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If a business has a number of branches or stores around the country, we'll often think of using Flash to show the spread of those stores and to link to store details. Now Flash can be good, but it can also irritate website visitors no end, so it's a good...
We have launched a new website for ECS - Energy and Combustion Services. We really like the border-less design on this site - if you pay attention to these things, you'll see that the blocks of content float over a background gradient, rather than sitting...
We held our Black Square end-of-year party a little early this year, as we were afraid if we left it too late the youngest member of our team might make an early appearance. Our supremely capable office manager, Clare, has now gone on maternity leave,...
Many of our clients seek ways to monetise their websites through sales of targeted and monitored advertising space. We developed an Advert Manager in response to this. The result is a powerful, simple-to-use, site-wide Advert Management System that provides...
Most of the time, we get asked for web design. This is fine – we do very nice web design – but describing the creation of a website as “web design” misses out some fundamental considerations that go into creating a successful website, such as online marketing...
Some websites need a search facility – on a complex site with lots of pages, it can be a quick and simple way for a user to find what they’re looking for. One of the best search facilities we’ve found is Google’s Custom Search facility. Simply put, it...
It's always great to go live with a new website - it's our stock in trade. We've launched a new site for Africa Ignite - www.africaignite.co.za. This client is very visual, and they work with crafters and designers very actively, so the site is really...
We've just completed a new website for Trellidor. [caption id="attachment_471" align="aligncenter" width="490" caption="This screenshot shows the updated branding on the Trellidor site - done in late 2010"] [/caption] The page above shows Trellidor's...
One of the big problems that search engines face when indexing pages is deciding which text on the page is important, and which is part of the menu, or part of an advert for something completely unrelated. The new HTML5 tags neatly compartmentalise the...
I wrote a post a while ago about adding search to your site, where I waxed lyrical about the benefits of using Google to provide these search functions. That still stands. Use Google if you can. Google does, however, have certain limitations. It requires...
I have been spending the last couple of days re-writing our lightbox script. Our original lightbox script simply opened the selected photo, and closed it again with a click. Since then, the script has been heavily modified with numerous hacks to add a...
This is a bit of a generalisation, but these five areas cover most of what is required to make any website successful: Step 1: Business Analysis The very first step is to decide what you need the website for. A website is a tool, and a tool does something....
We recently built a sliding image gallery for The Library. The technique is very simple in its most basic form, but can get exponentially more complicated as you add extra functionality. I’m not going to go into any of the complications, though. Today,...
Every now and again I am given suggestions about what to write in these blog posts, and one suggestion comes up frequently: “Why don’t you write about the stuff you did for SAHA”, they will say. I’ll usually respond with something like, “Well that’s quite...
Unfortunately, there is a reason not to use HTML5 tags – Internet Explorer 7. In the early days of browsers, Internet Explorer used a completely different way of laying out elements on a page (called the box-model) from the other, more standards-compliant...
In a previous post, we discussed the four main platforms of communication on the internet. The two on-site platforms are news and content. We have dealt with content in previous posts, and will do so in future posts as well (there’s a lot to say about...
Once your site has built up a reasonable body of content, it is usually a good idea to add a search function to the site, to make it easier for your visitors to find the information they need. This is, after all, the primary purpose of putting the information...
The internet is a network of multiple computers that communicate with each other. This network can be used for any number of purposes, from the World Wide Web and email, to authenticating software and games online. The languages used for this communication...
This is part three of our article on how to create a custom search engine for your website. Read Part 1, which deals with preparation and indexing, and Part 2, which deals with searching, first. Displaying the Results As with all things on a website,...
This is part two of our article on how to create a custom search engine for your website. Read Part 1, which deals with preparation and indexing, first. Searching MySQL offer two distinct types of full text searching: natural language searching and Boolean...
Today we’ll discuss one small issue to take into account when deciding how to use AJAX on your site. The issue revolves around usability – giving your visitors a positive user experience. Specifically, we’ll discuss the click response, which will sound...
Each of the browsers have their own quirks and irritating ‘features’, and today we’re going to discuss one of Internet Explorer’s contributions. The issue is that IE delays rendering layout changes until the entire javascript thread has completed. In...
It’s not really polite to answer a question with a question, but: how long is a piece of string? The size and complexity of your website will determine the cost, which can range from very cheap (eg: R5000) to extremely expensive (eg: R500000). So we can't...
We have been asked several times recently about website compatibility on iPhones and iPads. People have heard that this is the next big thing, and are anxious that their websites will work on these platforms. We've talked before on this blog about iPhone...
Writing for an online audience is not the same as writing an email to a friend or even a potential client. Online content also differs depending on the content platform you are writing for, as we’ve previously addressed. You can’t just run a spelling...
