Need info for web design(er)

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Permalink Reply by Rae Kridel on June 29, 2008 at 9:44pm

I use and have taught Dreamweaver; it's a great program. Very user friendly but also very powerful. I know that Mircosoft Expressions Web is trying to compete with it, and runs about $100 less than Dreamweaver but if it's a true Microsoft product, it will try to be intuitive, which in my book means, it will get in the way of what you want to do. Adobe GoLive is a nightmare so stay far, far away from it.

If you're interested in purchasing Dreamweaver and doing your own site, I can teach you the basics in as little as an hour. But a site is really made fabulous by the graphics you use, and for that you'd need Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, or both. If you have one or the other programs and are comfortable using them, you're in a good position. If not, you're better off letting a designer do it for you.

Looking at your site, you've got some things that are working fine for you and others that are not too cohesive. Space could be utilized better and it's more compartmented than it needs to be. You've also got some font issues going on. I'm happy to chat with you sometime if you'd like some ideas on how to improve the layout of your site.

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Permalink Reply by Kyle Lacy on June 29, 2008 at 11:07pm

I would recommend using a site like Wordpress and designing a quick and easy blog to use as a website. I could absolutely help you out!
kyle@getbrandswag.com

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Gouty on June 29, 2008 at 11:21pm

I agree with Kyle here - for those new to web design, Wordpress has an uncanny knack for making sites far too easy to update. I could rattle off all the benefits, but I'll let the maestro compose for you.

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Permalink Reply by Erik Deckers on June 30, 2008 at 8:38am

If you're going to be handling your website and messing with it on a regular basis, PLUS you want to be able to add some functionality from time to time, Dreamweaver is definitely your best bet.

But if you only want to create the thing and tweak it once in a great while, I would consider hiring it done instead.

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Permalink Reply by Patric Welch on June 30, 2008 at 10:54am

I gotta agree with the WordPress recommendations. Start there and when you are ready to move up to something bigger and better, outsource the development.

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Permalink Reply by Andy Harris on June 30, 2008 at 12:07pm

Dreamweaver is indeed the program used by many professionals, but I'm really not convinced it's the best approach. The WYSIWYG approach familiar from word processors just doesn't translate entirely to web development. Most experienced web developers eventually turn off the graphical features of DreamWeaver and use it as a glorified text editor, manually modifying the XHTML and CSS code that DreamWeaver creates for you.

If this is what you're going to do anyway, perhaps that's where you should start, learning how the code really works. There are editors (Aptana immediately comes to mind) which provide you plenty of help creating the code, so you don't have to memorize everything. Aptana has a completely free open-source version, and it not only helps you build HTML/XHTML, but CSS style code. When you're ready to make the jump to other languages like JavaScript and PHP, Aptana already has built-in support for these languages.

DreamWeaver is complex enough to have a learning curve. It really isn't much easier to learn than XHTML and CSS, and if you learn DreamWeaver first, you'll still need to learn XHTML and CSS eventually. I've taught web development for many years with many technologies, and I have found that students who begin with actual code using an editor like Aptana can produce much better results in about the same time as a person using DreamWeaver, and Aptana costs nothing.

You can download aptana from http://www.aptana.com

I have plenty of examples of hand-coded web development on the site for my book:
http://www.aharrisbooks.net/xfd.

Although the content and layout of the site are fine, I think there could be major technical improvements. A quick standards-compliance scan through http://validator.w3.org shows 80 code errors, even though the code was created for you by a popular commercial tool, using the most forgiving standard in use. A speed test shows your page will take 22 seconds to download using a 56K modem, which could be easily improved through some image optimization. The use of images as text will also cause some problems for Google searches and use of text readers on your site. Again, these are easily rectified issues.

I also may be able to connect you to a student ready for a commercial job, if that's your preference.
(author: HTML / XHTML / CSS All in One for Dummies)

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Permalink Reply by Alex Baker on June 30, 2008 at 1:05pm

Lynn-

I agree with all of the comments that have been made so far. You definitely need to at least use Dreamweaver if not something else like Wordpress.

I'd definitely be interested in talking to you more about your site, as I run a local web development firm here. Check out our site, www.infinistorm.com. Feel free to give me a call at 888-423-1337 or email me directly at alex@infinistorm.com.

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Permalink Reply by Greg Cross on July 1, 2008 at 2:12am

Hey Lynn,

I have been doing website design and development for 7+ years now ... it's how I pay the bills - smile! I love it. I'd love to hear about your project and needs a little more to make sure that what my company offers is the right fit. Let's talk if you are interested. - Greg

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Permalink Reply by Christopher Wright on July 1, 2008 at 7:36am

I was in your position about 4 years ago. For me MS FrontPage was an easy solution to pick up and use, having grown up using MS products. It has a very desktop publishing feel, but doesn't have a lot of the bells and whistles that programs like Dreamweaver have. Today, MS has replaced FrontPage with Expression Web. It's a much more robust editor, but sacrifices some of the ease of use that FrontPage had.

My site is www.WrightWorks.net.

I built it from the ground up with FrontPage over the course of 2 years or so, using Photoshop to create my headers and graphics. From experience, this is the long way to go but does make it easier for you to update and maintain your own site. If you do decide to stick with doing it on your own, I would look for a template that has the basic feel you want, and then edit it for your own content. A good site for this is DesignGalaxy.net. Stay away from any that have Flash elements as these require different programs to edit--which can have an even steaper learning curve.

I agree that professional graphic design will make your site look the best but in general, I would keep things simple. There are a lot of very talented web designers that can pack your site with tons of dynamic elements...but for a small business, I don't think that's necessary and can in some cases make it harder for people to find you. Search engine optimization is a very important consideration and I would make sure whomever you choose has a very good track record for building sites that index well on the major search engines.

The information to do all of this yourself is certainly out there, but it takes a while to pull it all together (in my case several years). You probably have more productive things you can do to build your business.

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Permalink Reply by Dan Osmundson on September 10, 2008 at 11:35am

Hi Lynn,
I use Dreamweaver and hand-code myself; it's pretty good but I don't think it's the most user-friendly. Do you need to update the site on a regular basis? If so, I would recommend checking out Wordpress that has lots of great CMS functionality and extensibility (plug-ins, etc.); As far as design for WP there are loads of templates to use for free and lots of designers who can make a custom design for you. If you are still in the market for someone to help you out with this, please email me: dano@dano-design.com
Cheers, Dan

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