Companies that work with computers in any way, usually get lumped in the IT category. There is such a wide range of companies under this banner, it is very confusing for both clients and companies alike.

Even asking for alternatives for “web designers” brought back a huge response. No wonder clients have such a hard time understanding who they need to be working with.

The responses:

• digitial firm
• digital creatives
• web creatives
• web firm
• dev agency
• web design agency
• creative agency
• web shop
• web services agency
• web design studio
• digital creative agency
• web design shop
• web studio
• creative studio
• digital branding agency
• boutique branding agency
• digital studio
• the IT guys
• graphic designers

Maybe we should just split it into the following:

• online or offline
• print or web
• hardware or software

Have you heard of other industries where there is as many legitimate (and widely used) names for the one branch of work? Let me know in the comments.

Even so, we recognize that we don’t (and can’t) know everything. Our web design and development focus is specific. In areas outside our expertise, we could always stand to learn and grow and we do every day.

This is where you come in. We’re going strong with connections here in Australia, and we’d like to reach out to our friends in the U.S. We’re looking for a few good web designers and developers to connect and share knowledge with. Okay, more than just a few – we’re looking for 50. One from each of the United States. We’d eventually like to connect with one (or several) designers and developers from every country, but we thought we’d start with one and work our way up from there.

Why are we doing this, you ask? Besides making international connections, we’d like to formulate a monthly “Ask The Experts” panel on Twitter. Once a month at a scheduled time, our panel will convene and discuss a given topic – everything from the latest Ruby gem to HTML5. Other Twitter users will be encouraged to come and hang out, learn, and contribute or “ask the experts” for advice. We’ll have our very own hashtag so the panel’s posts will be easy to locate.

We’re hoping it will be a great resource for both us and the web community.

So what do you say? Will you join us in building the Twitter panel to end all Twitter panels? A hashtag that means people actually increase their knowledge? And if you’re not a resident of the U.S., no worries. Remember, we’re aiming to connect to everywhere in the world eventually.

Express your interest in the comments, or on our Twitter.

From their website:

Formerly Port 80 Inc, the Australian Web Industry Association represents businesses, individuals and students involved in the web industry and aims to:

• Further the advancement of the web industry within Australia;
• Educate the general public about the role of professionals in the web industry;
• Foster greater ties with like-minded organisations.

The Committee

As Managing Director of The Frontier Group, I have nominated to be on the committee in one of the upcoming vacant positions.

As a reasonable size business in the industry it would be good to have a voice within the association and help craft the future of the web industry Australia wide. Paid AWIA members can vote at the AGM (as well as submit a proxy vote).

The 2010 nomination statements are on their website today. AGM details can be found here.

This question has been asked for nearly as long as web design companies have been in existence. If you spend 5 minutes doing some research on Google, you will find the answer lies somewhere in the vicinity of FREE to upwards of $100,000.

I’m not sure this helps with making an educated decision as a consumer.

Having met over 200 small business owners in the past few weeks as part of the Achieve More Online workshops, I’ve seen first-hand some extremely bizarre website pricing and fielded many a question about what an appropriate cost might be.

The extreme

Unfortunately, I came across a business (single operator, home-based) who had shelled out over $7,000 for a basic templated web site with 4 pages (Home, About, Photo Gallery, Contact) by a Perth web design company who shall remain nameless. They had also paid for a content management system (CMS) which they had not received. The site would have taken less than a day to put together.

On the contrary, there seems to be an expectation from the SME sector that a high quality website should be somewhere in the vicinity of $2,000 or less.

The price is right?

While I don’t think there’s an easy general answer to the title of this post, here at The Frontier Group we have our own reasons on why our websites are priced the way they are.

The breakdown of a typical small business website:

Research – This is the first stage in the project, where requirements and the purpose of the website are determined. A website needs a real business reason to exist, and we need to know what that is.

• The website needs to pass the what, why, how, what if? test. ie what/who the business is, why they should deal with you as opposed to a competitor, how you work, what the benefits are of using your product/service or alternatively, the downside of not using your product/service.

Content – This component is often overlooked or left until last. How can your website be effective in communicating to your customers without content? Just what content you want your website to have will determine how the site will be designed and structured. Knowing and planning for this upfront is key.

• Think about the problem/s you’re actually trying to solve with a website and how that might potentially need to look, do some research on competitors who have successfully achieved a similar outcome in your industry.

Accessibility – Now we’re moving towards the design phase, so it’s time to start thinking about accessibility. We’re committed to complying with the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 when it comes to developing a website for all. This makes sure online information and services are accessible by people with disabilities. We adhere to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, which covers a wide range of recommendations for making Web content more accessible.

• Most people designing their own website or using an online site builder will miss this step completely. On the other hand, there’s plenty of companies who will also leave it out, or fail to inform you about it due to price or ignorance.

Wireframing & Visual Design – At this stage in the project a designer may present wireframes of the concept ideas to develop an outline with the customer. Once a layout structure is agreed, they then develop the visual design of the website. At the completion of this stage images or “flats” are produced for each of the individual page types.

• If you’re after a unique business look and feel, don’t succumb to the temptation of a templated site. While this may reduce barrier to entry, chances are, there’s a hundred other sites out there that look identical to yours.

Prototyping – We produce a prototype website for our customers allowing them to view it in a web browser. This allows them to “click around” the site and get a better representation of how different effects or transitions will appear. At this stage, cross-browser testing and necessary website code validation occurs.

• Check that the site functions correctly and give it a thorough test. Select a handful of your best customers and give them the option to test it for you.

Deployment – The website is then deployed to a test server, so the customer can approve that the website has been produced to the required standard.

Hosting & CMS – Domain name, Email and Website hosting needs to be considered at this stage. Also licensing and setup of a CMS product for content management. For our customers a CMS is non-negotiable, as it enables the customer to make basic changes to their content on an on-going basis. This negates the need to contact us and pay for changes.

• Watch out here for vendor lock-in. If you want to pick up your site and change hosting company or web designer, can you do so?

Other Considerations – You might think that the website is now complete, but a website needs constant revision and updating to remain relevant. Other options at this stage involve setup of specific analytical tools, search engine optimisation techniques, email marketing tools and maybe a complete online strategy.

The answer

Armed with all this information, how much would you now pay?

You should be able to make an informed decision as a consumer that you are indeed getting what you paid for. If you’ve got a specific budget in mind, you need to appreciate and understand what that will get you from a reputable company. The value of the website to your business is the single most important point to remember.

Finally, I’ve included a guide to fairly common pricing structures by companies who follow this similar process for small business websites:

• $0-$3,000 – Simple templated design or inexperienced student or freelancer.
• $7,000-$15,000 – Small business website with a unique business look. Reputable company/freelancer.
• $20,000+ – Custom website with unique requirements. Usually requires a large amount of additional programming.

I’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments below, as a customer or web design company dealing in this area.

Ask yourself a question – does your business rely on a website with maximum uptime?

• If you pay between $2 and $4 per month for web hosting, you probably should expect serious regular downtime.
• If you will lose thousands of dollars of business when your website or email goes down, think about finding a provider who offers a commercial grade hosting package with a fair price attached.
• Take uptime guarantees with a grain of salt. Do some online research and see what other companies/customers are saying about their experiences.

I feel for Crazy Domains. It’s a tough situation and they are going to be under fire for this for a long time. All it’s highlighted to me is that there is a big lack of education in the hosting and web space and that needs to change.

Update: Netregistry voiced a similar opinion

Global Companies are increasingly employing Agile development techniques to gain an advantage. It seems so obvious – increase the collaboration between different experts on the project and you will deliver results quicker and at a lower cost. But is it really that easy?

Hear from our first class panel of experts who will share the high’s and low’s of their experience in adopting Agile.

I’m looking forward to sharing the stage with the presenters (download the full brochure – Agile Development – Myth or Magic?):

Nigel Dalton – Lonely Planet
David Joyce – Thoughtworks
Mike Allen – Agile Alliance
John Townsend – NOPSA
Adam Fitzgerald – The Frontier Group
Dr Ashley Aitken – Curtin University
Angela Ferguson – Thoughtworks

After a few discussions with the Brisbane Agile Academy, we’ve decided to start a second meetup group. Our organisation has a strong focus on Agile methodologies and we’re really interested in sharing and developing this knowledge with the local community. You don’t even have to be a developer for this one! Agile techniques appeal to a range of professionals, companies and roles. If you’re interested we’re looking to run our first session in a few months time, once we’ve generated some noise.

Dwayne Read from Strategic Systems is the co-organiser for this group, an Agile coach with over 15 years applied Agile development experience (20 years software development experience). He will also facilitate our first meetup with the following interactive session:

Come to the inaugural Perth Agile Meetup to participate in an Agile ‘Release Planning’ session and two ‘Sprints’. You are the Customer/Product Owner (or one of anyway) and the project objective is to ‘discuss the agile techniques of interest’. We will run a JAD session to list the techniques/features, prioritise and then discuss/exemplify two Sprints worth (albeit timeboxed to 1 hr in total – now there’s a tight delivery schedule!).

Show your interest by signing up (for free) at the official Meetup page, and when the first date is announced, you’ll be notified and can RSVP. Head there now!

Of course you can always follow us on Twitter to find out any updates.

Want to learn more about Agile? Check out the Agile Academy website.

The instant it was announced, the concept of jumping on the nearest spaceship and leaving this planet behind was not far from my mind. I mean, who doesn’t love a good argument on the Internet right? But the sheer magnitude of negativity and lack of foresight was astounding. I guess there was a lot of disappointed people who expected the iPad to be something that it was never intended to be, but are we really living in an “all about me” society? More importantly, is that where we want to be?

I would never expect everyone to like such a device and nearly everyone I talk to that doesn’t use an Apple product, hates Apple products. I used to be one of those people too. I grew up with MS-DOS, Windows 2, 3, 95, 98, 2000, XP, then shifted to Linux for the next few years. Maybe a solid Apple product came along at the right time for me, just as all the other competitors were struggling. They’ve since moved on and regained their following again, but I’ll most likely continue down the path which has seen me the most productive in business and life.

But back to my original point. I spent 10 minutes thinking about potential uses for the iPad that I hadn’t seen mentioned anywhere, and it wasn’t hard to come up with some amazing out of the box solutions. I contemplated writing a post, to join the other millions of bloggers out there but I held back for a while. Eventually Venessa Miemis wrote exactly what I was thinking, but she’s done the hard work citing resources and everything!

If you have a spare ten minutes it’s definitely worth a read, regardless of how you feel about the device. It may turn out to be a game-changer or it may disappear into insignificance 12 months after it launches. But if like me, people want to read some objectivity on a topic, then this is for you.

iPad: Overhyped Flop or a case of Great Design Thinking?

Sortfolio (the website formerly known as Haystack), is a website where web design firms (and freelancers) can provide the necessary information about their business to a potential client. Instant information such as location, price and style of work are easily found. Sortfolio makes it easy for a potential client to browse multiple web designers all at once and make an informed choice.

Whether this concept will prove to be effective long term is still an unknown. Certainly for companies in Australia it seems to be less effective at the moment. I would imagine that potential customers in Australia probably aren’t using this sort of website or directory, like our American counterparts would be.

We’ve had our free listing on there since the site launched in October and have had no enquiries in that time. Potentially the 11 hits to our website from Haystack last year were all internal.

The paid plan experiment

Sortfolio offers a paid plan for $99 per month. You have access to 6 thumbnails instead of 1, and a larger listing card. Given that there can be a large number of people competing for ad space, this can prove to be effective from a theoretical point of view. You can see the immediate benefit on the Perth-Australia page.

This benefit is less apparent when the search is refined, however there still is an advantage to being a large listing card.

Recently 37 Signals announced another benefit for paid listings. They purchased a slot on The Deck Network for Sortfolio. That gives somewhere between 2,500,000 and 3,000,000 ad impressions in a 30 day period. They used to run a static ad in that spot, but now are splitting the ad display 25% static and 75% dynamic. The dynamic ads feature the Sortfolio Pro customers. About 140 companies have Pro listings and the ad is a combination of a crop of the thumbnail as well as linking to the Sortfolio listing.

This means we will also get roughly 15,000 highlighted ad impressions across The Deck Network. This means exposure to sites such as Daring Fireball, A List Apart, 43 Folders, Kottke.org, The Morning News, Ze Frank, Twitteriffic (in app), Tweetie (in app) & Design Observer.

It will be interesting to see over the next 2 months whether this proves to be effective for an Australian company, as well as it seems to be for our US counterparts. You can check out our full listing on Sortfolio and if you are an Australian company (or freelancer) who has had success with Sortfolio, please leave a comment.

The JRuby project has been growing impressively quickly, with frequent releases and a constantly expanding community. There’s a hefty list of impressive users and companies, and the team has been touring the world, trying their best to make it out to everyone who wants to hear and learn about the project.

As with any growing code base though, there’s a need to keep things tidy; frequent releases and speedy development also mean bugs, and things that need fixing—and that’s where we turn to you!

The first ever official JRuby BugMash will take place this Saturday, January 9th through Tuesday, January 12th. The core team will spend the days prior to the BugMash highlighting the specific bugs that are most important—you’ll want to keep an eye out for the JRuby Introsection, which will one of the focuses of the BugMash. Also look in spec/tags for failing RubySpecs for JRuby’s 1.8 and 1.9 compatibility modes. There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit (especially in 1.9) for both new and experienced developers. Then, Saturday morning, it’s off to the races! As a small token of our appreciation, in addition to the wonderful satisfaction of having made a difference to the project, we’ll be sending each of the first 100 participants a limited edition JRubyConf Poster.

The JRuby Core Team will be around on IRC channel #jruby throughout the BugMash to help folks get started and to answer questions. Be sure to stop in and say hello!

There’s also a great post on the good and bad of JRuby over at the Engine Yard blog.