A website by Richard Feich

Here’s a shot I took atop of the John Hancock Building back in 2001 while enjoying a glass of fine champagne…it’s a good memory.

In a previous post I discussed the concept of what constitutes the “Ideal Web Team” in terms of people/talent. In this post I’ll discuss one key position on the team: The Web Designer/Developer. This person has the skills and creative temperament of a Graphic Artist with technical know-how of a Web Developer, thus a hybrid. A web team that does not have this kind of talent will suffer with lower productivity and dull websites. Some hardcore back-end developers are talented designers as well; but it’s very difficult to be highly productive in both areas, especially on the same project. Typically, back-end developers don’t have the required creative edge or proficiancy with graphic design tools. A hybrid web designer/developer should generally have the following characteristics:

• Expertise with professional tools of the trade, tools  like Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, etc.
• Good understanding typography and page layout with a very keen sense of design.
• Branding and marketing experience.
• Web standards advocate
• Expetise with XHTML , JavaScript, Ajax, CSS, especial  CSS driven layouts
• In depth understanding of the principles of Accessibility and Usability
• An Information Architecture guru
• Significant ability with Flash and Action Script
• Can design a Logo Design, if needed
• Capable of print media design.

Some companies discount the importance of Web Designers or Hybrid Designer/Developers; I’m willing bet the quality of the websites produced by these companies will reflect this attitude. The web is a visual interactive media which requires very special talent to build excellent and interesting user interfaces. Sure just about anyone can build a web page, it’s not that hard; but it takes true talent, understanding, and years of experience to do it right…to be a cut above the rest.

Building a Website is like playing guitar, anyone can learn to strum a tune; but it takes native talent and years of dedicated study to master the instrument.

I love Google Maps, especially the satellite imagery. The other day I was exploring the world and I noticed that they updated the imagery of my home turf…the place where I grew up as a kid. As I looked at the house where my folks still live and studied the surrounding area, I couldn’t help but to reminisce about all of the time we spent fishing, hunting, and exploring. I loved having a lake and nature just outside our back door.

A remnant of the old Illinois Central train yard and still in use. Looking north from the Jaskson overpass. In the background is the Art Institute of Chicago (it’s backside). 

Chicago Train Yard

Here’s a shot I took back in 2000 [which seems like decades ago], from a slightly different perspective.

I came across an interesting blog posting by Andy Budd where he describes the Ideal Web Team. I agree with him for the most part; but what I find most interesting about this post is the comments in response too it. It’s clear that different businesses have a different market niche targeted toward different clientèle; and as a result have a slightly different team composition.

Here is my ideal small high performance web team:

1. Account/Project Manager (1)
   - May also wear the hat of a Sales and Marketing person
   - Primary point of contact with the client
   - Negotiates deliveries
2. Creative Director (1)
    - Usability and Information Architecture expert
    - Responsble for the user experience
    - Provides project vision and creative direction
    - Brand development
    - Web Marketing Specialist and SEO expert
3. Designer/Developer Hybrid (1)
    - Web
             Graphic Design
              XHTML
              CSS
             Accessibility 
             Web Standards
    - Print
    - Flash
4. Web Developer (2)
    - ASP.NET (c#, MSSQL)
    - LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl, Python)
    - Experienced with database concepts and design
    - Web Standards
5. Content Producer (1)
    - writer/editor
    - Wears other hats
    - With possible expertise in AI, Usability, and Accessibility

This list is not set in concrete for me; but it roughly covers what I believe are the talents required to have a high performance web development team; and sure other people are needed to run the business from the top to the bottom…but for this post I’m talking web development.

As we work through the dog days of summer, I can’t help but think about Fall and a place I love to visit.

Door County, Wisconsin

A Content Management System (CMS) is a tool to help you to manage (create, edit, organize) content of a website. You can build your own or use one of the thousands of systems available pre-built; some open source [free]…some proprietary [$$$].

One thing for sure, there is no one CMS that has it all…it’s always a matter of finding the right tool to do the job at hand. A small business brochureware website has different requirements then an enterprise portal–that’s obvious. However, granularity of choice is much finer.

If the only tool you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.

A good development team should be well-versed with a number of tools [CMS] used to build websites. An excellent resource for exploring and comparing Content Management Systems is CMS Matrix:

 http://www.cmsmatrix.org/

They currently have 789 systems to study and compare. CMS Matrix is only a starting point to find the right CMS tool.  You’ll still need to do your due diligence with research and demoing products. You MUST demo any products being considered…it’s a requirement for so many reasons.

Welcome to a new development phase of my website at feich.com.  I decided to retire the old website and install a personal publishing system to allow me to maintain and update this website in a more timely fashion. I’m using a customized version of the very popular Wordpress…which I like very much. What is Wordpress? Here is a good description taken from the official Wordpress website:

Wordpress is a state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. What a mouthful. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.

 I like Wordpress because it’s easy to use and customize, there are tons of themes and plugins available, and it has good support. Wordpress is really a Content Management System (CMS) geared towards blogging, however it can easily be configured for other purposes. In the last two years or so I have evaluated dozens of Content Management Systems…probably more then 35. I have used and extended many systems, and built a few as well. With this experience behind me, I selected Wordpress as my personal publishing platform.

I will continue to discuss the merits of Wordpress, as well as other CMS’s in later posts.

The Bean of Chicago

This is insanely good! Beurre Blanc sauce is a relatively simple butter sauce  that is excellent on grilled fish, seafood, or even roasted corn…yes that’s right, roasted corn. Last Friday, we roasted locally-grown  [Illinois] in-season sweet corn over hardwood, accompanied by grilled fresh Coho salmon filet’s. The fish was good, but the corn was fantastic; especially with a drizzle of Beurre Blanc sauce.

Beurre Blanc Sauce Recipe:

1. Place 3 tablespoons each of white wine vinegar and dry white wine in a small saucepan with finely chopped shallot (1 to 2 tablespoons); white onion or the white of green onion will work as well.
2. Bring to a soft boil and reduce to about 1 tablespoon in volume.  Remove heat.
3. Cut up 1 stick of unsalted butter (1 cup) into cubes. Whisk in one cube at a time. Let each peice be absorbed before adding the next.  Season to taste and serve immediately.