ABQweb Blog (ABQweBlog?)

The computer revolution seems to have come to a fork in the road. On the one hand, we’ve got multiple screens and higher resolutions. On the other hand, we’ve got netbooks and smartphones. More often than not, both hands belong to the same person! What to do, what to do?

A long time ago in a galaxy far away (apologies to George Lucas), we had to worry about whether people were viewing web sites in VGA (640×480) or SVGA (800×600) resolution.  From there, it was a pretty straight line to high speed connections and high resolution displays.

Until recently.

Now, we are just as likely (more likely?) to view web sites using our smaller screens as we are to view them using our larger ones. As a web designer, this creates a major problem – do we build sites for high res screens and live with the results on small ones or do we build sites for low res screens and live with the results on big ones?

Yes.

Some take the first road, some the second, but very few travel on both.

I try to build sites that look acceptable on a wide variety of displays. I take my queues from my clients, but I also try to educate them on the positives and negatives of their choices. Usually, I think we reach a happy medium.

You can see it in most of the sites in my client gallery (www.abqweb.net/abq-gallery.htm). As you change the size of your browser window, the site automatically adjusts. Get really small and you may have to scroll left to right, but usually you won’t. Get really large and you may see wide margins, but you’ll probably just be able to view the page with less scrolling.

If you want your site to look good on netbooks and smartphones, use a short header so your visitors can see the opening text on your page. Use more words and less graphics so that each page loads more quickly. Don’t start audio and video clips automatically.

Of course, most of these techniques will also make your site look better to everyone who visits, whatever type of display they are using. And that’s the most important thing to remember – your goal should be to give your visitor the best experience possible.

Easy to say, hard to do, but worth the effort.

In a recent issue of the Albuquerque Journal, there was an article about a dispute between a web designer and a business over who owns the design and content of the web site that the designer created for the business. The court ruled that the site belonged to the DESIGNER absent any written contract stating otherwise.

While I’m a big fan of the legal process, I think they got this one wrong. As a designer, writer, programmer and PR professional, I think it’s simple – YOU pay ME, so it belongs to you.

Of course, if you DON’T pay me, you aren’t entitled to anything. Refuse to pay your hosting bill, your web site (and email) will disappear. Refuse to pay your web design bill, all your pages will be removed and replaced with a “coming soon” banner. Pay your bill, it all comes back.

So, to all my customers who have asked if we need to have a contract now, I say “relax…if you pay for it, you own it.”

The Journal article also talked about who should register and renew your domain name and implied that you have to be careful about shady web designers and hosting companies who register your domains under their names. While I admit that there are people and companies like that, this is my standard practice for a number of reasons:

1. For new domains, the annual domain registration fee is bundled with the hosting package and is provided at no extra charge.
2. Many customers don’t want to be bothered renewing their own domain names each year, and if they forget, it becomes my problem.
3. It is a lot easier to manage a large number of domains in a single account than to create a separate account for each hosting customer.
4. By managing the process for my customers, there is only one username/password to remember.

If my customers already have the domain registered and want to continue managing it themselves, that’s perfectly fine. And, I have NEVER refused to turn over a domain to my customer or another web designer or host if the account is current.

To be prudent, you may want to have a discussion with your web design and web hosting company and see where they stand on this issue. If you work with us, you already know where you stand. If you don’t and you’re not happy with the answers you receive, feel free to give us a call (or at least give somebody a call who will protect YOUR rights to your domain name and your web content).