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The MultilingualWeb-LT Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) Version 2.0. ITS 2.0 makes it easier to integrate automated processing of human language into core Web technologies. ITS 2.0 focuses on HTML, XML-based formats in general, and can leverage processing based on the XML Localization Interchange File Format (XLIFF), as well as the Natural Language Processing Interchange Format (NIF). Comments are welcome through 10 September. Learn more about the Internationalization Activity.
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We all want to work with the "perfect client".
While the word perfect is highly subjective, I can state with some degree of confidence that the "perfect client" for us web designers would be a client that:
However, I can tell you from my experience that having a client that goes overboard on those three things is far from perfect.
Not long after I started this journey as a freelancer, I was able to secure an ongoing contract with a local church as their media guy.
I create all of their print and digital media, as well as take care of their websites, social media, and online marketing needs.
It’s a really sweet deal. What can be better than working with some nice, polite, church-going folks?
When I first met with the client, I was told what the job would entail and how the day-to-day operation would work.
There were 3 things the client told me (I’m paraphrasing here):
So, I’m hearing this and I’m thinking, "Can it be? Have I just seen my unicorn? Spotted my white whale? Discover how to turn lead into gold? Have a just found… the perfect client?"
Well, for the first month or so, I really thought I had, but let me tell you why having the perfect client isn’t so perfect after all.
Remember the first thing they told me? "We will not be looking over your shoulder."
Well, they really meant it.
And while it’s great that I don’t need to submit several design concepts, or worry about dealing with client requests like "make the logo bigger" and other things web designers don’t like hearing, it’s also nice to know that what you’re doing is in line with what the client really wants.
Feedback is important, especially for freelancers.
Without any sort of feedback from the client — the person who knows the message, mission, and vision for the project the most — it’s hard to make sure you’re keeping true to the project’s objectives.
Every once in while, it’s really nice to feel that shadow falling over your shoulder and hear a throat clearing behind your workspace.
One of the biggest reasons why being a freelancer is awesome is that you’re your own supervisor.
You don’t need to quickly minimize your web browser when your boss is about to walk by so she doesn’t see you’re on Reddit. You don’t have to wear headphones so that you don’t disturb anyone (and so they don’t disturb you) as you listen to your favorite music while you work.
Most of the work I do for the church contract is done remotely from the comforts of wherever I want to work at.
There are times where I will work in their office, and they have graciously provided a workspace for me to work at. The times when I do work there, I will see no one else unless I walk by their offices.
It isn’t that they aren’t friendly or talkative or nice, far from it. It’s that I get to work with very little/no supervision.
And you know what happens?
My mind wanders.
I procrastinate.
I pull all-nighters.
Unless I’m asked to create something that they need to have in hand for a meeting in an hour from now, I’m doing anything and everything — rearranging bobble heads, reading blogs, watching YouTube videos. And you know what? Sometimes none of those things have anything to do with the project I’m supposed to be working on. (I have never, and will never, charge a client for idle time. That’s just wrong.)
Just knowing that there is supervision, knowing that someone will hold you accountable for what you did for the day, helps you with productivity.
You work, you create, and you make something that needs to be made faster when there’s some form of accountability external to yourself.
Whether it’s a colleague or a client, it helps to know someone’s there giving you some form of supervision.
I’m a kid at heart. I never say it out loud but, yes, I do need supervision sometimes.
Usually I’ll be approached by the assistant or one of the department heads in order to be told what is needed for a specific project.
Every once in while, I’ll be called on by the head person-in-charge and be asked to create something.
Usually what happens is that I’m called into the person’s office, they tell me what they’re thinking of doing, and then I’m left alone to make it.
At first, this was awesome.
But after a little bit, not so much.
When you’re given the vaguest of instructions, you’re left wondering all the way up to when the client sees it if you’re indeed producing something even close to what they’re expecting.
If you aren’t given the intended objectives and message a project is supposed to deliver to its users, it can be difficult to produce something good.
It’s like the telephone game (Chinese whispers) but there’s no one else there to play with you and you still lose the game.
A lot of times, when you sync back with the client about the project, you wind up having conversations that start with, "I like it, but I don’t love it" or "Oh, I was thinking you would do something else."
Or my favorite: "No."
Just "No" and nothing else. No new direction, ideas, or feedback that you can work with. Just "No."
The problem is there wasn’t an ongoing conversation while the project was still a work-in-progress. There’s no back-and-forth. There’s no back-story to reference.
It can be nice and liberating to get the minimum of input, do pretty much what you want, and guide the entire public persona of an organization all by yourself.
But that isn’t how it’s supposed to be.
If you’re fortunate to find yourself in a similar situation, make sure you take care of things from the beginning.
When the client offers you complete creative control, thank them for their trust in you and your experience, but also state that you will still need to approach them from time to time to get their input.
Guide them in what you need in order to be able to give them what they need.
Here are some articles to read to help you solicit feedback from your clients:
When the client gives you no supervision, you need to set your own deadlines and milestones. Tell your client when you will have something ready for them to see.
If you need to, motivate yourself to complete projects days or weeks before they are needed so that you have ample time for some back-and-forth.
Here are some articles that will help you plan your projects more effectively:
When the client tells you what they want with the barest of details, you need to ask questions.
Make a checklist or questionnaire that lists all of the details you would need. I guarantee that after the first couple of times, they will start giving you the information you need upfront without you even having to ask.
Some articles to read to help you ask the right questions:
In short, communicate with your clients effectively. In doing so, you’ll create the real perfect client.
Source of thumbnail: Meeting at which all participants sit on fatboy Bean bags by Jacob Bøtter.
Roy Condrey is the owner of Cajun Pygmy Designs, a full-service web design and web development company in Texas. When not writing, he enjoys spending time with his kids, reading, listening to music, watching movies, designing, coding, and of course, eating. Connect with Roy on Twitter @cajunpygmy, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.
The post The Perfect Client is Not So Perfect After All appeared first on Six Revisions.
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When developers build websites, they often focus on the layout and technical features but neglect one very important aspect — how the user experiences the site. If users have a hard time figuring out how to accomplish their goals, they will look elsewhere and not come back. A pleasant user experience, on the other hand, can create a favorable and lasting impression that differentiates a site from its competition.
This is why it is so important to carefully consider what users experience when they visit your website. You have to ask yourself: Does this page provide the information the user expects? As with many things, the tiniest details can make the biggest difference in the user’s experience.
In this post, I’ll introduce 30 excellent tools and services for creating websites with better usability.
The foundation of a usable website is a good plan. If you don’t have a basic idea of where your project is headed, it’s unlikely you’ll arrive at the right place. Mind maps, flow charts, and sitemaps are effective tools for creating the diagrams you need. Mind maps are great for generating and organizing ideas, while flow charts help visualize and plan the steps in a process. Sitemaps can be used to identify the navigation structure of a website. Here are some applications that can assist you with these tasks:
XMind is an open-source mind mapping program for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
A powerful diagramming tool, ConceptDraw Office provides support for flowcharts and mind maps on Windows and Mac.
Mac OS X and iPad users can choose OmniGraffle to create flow charts, organizational charts, and many other types of diagrams.
Gliffy is a web-based diagram application with support for flow charts and sitemaps.
Before the actual coding begins, it often makes sense to do some prototyping. Prototypes allow you to play with different ideas and uncover possible issues without investing much time in coding and design. You can start with low-fidelity wireframes in grayscale and later create visual mockups and high-fidelity functional prototypes.
Use PowerMockup to create wireframes with PowerPoint.
Available on several platforms, this open-source software provides GUI prototyping.
Moqups is an online wireframing and mockup tool.
This application for wireframing web and mobile apps runs on Windows and Mac OS X.
FileSquare is a web-based tool for creating click-through prototypes by linking together uploaded mockup images.
Handcraft is a collaborative HTML/CSS/JavaScript prototyping tool.
Once you have something concrete to show, you should get it out in front of actual users, gather feedback, and act upon it. The applications and services listed below help you perform usability tests and organize user feedback.
This remote usability testing service allows you to run various user tests on your designs and get instant feedback.
This online application collects and analyzes user feedback on screens and mockups.
Polldaddy is a web application for creating and publishing surveys and polls.
Visit this online community to exchange feedback on designs.
This service gathers feedback by asking users to recall the elements of a website after having seen it for only five seconds.
This crowdsourcing service provides quick feedback via simple A/B polls.
UserTesting lets you “look over the shoulders” of people browsing your website.
This collection of tools offers user research including surveys, card sorting, and feedback forms.
This desktop software records user interactions (keyboard/mouse input, eye-tracking, audio, etc.) and analyzes the results.
BugHerd is an online bug tracker specially designed for web development projects.
A/B testing is simple: You create two variations (A and B) of a page and then determine which one produces better results measured in terms of purchases, newsletter sign-ups, or other factors you value, which reflect a better user experience. These two services can help you with that:
This A/B split testing tool can help you find the most effective way to increase conversions on your website.
Like Optimizely, Visual Website Optimizer provides support for A/B testing, multivariate testing, behavior targeting, and more.
Web analytics provide valuable insights into how people use your website. They can tell you how visitors typically navigate through the website, how long they stay on each page, when they leave the site, and much more. This information can be extremely helpful for identifying usability problems and their causes.
This web analytics service visualizes user behavior with heat maps, scroll maps, and confetti reports.
Another web analytics tool, Inspectlet provides heat maps, real-time analytics, and screen recordings of visitor behavior.
Mixpanel is an analytics platform for tracking custom events in mobile and web applications.
For a positive user experience it’s also important that the technical side of a website works as intended. Nothing is more frustrating than links pointing to non-existant pages, websites taking forever to load, or broken pages because of HTML and JavaScript errors.
This online service checks to determine whether the code of a web page is valid (X)HTML.
This web app checks a site for broken and blacklisted links.
Use this tool to test and analyze how long it takes your webpage to load.
This Google service analyzes a web page and makes suggestions for how to improve its load time.
This service provides virtual machines for testing a website in different browsers on different operating systems.
Do you use any of these tools? Have we missed any that you rely on? Let us know in the comments.
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A startup called Kaggle tries to bring smart people to knotty problems.
Anthony Goldbloom had been a data analyst when he founded Kaggle, a startup that helps companies outsource thorny problems to data crunchers like him. Yet when he was launching Kaggle, he relied on no data at all. He just figured it would work.
]]>Digital payment systems dreamed up in the Web era still piggyback on credit card networks. There ought to be a faster and cheaper way.
The Internet can move data from one person to another in a fraction of a second. Why can’t it do the same for money? Ben Milne asked himself that question, and the answer led him to found Dwolla, a digital payment network that could make it faster, easier, and safer for money to change hands.
]]>The cofounder of the security company CrowdStrike wants to help cyberattack victims strike back.
“After the investigation of Operation Aurora, the cyberattack on Google from within China that was revealed in 2010, I realized a completely new type of security strategy and technology was needed. I was leading research at McAfee and had been involved in investigations of criminal activity online, working closely with law enforcement. Aurora put us up against a nation-state, not a criminal. I was briefing the State Department as they crafted statements for Hillary Clinton to make publicly about the issue.
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