure. That?’s something that is near and dear to my heart, is that it?’s taken seriously, and a lot of the design professionals I see, within their own organizations, don?’t command a level of respect that I would like to see them get, even when it seems they would have earned it, by their actions, by performing for the organization. Because it?’s so easy for anyone to have an opinion about Web design specifically, I think there?’s an assumption that anyone can do this and of course we know that that?’s not the case. There are people who have deep skills, experience, talents, dispositions that allow them to do an amazingly effective job at Web design. The difference you can see working from one designer to the next can be just totally night and day depending on whether or not that designer really, truly “gets it” and is able to sympathize on that experience and put together a design that helps to achieve the objective.

One of the ways that we can help people get there I think is definitely the education. I would love to see more in the way of certification out there and to have it mean something in the same way that an attorney has a law degree, passes the bar, and commands a certain amount of respect for having done so. I?’d love to see something come along for the Web design world as well.

BILL: Excellent. Thank you so much for your time today Lance.

LANCE: Thank you.

BILL: Today?’s WOW Technology Minute is sponsored by Adobe Systems Corporation and their series of MAX conferences for 2008/2009. MAX is an experience unlike any other — an opportunity to connect with thousands of designers, developers, partners, executives, and Adobe staff for education, inspiration, and community. MAX 2008/2009 will be held in San Francisco, Milan, and Tokyo. Be sure to mark your calendar for this important global event and check out the great links on the WOWTechnologyMinute.com website

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jQuery-Interview with Steve Smith, Principal OrderedList.com

by Fred on October 15, 2008

Greetings WOW members and Web professionals everywhere. Bill Cullifer here with the World Organization of Webmasters (WOW) and the WOW Technology Minute.

I?’m in Las Vegas participating in the Web Builder 2.0 conference taking place at the Mirage Hotel and Conference center. I?’ve sat in on a number of great sessions covering the world of Web Design and Development.

For today?’s podcast, I had the pleasure to interview Steve Smith, Principal OrderredList.com a design and development business with headquarters in Central Indiana, USA.

Steve presented on a variety of topics including, “How to Use and Extend jQuery”. jQuery is a lightweight JavaScript library that emphasizes interaction between JavaScript and HTML. It was released January 2006 at BarCamp NYC by John Resig under a dual license under the MIT License and the GNU General Public License. jQuery is free and open source software.

Steve is an outstanding presenter, Web professional and educator. In this interview Steve sums up the benefits of and the how to’s regarding jQuery for Web professionals.

Check out today?’s four minute podcast on WOW Technology Minute website.

Today’s WOW Technology Minute is sponsored by Adobe Systems and their series of MAX conferences for 2008/2009

MAX is an experience unlike any other — an opportunity to connect with thousands of designers, developers, partners, executives, and Adobe staff for education, inspiration, and community. MAX 2008/2009 will be held in San Francisco, Milan, and Tokyo. Be sure to mark your calendar for this important global event.

MAX is an experience unlike any other — an opportunity to connect with thousands of designers, developers, partners, executives, and Adobe staff for education, inspiration, and community. MAX 2008/2009 will be held in San Francisco, Milan, and Tokyo. Be sure to mark your calendar for this important global event.

Register today on the Adobe Max website!

Transcript of Steve Smith

BILL CULLIFER: Greetings WOW members and Web professionals everywhere. Bill Cullifer here with the World Organization of Webmasters (WOW) and the WOW Technology Minute at Web Builder 2.0 at Las Vegas.

I have the pleasure to be interviewing Steve Smith, Principal at OrderredList.com. He‘s an adjunct professor, notable speaker and today he‘s presenting on a variety of topics including, “How to Use and Extend jQuery.” Steve, good morning and thanks for agreeing to this interview.

STEVE SMITH: No problem, thank you.

BILL: Steve, I loved the session on jQuery. Could you tell the viewers, the subscribers of this pod cast, what is jQuery all about and how can they benefit?

STEVE: jQuery is really just a very simple, easy way to add behavior to your website. It follows very basic, similar conventions to existing technologies. It?’s very similar to CSS where you simply select elements and then you process them and you add behavior to them. It provides very short, easy ways to do that. It makes it really nice to be able to add basic, or even more advanced, behavior to your web pages.

BILL: Excellent. Well said. You had a couple of specific benefit statements that you presented today. Can you hone in on those? How are Web professionals going to benefit?

STEVE: Yeah. JavaScript is wonderful for adding additional benefits to your visitors, enhancing the experience for those visitors, making things a little bit better, presenting information that may not necessarily be there to begin with but it provides them interaction. It makes just a nice, more rich feel for the person who?’s visiting your webpage.

BILL: Excellent. Today you had a couple of decks or slides, it was in your deck on some walk-a-ways. What were the specific resources that folks can go check out and try to get their head and hands around this?

STEVE: Absolutely. The first thing is just how simple and powerful jQuery selectors are. jQuery selectors follow the same syntax as CSS, so if you?’re familiar with that you can select objects using jQuery very easily. Then once you have a set of objects you simply add behavior to them. Very simple, you either add a function on to it or you can iterate through those objects and do whatever you need to them.

BILL: Excellent. Thank you Steve.

STEVE: Thank you.

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Live Today at: Web 2.0 Las Vegas and A List Apart Chicago, IL

by Fred on October 13, 2008

Greetings WOW members and Web professionals everywhere. Bill Cullifer here with the World Organization of Webmasters (WOW) and the WOW Technology Minute.

WOW?’s spread out across the U.S. this week attending the Web 2.0 conference Las Vegas, NV and the List Apart with Eric Meyer and Jeffrey Zeldman in Chicago, Il.

I?’m attending the Web 2.0 event in Las Vegas, NV and Mark DuBois, WOW?’s Director of Education is covering the event in Chicago, IL. In addition, to meeting with several of WOW?’s Web Professional Education Advisors, I?’m here in Las Vegas to soak up some of the line up of Web 2 content complete with plans to podcast a few interviews as well. Mark?’s also planning to provide the subscribers of the WOW Technology Minute with a summary of the sessions he attends and will be sending an audio podcast from Chicago later in the week.

Here?’s a lineup of what you can expect from these two exciting events:

Web Builder 2.0 is the technical conference for professionals building the next generation of richly-interactive Web sites. If you?’re a developer, designer, Web master or manager, this event is for you.

Here?’s a lineup of the session topics and the speakers live from Vegas:

A Blog-Oriented Architecture – DL Byron

Performance Testing and Tuning Web 2.0 Rich Internet Applications
- Bryan Cole

Rich Interface Design How AJAX Changes Everything
- Steve Mulder

Web Design for ROI: Rocking Your Landing Pages
- Sandra Niehaus

Designing with Web Analytics in Mind
- Alan K’necht

Performance Isn’t Optional – Making Web Services Work -
Shawn Bissell

Practical Design for Developers – David Verba
Let the People Speak: How Users Are Changing the Web
- Steve Mulder

Web Standards: Fueling Innovation
- Aaron Gustafson

Here?’s a lineup of the sessions at the Event Apart event Chicago, Il.

Eric Meyer and Jeffrey Zeldman team uo to provide attendees a deeper understanding of web standards and emerging best practices. Be inspired by fresh ideas and new directions. Join the greatest minds and hottest talents in web design today.

Understanding Web Design
Jeffrey Zeldman

We?’ll have better web design when we stop asking it to be something it?’s not, and start appreciating it for what it is. It?’s not print, not video, not a poster—and that?’s not a problem. Learn how to explain to clients and bosses what it is you do, and why they should stand back and let you do it.

Eric Meyer Live Code Workshop
Eric Meyer

CSS got you stumped? Browsers got you bugged? Worried that your site?’s markup isn?’t all it could be? Eric Meyer is here to help! Submit your site?’s code for live debugging and review by the maestro. Six lucky winners will get ten minutes each. Watch the clock tick down the minutes as Eric spins CSS straw into gold!

Eric Meyer
With judicious use of CSS, you can visually call out problems in your markup, as well as wipe out a great deal of browser inconsistency. This exploration of how (and why) will illuminate some of the dustier, darker corners of CSS in the service of gaining a deeper understanding of CSS and browser behavior.

Design Lessons in Chess
Rob Weychert

Most people understand the basics of chess, but merely knowing how the pieces move won?’t secure a victory against a master. Likewise, the building blocks of a well-designed site are common knowledge, but few can assemble them into something truly remarkable. Learn how a disciplined perspective from the chess board can strengthen your approach to design, from reiterating fundamentals, to deconstructing problems and solutions in unexpected ways.

Storytelling by Design
Jason Santa Maria

Successful design strikes the balance between form and message. When that balance is threatened by generic templates and design sameness, even the most thoughtful messages can come off as dull and insincere. Learn how design can be a supportive storyteller (not just a passive bystander).

Implementing Design: Bulletproof A-Z
Dan Cederholm

As the browser landscape changes, so does our approach to implementing flexible design. Learn 26 ways to help your interfaces become more adaptable, worry-free, and bulletproof.

Design Criteria: Actionable Ideas
Sarah Nelson

As the complexity of our projects increases, so does the need to develop and maintain a consistent vision. When faced with a thousand small decisions, how do you know which are the right ones to make? Design criteria can provide your team with a touchstone from which you can empower, inspire, and evaluate your work. We will look at examples of design criteria in action, explore different types of criteria, and discuss how to generate your own.

The In-House Designer
Cameron Moll

The fundamental principles of design remain constant irrespective of organization size, technical discipline, and the like. Yet within larger organizations, the dynamics of applying these principles, the ability to produce quality output, and overall job satisfaction are a challenge at times. Learn how to hone your technical skills, and, more importantly, your soft skills, to effectively grapple with the politics and red tape that are common to larger organizations—or, for that matter, to client services work.

On-the-Spot Usability Reviews
Robert Hoekman, Jr.

Get ready for slam-bang action as Robert performs on-the-spot usability reviews of sites submitted by our live audience, on the fly. It?’s a ton of fun, with loads of audience participation—and everyone leaves with great ideas on how to improve their own sites.

The Arts & Crafts of Web Design—or What Would William Do?
Curt Cloninger

William Morris began the Arts & Crafts movement in the 1800s as a reaction to shoddy, mass-produced, Victorian un-craftsmanship. Contemporary web designers face similar challenges. How do we maintain a standard of hand-crafted quality in an age of cookie cutter design templates and push-button development? What is the role of ornamentation in web design? When do grid systems become dehumanizing? What are the ethics of Ajax? What Would William Do?

Designing the Details: Web-App UI Design Beyond the Basics
Jason Fried

What Mies said of architecture is also true of web application design, “God is in the details.” Learn which details to focus on, how to focus on them, what matters, and what doesn?’t. Walk live through 37signals?’s applications to see examples of the types of details that matter.

Designing the Next Generation of Web Apps
Jeff Veen

The hype around Web 2.0 continues to increase to the point of absurdity. But what can we learn from these trends to actually apply to our designs? Take a tour through the web?’s past, present, and future of the web to answer these questions:

* What can we learn from the rich history of data visualization to inform our designs today?
* How can we do amazing work while battle the constant constraints we find ourselves up against?
* How do we really incorporate users into our practice of user experience?

Underpants Over My Trousers

Andy Clarke
Comic books have long been an inspiration to artists, designers, and filmmakers. But what lessons are there to be learned by those web designers who dare to look into this muscle-bound, four-color world for inspiration? Learn how Andy applied his passion for comics to, of all things, his design for a Puerto Rican newspaper website by studying his design inspiration, creative concepts, and how he implemented his designs using superhero CSS.

A Panel Apart
Eric Meyer, Jeffrey Zeldman, and Special Guests

Wrap up An Event Apart Chicago by joining Eric, Jeffrey, and selected speakers for an extended Question and Answer session that?’s just a bit … different. At Lunch on Day 2, we?’ll pass out index cards. Jot down your questions about web design and we?’ll do our

Special Adobe Session: Web Workflow with the Adobe Creative Suite
Adam Pratt
Sponsored by Adobe

Come for an interactive and informative session introducing the latest version of Adobe’s Creative Suite for Web designers and developers. Learn new ways to accelerate the design process, troubleshoot code issues, and collaborate with others.

Check out the four minute interview on today’s WOW Technology Minute website.

Today’s podcast is sponsored by the Webmaster Survival Guide. Check out all of the great resources and links on the Webmaster Survival Guide website.

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Video Search-Interview with Rebecca Lieb, Advisor to the the ClickZ Network, Author and Consultant

by Fred on October 6, 2008

Greetings WOW members and Web professionals everywhere. Bill Cullifer here with the World Organization of Webmasters (WOW) and the WOW Technology Minute. Today?’s podcast is a continuation on the topic of Search.

For today?’s podcast, I am on the phone with Rebecca Lieb, Advisor to the the ClickZ Network, Author and Consultant. Rebecca recently moderated a conference panel on the topic of “The Next Wave For Online Video”. In this interview, Rebecca shares her tips on how to navigate the new wave of online video, as more people are watching, sharing, and finding videos online. Rebecca also discusses the issues with video search, and the industry’s desire for standards on how to tag, organize, and find videos and a look ahead into the future of online video search as well.

Check out the four minute interview on today’s WOW Technology Minute website.

Today’s podcast is sponsored by the Webmaster Survival Guide. Check out all of the great resources and links on the Webmaster Survival Guide website.

Transcript Interview on Video Search with Rebecca Lieb and Bill Cullifer

BILL CULLIFER: Greetings WOW members and Web professionals everywhere. Bill Cullifer here with the World Organization of Webmasters (WOW) and the WOW Technology Minute. Today?’s podcast is a continuation on the topic of Search. I?’m pleased to be on the phone interviewing Rebecca Lieb, and advisor for the ClickZ Network, an author and a consultant and often sought-after speaker and moderator for a variety of conferences. She just participated in the SES Conference in San Jose where she moderated a panel on “The Next Wave for Online Video,” a session that provided tips on how to navigate the new wave of online video and also best practices and standards on how to tag, organize and find videos.

Rebecca, can you summarize that session for us?

REBECCA LIEB: Absolutely. There are a couple of different elements to video search. I think the predominant issue today, and we can talk about the next wave stuff in a minute, is that search engines are like what search engine optimizers are fond of calling big, dumb, ugly pages. Search engines still understand text on a page better than they understand video or video content. They can?’t do voice or text recognition, so if I?’m talking to you in this podcast search engines don?’t know what I?’m saying or what you?’re saying. They don?’t recognize the images in a video.

So when you?’re optimizing video for search what?’s really important is the title of the video, the meta data surrounding the video file that describes a little bit about what?’s in the video and then some accompanying elements on the page. It?’s always a good idea to have thumbnails, for example, of video, so that people get that immediate sense and are encouraged to click through to the video file.

But in terms of actually searching for and finding video, words are the most important thing there is. So if you were to, say if this were a videocast rather than a podcast, you would want to put my name in, you would want to put your name in and you?’d want to put in plenty of descriptive text about what we?’re discussing, how to optimize video for search. We?’re talking about the meta data in the video file itself, which the search engines can read. We?’re talking about the title of the video. But search engines are also very good at figuring out content in adjacency. So what?’s also important is the text that you would have on the webpage surrounding the invitation to click through and view a video. So more description, more elucidation of what?’s in the video and what the viewer can expect.

Now if you really want to make a video findable, and if the video contains a lot of dialogue, say it?’s an interview like this or it?’s a news clip, like let?’s say Sarah Palin and Katie Couric, you can also include a transcript of the text that?’s being discussed in the video. That makes things eminently searchable. Transcription makes the video much more searchable and much more findable.

There are projects in development that are pretty next wave and cool. For example, facial recognition technology. So one day in the future, theoretically, you can search for videos of somebody like Brittany Spears, and even if that video isn?’t tagged “Brittany Spears” in any text-based format, the search engines are supposed to recognize and shoot you over to Brittany Spears videos based on picking Brittany out of the face in the crowd.

I think video search has actually been lurking in the background for longer than people who work for solely on the Web think. I think it was five or six years ago that PBS commissioned a survey to figure out how people search program guides, for example, on various digital television platforms and interactive television platforms. You can think of the multi-channel television universe as a corollary. How do you search through literally thousands of programs? For people who are listening who have TiVo they might be familiar with some of these interfaces. Searching for programming, movies that star Harrison Ford for example, that?’s search.

My best advice for today and the foreseeable future is tag and transcribe and describe as much as possible in lame, dumb, ugly, old-fashioned text.

BILL: Anything else that also took place at Search that might give the listeners an understanding of trends in the search world these days?

REBECCA: I think a major trend, perhaps the major trend in search right now that affects video as well as a lot of other multimedia on the Web is universal search. The three major search engines, Google, Yahoo and MSN have begun including in the search results new search, video search, book search. So this makes tagging video all the more important because you?’ve actually got a shot now, which you didn?’t have a year ago, of showing up on Google?’s homepage if you?’ve got a video hosted on YouTube, or even hosted on your website, that?’s relevant to a searcher?’s query.

BILL: Wow, very relevant. I appreciate that.

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Delisting your URL's with Matt Cutts, Search Quality Group Google

by Fred on October 1, 2008

Greetings WOW members and Web professionals everywhere. Bill Cullifer here with the World Organization of Webmasters (WOW) and the WOW Technology Minute.

Today?’s podcast is a continuation on the topic of Search. In previous podcast, we?’ve uncovered some of the best practices for listing your content in the search engines and a host of other search topics around the globe. For today?’s podcast, I’m focusing in on the topic of delisting your url from Google and other such notable search results. As odd as that might sound, its a question that’s often asked. To assist us in better understanding the ‘how to” from a Google perspective, I have a short video of Matt Cutts, Search Quality group at Google.

Check out the eight minute video on the WOW Technology Minute website.

Today’s podcast is sponsored by the Web Builder 2.0 Conference taking place October 13-15, 2008 at the Mirage, Las Vegas. Web Builder 2.0 is the technical conference for professionals building the next-generation of richly-interactive Web sites.

Check out all of the great resources and links on the WOW Technology Minute website.

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