Something big is affecting the way we perform web design. During the popular JavaOne developers conference in San Francisco a new programming language was announced that will threaten Ajax. JavaFX by Sun Microsystems is poised to challenge the hottest programming language Ajax but more importantly other new programming languages by Microsoft and Adobe. This is truly a grudge match between all the major tech companies as each has its own strong language.

JavaFX is being recognized as perhaps one of the strongest programming language and will include umbrella technology such as JavaFX Mobile and JavaFX script. The new JavaFX language doesn’t operate like Java instead it operates outside of the browser making it a powerful platform. While Ajax is a major competitor it will be essentially obsolete after JavaFX’s release. Microsoft Silverlight and Adobe Apollo will be the real competition as each will be vying for the gap Ajax has left behind.

JavaFX

JavaFX will rival Ajax but is meant to rival Flash/Flex and Silverlight. JavaFX will focus less on internet applications and more on highly animated applications. This code will help eliminate some of the problems with Ajax as well because Ajax requires a lot of JavaScript passed through the internet. Sometimes this can have uncontrollable and malicious code in it. In addition JavaFX will focus greatly on non internet use which will allow application in Ajax or Google Apps to run while disconnected from the internet.

Silverlight

Microsoft recently released Silverlight a cross-browser technology that can be used for interactive web applications. This is going to piggy back on .NET technology and is competing more with Adobe Flash than anything else. The beta version was released in 2006 but the final version was released on April 30, 2007.

Apollo

Adobe’s new language Apollo is focused more on the developer and will include a development kit and runtime application which will allow developers to build programs that can run on different operating systems. Apollo applications can be run without an internet browser or connection.

Today thousands of blogs were created. Millions of web pages are created everyday. With this wealth of information simply getting it all in your head is a feat unto itself. How then do we streamline data, how do we reduce down time and increase productivity? Easy, we compress it, via websites and programs. Using aggregates allows us to “subscribe” to our favorite websites and compress a days worth of internet surfing into a few hours of condensed reading material.

There is a wealth of aggregators out there and unless you are a blog or Podcast freak you use the default of your internet browser. Both IE and Firefox have built in aggregates so you can easily subscribe to your favorite sites. There are basically two kinds of aggregators, online and offline. When it comes to online aggregators Bloglines take the cake. Not only is Bloglines one of the most favored online aggregators but also one of the few that shows your logo. Look at images below. Don’t you think the information resonates better with the logos included? Even just for personalization you would think every aggregate would include favicons.

But does all this easily accessed information help you? What happens to branding, image and PR when information is syndicated without your oversight? Most aggregators do not display logos or favicons leaving fans disconnected with the information they are receiving. Simply inserting more self promotional content won’t work because readers will stray from your blogs and Podcasts if they do not gain enough from them. The solution is to add some script which will allow readers to pull your favicon along with the feed. And although many feeders do not support this, eventually they will all follow suite. Itunes is the pioneer of this technology and you can see how great it looks below.

For an Atom Feed add the following code to your feed file. Basically keep you image proportional and remember the aggregators will automatically re-size your images, plan for constraint.

The RSS feed is a little more complicated because you can only use an image, however it’s still fairly simple. By looking at the code you can see there are three elements to consider the URL, title and link. The URL refers to the image URL, the link should be the top level domain for your site and the title is the alt attribute. Also make sure to include width, height and descriptions.

Whether you are a freelance web designer or looking for a salaried position business sense is important. What to wear, what to say, how to price, how to hire; these are all things you will need to know. Below are a few helpful business tips related to the web design industry.

1. Be Professional

For the freelancer the need for professionalism is as important as in the white collar world. First impressions are everything, if you’re gaining a new client or applying for a job some things are everlasting. You will need to be clean, dressed nice and mind your choice of words and topics. The handshake is important, not too soft not too firm. Looking and speaking in a concise, polite manner is key to executing a great first impression.

2. Be Prepared

Being prepared isn’t easy, but the benefits are great. First if you’re applying for a job, make sure you have researched everything about it. Going into a job you should know what the job is, if and why you’re qualified and have all of the important paper work and identification. Make sure to have pens and possibly spare paper. Being prepared means you’re organized and careful and this speaks volumes on one’s character. It seems like common sense but make sure you have gas in your car, directions to meetings and plan your time well. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

To get a rough idea of what you should be charging do some diligence. The occupational handbook is a good place to start. Check out your local competition and get a few quotes. This will help guide you towards a pricing model. Also consider you talent level and personal costs. How much is it going to cost you at a minimum to do any given job? Can you fulfill all of your promises? If not then perhaps you should reconsider. Also make sure you understand what any contract you use means. Know what you’re signing, and make sure your clients understand what they are shining.

4. Stay Smart

Some opportunities are great but others should be avoided. A bad job or client can rob you of precious resources; your time and money. A lot of customers will haggle with you on prices and try to underbid you, be wary of this and stand strong in your pricing model. The old adage “give them and inch, they take a mile” applies here. Don’t discount largely for these customers and insist that your pricing is fair and work excellent. Also as a web designer your reputation is everything. Never do a job poorly to spite a rude customer and never talk bad about an employer.

5. Network

Networking is one of the most important things in business. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. You could be the best designer in the world but web design doesn’t sell itself. Personal marketing and branding is the key to success, people have to be able to find you and for freelancers word of mouth is often their bread and butter. Knowing people also presents rare opportunities. When you know someone you can often gain inside offers, deals or tips. And when you’re in need having a strong base is always helpful.

These are good tips but always remember to study your craft, look for web design inspiration, learn how to write and design for humans.

$1,000 for a page of content? If you don’t have a lot of money to hire a copywriter there are some quick and easy ways you can write quality content for you new web design. Don’t be fooled as web designers you’re going to have to write some content every once in awhile.

Titles

Your titles are the most important thing on your page. They should tell the reader everything they need to know about your website. Your titles should use one or more of these techniques.

-Important information

-Quick and easy Information

-Call-to-action

-Time sensitive information

-Effective imagery

-Short, concise, to the point

-Original

-Quirky, abstract titles create interest & curiosity

Taglines

A tagline is like a slogan. Usually your tagline comes after your main site title. (e.x. The X-Files – The truth is out there) taglines are important because a catchy tagline will be one of the first things a visitor will remember. You tagline should be:

-Short

-Catchy

-Clever

-Relevant

-Simple

Body

Some would consider the body the least important part of a website. Quite often readers skip over any large body of text as it appears ominous. But an effectively written body can draw readers in. Your body text should be written with as few big words as necessary and as small of paragraphs as possible. While grammar and spelling is extremely important, some things do not matter. Such as paragraph structure, sentence fragments and references. Some things to remember:

-Create a proposition of value (what’s in it for me?)

-Answer the 5 W’s, Who, What, Why, Where, When

-Use short paragraphs and space them out

-Fulfill all promises or don’t make them

-Do not use inflated claims

-Exaggerate provable claims

Wording

The words you use are very important be it the title or the most unimportant piece of text on the page. When choosing your wording consider this.

-Use words that create imagery (imagery is more memorable)

-Big words are hard to understand

-Although common big words can improve image

-Incorrect grammar & spelling reduces credibility

-If writing repetitive content use a thesaurus for word variety

-Understand any word you use

For further exploration of copywriting visit Copy Blogger’s Copywriting 101.

All over the internet I keep hearing about AJAX. So what is it, what can it do and why do we need it. AJAX is a programming language for the web; it uses Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. The purpose is to make websites more responsive. It does this by a small set of JavaScript and off page information to reduce the amount of information loaded on each page which can help your web design a lot. So basically you change one thing on the page as opposed to the whole page itself. By doing this speed, interactivity and usability are all greatly improved.

What AJAX Does according to Wikipedia

While the benefits to the user experience are great, there are some pretty serious drawbacks of AJAX use.

1. Browser Woes- Because pages are dynamic book marking and going back to previous web pages is hard. There are some solutions still in infancy that solve these however. IFRAME can allow you to use the back button correctly as demonstrated in Google Maps. To solve the book marking problem developers use a URL fragment identifier which allows you to bookmark individual states on an AJAX page. Regardless of these improvements these are still not fully solved problems.
2. SEO Conflict – The difficulty of a script built webpage is that search engine crawlers can’t read your site because there is so little, explanatory code to read. This applies to flash and JavaScript as well of course but the problem remains.
3. Load time - There is a problem with network latency and AJAX. Discrepancies between the user request and the server response can create hiccups in a dynamic AJAX web page that will be painfully obvious. There are solutions in the works for this issue.
4. JavaScript – AJAX is dependant on JavaScript which creates many compatibility issues.
5. Analytics – Website Analytics like Google Analytics depend on a new page being loaded and steps being tracked. AJAX changes this process so there will have to new measures to keep your analytics working correctly.

Here is some web design inspiration and a few great AJAX websites to get you started.

http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/AJAX

http://miniajax.com/

http://www.dhtmlsite.com/

http://www.bestajaxscripts.com/

http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex17/indexb.html

http://www.hotscripts.com/Ajax/index.html

http://www.dhtmlgoodies.com/index.html?page=ajax