Changes at work.

2011 was a turbulent year for me. My life had undergone some massive changes both professionally and personally, and retrospectively I think the changes have been a good thing for me. So much so that I've moved from utterly fearing change to actively seeking it out.

Let me take you back to the early part of the year. I was employed at a privately owned company that produced online software for security screening. Answering directly to the MD, my job was to produce all of the company's visual design. Whilst I enjoyed many aspects of my job it had become quite mundane and repetitive. This, combined with the lack on control over the workload and my working day pushed me to the point where I had to wonder if my five years with the company were coming to an end. 

Having been quite settled in this role I began searching for similar positions in my locally. What I found was that there was almost no call for visual designers in my local job market. Companies were only looking for developers who could design and a developer I am not.

After a great deal of job searching my wife sat me down for a frank chat. She put it to me that swapping out one job for another identical one might not be the best move. She encouraged me to really consider what I wanted to do as if nothing stood my way. This was even scarier. In addition to my job i had also been freelancing for a couple of years and there was a big part of me that wanted to know if this was something I could make a career of. Filled with a sense of dread I reluctantly handed in my resignation and took the opportunity to see what I was capable of.

Making the announcement on Twitter that I was leaving my job was the first move I made and as it turned out the best thing I could have done. All of a sudden my friends and colleagues were spreading the word and encouraging people to work with me. Within a matter of minutes I'd had offers of freelance work and sense of immense relief.

I'd initially planned to take a week off between leaving my job and starting freelancing, but as I came to learn, freelancers are normally called in when the work needs doing immediately. I was asked to work for a five days on a marketing campaign for a major electrical brand, which was new territory for me, and after that first week I was asked to come back again for a further week. The biggest shock however was in those first five days I'd earned the same amount of money I'd have earned in a month at the previous job!

As time went on I took the opportunity to get out of the home office and into a shared office with two very good friends and things progressed so well that I'm now a a director of my very own company, doing work I couldn't have dreamed we could have landed in our first year. I now have complete control over my workload and my time, and it has given me an immense feeling of taking back control of my life. I'm no longer working two jobs and I can end my day feeling creatively satisfied, meaning I'm able to spend quality time at home.

So as it turns out, the biggest and most fear fuelled change I'd made in five years was a fantastic one. Although I do have to admit that without the support of my wife it would not have happened.

Changes at home.

During this year I made a number of other less drastic changes that I thought I'd share with you too. For starters I have made some changes at home. I removed my home office and rearranged my living room. We've been making some home improvements gradually over the year and it's really made us feel great, like we have a whole new home. More importantly we've been extremely ruthless and got rid of anything we don't need or use so we've got so much more space and less clutter staring at us all the time.

Changes to me.

I've changed my appearance. I've bought all new clothes and changed my hair. I'd fallen into a trap of niot taking care of myself for a long time and I've made a really big effort to change that. This is a work in progress and this year I have plans to take this a few steps further.

Changes in technology.

I ditched my iPhone! Yep, I've made the move over to Android and I've got to say that I'm impressed. There are obviously things I miss about the iOS experience that Android still hasn't managed to deliver for me, but on the other hand Android has many more perks over iOS than it does pitfalls so I'd definitely recommend giving it a try to anyone that's curious. I won't go into too much detail as it's a whole blog post in itself but for a iPhone fanboy like myself this was a big change.

I am a traitor to my kind... I now own a Mac. Having been a PC user all my computing life, and a sincere mac hater, I found this particularly difficult to swallow. I made the move out of necessity rather than desire, which I confess made it easier, although the Apple store staff did say I was the first person they knew of to purchase a twenty seven inch iMac reluctantly. Having now spent a couple of months on a Mac i can admit that it is a great piece of kit and I find myself missing it when I'm not in the office.

So I've gone from an iPhone wielding PC user to an Android advocating Mac lover... Oh the shame :)

Case in point

I have a new career developing my own business, an improved home life and improved self esteem. 2011 started badly and has ended better than I could have hoped for, and all because I found the courage to make changes. Now obviously I'm not saying change is good for everyone and I'm certainly not saying you should up and change your entire life, but try and think about what changes you could make, it could be the change you need.

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Recently I've been mapping out a new iPad app in my head and it had gotten to the stage where I needed to start getting some initial ideas down on paper. I got pretty fed up of drawing iPad templates over and over again and the rougher (and quicker) I drew them the more they failed to cut the mustard.

I figured that there must be a template I could find somewhere online, but almost all that I found where PSD’s, which were for digital wireframing or designing (not really a problem as such, but not right for me in this instance). There were a couple of printable ones but these were quite detailed and heavy on the printer ink. There are paper iPad pads available for purchase but to be honest I wasn’t really interested in buying one and waiting for it to be delivered. I really just wanted a document I could open and print without messing around.

I’m sure there are others like this out there, but I knew it wouldn’t take long to knock one together myself in Illustrator. After designing the full page template I decided to put together some other template formats. This way you can use the type of template you prefer working with or use a combination.

These templates will be good for:

• collaborating on ideas,
• wireframing,
• storyboarding,
• interaction design,
• presenting ideas to clients,
• & I’m sure you can think of more.

Template includes:

• 1-up full page.
• 1-up with notes - Portrait & Landscape.
• 2-up with notes - Portrait & Landscape.
• 3-up with notes - Portrait & Landscape.
• 4-up without notes.
• 6-up without notes.
• 8-up with notes - Portrait & Landscape.

So download the PDF file below and please let me know if you have any feedback. Please feel free to do with these as you wish but please do not redistribute them without a credit.

iPad_Design_Templates_Afovea.pdf (568kb)

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Well if you've been following me on twitter then you might know that I'm currently working on the interface design for a pending iPad app named Plucked (a project in partnership with developer James Pearson). It's a fun little twitter based app which aggregates your links, does a little magic, and delivers you a flexible and dynamic reading experience.

One of my tasks within the initial design phase is to create a tutorial page on how to use the app. The app itself is very straight forward and we've not experienced any issues with people's ability to interact with it. Having said that, there's clearly no reason why a tutorial shouldn't exist. We have adopted the very basic concept of a training page for our first release. The app itself is very uncomplicated and therefore the basic instructions you require are quite brief.

Gesture Icons Set 1.zip (446kb)

Gesture Icon Set 2.zip (729kb)

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If you're about to embark upon accessibility compliance then it's most likely for one of two reasons;

1) It's something you appreciate as being important... or...
2) you have been placed in a position where compliance is now required.

If for whatever reason you find yourself answering 'reason 2' and in need of some motivating then I would suggest trying to understand and experience what it can be like to use the internet as a disabled person might. The first big eye opener from myself was having the pleasure to watch Robin Christopherson deliver a presentation at the Future of Web Design conference in 2009. He demonstrated how a person with disabilities (in his case blindness) would actually get around and browse the internet. I have to say it was a dramatic moment for me and has made a big impact on my approach to all projects since that point.

Get reading.
Well first and foremost I can really only recommend that you give the actual document (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0) a good read through before even looking at your work. This will lay out for you all the individual elements you will have to consider in order to comply with the standard and also at which level you are going to comply to. Now I am aware that WCAG 2.0 isn't very popular and some consider it 'next to impossible to implement' (maybe rightly so). However, one very valid point is that if you're working in either the public or the private sector and are tendering for contracts, then accessibility compliance is going to have it's place; the higher the level of compliance the more points you're going to score. This is just the land of red tape we live in I'm afraid.

... so off you go...

... gone? ...

... good, I'll be here then...

... Hey, long wasn't it?

Now before beginning to take any action you have a few decisions to make, depending on your circumstances. Whilst you may be embarking on a new project that you wish to make accessibility compliant, no doubt  there will be many whom are having to consider a legacy issue. Some of you may be tasked with tackling accessibility compliance for the first time and have to review and update existing sites.

So... Your next project will be compliant but is it the right thing to do to go back and bring the old sites up to date?

Making a business case.
Well again this decision is dependent on your circumstances. Now please bear in mind that accessibility is important and I think we all agree on that. However, some would say there is a point of being reasonable and saying that 'this site is very old and it's not cost effective for me to spend time making it compliant'. In some cases you may be required to justify this development time and may only be able to work backwards chronologically, slowly. Please try and consider this a good thing as any efforts being made to aid accessibility in the web is a good thing.

OK, so lets assume at this stage you have read through the guidance and decided on the project, be it new or updating old. The next step is getting to grips with the standard by creating a dummy page from scratch, something that covers as many of the compliance elements as possible. Taking an existing page from your site and remaking that might be a good place to start. As a web manager it's always vital that you carry out learning exercises in practical situations before disseminating work to your team. There will come a point where you will be made to make decisions relating to the project and you will need to fully understand the implications of your decisions.

Where do we start?
OK well why don't we take a quick look at a couple of examples so that we can see how to structure the page appropriately.

Where better to start than with "The Web Standards Project". When we disable the CSS we can see how the page has been laid out and immediately you're able to see the attention that has been given. Be sure to have a look through their tutorials section too. Also take a look at WebUsability for a good layout and some handy tips.

Now you choose a site at random and go take a look at a non-styled page. See if you can draw any comparisons but also try to see what you might improve if you could.

It's time to build your dummy page... when you're done run it through this automatic validator to check it for errors. Do note, this is only validating the compliance level of the document and nothing else. Do be aware that when it comes to testing a final product you will need to use other validators as well.

Right, now the next step.
You will need to review what compliance elements that will apply to this project and the best way to tackle this is to review the site plans (mock-ups) for each page. Simply listing the compliance elements as you read through will quite quickly give you a healthy checklist to use when the site is being coded but of course the official guidance document checklist itself will do just the job too. If like most web managers you are not actually going to be doing the build work yourself then it might be best to have one of your developers carry out this exercise (possibly two if you separate your front and back-end development). Also encourage them to read the W3C guidance document themselves so that you have people to lead within the team(s).

Staking your claim.
It's important to note that you are under no obligation to make any kind of declaration of compliance but you are entirely free to do so if you wish. However, should you choose to make a declaration of compliance you will be required to back this up and detail the compliance information.

So now you have the basic tools to tackle accessibility within your web projects and your ready to make the world a better place. What additional elements would you add to this process? How do you tackle accessibility within your team?

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Personally invested
So recently I've been working with a new client. They're a really sweet young couple who have a great deal of love for what they do and provide a great service. After meeting with them for the first time I was determined to ensure they had the best product I could supply them with. Some would argue that this was my first mistake (becoming personally invested in the project) but I believe passion manifests itself in the end result and always makes for a better (and more personalised) design.

Now my task here is to do a complete redesign of their existing site but maintain a few of the themes. Fairly standard so far right? The project has a small budget (due to them being a startup), I'd offered them several options with different costs and they opted for what they could afford rather than what they wanted. Naturally, you then scale the work, time and effort you make in order to make the project cost effective for you... well that was the plan anyway.

So me being me sat down with the best of intentions and made a start on the design concepts. As per usual 5-6 concepts later I've reached a point where I'm happy with the design structure and can begin to move onto the remainder of the site. For anyone who is wondering why I would go through so many iterations of the site before settling and not just going with the first idea...you have a good point really. Maybe it's a designers thing or maybe it's just me but either way it's something I've come to terms with and always allow time for.

Mistake number two.
Now, I am really happy with the design; it works for the clients image, it's attractive and functional (most of the things you'd look for in a good website). Now that I'd reached that milestone, I instinctively kept pushing the bar higher and higher for myself. Custom graphics (no stock), interactivity, functional user experience practices and photographic retouching... these are all fairly common but have to be scaled towards the budget right? I mean if you're being paid twenty grand for a site then these efforts are vital (and standard practice) but when you're budget is under a grand for a fair size site then should you still be putting that same level of effort you would for a bigger budget?

This would be mistake number two... I personally can't do that. I find myself unable to give less to a client simply because they cannot afford to pay me more (stupid right?). I even find it hard to scale back efforts when I don't get on with the client (which isn't very often anyway but still). So now I'm in a situation whereby the project is no longer cost effective and I'm drastically undercharging by more half the end value! That's pretty worrying.

A prime example.
What's more difficult for me is that even if I was able to scale back the work to match the budget, should I? After all, it's my name going on this site and it's basically an advert for my abilities. Shouldn't this be a prime example every time. Am I just shooting myself in the foot by not matching the work to the budget?

So my question is... How do you control yourself when working on project with a tight budget? Should you scale back your efforts?

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Go play with your colours.
More and more these days, when dealing with client requests for design, I'm finding that people (non-designers) are a great deal more aware of what they want. For many years it's been the case that clients have said "here's my information, go play with your colours and make it look pretty" (rants on comments like these may come later) but increasingly I am receiving full briefs from clients who have made considered decisions relating to their design requirements. Now I'm not saying these are educated decisions or even good decisions but none the less more and more people are starting to consider the value of design before approaching designers.

Web wars.
Whilst this is obviously a good thing from any point of view you have to wonder why this is occurring. Now within the web industry this is of course apparent and relevant, but the rest of the world is starting to catch up and it's hard to pin point a clear reason for this shift in importance. I can't help but wonder if it is a direct result of the increase in the quality work found on the web these days. I've been involved in designing interfaces for web professionally since 2000 (blimey that's ten years now) and naturally as technology expands and progresses you would see an equal rise in quality web experiences. It's quite apparent that good quality web design is breeding competition between rival businesses much like any other aspect of business such as price or products.

We're starting to see companies competing in "web wars" who would never have considered this important 5 or so years ago. More than that it's not just about how many products you have or how easy your shopping experience is. These things are clearly important don't get me wrong, but we're also seeing effective and relevant graphic design come into play here. Whilst one might argue that this serves to assist the experience (of course it does) a good experience isn't dependent on artwork and never has been, it's simply tool to enhance it.

This is of course not a revelation, I'm not saying things here that we don't already know. It is however important to highlight the fact that you needn't always assume that the client that approaches you knows nothing about what they want or need. More and more prospective clients I meet out there are experienced in web, have had a presence for many years and know what works and what doesn't.

New experience.
More recently I've had the experience of dealing with a client that has clear and precise ideas around their design requirements, even to the point of instructing me on every aspect of their brief. This is because they had educated themselves on best practices and modern techniques but lacked the actual design skills to produce the end result themselves. This was a very new experience for me and was initially hard to get to grips with. Soon enough I adapted my methods to fit in with their uncommon approach but this left me feeling stifled creatively. The project was a success and they did look for me to influence them on final design decisions and luckily were quite open to any disagreements I had with certain choices, but this was very new ground for me. I had moved from a position of 'creative designer' to 'pixel pusher'.

My question is...
... Are we moving into a new world where people like me who typically cater for SME's are not invited to the table as a creative person who can create your public image, but rather a technician who has the skills to colour inside the lines?

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