So why the change?

Well, I was never really happy with the break in design a user experienced when they clicked through from EdenWeb.ie to the blog. By having the new blog integrated directly into our new site, we can better maintain graphic, navigation and branding consistency. It’s something I’ve always thought was important but never really got round to doing until we rebuilt EdenWeb.ie with a CMS in the background and I saw how relatively it was to turn one of the sections into a working blog.

I know some of you in the industry will ask why we didn’t just reskin the original WordPress install. Well, the anwser is simple. Basically our new site is running a CMS in the background. I’ve always think it’s much easier to turn a Content Management System into a blogging tool than it is to hack a WordPress blog and turn it into a working website.

Of course, there’s no point in having a blog if you’re not going to update it. With the new blog and site online and acting as a whole, we’ll be updating the new blog and site a lot more.

Thanks for reading!

If this role isn’t suitable for you, perhaps you have a colleague in the industry that might be looking for a change of scenery and would be interested. Details are below.

Overall Purpose of Job:

The overall role and responsibility of the User Experience Manager is to oversee the development, management and maintenance of the User interfaces for our products

You will specifically focus on the structural design for our websites across all platforms email and applications, while implementing user-centred design methodology. The role will incorporate Interface Design, Usability, Information Architecture, NPD, Prototyping, Wireframing, SEO, Web Statistic Analysis. An understanding of User journeys, Internet Usage, Internet Trends and Technologies are essential. You will also help to ensure that our brand is upheld through great design standards.

Main duties & responsibilities:

• To create specifications for and manage the testing & implementation of development projects in accordance with the objectives of the online business channels
• Assist in the management and development of the User Experience Team
• Be a brand guardian, ensuring output for the design team meets the brief and the brand expectations
• Ensure the usability of all online products are of the highest standards ? content, navigation, usability, search engine optimisation and technical implementations
• To ensure that our product usage is tracked effectively and usage is reported across the business
• Ongoing market analysis? identifying competitive trends, new UI developments and standards and internet usage trends
• Understanding implications for our business of changes in internet technology and legislation
• Monitoring and taking advantage of e-Commerce technologies and industry trends

Experience/Background:

• A good eye for strong design and branding
• Ability to manage and develop other people
• Ability to work under pressure and on own initiative
• Superb organizational skills
• Good understanding of business technology
• Bachelors or Masters Degree in a business or technology discipline
• Experience working with an online brand desirable
• iGaming experience is a major advantage
• Agency is an experience is an advantage

If you are interested, please pass along your details to us and we’ll connect you with the organisation involved.

The point is, their work and creative field pushed yours and you became a better designer for it. So last week when we received a call from Dublin City Council asking us if we were interested in information on a new networking initiative specifically for the creative industy in Dublin, we signed up to  ‘CreativeD ‘ almost immediately.

If you’re involved in the creative sector, then this is an invaluable opportunity to be involved in something focussed specifically on your industry whose remit is to

“define, develop and promote creative businesses and ensure that individually and collectively the creative industries become a significant force in our  new economy.”

The first event is held in October at the Digital Hub and is titled ‘Capitalize on your Creativity’.

Details on CreativeD can be found on the Dublin City Council Web site. I think it’s a great initiative by DCC and a welcome development for Irish Creativity.

Another nice suprise was Typeform in Dublin arriving seconds later to deliver scans of the next 150 paintings that we are getting ready for the Texaco Children’s Art Competition website. When I mentioned the Google car, he said there were a few of them pottering about!

Click the screenshot for full details.

Contract/Freelance Web Interface Designer

Conicidentally, I worked with Eamonn in a Software company just before he left to head up DAFT. I was creating icons and GUI designs for his Engineering team at the time and can confirm that you will be dealing with some very talented people who know their interface design!  Now that he is managing DAFT, I’m not sure you’ll be dealing with Eamonn himself but I’m certain there will be a keen eye cast on any GUI developments. I’ve always maintained that one of the reason the DAFT web site was streets ahead of other Irish property portals was it’s clean front-end design and usability. With a founder who has a background in Software Engineering and a familiarity with GUI design, I think DAFT’s website  has benefitted right from the start.

Anyway, good luck if you apply. It looks like a great gig to have on the books.

Sitepoint book offer

And if you are based in Europe and thinking of buying 5 SitePoint books then consider purchasing another 5 for someone else. The EUR to AUD exchange rate is so good at the moment that it’s practically 2 AUD to every EUR anyway. My mistake – the price is US Dollars, not Austrlian Dollars

Happy New Year everyone.
It’s the start of a brand new working year. Whether you’ve got big or small plans for 2009, I hope they come true for you and your business.

Among my favourite enhancements were three that I felt stongly were missing from the original site and vital for Aer Arann

• RouteMap Quick View so you can quickly see where Aer Arann fly to without leaving the homepage
  (this may not be live on the current site as we explore some new banner sizes)
• A ‘Why Fly Aer Arann’ panel to highlight Aer Arann’s unique selling points and their fantastic customer service
• Reduction overall of ‘noise’ and a layout based on a cleaner grid system
• Larger ‘featured routes’ banner to highlight sales, new destinations and similar Aer Arann offers

In total, we explored about 6 concepts, whittled them down to three of the strongest and then settled on our favourite which was then designed and developed further in May 2008.

We also redesigned the Aer Arann booking engine and imporved the user interface with a new simple 3 step online booking process (reduced from 6 steps). More on both of these later but in the meantime, best of luck to Aer Arann and  all the shortlisted companies in a very competitive category and industry.

I’m helping a friend get two very basic holding pages together for her choir prior to an appearance on the Late Late show this Friday.

The Specular Choir

Inishowen Gospel Choir

I’m hoping to get these two tiny sites Googled and indexed by Friday. Finger’s crossed!

I’ve just been really impressed by the customer service over at Mactivate in Dublin. My Macbook battery packed up while I was working remotely and their service department couldn’t do enough for me. They set me up with a brand new battery and told me to come back on Monday when they’d have a replacement ready for my other one. I’m not sure they were impressed to see Vista running when the laptop powered back up but Ill be back on Monday for my other battery, a copy of OSX Leopard and another drool at all that gorgeous Apple hardware.

And I thought their motto was ‘Don’t be evil’!

• 11. Content license from you
• 11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.
• 11.2 You agree that this license includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.
• 11.3 You understand that Google, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Services to our users, may (a) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media. You agree that this license shall permit Google to take these actions.
• 11.4 You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above license.

Anyway – having free net access on the laptop and being able to fix a client’s site this evening while travellng to Cork was such a bonus that I thought I’d mention them and link to their hotel in Tipperary

Thanks guys. WIFI in hotels can be such a rip off that it’s nice to see a hotel provide a little extra for guests.

1. Not buying the Sunday Business Post for the first time in about 8 years.
2. Losing over 80% of my blog feeds and not re-subscribing.
3. Unsubscribing from several Twitter feeds.
4. Setting Outlook to download emails every 30 minutes instead of every 10.
5. Focusing on several great ‘core’ clients and being able to choose the amount of ‘extra’ design work I take on.

The role would suit a small design studio or a freelance graphic designer. It would also be a great opportunity for someone out there who is considering going freelance and is looking for that great first client to get them off the ground, out of the rat race and enable them to work for great people, from home on some very visible design work.

I can’t mention names but you could not work for a nicer company. They’re based in Dublin but it’s possible for you to be based anywhere in Ireland.
Get in touch – Peter@edenweb.ie

For such a new service, the range of content they’ve lined up from the Networks is quite impressive. Having watched a few minutes of CSI NY already, I can see how appealing this will be for both viewers and publishers. Sure, YouTube is great if you want to watch the odd silly videos through your browser. But what if you want to watch something a little more produced, informative and professional from your own desktop?

Here’s the official blurb from Adobe.

Pick the episodes you love to watch, and Adobe® Media Player software will track new episodes and download them so you can watch whenever you want.

• Catalog — Discover new Internet TV shows and video podcasts from leading media companies.
• Personal Videos — Stream, download, manage, and play your personal collection of rich media videos right from your desktop.
• My Favorites — Automatically download new episodes of your favorite shows and video podcasts.
• New Episodes — Quickly manage and play new episodes from your favorite shows and video podcasts when and in whatever order you choose.

UPS arrived about 2 minutes ago. I have brand new copy of Adobe Creative Suite 3 (Master Collection) sitting in front of me waiting to be installed. I can’t wait to start playing with this. Here’s a list of the included software in the Master Collection.

• Adobe InDesign® CS3
• Adobe Photoshop® CS3 Extended
• Adobe Illustrator® CS3
• Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional
• Adobe Flash® CS3 Professional
• Adobe Dreamweaver® CS3
• Adobe Fireworks® CS3
• Adobe Contribute®
• Adobe After Effects® CS3 Professional
• Adobe Premiere® Pro CS3
• Adobe Soundboothâ„¢ CS3
• Adobe Encore® CS3
• Plus Adobe OnLocationâ„¢ CS3 (Windows® only) and Adobe Ultra® CS3 (Windows only)

Just like the right photograph, the right font can make or break any piece of graphic design. I love these font catalogues and can easily spend hours browsing through hundreds of pages of Serif, Sans serif, Gothic, Display, Blackletter and Slab fonts just to find the right typeface for a graphic design project. Unfortunately, typography on the web isn’t as versatile as it is in the printed world and that’s something I still miss about designing web sites. Still, these book are gorgeous pieces of graphic design in themselves and a great reference tool for a logo I’ve just been comissioned to design.

If you work in a shared office I’m sure at some stage you’ve come to a website where the music or narration started playing automatically and never gave you a choice?

If HP have put this level of thought into my online experience then I’m interested
in exploring their actual physical MediaSmart Server. Poor usability and design is the bain of my tech life so here’s a few free links for making such a thoughtful gesture.

HP MediaSmart Server
Use it to back up your files, remotely access your PC, share and stream digital media

 We are also involved in some really nice work for Dublin City Council, The National Botanic Gardens, The Office of Public Works and more…

More soon!

The logos will also be available directly from the IIA site and newsletter shortly.

Download your logo

Thanks!

Peter

The IEDR today announced relaxation of the rules for registering personal dot-ie domain names for individuals. This means you can now register YourName.IE for approx 25 Euro per anum. Furthermore, most combinations of your first, middle and surname are acceptable.

An applicant named ‘John Paul Smith’ can register the following alternatives:

Johnsmith.ie [first name / surname]
Johnpaulsmith.ie [first name / middlename / surname]
John-smith.ie [first name / hyphen / surname]
John-paul-smith.ie [first name / hyphen / middlename / hyphen / surname]
Johnpsmith.ie [first name / middle initial / surname]
John-p-smith.ie [first name / hyphen / middle initial / hyphen / surname]
Jsmith.ie [first initial / surname]
Jpsmith.ie [first initial / middle initial / surname]
Jp-smith.ie [first initial / middle initial / hyphen / surname]
J-smith.ie [first initial / hyphen / surname]
J-p-smith.ie [first initial / hyphen / middle initial / hyphen / surname]
Paulsmith.ie [middle name / surname]
Paul-smith.ie [middle name / hyphen / surname]
Psmith.ie [middle initial / surname]
P-smith.ie [middle initial / hyphen / surname]

You should contact your preferred hosting, web services company or the IEDR directly for further details.

Update (Sept 13th 2007): The IEDR press release is now online 

There is huge scope to dramatically increase hosting companies conversion rates and vistor numbers based on the evidence and feedback I’ve been listening to over my several years as a web designer. Sure, there are some companies out there that are doing it well but as both a customer and a family-member/friend/aquaintance to many, many people who have tried to source hosting services, I find that they are failing on key areas of their web sites and that this is losing them business.

UPDATE…(the above was drafted last week)

Just today I was wondering why hosting companies often have such terrible websites when I received a great little promotion in my email from hosting company, RackSpace. In an industry where most companies are in a race to the bottom and all about the lowest price, these guys are selling to me with clever campaigns, great design and benefit-driven messaging.