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To people who don’t use Twitter, the thought of it being down for a day is hardly even newsworthy. To those who do though, a day can seem like a week. Is it back yet? Is it? Is it? People trying over and over again escalated the problem.

Why is it so scary when web 2.0 disappears from our lives as it did recently with the DoS attacks on Twitter, Facebook and Google.

I guess it depends on why you use these sites. If you Tweet to like-minded friends about the cost of cinema tickets and the joy of playing golf, it doesn’t matter very much. If on the other hand you Tweet questions about code, when PHP has finally beaten you. Or you help out a perfect stranger the other side of the planet who is stuck on the etiquette of hang gliding (if there is any - I haven’t a clue - maybe I’d better Tweet this one!). This is when Twitter’s immediacy becomes much more important to your daily life.

Of course this is in addition to it’s addictiveness. Some people get twitchy if they haven’t Tweeted what they had for breakfast and about each coffee throughout the day.

This dramatic video shows just how important Twitter can be in peoples lives and now they ask “Where were you the day Twitter died?”. Has Web 2.0 taken our lives to a new level, I believe so.

Just what did you do instead when Twitter was down and Facebook tootled off?

Well, I for one got more work done. No distractions. Twitter can be such a useful tool, but such a time-wasting work-avoiding distraction too! Web 2.0 has evolved. A good example of how a UK business has used web 2.0 is a recent Youtube video created by Bensons for beds titled Mattress Dominoes - World Record attempt.

This fun short video shows how a company can create a way of promoting their company online using imagination, creativity and humour on video and over half a million people have seen it already. Bensons have gone to an advertising agency called Wand who helped them film and develop and promote the idea.

Web 2.0 is here to stay. It is a way that a single person can capture the hearts and minds of millions around the globe at the click of a mouse.

When your customer lands on your website, whether it is from a search engine or from typing in your website address, they have to have a really good first impression. Otherwise they will just click off your site and go elsewhere.

Your site needs to look professional and trustworthy. Once the customer has stayed on your site for more than 5 seconds, your website then needs to work properly, and give them the information they need in a usable manner.

The following are good ideas for what every website should have in order to be accessible and usable:

Clear readable type

Tiny fonts can look stylish, as can text in a light colour - but how many of your customers can read it? 1 in 3 men are colourblind - have you considered this when deciding on your font colour?

Mimimal use of Flash and moving images

There is nothing more distracting and annoying than a web page moving around and dancing at you. Flash images can be stylish and when used correctly can enhance your website - but are you using them gratuitiously just because you can?

Clear easy to use navigation

In my opinion there is nothing worse on a web page than it looking fantastic, but just not being able to find what you are looking for, or being able to get back to it easily. There is no excise for bad navigation.

Sensible use of images

Images are important. They can make a page look far more attractive - a full page of text can look daunting or just plain dull, but don’t overdo the use of images, and make sure they are relevant. Images are crucial for an ecommerce site, but make sure all images are correct, and informative.

Fast load time

Gone are the days when most people are using a slow dial up connection to the internet. However just becasue broadband is much more widespread, it doesn’t mean all pages load quickly. Bulky images are the cause of many websites taking an age to load. Before uploading make sure your images are in the right format and the right size.

Broken links, missing tags for images, missing pages

If you click on a link on your webpage it should work - It should also be underlined, otherwise how would somebody know it is a hyperlink?

Keep checking your site to make sure all links are still valid - this is especially true if you link to an outside source, if they change their site - your link will no longer work. Screen readers (and Google) will not see images on your site, but will read the ALT tag. Which is more useful? “Pic of woman” or “Photo of woman entering our shop on Paradise Street”

Too little too soon

Don’t be so eager to have your website on the internet that every page says ‘coming soon’. Customers will just go away, forget about your company and find someone else. It won’t hurt to be patient and wait for a fully functional website. One or two coming soons is OK, but not the majority of your site.

Cross browser and screen resolution compatibility

Your website might look great on your PC but what about everyone else. What works in Internet Explorer might well look totally different in Firefox. Different browsers work differently, and apply code differently. You can go too far though. It makes no sense to check every browser, if only a handful of people use a particular browser, it is not cost efficient to make sure your website works on that one. Your website should work on all the most popular browsers.

Microedge websites are tested in the following browsers: Internet Explorer 7.0, 6.0. Firefox 3.0 . 2.0 & Safari 3.2, 3.1. We will happily check other browsers but if support for other browsers is required this needs to be made clear before the start of the project.

Don’t forget about screen resolution. 600×400 screen resolution is still there but not popular like it once was. However, screen size and resolutions do vary, make sure your website doesn’t have those annoying scrollbars across the bottom, with part of the right hand side of your pages missing.

Clean clear design

Don’t feel the need to fill all your page with text and images - don’t be afraid to use white space. It could be the most powerful item on your page!

If you are looking for an accessible website designer please contact Microedge.

OK as a web designer, you might expect me to use Dreamweaver, and as a web developer, you might expect me to hand code. However, I think Dreamweaver is a by far the best tool for combining the two. This article is not an advert for Dreamweaver, Adobe are not paying me (I wish) it is merely an explanation as to why I use it.

Absolute Beginners

In 1998 I began using Dreamweaver (back then it was Macromedia Dreamweaver version 1.2. This was the latest version). It was easy for a beginner to pick up basic web design principles using the WISIWIG interface. It really was a case of What You See Is What You Get.

I suppose this was the initial joy in building websites. You designed on screen your images and text and when uploaded - things looked the same. I used a design based on tables and nested tables that allowed me to place my content and images practically anywhere on the web page.  My first attempts were basic, but functional. As the web evolved and my knowledge and expertise grew Dreamweaver grew with me. I learned how to use many more features as they became available, and found myself much more of the time in CODE view.

The design progress over the years.

The following image shows the website fitnessfiesta.com from 2001, 2004 and 2006. The website changed to reflect current website design trends.

By 2004, I was using more Javascript and CSS in my web sites.

By 2006 the site had a major redesign. I used a more modern navigation.

Coding Geek

This brings us to the site today. It had another major redesign in 2008. I moved the site into PHP instead of HTML.

This allowed the content of the website to be driven from a MySQL database instead of static HTML web pages.

The benefits of using a dtabase is the ease to make quick changes to the website as new events are added or passed.

The benefits of keeping a website current and updated is of great advantage to your customers and also Google, who can see the website is regularly updated.

Dreamweaver is not the only software in web development, but it is my favourite. In my view, the beauty of Dreamweaver, now under the ownership of Adobe not Macromedia. The on page view renders CSS so that it is simple to switch from code to design view and vise versa. In the beginning it was not only the temptation to stay in design view, but neccessary.

These two screen shots show the same thing, just one in Design View and one in Code View:

As you can see, there are many features to this web devlelopment software.

It is easy to talk about the features of Dreamweaver for almost an eternity. What I would rather discuss is how it has helped me with the transition from web designer to developer. As the internet has progressed, the skill set of the designer and developer has had to grow with it. Whilst you could knock up a half decent website with a basic knowledge of HTML and a working knowledge of Dreamweaver, now there is so much more. Ecommerce design needs to run from a database, CSS helps ensure accessibility, and keeping code clean and simple.

Conclusion

Now any website designer that uses Dreamweaver can make the switch to web developer and the software is still the same and enables a smooth transition from designing static ‘brochure style’ website’s to dynamic database driven websites. Dreamweaver allows the web developer grow their skill set to cover PHP, ASP and Coldfusion programming languages.

WebAIM has released initial findings from their recent screen reader survey.

As reported by the Web Standards Project here are some of the main findings

• The most common screen readers used are JAWS (74%), Window-Eyes (23%), NVDA (8%), and VoiceOver (6%).
• 75% of screen reader users upgrade to the newest version within one year.
• 12% of respondents use a screen reader on a mobile phone.
• 76% of users always or often navigate by headings.
• 36% never or seldom use text-only versions of web pages.
• 72% of screen reader users reported that Flash is very or somewhat difficult.

Part of Barak Obama’s speech said “people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.” This can be applied to building a website.

People (your customer’s) will judge you and your company on your website and how it is built. Your website is a testimony of you and your company. This is why it needs to be built correctly.

Web designer’s destroy websites by using bad practice, old fashioned methods. For example table based layout, images used for spacing, no CSS for style. These practices are thankfully dying out.

As we look to the W3C for guidance.

Thankfully now with new guidelines, HTML 5.0, CSS 3.0 the web is developing, browsers are evolving and websites are being designed and built in a way that separates content from design.

When building a website that uses web standards we are ensuring:

• Accessibility
• Futureproof
• Cross browser compatibility
• Usability

Founded in 1998, The Web Standards Project (WaSP) fights for standards that reduce the cost and complexity of development while increasing the accessibility and long-term viability of any site published on the Web.