One of the things that I talk about in my workshop, is the fact that websites are never really done and that every 2-4 years, a complete re-design may be in order. Just like the top of the line computer you bought 5 years ago, it’s no longer as relevant or up to date as it should be. The “never really done” part involves keeping your content fresh and updated, which is something all business owners should be doing on a regular basis. (Ever go to a site where the last “current event” is from 2008? How much credibility did you have for that business at that moment?) A re-design however, involves really looking at everything and like a house renovation, probably involves a fair amount of purging and moving things around.
Well, this site was originally built in 2008. It’s my site, so it’s also my sandbox; everything new that I’ve learned about design and coding has been done here first. As a result, it’s built in a couple of different ways; part of it is in straight HTML/CSS the blog portion where you are now is in WordPress. My portfolio is built in Flash and as a result is not that easy to update and is not visible on my smart phone. In the last 3 years, the web world has changed a lot; the term “social media” wasn’t even around then. It’s time to raze the house and start from scratch. I want to build something that is lean, fast, has great search optimization, is social network enabled and is user friendly on your large TV screen, your small netbook screen and your phone. Most importantly, I want you gentle reader, to be so impressed that you will add your name to my mailing list and contact me about working on your site design right away.
Whew! This is a reasonably tall order. It becomes infinitely more complicated because this is for me and not for a client. Why? I have no perspective; everything is personal and I’m not going to get paid for the work involved, so I have to find the time and commitment to do it. The good news is that I’ve been extremely active in the web community meetups here in Chicago, so as a result, I’ve met and become friends with an amazing array of talented individuals over the past few years. So, through the process of buying people a lot of lunches and helping them with their projects, I intend to tap into this talent pool of information architects, social media experts, designers and coders and have them help me build this dream site.
Before I get other people involved, I should outline some structural decisions that have already been made. As I mentioned earlier, my current site is a bit of a hodge podge of coding and technology. I’ve made it do some cool things like changing the seasons at will, but the updating and maintenance has become confusing and difficult. My first decision is to build the new site entirely in the WordPress framework, with my own custom theme. You may think of WordPress as blogging tool, but it’s really way more powerful than that. I use it as a content management system. I’ve built 8 sites in the past 6 months that are in WordPress and they have very little to do with blogging. Most are basic brochure/informational/e-commerce types of sites and they cover the gamut of business types from jewelry sales to daycare to insurance. WordPress allows for a very search friendly structure, good semantic coding, extreme flexibility in what it can do through it’s plug-ins and perhaps most importantly, an easy way for my non-web designer clients to update and add to their own sites without having to call me.
My second decision is to get rid of my Flash based portfolio and replace it with a javascript based one. JavaScript plays nicely with WordPress, has all the slide-show/cross-fading/hyperlink action I’d like to see and people on Apple products and smart phones will be able to actually see my work. I will also be able to update it easily, which really has become a big issue. The 8 sites I just mentioned? None of them are on my current portfolio and that really has become a hindrance when talking to prospective clients.
Now that these decisions have been made, it’s time to tap into the talent pool and get some outside perspective and expertise. My first stop is with a friend who is a UX (user experience) and information architecture expert. I have a lot of good content on this site, but is it easily found? Do the way things link together make it easy for the common business owner to find the information? Am I missing things that would compel them to contact me? Have I made some common mistakes that I steer my clients around but have not seen on my own site? Compelling and yes I’ll admit it, painful questions. This is why we get outside help, no one can ask these questions of themselves. So, stay tuned. If all goes well, I hope that my friendly experts will not only help me with this process, but also write about it so you can become part of the process as well.
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