Breaking News: Elance and oDesk to Merge

Elance & oDesk Merger

Fabio Rosati, CEO of Elance wrote that, Elance and oDesk have signed an agreement to merge with each other.  This is clearly big news, and I wanted to give you my perspective on what it means for you and why we decided to do it.

First, I want to make sure that you know that we plan to continue to operate two separate platforms at elance.com and odesk.com, respectively.

As for why we made the decision to merge, our motivation is pretty simple—we want to deliver you the best online freelancing experience possible. We plan to do this by making significant investments in technology, including tools for a more effective job search, seamless online collaboration and improved mobile accessibility. Also, with deeper expertise in data science, you will benefit from improved personalization and user experience.  Please do note that the merger is still subject to the satisfaction of certain closing conditions, and we expect it to close in the next four months or so.

I understand that this is a big change and you may have additional questions. Please visit the most Frequently Asked Questions on our website. And if you have suggestions on how we can make our service even better, please send me an email directly at Fabio.Rosati@elance.com.

Finally, thank you for trusting Elance with your freelancing career. We look forward to providing you with more opportunities to work differently.

Warm Regards,

Fabio Rosati

CEO, Elance

Web Design Versus Web Development

The terms web designer and web developer are used interchangeably in the media and advertisements. But, they are not the same thing. Design involves what the visitor sees on your website, development involves the site’s functionality. This article explores the difference between these two disciplines.
 

A website contains several distinct aspects:

• Look and feel – primarily the graphics, color scheme, navigation elements, etc.
• Content – information, products, etc available on the site.
• Functionality – functionality includes interactive features that the web site provides to the visitors and the required infrastructure needed to provide them.
• Usability – the site from a visitor’s perspective and includes things like program interactions, navigation and usefulness.

Look And Feel

Look and feel includes overall appearance of the website. A Graphic designer decides on what colors and fonts to use and how to layout each of the sites pages.

The graphic designer needs to have a good appreciation for aesthetics and feeling for what combinations of colors and imagery will project the image that the website owner wants visitors to have of the site.

Content

Content is all of the text that is found on a website and includes everything from the privacy policy to a very persuasive sales letter extolling the benefits of a product and asking the visitor to part with their hard earned money and everything in between. If it is written text then it is part of the content. You need a copywriter and editor to create good content.

Functionality

Functionality includes all of the interactive aspects of a web site and includes animation. The common denominator is that programmers using the various web programming languages that work either on a web server or in a web browser create all of these functions.

Flash can be used to animate graphics. Perl, php and java are programming languages used on the web server to create sophisticated dynamic web pages. These pages can work independently but most commonly with a database to create all of the features we have come to expect from a website.

JavaScript is used in browser to create a lot of cool effects such as swapping images when a mouse moves over an image, “ticker tapes”, links changing colors, etc. JavaScript works in the user’s web browser rather than on the web server.

There are also other “backend” applications that are transparent to the visitor such as form processing, content management and other administration programs that make it possible for non-programmers to maintain some aspects of the website’s data.

All of these programs have to be integrated into the HTML code to be used on the webpage.

Usability

Usability is the website viewed from the user’s point of view and involves mostly testing things like:

• Does the look and feel are actually portraying the proper image?
• Is the navigation is user friendly?
• Does the navigation lead the visitor to where the owner wants them to go?
• Does the site load quickly?
• Do the applications work properly?

Design versus Development

Unfortunately, there is a lot of overlap and integration needed between web design and web development. When you toss in content creation and usability testing, it becomes a real mess.

Can a single individual do all of these things? There are some people who can do all of these things but most people only do one or two of the tasks.

Web design usually involves content creation and look and feel while web development involves creating the functionality and testing its usability.

Web designers need to be proficient with graphic design tools like Photoshop. Most also know HTML so they can implement their designs. However, using animation on the site and layout for the site’s content are also part of the web designer’s responsibility.

Many site owners provide the content for the website but a web designer needs to be able to edit and even rewrite the content if necessary. Web designers also normally do the usability testing for the navigation and site loading speed.

Web development programmers create the functionality for the website, but all of that functionality must be integrated into the HTML pages on the site. Alternatively, the HTML content could also be integrated into the program. Web developers also do usability testing on the site, at least for the functionality they create. So the programmer also needs to have some HTML knowledge as well.

In case, the web designer and web development programmer need to work together to assure that the website does everything that the site owner requested.

Bottom Line – Only large companies can afford to hire separate experts in graphic design, content creation, programming and usability testing when building a new website. In most other cases, the web designer and web development programmer are two different people who must work together to create a successful website.

Aqeel Ahmed Zaman is an Internet Business Consultant and Online Web Marketing Executive for Gexton Pakistan.  Gexton Pakistan offers the complete web solution for your websites from web design layout to the Search Engine Optimization services.

Website Templates

Website templates are web page designs created by professional web designers that are sold to others for their use. Templates normally have dummy content used as a placeholder so you can see what a finished page will look like. A template is an easy way for a novice to create a good-looking professional quality websites quickly and easily.
 

Most of the commercially available templates can be found in a variety of themes and color schemes. Theme templates come complete with appropriate graphic for each theme. If you have some graphic or web design skills and a knowledge of HTML, you can create a customized professional looking website at a fraction of the time it takes to create everything yourself. Just remember you don’t own the copyright to the design.

Before selecting a template, you will need to identify the goals you have in mind for your website so you can select the most appropriate template.

Advantages of Using Website Templates

There are several advantages to using templates such as:

• Templates provide the basic webpage layout.
• Templates can provide a consistent look and feel for the site.
• Most come with professional quality graphics.
• Most allow you to customize the graphics if desired.
• It is usually easy to add your content using almost any HTML editor.

Disadvantages of Using Website Templates

• It can be difficult to make any web design changes unless you are skilled in both HTML and can use a graphics program like Photoshop.
• Although features like a login box may be part of the template design, the programs needed to make them work are not included.
• Any interactive features have to be integrated into the template.
• You do not own the copyright to the design unless you actually purchase it from the designer.

Features of a Quality Website Template

The following items are things to look for in a well-designed web template. A template should:

• Be easily editable.
• Be compatible with most HTML editors.
• Upload easily.
• Come with complete html files.
• Have header graphics provided in .psd format for easy editing.
• Have their both the .fla and .swf files if the template uses flash.
• Download quickly after the content is added.
• Retain the original design no matter how much content is added.

Customizing an HTML Web Template

If you want to customize a web template but don’t have the necessary skills to do it, most template designers and other web designers offer template customization services as reasonable prices. These services usually involve minor design changes, customizing header graphics, adding logos, removing unneeded unattractive elements, etc.

Many web developers will be happy to integrate any interactive features into your template. Please keep in mind that the developer will either need to write the necessary scripts or modify existing scripts to make the interactive features work. If an existing script is not freeware, the web developer will have to add the cost of purchasing a license for the script to his labor charges.

Customizing a Flash Web Template

If you want to do anything more than just add text or substitute a graphic file in a flash template, you will either need have expertise in creating flash programs or hire a flash programmer to modify the template.

If the .fla files came with the template, you can modify it using a flash editing program such as Macromedia Flash or Swish. If the .fla files are not available the first thing that needs to be done is to decompile the movie since the .swf files are movies. Once the movie is decompiled, the necessary changes can be made and the flash movie recompiled in any flash editor.

Summary
A quality web template can allow a novice webmaster create a professional looking website quickly and easily at the reasonable cost. Since the templates came in a variety of industry specific themes and color schemes, you should be able to find one that is right for your website.

Web template can offer the professional designer a lost cost alternative to creating the web design, header graphic, logo and all of the other graphical elements, which will allow them to charge less for their work. In either case, it is important to purchase a quality template.

Aqeel Ahmed Zaman is an Internet Business Consultant and Online Web Marketing Executive for Gexton Pakistan.  Gexton Pakistan offers the complete web solution for your websites from web design layout to the Search Engine Optimization services.

Photo - Image Optimization

Photo Optimization is necessary to allow a web page to load in the shortest amount of time possible. Fast loading time require small files. This article discusses the methods used for photo optimization.

In an ideal world, a web designer could use the highest quality photos and have the webpage download lightening fast. Fast loading requires small file sizes for pictures. Unfortunately, there is a trade off between picture quality and file size.

Web surfers are a notoriously impatient bunch. If a website takes too long to load, they will just click away and never come back.

Computer monitors can only display images at 72dpi (dots per inch). So the first step in photo optimization is to reduce the resolution to 72 dpi. Large picture can be sliced up into smaller ones and the put back together on the web page. Each piece will be a very small file and together will load in a fraction of the time a single image file would load.

Most graphic files contain information about the color palette of the image. This information is usually unnecessary for displaying on the web. Many graphic programs included the ability to “Save for the web”. This option discards all of the unnecessary information in the file without any loss of picture quality.

Another method that appears to speed up load time is to use either the GIF or PNG interlaced or the JPEG progressive property. Both of these properties allow the picture to load gradually as first a blurry image that becomes sharper and clearer. In reality the picture actually loads a fraction of a second slower than the regular formats do but it appears to load faster the site visitor.

Width and Height IMG Attributes

The HTML <IMG> tag tells the web browser to create a specific sized box to hold the graphic. That way the browser can continue loading the rest of the web page while the graphic file is downloading. If you don’t put the width and height attributes, the web browser must pause until the images is downloaded before it can load the rest of the page.

How Many Images should you use?

Some web designers use images for everything. While it may look good, it will definitely slow down the speed of the page loading. Page loading speed in the sum of the HTML file plus the size of all of the embedded files. Images constitute more than 50% of the download time.

Using fewer images will speed download time and just may keep a visitor from bailing through impatience.

Photo Quality

Photo quality is determined by the clarity, color purity and detail of a photo. Use a graphic editor to remove noise and other unwanted features. Most editors allow you to correct red-eye and sharpen edges to improve clarity.

Professional editors like Fireworks or Photoshop will let you change the background, adjust the color levels and do almost anything else you want to do to the photo.

You can also use a thumbnail on the webpage that links to a larger and higher resolution version of the image so that people who want to can view it.

Photo Optimization Guidelines

The following suggestions will allow you to optimize your photos for fast download times without sacrificing picture quality:

• Change the resolution of all images to 72dpi.
• Convert graphic text into stylized text.
• Crop the images to the actual size needed.
• Minimize color depth when it’s not necessary for quality.
• Specify the actual width and height of all images.
• Use thumbnails where appropriate.

Bottom Line – Graphics should enhance the content of a web page except in that rare occurrence where the images are the content. In either case, you need to optimize photos and other graphic files to allow for the fastest downloading time possible for the web page otherwise you risk losing the visitor forever.

Aqeel Ahmed Zaman is an Internet Business Consultant and Online Web Marketing Executive for Gexton Pakistan.  Gexton Pakistan offers the complete web solution for your websites from web design layout to the Search Engine Optimization services.

Web Design Guidelines

The goal of most web designers is to create an attractive, easily accessible and functional website that will convince the visitor to do something. Creating such a website requires good graphic design, easy and intuitive site navigation, logical site layout and good web copy. The following suggestions are general web design guidelines.

Web Content

You want the visitor to see you as a knowledgeable information source and/or a reputable business. Poor grammar and spelling will immediately reduce your credibility. Remember that people use the internet to find information. Whether you are selling your own product or recommending someone else’s products, you must first provide valuable information to the visitor or they will click away and find a website that gives them what they what they want.

Cross Browser Compatibility

There are at least a hundred different browsers in use. You must design your website to work properly in the most widely used browsers. To do that you may not be able to use all of the really great special effects that are available because they may not be supported in most browsers.

Even though most web browsers are free, people do not necessary bother to upgrade to the latest versions. The average surfer may not know how to upgrade their browser or have the attitude, “If it works, don’t fix it.” Remember your visitor may have a PC, a MAC, a Linux box, a PDA or a cell phone and they all use different browsers.

Good web design requires your web pages to work in Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape, Firefox, Opera and Safari at a minimum. Validating your HTML code will help but the final test is to view your website in different browsers running on different platforms.

Graphics and Photos

Web surfers are impatient and studies show that most people will click away if a webpage takes longer than 10 seconds to load. Always optimize your photos and other graphic files to have as small a size as possible without sacrificing picture quality.

Always use the height and width attributes on the picture so the rest of the page can load while the graphic files is downloading. Use the ALT HTML tag so people with graphics turned off and those using hand held devices know what the picture is supposed to be.

Background Colors

If you use anything other than white behind text, be sure to specify link colors otherwise the user’s browser defaults will determine what color the links are which can make them unreadable.

Multimedia

Multimedia is composed of flash movies, video clips, audio clips and background music. Always use streaming media because it reduces download time. Make sure the visitor can stop and start multimedia files or in the case of flash introductions, skip them if they want. That way people with slow connections or devices that don’t support multimedia can ignore them.

Also, put any important information presented in multimedia in text as well so the visitor has access to that information without using multimedia. If a plug-in is needed to use the multimedia, always provide a link to it so the user can install it. Finally, always remember the 10-second rule for site loading when deciding to use multimedia.

Site Navigation

Site navigation should be simple and intuitive. Studies have shown if a visitor cannot access the information they want within three clicks, they will leave the site. This is called the 3-click rule. Every area of your website should be reachable within three clicks from anywhere else on the site. If you use anything other than simple text links, make sure to test your navigation in all the major browsers.

Links

Periodically test all site links to be certain that they are valid. Nothing chases a visitor off faster than broken links. There are several free online services that will periodically check your links.

Frames

Avoid using frames, since they make it difficult to bookmark individual pages on your web site and you want people to bookmark pages so they can come back.

Summary

Good Web design is a combination of common sense and good planning. Your site should be attractive and easy to use and most importantly provide the user with the information or services they want.

Aqeel Ahmed Zaman is an Internet Business Consultant and Online Web Marketing Executive for Gexton Pakistan.  Gexton Pakistan offers the complete web solution for your websites from web design layout to the Search Engine Optimization services.