Over the past few years, several new web startups have launched and quickly gained momentum, and there’s one thing they have in common: they don’t just build a brand, they build a community.
There’s a new trend in web design that I’m already getting sick of. Designers, listen up! I know you love your Apple products and it’s great that you’ve found so much inspiration from their designs but please, for the sake of people who aren’t using OS X or Safari, make sure your web designs look good on other operating systems too.
It’s easy to get lost in the details, finances or prospects of an online project and overlook the time-tested trick to building a successful business: creating value for the end user. This post is to serve as a reminder (for myself more than anyone else) on this simple and obvious concept.
If you’ve been to the site today then you’ve probably noticed that it was down intermittently throughout the evening. One of our articles was featured on Smashing Magazine‘s Twitter stream (sweet!) and I’m sad to say the site crumbled under the traffic spike. I’ve made a few changes that will hopefully make the site more resistant to bumps in traffic.
I first came across Jon’s work a few years ago, when he made a big splash in the design community with the release of SweetCron, an open source life-streaming platform. Since then, he’s successfully sold his first startup and is now working on two new products – a Twitter marketing app (Peashoot) and a simple survey tool (Seashell).
Last month, I had the pleasure of teaching a friend basic HTML and CSS for a job that required him to know the bare essentials of building a website. Instead of learning how to use Dreamweaver, he wanted to understand the way modern websites work, utilizing CSS stylesheets and table-less layouts.
Right now, I’m working on a new business idea for an over-saturated market that has multiple industry leaders sitting on (nearly) untouchable thrones. That’s right, I’m building my own premium themes shop, a one-stop site to buy WordPress templates that make running a professional-looking website very easy.
If web design is art and art is interpretive, can there be such a thing as design etiquette? While it’s true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, there are certain standards and conventions to follow when dealing with design, otherwise you may face a lot of difficulty with people accepting or understanding your work.
There’s a huge debate stirring around the internet about the capabilities of HTML5 and it’s threat to Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight and other rich internet application (RIA) technologies. The amount of support behind HTML5 is encouraging and great to see, as it will only help it’s adoption by both browsers and users, however it is important to understand it’s capabilities and limitations. As the hype builds up, so does the flash-bashing around forums and blogs – something that needs to change.
When you’re starting a new business or launching a new website, building up traffic is one of the biggest hurdles you’ll run into. It’s especially difficult if you’re on a shoestring budget, but before you spend all of your hard earned money, make sure you’ve tried the following:
DevGrow is a journal on web design, development and usability written by Monji Dolon.
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