May 8, 2008
I recently set up a local business listing for myself in Google to both
help my customers find me and improve the SEO of my site.
It works really well and if you do a search for “Web Designer Melbourne”
up I pop.
Take a look yourself.
Did you see me? 5th from the top. Pretty good, eh? The only slight
concern is that it links to someone else’s site! My listing in Google
local business points to an IT solutions company in India!
Does anyone know how this is possible - and more importantly - how can I
rectify this?
March 25, 2008
I just realised it’s been a really long time since I updated the
portfolio section
of this site. Not without good reason though, and it’s not because I’ve
been slacking off and enjoying the Melbourne sunshine (the chance would
be a fine thing). It’s because most of the projects I’ve worked on of
late have either been internal web applications (so not available for
public consumption) or have not gone live yet. As such I don’t want to
publish anything visual just at the minute, partly because I’m not
really allowed to in some cases but also because I don’t want to spoil
the launches for my clients.
That said, I’m enormously proud of some of the things I’ve been working
on of late so I wanted to share some of the more notable pieces to give
some insight on what I’ve been up to:
Information architecture and usability consulting for Computershare
It’s been a while, but late last year I worked with Next
Digital
providing information architecture and web usability consulting services
to help them develop a unique online application that
Computershare could offer to their clients. Whilst I can’t divulge exactly what the
app does, it contains features not too dissimilar to those on the
recently released BBC
website.
The application provides a fully customisable, easy-to-use interface
with many more features than those offered within their existing tool.
Needless to say I really enjoyed working on this one. Developing an
online application has it’s challenges, especially concerning usability
when ‘ajax’ functionality is involved. I’m really happy with the
solution we delivered though, and so is the client. You can’t say fairer
than that!
XHTML/CSS template builds for the Video Hits website
In the first few months of this year I was fortunate enough to work
withBullseye
developing the templates that make up the new Video Hits
website forChannel
Ten.
In addition to current web standards compliance and good accessibility,
the code I produced had to conform to a unique series of templates
developed by the guys at Bullseye which support the full suite of
Channel Ten’s web properties. Whilst this posed it’s own small set of
additional challenges, it will definitely prove worthwhile, making
future modifications much easier.
As far as I understand, the design for the site was done in-house at
Channel Ten.
VicRoads homepage refresh
Also for
Bullseye, and working alongside the talented mr Andrew
Gunstone,
I developed a new home page design for
VicRoads. The solution has yet to go live and is only intended as an interim solution, bridging the gap
until a complete overhaul of the VicRoads site is conducted some time
soon.
Poor performance in meeting the objectives of both site users and
certain business objectives, coupled with a recent re-branding exercise
prompted the redesign. The challenge was in generating substantial
improvement without altering the information architecture and making
only subtle changes to the content and layout.
The solution was a new page layout with content positioned according to
priority, formulated through careful consideration of the user and
business objectives, detailed research into site usage statistics and
reviews of past usability studies.
I’m pretty happy with the new design and layout. I can’t wait to see how
it performs compared with the existing page. I’ll keep you posted…
Various work for the new Whereis website
Since late last year I have been involved with
Sensis, working on a series of projects to support the new
Whereis which is due to launch within the next few months.
Providing mainly CSS/XHTML and flash development work I developed the
pages that will go to make up the products (whereis.com/products/) and
help (whereis.com/help/) sections of the site with, as always,
particular consideration for web standards, accessibility and usability.
The design of each of these sections was produced in-house.
Update - 03/04/2008 - The products section has now gone live in beta
Further to these complete sections I also produced a small number of
flash elements to aid with usability across the site, including the new
advertising panel to feature within their maps and a fully-functioning
flash video player to deliver ‘new features’ screen casts, which I also
produced.
…and a couple of wedding websites
Ours and Lisa and JP’s
March 22, 2008
I’ve been loving Gordon Ramsay’s kitchen nightmares
series’
(the British ones were much better than the American ones - much less ‘reality TV’ shenanigans).
Each week Ramsay helps a struggling restaurant to turn things around,
always with the same basic method of combining determination, attitude
and drive with keeping things simple, manageable and meaningful to the
customers.
The show got me thinking about how these principles can be applied so
similarly to the principles of good web design and running a small
business. That’s when I noticed this
post
and this
post
from the guys at 37 Signals.
So rather than me banging on about it I’d urge you to read those.
February 22, 2008
Smashing magazine is an excellent site/weblog for web designers and developers, of which I’ve been a
fairly regular reader for a number of years now. It’s a place to find
not only excellent and informative news and design/development
tutorials, but it also showcases examples of noteworthy work from other
designers from time to time as inspiration.
Imagine my surprise then, when I discovered this weblog had been
listed in their last article entitled 45 More Excellent Blog
Designs.
I’m honored to have been listed amongst such other greats sites,
including The Rissington Podcast
boys’.
Thanks for the compliment Smashing Mag!
January 18, 2008
Things are getting pretty busy here at BTD so I’m on the look out for
good freelancers to help me out.
If you’re a web designer, standards-aware front end developer, flash
designer/action-scripter or have experience in working with textpattern
and you’re looking for short-term freelance work on an ad-hoc basis,
drop me a line at freelancework [at] tollady [dot]
com
January 16, 2008
!(image)http://www.tollady.com/images/40.jpg(Future of the left )!:http://www.futureoftheleft.com/
My intention for this blog is mainly to discuss things to do
with freelancing, web design and web usability, but I’m fast starting to
realise that it’s going to contain a fair bit of music news and other
waffle too…
Now this is a big statement I know, seeing as it’s only January, but I
think “Future of the left”:http://www.futureoftheleft.com/ just might be
my band of 2008. Made up of ex-Mclusky and Jarcrew members, their debut
album ‘Curses’ was released in September but I’ve only just discovered
it and my what a pleasant find!
I won’t bother writing much else about them since my sentiments are
pretty much in line with whats written about them over at the
“undomondo”:http://www.undomondo.com/2007/09/future-of-the-left/ and “BBC Wales”:http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/music/sites/future_of_the_left/pages/curses.shtml
websites, but needless to say I think the album is brilliant and is
going to sit quite comfortably amongst the Pixies, Fugazi and Jetplane
landing ones already on my shelf.
At last a band that have restored my faith in music.
December 18, 2007
I’ve seen quite a few web designers write about their top albums and
live shows at the end of each year. It’s something I’ve often thought
was a nice idea ‘cause it’s a good way to discover bands you might not
have heard about (I was introduced to “The hold
steady”:http://www.theholdsteady.com/ from “Jon Hicks’
blog”:http://www.hicksdesign.co.uk/ during the year) and helps forgetful
people like me remember what they’ve seen in years to come.
As this has to have been one of my best years for live music in quite a
while I feel compelled to jot mine down too. So here we are (in no
particular order):
- Tool - Sidney Myer music bowl\ * Pixies - Sidney Myer music bowl\ * Ben Harper - Point Nepean\ * John Mayer - Point Nepean\ * Airbourne - Various places\ * The View - The Hi-Fi Bar\ * Crowded House - Rod Laver\ * Coldplay - Rod Laver\ * Battles - East Brunswick Club\ * Helmet - Corner hotel\ * Shooting At Unarmed Men - Various places
Next year is looking like another good ‘un already. I’ve got Iron
Maiden and Future Of The Left coming up!
December 10, 2007
I know, I know… I’ve been a bit quiet of late on the old weblog front,
but I’ve got a (feeble) excuse - I’ve been mega busy! - which is a bit
unusual for the December/January silly season, but hey, I’m not
complaining!
I can’t give too much away yet about what I’ve been working on ‘cause
I’m sworn to secrecy and can’t ruin the impending launches, but watch
this space for full details as they emerge…
October 31, 2007
For graphic designers everywhere…
