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Hiring a webmaster, asking questions

2011-05-17T15:27:25Z

7 years ago, you might have found yourself in a server-room fiddling with pcs and servers. The next minute you were answering a marketing manager somewhere on the other side of Europe, about how to get his page to show up on the first page of a google search. As a webmaster you’re Jack of all trades, master of none.

Marketing mixed with IT, design and coding, all these things are part of a webmaster’s job.
At least they were.

I am not a server administrator, but 7 years ago that was still part of the webmaster job. This is impossible in todays world and most webmaster jobs nowadays focus on the communication side. Communication and marketing, usability and user experience: these are are all the hit words of 2011 and you have to have them on your CV.

One thing is very clear about what a webmaster does: handle communication between business and IT. You have to be able to talk to a programmer/sysadmin as well as talk to one of the board members.

Can you handle a sentence that consists of nothing but acronyms?
Can you say one that a business person doesn’t understand, but IT does?
Can you do the same for the IT person?

Hiring people is not my job, but I am a webmaster and I was asked to create a questionnaire to check the technical knowledge of the webmaster candidate.
The questionnaire focuses on 4 areas:

The 4 fields are a bit crammed together, I know, but you need to limit the number of questions a bit. Below are the questions and answers with some remarks. Candidates took between 45 minutes to 1 hour to answer all of them.

The questions are both specific and open. Not everything (definitely no server setup questions anymore) is covered but it is a good start to measure the technical knowledge of you webmaster candidate.

“click here” a relic from the past

2011-05-06T10:34:51Z

2.060.000.000 result from Google. That’s a lot.

All those results are pages about “click here, do this, do that”. Why do people still use that on a website?

“Click here” is one of those text fragments that seem to stick around. Webdesigners and usability experts recommend not using it and still, everyone does, including Adobe. Adobe Acrobat reader is the first item on Google SERPs for “click here”. Simply because it is used in plenty of links on a huge number of sites.

All I can see is that people are using it, and that there is no tendency that tells me it is dying.
So why not? Why do people still use it? Dismissing it as stupidity or lack of knowledge is too easy. There must be some reason why people still use it even though there are plenty of reasons not to.

Content-editors still use it because it’s clear. It is clear what a visitor must do. Not what the visitors will get after the click. But that really doesn’t matter because through all the noise (the internet) this person found your website, scanned it thoroughly, found what he was looking for, and followed the instruction. What’s behind the link, who knows? Does anyone care?

The text fragment works more or less like an embedded command: “When you click this link, you will know more about the subject than others do.” The link becomes more attractive: it states what you should do.

People scan for underlined blue text. The link text “click here” enforces the concept of the link and the click becomes a jump into the unknown.

To click is to believe.

I have trained around 200 editors and I repeated it a thousand times:

that the text of the link should be an indication of the subject of the referring page,
that it is is not good for usability/accessibility and SEO,
that it is uninformative

“Click here” as link text is not going away in the near future even though it is disregarded as bad practice by practitioners of IA, usability and SEO. The concept is too easy to understand. It almost feels natural.

Links should be informative about where you’ll take the visitor, but it seems that using verbs as links is very powerful.

Tell them what to do

And then you get this facebook button: “like”. It’s the same thing, just better. Emotional. The link instructs. Like or die clicking!

The facebook like button instructs you to like – read click – the button. It doesn’t say “I like”, it doesn’t say “click here to like”, it’s just “like”.

Implicitly I translate it to “I like”, as must people do (disagree with me ?). But it is nothing more or less than an embedded command: like.

The simplicity of the concept “telling people what to do” is definitely the main reason why the “click here” link is not fading away. Even though the text fragment is pretty powerful, the reasons not to use it still prevail. Click here to comment.

Language and Typography

2011-05-05T19:20:44Z

I love typography. And language.

And with that, I established the order in which I like language and typography, though I do love both equally in that order.

Typograhpy is what language looks like

Do they bubble and froth and slobber and cream at language?

Do you believe strongly in, like, what you are saying?

Who’s on first, What’s on second, I Don’t know’s on third

The key to Umbraco and XSLT

2011-04-23T07:27:18Z

I always wonder why programmers don’t like XSLT (more?). After all it is just another language just like SQL and regular expressions which (almost) everyone seems to love.

XSLT was the main reasons why I started with Umbraco way back in 2005 when Niels Hartvig was surprised that someone actually wanted to come to their conferences. Things have changed since then. And now I am hearing voices about dropping XSLT in Umbraco and inline C# code mixed with HTML, what is this?

Do we really want to go back to spaghetti code? I really hate to see Umbraco go down the path of so many module based, spaghetti code producing CMS‘s.

Razor, the new inline coding style in Umbraco, seems interesting, simple and easy to learn. People have said that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication but is Razor really the way forward?

I don’t know. There are so many reasons to love and stay with XSLT: it is verbose ( if you prefer obscure syntax rules try Perl ), it creates clean and valid code and it’s fast.

XSLT is too verbose.

Is it? I took the liberty to rewrite the functionality to display a paged list of articles found on the cultiv.nl blog. The Razor code is around 60 lines, but XSLT only needs 30 lines. At least if you use XSLT for what it is meant to do. If you find yourself in a loophole, the first thing to do is stop digging and look at what you need.

Have a look at the presentation from Chriztian Steinmeier, learn how to call and apply templates, learn XSLT grouping and design patterns, learn how to use keys and your life with XSLT will be so much easier.

XSLT is faster than your shadow

Some say Razor is slower. I don’t know about that but I do know that I solved several performance problems by using XSLT instead of usercontrols.

If you have to create a navigation bar and check each page against 8000 groups to see whether the user belongs to one of these groups, you will love the speed of XSLT. In such a case it is much easier to select what you need with XSLT, and compare against the imported access.xml file than iterating over each membergroup in C#. Other examples are the XSLT search from Douglas Robar and the many XSLT related projects on our.umbraco.org

XSLT creates clean and valid code

Looking at the Razor examples it is easy to create invalid code. XSLT enforces valid code, and you really have to jump through a lot of hoops to write invalid code with XSLT.

True, valid code doesn’t matter for the end product, not for SEO and not even for your visitors, but having a consistent presentation tree will save you from a lot of cross-browser headaches and css bugs. Write clean code. Save hours of debugging. Eat more fruit.

The best way out of a difficulty is through it.

There are 2 main rasons for dissing XSLT that pop up regularly on the forums. The first one is that XSLT is difficult to learn. The second reason is basically a result of the first one and boils down to using procedural programming concepts in a declarative language (thinking for else loops instead of apply template). Programmers who are not familiar with XSLT have a hard time learning how to use XSLT and as a result, turn to what they know. It’s a vicious circle.

Imagine yourself spending all those hours you spent on learning OOP logic and procedural programming, learning XSLT instead. I am guessing you would have a hard time writing C#. Don’t diss XSLT because you don’t understand it. The more you learn the easier XSLT becomes.

The numerous questions on the internet and on the umbraco forum on how to do for loops already says enough. If you are thinking “loop” in XSLT, forget it. It’s going to be annoyingly verbose, slow and difficult to maintain. It is not about how ( if then that else this) you are going to get it, you already have everything, you just have to select what you need.

Let it be a warning. Every-time you think: why the f#$k can I not increment that counter, take a step back and realize that you are going the wrong way. Remember that if you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.

Isn’t it necessary to look at what XSLT really is? Why it was chosen in the first place, and whether we really need to go yet another way of doing the same thing?

Content strategy, the same thing in a new jacket?

2011-04-02T11:01:18Z

I was asked if I had any experience with content strategy by an online communication expert and I could not give a clear answer. I didn’t have a clear-cut idea of what content strategy actually was. The concept is pretty new to me, it was already on my radar, but I just could not get my finger on the pulse.

So I looked around, found a few articles on the subject, and I bought a book.
The book “The Elements of Content Strategy” written by Erin Kissane published by A Book Apart.

I devoured the book: short and concise writing and it provides a clear picture of the relationship with other functions in the webteam (editors, IAs, designers, etc..). I was happy to discover that the section of useful resources has a list of books that I had read or own:

Seems I should have some idea of what content strategy is, right?

The book explains a few things about Content strategists. Basically a CS thinks about the who, what, where and why of content.

Who will publish that document?
Editors need to be trained, and the document needs to go through a process, formal or informal, to make sure it is properly published. Document life-cycle is part of what a CS does, but that is also what IA’s do, right? Designing workflows in a CMS, how to reuse content, which content to reuse, that is also part of the IA tasks.

What are you going to publish?
Data and content are pretty abundant if you know where to look for. But that doesn’t mean everything has to go online. Here the tasks of a CS and IA start to differ in that the IA does not always have a grip on the actual content.

Where are you going to publish it?
Content can be reused and rewritten for different channels. If you are posting it on twitter, Facebook, an RSS feed or a webpage, the CS considers which parts of the text goes online. Maybe even the tone and voice of the content has to be reviewed.

I think here the CS tasks start to get borderline with SEO tasks and/or journalism. One good examples of this overlap can be seen at the BBC and how they produce headlines. Most of the headlines convey the whole story in 5 words. Is that good copywriting? a content strategists defining standards? or the SEO requiring the most prominent keywords to be available in the titles? I guess journalists have been doing this already for a long long time.

Why are you going to publish this?
The strategy, the why behind the content should be become clear after stakeholder interviews and audience analyses.
The strategy should bring those 2 mindsets together. Here the idea is the same as in IA: align the mental model of the business with the mindset of the audience.

In chapter 3 the author lists a batch of deliverables (Channel strategy , CMS requirements, Communication plans , Usability tests) and I think the majority of those documents need to be shared with the IA.

Both the the IA and the CS perform user research, create content inventories, write up persona’s, the shared list of tools goes on and on. But I think the content strategists focuses more on the message behind, the voice and tone of the content and for that matter I think the CS is very close to a graphic designer. Choosing the colors and images can drastically change the messages that a website conveys. The tone and voice of the content can do the same.

A wireframe is a black and white presentation of what will be published where. But the message can be so dramatically changed by choosing the wrong words or the right ones. The wireframe can act as a reference but the if the design uses pink tones and cartoon images, or corporate blue and stock photography, the message is no longer the same.

Content strategy is nothing new, it has been done from the moment books were published, radio started to broadcast and television shows were brought into the living room. Yes, the environment has changed, so the tools and techniques need to change too but basically it is a new name for what was considered part of other professions.

Update

An excerpt of the book The Elements of Content Strategy is now online at A List Apart

When the CEO wears the wrong hat

2011-02-04T13:45:29Z

My bookshelf needed some reorganisation lately and I came across Steve Krugs book “Don’t make me think“. I remembered reading something about a dreaming CEO. At that time it made me laugh. But now, it is more likely to make me cry.

I couldn’t remember exactly how the story went, so I had to look it up. It’s just a small footnote, but it says everything about the position of the webteam in todays corporate culture. I think it still holds a lot of truth these days.

I once saw a particularly puzzling feature on the Home page of a prominent – and otherwise sensible designed – site. When I asked about it, I was told, “Oh that. It came to our CEO in a dream, so we had to add it.” True story
Steve Krug, Don’t make me think (2006), p.127

And Steve Krug is the not the only one expressing these thoughts. You can find comparable comments made by Oliver Reichenstein over at http://www.informationarchitects.jp/

The concern about the visual style is the echo of the nineties; the nineties are over. It’s well documented that often top decision makers and silly corporate structures mess with the design process. Let me state this clearly: Just because you drive a car it doesn’t make you a car engineer. In other words–CEOs shouldn’t get involved in web design, but in web business strategy.
What’s Next in Web Design? by Oliver Reichenstein

Installing DBD::mysql with MAMP

2011-02-03T09:16:40Z

I got a new MacBook, which is wonderful. It truly is a great machine.
It looks good, feels good, but its an empty box. Everything needs to be reinstalled, including DBD::mysql.

I used macports before for this sort of thing but I ditched them in favor of MAMP. But not without any disadvantages. DBD::mysql doesn’t install nicely when using MySQL used by MAMP.

The new MacBook is running Snow Leopard which comes with several installations of Perl, the default being version 5.10, 64 bit. MAMP runs a 32 bit MySQL version (the one I run is 5.1.44 ).

The install problem is a result of the difference between the SQL versions and some missing files.

These are the prerequisites:

Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard
Developer tools installed
Perl v5.10, 64bit (verify with terminal: perl -v should give you something like this /This is perl, v5.10.0 built for darwin-thread-multi-2level/)
MAMP

First install the DBI bundle.
perl -MCPAN -e 'install DBI'

Before we continue and try to compile the DBD::mysql module, we have to add the necessary libraries to the MAMP MySQL folders. Since we are using 64 bit perl we need to download the 64 bit version of MySQL, one that is the same as the one we have running with MAMP (I used version 5.1.54).

Unpack the archive and copy the following folder into the MAMP folders:
include -> /Applications/MAMP/Library/

Copy the contents of the following folder:
lib/* -> /Applications/MAMP/Library/lib/mysql/
Don’t overwrite the existing files and folders.

If you got all that, open up terminal and cd into the expanded DBD::mysql module directory and issue the following command:
perl Makefile.pl --mysql_config /Applications/MAMP/Library/bin/mysql_config --testuser root --testpassword root --testhost localhost --testport 8889 --testsocket /Applications/MAMP/tmp/mysql/mysql.sock

Please double check both the path to mysql_config and mysql.sock. The variables set here are so different from the common installation of MySQL that many people fail in getting this module to work properly with MAMP.

The following commands should be a known sequence:
sudo make sudo make install

Were are almost done: create a mysql directory in /usr/local:
sudo mkdir /usr/local/mysql sudo mkdir /usr/local/mysql/lib

In that directory copy the missing libraries
cp -r /Applications/MAMP/Library/include /usr/local/mysql/ cp -r /Applications/MAMP/Library/lib/mysql/* /usr/local/mysql/lib

And you are done. Test your configuration with the following simple connect script:
#! perl use DBD::mysql;

my $dbh = DBI->connect( 'dbi:mysql:test:localhost:8889;mysql_socket=/Applications/MAMP/tmp/mysql/mysql.sock' ); $dbh->disconnect();

Common Ant tasks for Mac OS X

2010-12-03T12:53:13Z

Did you ever run Apache Ant on a Mac?

If you have, then you probably found out that running Ant on a Mac just doesn’t work as expected.

Most common tasks like FTP and SCP are not available by default. And looking around on the internet, you are not the only one expecting these tasks to just work.

It seems that many resort to downloading and compiling Ant from scratch. After that they add the libraries to do common tasks like FTP and IF/THEN/ELSE structures.

But it’s just as easy as using the buildin Ant from Mac. You just have to add the necessary jar files
into the necessary directories and it will just work (hopefully :-).

To make life easier for you and me, I created a build file that installs the most common tasks for ant. Download the file and run ant against the anttasksformac.build:

ant -buildfile anttasksformac.build

Let me know if something is not working for you.

Update

When running the SCP task, it hangs. So I checked and there is a conflict in the jsch jar, so I replaced jsch with version 0.1.29 and everything seems to work.

Webstickies for Umbraco

2010-11-10T16:01:33Z

After attending the Umbraco Codegarden 09 Conference I decided to write my own plugin, which is now available on the new community website of Umbraco: Webstickies for Umbraco.

The package provides a toolbar to editors who are logged in to add sticky-notes to any page in a website. It provides a way to communicate about changes and remarks on a page.

As many other Umbracians, I have several bookmarks that help me debug Umbraco web-pages. I thought if I add them to this package, I will have them available at all time, no matter on which PC I am working. The toolbar has buttons to debug the page, and to provide the list of data available in the XML cache.

Credit where credit is due: please have a look at the service ProtoNotes, as the idea of the design for having notes or comments on the page is coming from that services. No code has been copied, but the interface is somehow based on the ProtoNotes service.

See how it works

Screencast showing how to install and use Webstickies for Umbraco

Try it

If you don’t know how to install a package, the community website has a small how to.

Files to download

Wayfinding

2009-07-12T19:14:36Z

Finding the way out, knowing where to go, is just a matter of having the right point of view.

Wayfinding system developer by Axel Peemoeller who has put more pictures online about this project in Melbourne