John Allsopp

Professionally engineered Internet solutions for humans

A shopping basket for Tinshop: 27 September 2003: Wow, we just went live with a shopping basket for The Tin Shop. It's just gorgeous I love it. I programmed if from scratch rather than bringing in an off-the-shelf one which never quite does what you want. This is beautifully integrated. It calculates your postage depending on where you are in the world, gives you discount depending on how many items you're purchasing, and is just really funky, I love it. Go and buy your Christmas presents and tell all your friends :-)
Praise: 25 September 2003: I love it when clients are happy. I just received "Thanks mate for all your hard work, the website looks fantastic, you have done a brilliant job" from Paul at Granite Worktops (UK) Ltd. Knowing that I tend to push against the problems I find and point them out to those responsible (in the hope that maybe they'll fix it), I also try to praise where credit's due. I wrote a 'praise' email to the web manager of this site the other day, just because I thought the site was good, I think I made his day :-) It's a very interesting charity too.; Incidentally, I speak up against problems because I know from the years when I ran my marketing business that what I really wanted was customer feedback. I guess I just didn't do enough to get it, but if I'd have gotten some moans or suggestions for improvements each day I'd have been so happy. So I think it's the duty of all of us to provide feedback about the products and services that we use, because that will help all the customers that come after us. Imagine how great products and services would be if those responsible improved them in response to frequent feedback. That's how Open Source software is tested and developed. One or more developers write software and send it out to a community of interested users who test it and feed back the problems. The cycle of problem->fix->problem turns frequently, often each day. Imagine that. 365 iterations a year, each with multiple improvements building on the previous. This is how Linux (an alternative operating system to Windows) was developed. Of course it's the Japanese way too, I seem to remember Toyota gets an average of an improvement suggestion each day from each of its employees. If you use my service, give me feedback. Tell me how you feel. Tell me what you like or dislike about my sites.; Incidentally, user testing of websites is a hugely exciting way of getting feedback about a website. For some reason, however, it's hard to sell. Maybe clients think "John, you know what you're doing, just do it, we don't need the extra expense of user testing". One client said to me yesterday that he hadn't gone to look at the site for the last week or so (I'm developing the look/feel at the moment) because (from memory) "there's hardly anything I could do that would make the site 'bad'". I'll bet you there is :-) The problem is, clients have probably never seen the results of a user test. They're the most thrilling thing. Imagine you've worked on a site for a few weeks and you finally run some user tests. Within a few seconds the user will usually say something that's obviously wrong with the site that you've missed, and they'll go on to spot more things. Things you can fix. Things that make the site better and make money for your client. The resulting site is always hugely improved.; I've not seen anything about this but I'm developing a theory. There are lots of websites. The good ones get visited a fair bit. The better ones get visited quite a bit more. The best get visited lots and lots more. In other words, to make a workable website is fine, you'll get traffic, but you'll still have your socks on. Improve the site and you will increase your sales or traffic by more than you expect. If you do user testing and really make the site sing, the results will blow your socks off, they'll be out of all proportion to the investment in testing. So, people, clients, listen .. I've seen the results, trust me: DO USER TESTING :-)
Talk to the hand: 25 September 2003: I'm doing a Meldrew again but I just sent an email for support to ActionTec. I got their support email address off their website. I got an email back saying, effectively, "we've developed an online form for you to use for such things, we won't reply to your email". Well, then, why didn't the website give me the form in the first place? Don't make me dance fer Chrissakes, the only reason I'm back at them is cus I can't get the information I want from their website!
Null response: 24 September 2003: I sent an email to Barclaycard about how to pay the bill while on holiday and I've received no response. I always take these things personally on purpose. If I were stood next to someone and I asked them a question and they ignored me, I'd be upset. If I knew they'd heard me, I'd be very upset. How can such a company let even one such email request go unanswered?; In my first year of university we were told the benchmark time for responding to an email query to your website, 24/7, was 10 minutes maximum. I've not seen that figure mentioned since but can you imagine how wonderful it would be if that happened even once? You'd be a loyal client for life. Wow. Even if you're a small business this can at least be attempted. Email can be routed through your mobile phone so besides sleep time you can always get back to someone quickly. Something as 'simple' as that might double your sales (no-one's going to raise a query unless they're planning to buy, and usually, it's just before they get their credit card out).; To finish off the Barclaycard story, I tried to register for an online account and it failed. I tried again, it failed. I had to call the phone centre which gave me on hold music for 2 minutes plus occasional messages asking me to email them if I didn't want to wait. The guy who answered told me why I couldn't register an online account .. but but but .. why didn't the site tell me that before I filled in all the boxes? Why didn't it give me some reasons why it failed so I wouldn't have to call them? Bah to crappy frustrating designs!
Magic Roundabout: 24 September 2003: Something fired me off on a search for a picture of Dylan from the Magic Roundabout and I found this lovely site. It's got the best quality pics I saw, and amazingly there's a new Magic Roundabout CGI film being produced partly in Bristol, UK, with Kylie Minogue doing the voiceover for Florence. How completely wonderful is that?
What's black and white and read all over?: 24 September 2003: According to apparently humungous print designer Roger Black there are three colours in page design: black, white and red. Everything else is very much secondary. While my nice colours are just that, very nice, they are a little bit wishy washy, a little too relaxing. While my service isn't fast, it is determined to change the status quo .. no-one wants to bring in someone, pay their money, and have everything exactly as it was. I'm paid to make changes, to make things happen, to create, and to take consistent actions towards a goal. I need colours with more energy. Let's try black, white and red. I started with a straightforward red and then started adding green to it so it became more orangey because the straight red felt like an anarchist pamphlet. I learned from The Tin Shop that simple colours are OK, but complex colours are much more interesting (theirs is kinda greeney blue, or is it bluey green). A complex colour allows you to develop your own unique colour scheme. Also red is so strident, and I'm completely not strident. So something a little gentler, something more compromising is called for. And I don't want anyone thinking I just ripped off the colour scheme for CIM Humber, one of my early sites with colours set by the Chartered Institute of Marketing. I'm still pondering on this because looking at a huge block of this red it feels like a fudge, a compromise. It's not really red, it's shy of being red. Yet I feel like I make no-compromise websites, that I never compromise my quality, so I want to reflect that strength. I love this stuff :-) OK, I've stepped back the orangeyness and I quite like the resulting red. Let me know what you think if u like.
Tax is lovely: 24 September 2003: Wow. I just completed my tax return in less than 2 hours online. The service worked, the helpdesk worked and was friendly. There was relevant help everywhere. Nothing fell over. I got asked the right questions depending on what I said previously. All the calculations were done for me and all relevant figures brought forward. Considering how complex this site must be that's just a WOW! Fantastic. All done. I guess keeping my books completely up to date in Quicken helped, and having a reasonably simple life from a tax point of view helped. I'm just so chuffed :-)
It's time to style: 23 September 2003: Now I've started this blog I guess it's time to make the whole site readable. I'll start by choosing some 'corporate' colours. I guess I can be a little more relaxed with mine than with a clients. I thought maybe I'd start with colours associated with Scarborough, since we (my partner and I) have chosen to live here, and since it gave me this Internet career (I went to university here and got my degree in Internet Computing), maybe it's a start. The blue and the sand colours are picked from one of my graduation photographs (the sea and the sand respectively). They seem like a good start, but they lack contrast between them, and I'll need to add some colour contrast to stop people falling asleep.
Chemical Brothers: 22 September 2003: I'm a big fan of the Chemical Brothers. Well, really, of the early stuff (I know that makes me sound like a prat, but there you go). Today they released a new CD singles 93-03 which has some really fabulous things I've not heard before from that period. It's fair cheered me up :-) And yes, I bought the CD rather than downloaded it from a filesharing system. What can I say?
Tim Berners Lee at The Royal Society: 22 September 2003: Tim Berners Lee, the man who is credited with inventing the World Wide Web, was giving a talk entitled "The Future of the World Wide Web" at the Royal Society tonight, to be broadcast live. I sat down to view my first ever webcast. First, I needed to download a Real Player plugin. Well, actually I had it, it's just that it hadn't installed in the latest version of Mozilla. I tried installing it and it said "This software needs Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or later to work".; For those who aren't familiar with the Internet, how outrageous that is requires a little explanation. The point of the World Wide Web is that it's open to everyone with whichever device they prefer to use in whatever way they see fit. This is the root of Internet accessibility, and of the mobile Internet. To broadcast a Tim Berners Lee speech in such a way that only those using Microsoft technology can view it is an obscenity. It looks like www.flyonthewall.tv might be responsible for the setup of that. May their morning shoes be full of pet poo.; I thought I'd send a question about this, there was a link. I was greeted with a screenfull of error messages, after which came my form. I completed the boxes, and got another pageful of error messages. The future of the Internet eh? You'd have thought flyonthewall.tv would have stress tested this system beforehand.; As an aside, the .tv top level domain belongs to Tuvalu, a small country in the South Pacific ocean. It's famous for two things. Firstly, it sold the .tv top level domain for $50 million, (which works out at almost $4,500 per head of population) and turned around its fortunes.; Perhaps more importantly, its highest point is 5m above sea level, which makes it likely to disappear in the face of global warming and the resulting rise in sea levels. Its government has consequently become a vocal supporter of campaigns to cut greenhouse gas emissions, which in my view can only be applauded. Clearly that puts them at odds with the current Bush administration which tossed aside the Kyoto agreement within two months of getting into office.; Tuvalu Islands, CIA factbook entry on Tuvalu, a report on George Bush's attitude to global warming a couple of days after getting into office, and a report from the day the US said it would not support the Kyoto treaty.; Actually, I complained about the Tim Berners Lee thing to the Royal Society and to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The W3C site didn't work, interestingly, for what I needed, which was to complain. But I did eventually find their head of communications Janet Daly who responded in person (it's 9:30pm) within an hour of me writing. She accepted what I'd said, pointed out that actually she'd been able to view the broadcast using Netscape Navigator and a non-Microsoft media player (in other words I was wrong, but put so nicely), and said she'd pass on my concerns. Wow, full marks and a box of chocolates for her :-)
Photograph quality: 22 September 2003: Photographs are just so important and so often neglected. Take a look at Castle Narrowboats. The site's not one of mine, but that photograph of the narrowboat in the autumn trees is enough. See that, and you're sold. The rest of the site is irrelevant so long as it works. I did take a holiday with Castle Narrowboats once and I'd definitely recommend it in case anyone's interested. The electric motors aren't silent but they're a lot quieter than diesel. You can sneak up on wildlife and chat with people who are walking at your pace along the towpath. Anyway, I'm trying to do the same with Granite Worktops (UK) Ltd where really it's the photographs that sell the product. But when it came to samples what I was sent was brochure prints. Reading left to right, all the granites down to and including Rosa Sardo plus Carmen Red on the granite page are scanned from brochures. Black Pearl, Star Galaxy and Uba Tuba are from real stone samples. (I can't guarantee they'll be like that forever, I'm trying to get hold of a full set of real stones so if you're reading this and wondering what I'm on about, yer too late to see the effect :-) ). Anyway, the ones scanned from stone are fuller and richer, the ones from brochures, I couldn't even get rid of the moire pattern, and the depth just wasn't there. I think people will be sold on stones that have high quality scans and uninterested in those that were scanned from print. So, make sure you have good photographs :-) I tried to enhance the sensuality of the stones with my descriptions too, see what you think, and if you want, let me know.
Why start a blog?: 22 September 2003: OK, it's finally gotten to me. I've done it .. set up a weblog or blog (a blog is a daily journal published on the web). So what took me so long?; I really didn't feel that a blog was for me. I felt like blogs were for people who felt their own opinions to be important enough to broadcast to the world. It felt self-opinionated. Loud maybe. By contrast, I tend to listen more than I speak.; Add to that that I haven't really found a weblog that I like. Although I don't know if netdiver counts as one, I do find a lot of inspiration there. I tend to use discussion lists (for things like PHP, J2EE, and theList for general stuff) instead.; The thing that finally sold me was that I was trying to work out how a potential client could get to know me over the web. That's not because of any desire to broadcast my personality, it's more of a damage limitation exercise. The point is that anyone who might be considering hiring me for Internet software/web development would get just that, me. I'm a one-man business. Like it or not, you get me rather than either someone to whom I've delegated your project, or a team. If I were hiring someone to do my website, I'd want to know something about the personality I'm hiring. I'd want to know if the person was reliable, creative, trustworthy and so on. And if you, my potential new bright and shiny client, are in Scarborough, Canada, and I'm in Scarborough, UK, then how are we ever going to meet so you can find out about me?; Ah, I just met a flaw in my logic. If we're never going to meet, what do you care what I'm like?; Anyway, another thing happened. On TheList, people seemed to agree that publishing new content to your site every day helped get a good search engine position. I'm curious about that, so this is a bit of an experiment.; I do ponder a lot, so this is also somewhere to put those miscellaneous musings. I do need somewhere to put my criticisms of public lavatory design as they relate to effective product and web software design. My girlfriend can only take so much. And that Samsung site! So bad, so very bad.; I looked at about fifteen weblog software products. Most were of the "one click publishing, it's so easy" type. I can do web publishing, it's what I do, it's not a problem for me. That doesn't sell me the software. The one I really did like didn't seem to have an [emailMeUpdates] button. Well, neither does this, but it will have later. Hell, I'm gonna write my own weblog software dammit!; So, I hope you like what you see, and as a result I hope you consider hiring me to do some web development work :-) Not, I should add, that I'm desperate for work. On the contrary, I'm fully booked now until after Christmas. So maybe I shouldn't be starting this at all. Or writing now. Bye :-)