Chico Web Design has reached an agreement with Tecmo Games to create a community driven website for Tecmo Bowl. Chico Web Design will work closely with the marketing team at Tecmo to create a visually pleasing and easily maintainable website.
Years ago, there was only one web browser that mattered, Internet Explorer! I know, shame on me. Today, you say the “IE” word around any web designer and they will cringe with bitter angst due to countless hours spent staring monotonously at their monitor trying to figure out WHAT IS WRONG!
With word of Google Chrome entering into the web browsing market, it really put a sour taste in my mouth. As designers, we follow a specific set of web standards to ensure that our websites will look identical from browser to browser and operating system to operating system. The problem is, with all of the newcomers to the web browsing industry; we have to keep debugging new issues!
Let’s back up a bit. Internet Explorer 6, in its day, was the only web browser to use. Microsoft had a monopoly on the web browsing market, so whatever Internet Explorer did became the standard. Because of this, sites were built specifically for Internet Explorer 6 and did not follow valid HTML rules, and bad code was interrupted as “working” code.
Then comes Mozilla’s Firefox into the equation! Great! Finally a web browser that follows the W3C Standards. Mozilla decided that it was going to follow the proper rules set out by all of the standards boards. Now the fun begins!
So, bring in Firefox 2, don’t forget that every browser will need some sort of upgrade at one point. Now we have Firefox 3! Great, IE 6 is around but don’t worry, IE 7 will maybe kinda sorta help clean up some of those bugs. Oh no, here comes IE 8 which is released in Beta! You also can’t discount all of the new users who have moved over to Apple because they have Safari 2 on their machines which has just been replaced by Safari 3! If you’re head’s not spinning already, don’t worry because now we get Google Chrome, WHICH by the way, is only released for XP and Vista, not Apple. Did I mention Apple iPhones or BlackBerrys?
That was a mouth full!
The issue isn’t that we have a plethora of great new browsers; the issue is that the old disheveled web browsers are still being used.
According to w3schools.com, 24.5% of all users online are using IE 6, as of August.
On a daily basis, we consistently have to code, re-code, hack, and re-hack valid XHTML & CSS to fit every browser across the board. The biggest of which, happens to be Internet Explorer 6.
As a project manager and designer, I can honestly say that for an average website, it can take 6-8 hours to create XHTML and CSS for basic templates. Then, it will approximately take another 2-3 hours, depending on the complexity of the site to get it to work in all browsers, specifically IE 6. We’ve spent countless hours, re-coding for IE6, so much so, I probably don’t even want to know the true number.
We keep adding web browsers to the equation, but haven’t taken any away yet. With 24% of the market using a tool like IE 6, which must be getting close to 8 years old, we’re still forced to find new ways to hack backwards and make them work on old browsers.
Personally, I use Firefox 3 and tend to like it the most. Safari has had some compliancy issues in the past with forms and simple WYSIWYG editors that really turned me off of their browser.
I wish I had a solution and could wave my magic browser wand and get everyone to upgrade form IE 6, but who knows when we’ll get to stop pulling our hair out supporting IE 6.
Can’t we get everyone to upgrade from Internet Exploder 6!
I want to preface this discussion by stating that this topic is for advanced Ecommerce websites with multiple categories and product quantities ranging from 10 – 5,000.
We often get requests to bid Ecommerce websites here at Chico Web Design. With every inquiry we get, we tell all our potential clients the same thing, “Every web site is different, and the cost is based on your needs, feature set, and business requirements”. Believe it or not, it’s a true statement! When you’re looking for a car, you can’t pick up the phone and call your local Chevrolet dealer and say, “how much for a blue vehicle”, right? Just as the car dealer would say, we would also explain, “we need to know more information”! Below are some common functionality questions that we ask when speaking to a client for the first time about their ECommerce site.
This is by no means a full list of questions to ask for every Ecommerce web site, but these are some basic questions to ponder when you are searching for a design and development firm to bring your dream business from a thought to reality.
In the works for over a year, the official website for Saves The Day has finally been released to the public. Saves The Day, under label Vagrant Records, just released their new album “Under the Boards” and is touring the country for their new Bug Sessions album.
With strategic partners, Voltaic Brothers and Syosoft, Chico Web Design came up with a content management solution for the band to create and manage a community of fans to share videos, music, and photos.
In terms of content, there are two different aspects when pondering the design and development of a new website for your business. When I think of dynamic, I think of something that is changing, moving, or interacting. The first thing that comes to mind when I think of the word static is; stays constant, fixed, something that really isn’t interacting.
My same theories can be used to determine your site requirements. The context in which we will be discuss dynamic and static is merely for website content.
Static content is often referred to as an “Online Brochure”; the content is there for the taking! A static website is a great, inexpensive tool to convey the basics of your business to an end user, create/recreate an online presence to keep up with or surpass your competitors, or simply post your contact details. When I think of a static website, I think of a 5 page website. For Example:
- Home
- About us
- Contact us
- Products/services
- Miscellaneous page (testimonials, terms of service, missions statement, etc)
A lot of web sites can be broken down into this static category, as a matter of fact Basque Norte’s brand new site couldn’t convey a static web site example any better.
Dynamic content can be defined as content, products, photo’s, etc that are constantly changing depending on user interaction. For example, when you think of an e-commerce website, you first select a category, perhaps a sub-category, then you see a list of products. Once you see a product you are interested in, you select the details to determine whether or not you would like to purchase that item. Well, you may not know it, but you’ve just browsed through what would be considered a dynamic web site.
Uses for dynamic content:
- E-Commerce
- Easily Managed Photo Gallery
- Content Management
- Online Forms
- Career Postings
- Etc
The uses are virtually endless. You can introduce infinite dynamic possibilities to the modern day website. The portfolio section (http://www.chicowebdesign.com/portfolio) of the website you are now browsing is dynamic and it allows us to easily add and maintain new and existing portfolio items with ease.
Dynamic content, for the context of this discussion, is pulled from a database. Without making you fall asleep (although probably too late!), a dynamic web language such as PHP interacts with a database to withdraw pertinent information based on what the end user selected or clicked on.
Bringing it back to our e-commerce example, the database has relationships between products and categories so when the user clicks on a particular category it knows what products to display to the user. This is a typical dynamic interaction between the user and database.
Advantages of dynamic web sites
First and foremost, one of the largest benefits to developing a dynamic site is the maintainability. Now that the content is being stored in a database, we can easily design an interface between the administrator and the database for any novice to maintain the data, products, images, etc on there website.
It also allows us to structure or retrieve the information any format you’d like to display it to the end user. Let’s say for example you want ten products per page, 35 products per page, or view all, it can all be done since the information is already being stored in the database. It makes loading new products, photos, content to your website a snap.
Remember, content is what is going to drive people to your website. Having up to date, easy to read and understand content is what’s going to keep them coming back or call your business.
Chico Web Design did not design this web site.
As soon as the final requirements where complete, Chico Web Design began creating a specialized Content & Project Management tool for Lands Image. This tool allows Land Image to dynamically create and modify new projects as needed. A category solution was implemented which allows Land Image to place specific projects into project categories.
Land Image wanted the page layout of their projects to follow five core strict sections as seen here. The project management tool allows administrators to place text, images, or flash into each one of the sections allowing Land Image complete control over the content.
Overall, Chico Web Design designed and developed an online project portfolio solution, which will allow their business to take full control over their business website.
Easy to Browse Content
Give us a call at 1 (877) 893-5257 or 1 (530) 893-5257 or Contact us.