A law that I abide by in my everyday life, including web standards. I have been learning (sometimes the hard way) the balance between good ethics in web design and user navigation.

When I am in my creativity and brainstorm mode, sometimes I realize some web designers (including myself at times) reinvent the wheel when it comes to the ease of use to the end user.

Ajax and scriptaculous provide fun and powerful scripts that enhance a pages simplicity, but if used incorrectly the end user can easily get frustrated and leave. This can make or break a internet ecommerce business model.

There in lies the battle between developers and designers. Two different mindsets. The designer, usually visualizes the way the site will encapsulate the features, how it would be laid out, and visualizes the tree of links. The developer, makes the features happen, but often does not know what is the best to represent visually to the end user. Just because a design looks aesthetically better, doesn’t always make it simpler.

For example, I have done work in the past with an online lapel pin company that creates sports trading pins and corporate identity promotional items (aka schwag).

Click heatmap in a 24 hour period using CrazyEgg.

On the left you see the first web page design, showcasing the product and making the links to the objects visually appealing and pretty. On the right, a simple wordpress SEO optimized theme with easy left hand navigation.

FIGHT – Which one wins?!

Well, pretty obvious. Overnight, when we switched from #1 to #2, we saw a dramatic increase in sales.

Major flaws include:

1) Lack of navigation on the top half of page. Also, navigation must be clear and consistent from page to page. It seems like a no brainer, but many designers ignore this key fact.

2) First one had many false clicks; users were not clicking on correct links. As the second, people had a much better understanding of where and where not to click.

3) The first had too many unnecessarily large elements (icons and images) and wasted space making it somewhat complicated for navigation.

As a designer, I learned a lot that day… I thought that the first one would be more appealing to have the main product showcased and representing a visual for each of the categories in such a way. In some sense it is, but it doesn’t matter, it all comes down to usability and the end user, Google’s #1 Philosophy.

Also, both developers and designers should build their site around the intended target audience before pencil hits paper. The audience for this site is mostly middle age moms, coaches and business employees. If it were more of a tech crowd, it often gives a little more flexibility for the designer to push the boundaries of age old web customs with navigation, page elements, etc.

Bust most importantly, it is about finding the balance between creative designing and user comfort. If you want to make sure that a website can be easily accessed and navigated, don’t be afraid to beta test someone in real life and ask what they think. The results might shock you, since no two people surf the internet the same way. There is no tool that measures this except user input and the powers of trial and error.

Photos Curtsy of Planet Argon

I recently submitted my business plan and beta models to Y Combinator.

“Y Combinator does seed funding for startups. Seed funding is the earliest stage of venture funding. It pays your expenses while you’re getting started.

At Y Combinator, our goal is to get you through the first phase. This usually means: get you to the point where you’ve built something impressive enough to raise money on a larger scale. Then we introduce you to later stage investors—and in some cases even acquires.”

They accept applications twice a year. Current businesses include: Reddit, Infogami, Kiko, Loopt, ClickFacts, TextPayMe, Snipshot, Inkling, Flagr, Wufoo, YouOS, PollGround, LikeBetter, Thinkature, JamGlue, Shoutfit, Scribd, Weebly, Virtualmin, Buxfer, Octopart, Heysan, Justin.TV, I’m In Like With You, WriteWith, SocialMoth, Xobni, SlapVid, Versionate, Adpinion, Anywhere.FM, and Fuzzwich.

For my case, they “were very reluctant to accept proposals with only one founder, because we think starting a startup is too much work for one person.” They obviously don’t know who I am.

Great company with great innovative startups. I wish them much success. I also hope to submit again to get as much help starting up my company. Of course they are not the only ones, but it was great to see that they were very specialized in mostly new media and social networking sites. With the amount of talent, expertise and investors rotating around the company it can only help.

One valuable piece of information I gathered was their application forum. Similar to my entrepreneurship club pitch forum, there are several key questions that make sense to think about carefully before entering development. For example, “What’s new about what you’re doing?”, “What are people forced to do now because what you plan to make doesn’t exist yet?”, “Why would your project be hard for someone else to duplicate?”, “How will you make money?”, and more.

These are very important questions to master when explaining your business idea. I notice I get so caught up in my ideas that by answering these questions lay out the basic blueprint for anyone to clearly understand what and where you want to go with the idea. The heart of most business models are the same, it is more important to think about why you want to create a business and solve a problem rather than going into detail about what you are creating. It creates a bigger picture.

For some cases, I do not believe all companies need a formal business plan. Some people can see a void that needs filled and can spend very little money developing it and launching it. Similar to Kevin Rose and Digg.com. But, in order to take the web startup to the next level and start asking investors for help, obviously they need to show a solid business model, competitive analysis, estimated income and growth, etc.

This Thursday, I will be heading out to Chicago for the National Collegiate Entrepreneurship Organization. I attended last year, and had a blast. I met a lot of big industry leaders one on one, including the founders of Quill (later sold to Staples), Invisio, iRobot’s Roomba, Jimmy Johns, and more. I also want to meet Ryan Allis, who is a big inspiration, he is a 23-year-old tech entrepreneur and author that started a very successful company now grossing $8 million in sales. There are also several workshops focused on web startups. Plus, I petitioned a bill to our school so we get everything paid for! I’ll be reporting back from the conference, stay tuned!

Thanks to friend and film geek Jason for making the video posted of the event.

“On Sunday the 23rd, code-crunchers, web developers, hackers and designers came together to put on the first biannual BarCamp Orlando. Later in the week, on Friday the 28th, social-media-gurus, PR analysts, business consultants, Twitterers, WordPress fiends, videobloggers and everyone in between came together for the second annual blogOrlando.

BarCamp is an unconference where the talks are determined the day of, and the event is held at a local venue, as opposed to a large, structured facility. There are several contingents around the globe, and this was Orlando’s first. The man behind the event, Florida-local Gregg Pollack, explains the idea in a great instructional video shot and edited by another local, Jason Hawkins, who, by the way, is an awesome, fellow film fanatic. Jason and Gregg are also the team behind the famous Rails Envy Ads. Attendees include Alex Rudloff, cofounder of Emurse.com, creator of Twitterholic, and a software engineer of AOL.com. Also sat next to Mark Jaquith, one of the lead developers of WordPress, the blogging platform this site’s run on.

blogOrlando, on the other hand was a semi-unconference (how else would you get national participants if the scheduled sessions were unknown?) spearheaded by Josh Hallett, of hyku. The event was geared to strike up discussions about social media, journalism, personal and professional online identities, blogging practices, videoblogging, podcasting, marketing, design, web standards and search engine optimization and, boy, did it. The event was attended by some very smart people (the keynote speaker was Shel Israel, coauthor to Robert Scoble, of Naked Conversations) and subsequently initiated some very intriguing conversations about all of the aforementioned topics related to social media.”

Thanks to William Couch, read more.

“[At blogOrlando], one of the last conferences I participated in was a lively one. Led by Lish Dorset, a blogger who runs HandMadeDetroit, the discussion was over the separation of our internet lives from our real lives. And if you do so. And should you do so. And if so, how?

The discussion ended up being a bit of free-for-all with opinions ranging from “be real online all the time, even if it hurts you sometimes in the real world” (kind of my position too), to “have two totally distinct personas and never the two shall meet”. It’s a huge topic these days. Some great folks contributed to the conversation. William Couch and Etan Horowitz, both from the Orlando Sentinel, obviously have to deal with this in their jobs working for a public entity like a newspaper, but at the same time, being a real people with thoughts and ideas that may or may not complement those of the Sentinel or its readers. Very challenging.

JoeyPrimiani, a web designer and blogger, had some very keen insights as well. One lady, Nichole, worked for a PR firm by day, but runs an interesting blog that may not be to the tastes of some her firm’s clients. How do you wrestle with that? Do you give up blogging and have no online presence? Well, obviously, no one at this conference was suggesting that, but many people in the world do make that choice. Is it the right choice? Are they just being paranoid? Or are they stifling their own inner-writer/creative persona in favor of an employer’s legalistic policies? Good questions all, and a great discussion.”

Read more from Lawrence Salberg.

I also met and talked to “one of the most evil people in Silicon Valley” by Michael Arrington, Ted Murphy – CEO of PayPerPost and star of RockStartup. Whether or not if you agree with the business model, they are successful raising millions from venture capital.

Overall, amazing events. Check out more pictures from BarCamp Orlando and blogOrlando. I look forward to more in the near future! Stay posted!

BarCampOrlando is a bi-yearly event to bring together people from different technical backgrounds to share and learn from each other. There will be people who know Java, .NET, Ruby, PHP, and other technologies coming together for a free all day event.

When? September 23

Where? Taste 717 W Smith St., Orlando

Very excited to meet all the web kid locals! If your in the area, register today and come join in on the fun.

Logo design done by fellow Web Designer/Friend IHeartThe.com

[UPDATE] – Watch my video on tv here.

The purpose of this group will be primarily focused around web development, though should be open to technology and design discussions outside of our specific area as well.

A small list of topics could include, web standards, cross browser development, HTML/XHTML, Dynamic languages [asp, .NET, php, CFM, jsp, Ruby, etc...], rapid web application development, web applications and database interaction, code optimization, AJAX (What is it, why and where to use it and how not to abuse it), Web Toolkits (prototype, dojo, gwt [google web toolkit]), development tools [notepad, dreamweaver, etc], managing web projects, and many, many others contributed by all of you.

This group should be open for everyone from beginners to advanced developers. The aim is not to take away from the Orlando Web Design meetup group but rather to have a group specifically for web development, programming and applications. So come join, start networking, learn more than in a classroom and lets do this!

When? 7pm, August 23

Where? Stadust Video & Coffee

Thanks to Tangent – Digital Media Student – University of Central Florida

Digital Media Principles

This class seems like a lot of fun! The professor already mentioned Web 2.0 technologies and elaborated more about the way Digital Media and how social networks are evolving, covering some of the basics. Ex: Second Life, DMCA, WOW, Creative Commons, Intellectual Property, Quantum Computing, Google, etc. Projects will be a majority of the class and I plan to use some of my ideas I have been working on already to count towards this class.

Computers as a Medium

Another projected oriented class that will focus on having teams of web experts, 3D Animators, graphic artists, software developers, etc. These teams will share, communicate and critic ideas and focus on promoting brand and image. Also, the professor gave out his Second Life name on the syllabus

Theater Survey Elective

This is the quintessential college professor who pushes you to think outside the box and push the limits of normality. Something I am all about. Behind this wacky professor lies a quality that is very engaging and interesting.

He stresses to stay entertaining and innovative you must never stop questioning realty. As said by Aristotle, it is all about convention and testing expectations to plant bold images in peoples minds and get them thinking differently about the world around them. He wants us to apply this ideology to our lives. And did I mention, he breathed fire in front of the class the first day?

Calculus II

Pretty straight forward stuff. Probably one of my hardest classes, but great teacher!

Computer Science I

From the teachers definition it is a mix between “Computer and Science” It will consist of creating and implementing algorithms, binary trees, heaps, sorting, searching, recursion and more in C. The professor, a grad student getting his PHd, is hilarious and reminds me of maddox, so he is basically 133t.

As I walked into the valley of unkempt level 70’s, I predicted correctly that someone was going to make fun of me for using a mac. I didn’t know there were any Windows fanboys left… ah, their loss!

Overall Thoughts

I would say I lucked out on profs this semester. I am looking to work in some of my web projects and ideas into the classes so I can kill two birds with one stone. I am very excited to be back in school, looks like it is going to be a great semester. Good luck to everyone!

The company, the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) are also charge of the popular magazines – Photoshop User, Layers Magazine, and a the publishers of a few other Adobe and Apple products. Also, they are behind the annual Photoshop World conference.

Take a look at the Flickr Set of some of the pictures I took inside the studio set and offices.

User-agent: *
Disallow:

This is telling Google to spider all and disallow nothing on my server. It tells Google’s web robots and other search engines what part of the website or all should be publicly viewable.

The Google Webmasters tool was the first time I really became aware of the file. Google provides webmasters a handy basic and beta tools to help web developers get the most out of their SEO keywords and help websites spider effectively.

By not using this file, it will show up on the webmasters tool as a “404 page”. Google obviously uses complex algorithms to find the links itself, but this is the ultimate tool to direct the search giant where to go.

But the real question when I called Google was I wanted to make sure that it was safe to do this with wordpress activated websites. Now there is a lot of controversy of the best way it should be done.

It is OK with to show all with a Wordpress installation. Sensitive files and passwords are stored on the actual database and should not be stored on the server. So it is ok to display the whole root server, unless you have information you don’t want to be displayed.

For example, this is the reason why your Facebook profile doesn’t spider in Google (from Facebook Robots.txt File):

User-agent: *
Disallow: /profile.php
Disallow: /album.php
Disallow: /photo.php
Disallow: /p.php
Disallow: /feeds/

You can also check out any website robots.txt file by going to http://rootdirectory.com/robots.txt.

There are several other variables that can be optionally included, you can take a look at them here. If you are concerned about organizing your content and making sure Google doesn’t pick up irrelevant information using Wordpress, here is a great video that describes what you can do.

I decided not to write under a facade website name for the single reason that I want my work to show who I am. Matt Brett wrote a great article a while back to freelancers and entrepreneurs describing the positives of combining your life and your career on a website. It is a great way to network with fellow tech enthusiasts and web entrepreneurs.

Check out my updated about/porfolio/press pages. This year will be packed full of exciting new ventures for me, and I want to get as much input as I can. So keep posted for all the latest details!

PS – Thanks for all my new friend requests on my list of social networks. Feel free to add me