The Literate Web Developer

Posted on September 26, 2008 by David

Rafe Coburn, a very long time blogger, posted today about how he is seeing more and more web developers who don’t know SQL very well.

It seems to me, though, that actual knowledge of SQL seems to be falling. I blame this on the growing popularity of persistence frameworks that abstract the database away, allowing developers to interact without databases without writing much (or any) SQL. … Many developers don’t even learn SQL in depth, period.

Rafe goes on to explain why knowledge of SQL (a way to query databases directly and with great flexibility) is key knowledge even when your team uses a development framework that abstracts away the database.

He makes a closing point that I think is good advice for any web developer. He recommends developing your skills in HTML, CSS, SQL, and Javascript, as they will be around forever (in web terms!) even as new frameworks rise and fall. Any developer with good chops in those areas will have a long term career advantage over someone who is exclusively a specialist in Ruby on Rails, for example.

For those of you who managed web teams and developers, make sure you are investing in these fundamental skills as well as in the specific technology that is unique to your operations.

Google Says Dynamic URLs OK (Must update my soapbox!)

Posted on September 24, 2008 by David

Google posted to their official weblog today a bit of background on how they can process dynamic URLs. A dynamic URL is one that contains lots of junk that humans can’t read, including symbols. A LOT of system still create URLs like this, especially when the web page is created from data stored in a database.

It used to be common knowledge that URLs with natural language words in them did better in natural search results placement than dynamic URLs because Google would be better able to process them. It appears that is no longer operative. The key graph from the post today on that topic:

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Dynamic URLs vs. static URLs:

While static URLs might have a slight advantage in terms of clickthrough rates because users can easily read the urls, the decision to use database-driven websites does not imply a significant disadvantage in terms of indexing and ranking. Providing search engines with dynamic URLs should be favored over hiding parameters to make them look static.

While there is still benefit to displaying static URLs for the human using your site it seems that, from Google’s perspective, it’s not worth doing just for search engine placement. Interesting!

6 million reasons to pay attention to accessibility

Posted on September 15, 2008 by David

A nearly three year old lawsuit has resulted in a $6 million settlement over accessibility problems at Target.com.

Target has settled a class action lawsuit with the National Federation of the Blind over accessibility complaints with Target.com. Despite the law being unclear as to whether the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applies to websites, the company will pay a substantial fee and update its web site to make it accessible to the blind.

Another case study in how building accessible, standards compliant, web sites is not only the right thing to do but can save you millions. Plus, doing the right thing in this regard is easier to do than ever before with improved browsers, web application frameworks and agreed upon standards.

A complicating factor for some organizations can be that they are using systems for their sites that have been developed and added to since the early days of the web when accessibility wasn’t even an afterthought. However, committing to upgrading your system before the lawsuits were filed would have allowed Target to invest a portion of that $6 million in improving their site rather than paying a fine.

(Spotted via Gadgetopia.)

Finding the Biggest Bang for Your Usability Buck

Posted on September 8, 2008 by David

Most people acknowledge that usability is a critical factor in the success of a page, application or entire web site. Poor usability will drive away users and limit the results you can achieve.

However, how can you best determine where to start with your usability efforts? Here is an easy way to triage your opportunities and identify those with the best chance for high impact.

Identify which processes or transactions on your site are repeated the most frequently and ideally result in the greatest value for the web site publisher.

You want high frequency so that you are targeting the most (or most active) users of your site.

You want a cumulatively high value of all those actions in order to focus on those that create the most value for your organization.

A process that happens a million times a month and is worth, on average, 10 cents to the publisher is cumulatively worth $100,000. A minor usability improvement to that process which adds a penny or two to the average value has a big impact. You get the idea.

The best usability improvements are not necessarily the most brilliant or unique; they are those that generate the most value. A high value usability improvement could be a simple as adjusting a confusing label.

What are the highest volume and highest cumulative value processes on your site? Focus on making incremental usability improvements there in order to be a usability superstar.

Improving the capacity to act.

Posted on September 3, 2008 by David

I recently conducted a workshop for a clienton the topic of knowledge management. As I prepared for the event, I rediscovered a great definition of knowledge from Karl Erik Sveiby:

Knowledge is a capacity to act.

I find this to be a highly useful definition of knowledge because it helps to focus any knowledge-related endeavor on a specific outcome.

For example, does your intranet improve the ability of staff to act? This one question will lead to a cascading inquiry of the actions employees need to take in support of their goals, how they can best take them, and how your intranet can then facilitate that action taking process.

It boils away all the impurities of knowledge management as a field and highlights that which it is supposed to create in the business context: the improved capacity to take action.

Chrome – New Browser from Google

Posted on September 2, 2008 by David

Google has announced a new web browser they have produced: Chrome. The application is open source, which means anyone can use the application for free and adapt the source code to meet their needs.

The announcement is less than a day old. Nicholas Carr has the most interesting analysis I’ve seen so far. An excerpt:

Although I’m sure Google would be thrilled if Chrome grabbed a sizable chunk of market share, winning a “browser war” is not its real goal. Its real goal, embedded in Chrome’s open-source code, is to upgrade the capabilities of all browsers so that they can better support (and eventually disappear behind) the applications. The browser may be the medium, but the applications are the message.

The Brutally Honest Mission

Posted on August 21, 2008 by David

James Gilmore, speaking on authenticity, said the following at ASAE earlier this week:

Associations today are a platform to maintain the current paradigm.

Another way of saying that: Associations are largely engines for preservation of the status quo.

I’ve seen plenty of evidence for this in my career. Despite often rather high minded and flowery missions, many groups act to preserve the interests of their members over all else. The operational behaviors of the organization reveal their true purpose.

This is not a bad thing, necessarily. However, if you are in the status quo business, why not dedicate yourself to it? Many organizations would be more effective if they were brutally honest about why they exist.

A brutally honest status quo mission would allow the organization to jettison activities that take up a lot of time and resources without any commitment to change. This would free up that energy for outcomes to which you are actually committed.

Then you can have very productive discussions, such as: what have we done to maintain the status quo today?

I am being a bit tongue in cheek with this post but I think the underlying lesson is there, related to Gilmore’s presentation. Can you “render authenticity,” accruing the benefits Gilmore says come of such an approach, if you are inauthentic about why you exist?

Disolving Usability Problems

Posted on August 16, 2008 by David

A lot of usability work focuses on solving interface problems, making it easier for users to achieve a certain outcome or complete a task. This can involve user observations, iterative design changes, traffic analysis and other tools in pursuit of improvement. It is often not cheap in terms of time and effort, let alone when outside help is brought in.

A solved usability problem is one where both the user and the publisher get precisely what they want from the interaction. The user has an efficient and pleasant experience and the publisher gets the user to complete a desired task. All is well in the world.

A resolved usability problem is one in which a reasonable compromise is reached that is good enough but requires that either the user or publisher (or both in some cases) give up something. For example, the user experience might still have some rough spots but the value of the transaction doesn’t warrant further investment or outside factors impose it.

However, something a lot of people fail to consider is if the interface in question can be completely eliminated instead of ‘fixed’. Instead of solving the problem, can you dissolve the need for this interface completely? Sometimes making a few changes to the larger system of which the interface is a single element can completely eliminate the need for the interface.

This isn’t an option all the time, obviously, but the only way to know is to consider the larger context of the problem at hand. Simply focusing on individual interfaces is inadequate.

C. David Gammel, CAE

Helping associations pursue goals that matter.

Author Archives: David