Web development, design, and web standards

While checking in for a United Airlines flight today using their web site Easy Check-in Online system today, I noticed they made an “improvement” to the check-in sequence. In the normal flow of reviewing seats, I was taken to this screen which “conveniently” offers me the opportunity to upgrade to first class at a cost of $154 each way (there was no way to avoid this screen):

The disturbing part is how …

When talking recently with Ron Z, founder of CodeGeek.net, about Google he reminded me, “Remember Rule #1: It doesn’t have to make sense.” Never is that sentence more true than when it comes to Google’s ranking system.

I conducted hours of research in an attempt to discover why Google Maps (formerly known as Google Local) returned only one map marker for a particular keyword search phrase instead of the usual ten. Directly underneath that one …

Ron and I had the pleasure of attending Adaptive Path’s UX (User Experience) Week in San Francisco last month. As the title implies, this annual conference focuses on user experience which, as defined by mayhamandchaos.com, is a term used to describe the overall experience and satisfaction a user has when using a product or system. That may not sound exciting to you, yet if you recall the difference between an exceptional …

My Fort Collins-based business, CodeGeek.net, is a distributed company of loosely affiliated collaborators. We have just one employee at the moment, that would be me, and about fifteen or so highly-skilled experts who contribute to our work on a regular basis. Regina is our main project manager, operations consultant, and Search Engine Optimizer. She lives in San Francisco (and happens to be my sister). Dionne is our lead designer, she lives in Seattle. Many of my team members live …

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“Build it and they will come.” Do you remember the movie Field of Dreams? That’s a great line for building baseball fields, but not so much for web sites. Once you’ve built your web site, how are people going to find …

If you are looking to have a website developed or re-designed, you are most likely confronted with a wide variety of web development firms from which to choose.  Additionally, you may feel that there are equally as many design possibilities to creating your website.

Perhaps you have done your research, and know very specifically what you are looking to have created.  Perhaps, you are looking to become educated through the process of web development.  Or perhaps, you have no idea how …

Better navigation for your site

Is your web site easy to navigate? Would you like to make it even easier for your web site visitors to find their way around? Here are a number of ideas to make your web site more usable:

Use obvious labels: the labels you choose for your navigation links should be simple and clear, like “Services, and “Contact Us”. It can be tempting to try to use clever or cute navigation labels, like “Send …

Attracting visitors, i.e. potential clients, to your website is easier than you may think. Here are a few points to keep in mind when developing your website:

It is imperative think in terms of your client. This has been emphasized before in the CodeGeek.net Blog, and for good reason. Often times, when companies are developing their websites, they think in terms of it being an advertisement of their services. The best way to attract visitors to your …

Are you writing new content for your web site? Here are some tips for maximizing content effectiveness.

Write a summary paragraph at the top of the page. Writing effectively for the web is similar to writing newspaper articles. The first paragraph of a well written article includes a summary of what is to follow. This provides readers the meat of the content first, quickly allowing them to decide if this page is useful to them. When written …