Webforumz Newsletter - October 2007
WOTM Interview
WOTM Winner
Congratulations to drd and his website davereederdesign.com for winning the Website of the Month competition for September.
What does it take to create a winning website? We spoke to this month's winner, Dave Reeder, to find out what went in to designing and developing his site.
Where do you get your inspiration from when designing websites and what was your inspiration for this particular design?
I visit 4-5 CSS showcase websites daily, such as http://cssmania.com/. These showcase sites feature lots of great new designs which really help me get ideas and see what other designers are up to. I have also studied graphic design, and my website uses typography arranged in a similar way to some magazines I have seen.
Which section was the trickiest to code and why?
The site uses the sIFR technique which replaces the standard headings text with a smoother font using Flash and JavaScript. I have used this on one or two other sites and it is quite easy to use, but requires a bit of fiddling to get the size of the headings right. Other than that, the site is quite simple, so that was probably the fiddliest bit.
How long did the development process take?
Before this design I did four previous ones which I wasn't very happy with. I'm very fussy when it comes to my own site, so it took quite a long time overall, but from doing this design in Photoshop to having it fully built was probably about 2 days work.
How did you decide which technologies to use for this site?
The site uses CSS, XHTML, Flash, JavaScript and PHP. The first two are pretty much essential when building a new website. Flash and JavaScript are used for the sIFR headings to give nice smooth headings without harming accessibility. PHP is used for the mail form because I have a nice PHP script for forms.
How long have you been designing websites?
I made my first simple website about six years ago using Photoshop's slicing and save for web feature, but I've been building sites in CSS and XHTML for about three years now.
What programs do you use?
Photoshop for graphics, a bit of Flash for animation and Dreamweaver for coding. I always test everything in Firefox, IE6.0, IE7.0 and Safari.
What are the next steps for this site?
I still need to add a few things as it's so new. I want to do some more SEO on the site and add more content on web design etc. I'll also continue to update the portfolio as I complete new projects.
What is your favorite element of the site?
I've been careful to make the site accessible, yet easy to update and pleasing to the eye. So I'm happy with how it turned out.
How do you see websites evolving over the next 10 years?
Thanks to Firefox there is now competition in the browser market, so Web Designers should spend less time dealing with browser display issues. I guess with the extra bandwidth from ever increasing broadband speeds there will be more music and more movies/animation. But this is already happening. Domain names are getting longer as decent domains are getting rarer and rarer so I think there will be more localized domains for counties, cities etc. There will be more games and applications online; maybe no one will have desktop applications on their PCs anymore. Perhaps people will start thinking about Virtual Reality again.
What is your top tip for developing a website?
I always like to start on paper and then design in Photoshop. It´s worth spending a lot of time on the design before jumping in and coding it.
What have you got planned for the future?
I'll soon be launching my first proper internet business website that will be selling web based products - don't want to divulge too much at the moment. Might do more freelance work too.
Anything else you would like to say to our readers?
If anyone needs a website let me know as I'm looking for a bit of extra freelance work!
Dave's site can be found at www.davereederdesign.com.
Think you can do better? Then why not enter your own site for Website of the Month, and next month we could be featuring you and your site!
