Contract Furnishings' new homepage

I’ve finished redesigning a pair of websites for Valley Stationers Ltd, and its furniture division, Contract Furnishings.  Valley Stationers is a well-established, family-owned business operating since 1962.

The previous versions of the websites made extensive use of Flash and JavaScript. Some of their biggest customers, who operate behind a security wall that bans JavaScript, could not use the site or see any the links.  And neither site was getting much traffic.  Search engine robots cannot navigate JavaScript links either.

It is easy to forget that many people working in institutional environments do not have the latest in computer equipment. Some are stuck with older operating systems, obsolete browsers, and high levels of security. Reasons may include:

• organizational dependence on an intranet that was built to work with older software and hardware;
• the cost of upgrading a large network all at once;
• internet security concerns because of sensitive data on the network;
• to keep employees off Facebook;
• “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” attitude – even when it isn’t working well for some employees.

Fortunately, cool graphics and interactivity are not exclusive to Flash and JavaScript.  HTML and CSS can provide interactivity and wow factor with faster download times, and better accessibility to search engines, to the visually impaired and others.

What is your experience?  Have you worked in an environment with old computer equipment and systems?  What factors prevented management from upgrading?

Arlington Timber Frame Company

One of my oldest web sites is for Arlington Frame Company of Canning, NS.  It has been a pleasure, and very encouraging through the years, to have provided an essential component of this business’s operations.  We have learned and grown together.

The website drives the business.  It’s not an e-commerce site – it can’t be, because the product is not something you can pop in a shopping cart and sell online.  We’re talking houses.  Dream homes, usually, or retirement homes, which clients research and plan for years before buying.

Since the decline of dial-up modems, Forrest Rand, the owner, frequently finds himself on the phone with prospective clients on the phone, pointing out features and examples on the website.  So he knows what works and what’s awkward, what is hard for clients to find on the page and what appeals to them.  This kind of usability feedback is a web designer’s dream.

The multi-level menu has a picture of each timber frame in the portfolio. Click on image above to go to old gallery page, now reinstated.

Having recently redesigned Arlington’s sister web site, Timberframe Houseplans Ltd., I used the same menu structure for the new Arlington design.  However, Forrest found that the new structure confuses people who were used to the old “gallery” format.  So I’ve had to reinstate the old gallery page for the long-term lurkers, while offering the new menu for the newcomers.  In time, hopefully, there will be fewer complaints, but the prospects who have been hanging around for a while are the ones who will bring in the business for the next couple of years, so we can’t afford to alienate them!

Those of us who spend a lot of time on the internet and are accustomed to constant change easily underestimate how confusing it can be to others.  When you have learned to find your way around a website, it can be very confusing and frustrating if things change on you.  The older you are, the more this is the case.  And people building custom houses are older, on average, than people building websites!

It’s something we see on Facebook all the time; whenever Facebook institutes a design or functional change, some people complain long and loud. Facebook is very personal in nature, and is therefore highly vulnerable to such dissatisfaction. I think Google manages its perennially-increasing functionality well, maintaining the same simple, straightforward design while adding simple links that open up new vistas of possibility for the rest of us.

ISF logo

The International Symposium on Fireworks is held once every year or two. Fred Wade, of Nova Scotia’s Fireworks FX Inc., and a leading “light” in pyrotechnics, organizes the event and asked for a redesign of the Symposium’s website.

I don’t often work on a black background because it’s a bit harder to read, but for a fireworks theme it makes total sense. Choosing the colour scheme was fun. For readability, I like the gold text – I find it easy on the eyes. Colour-coding the menu helps people find what they’re looking for.

For the slideshows of past Symposia, I used a PHP script by Greg Lawler that I’ve employed in a number of other sites, including the Nova Scotia Photo Album, except that this time there were so many photos in each slideshow (up to 240) that the thumbnails (1) needed to appear, so that people could find the pictures they wanted to see, but (2) needed to NOT be on the same page as the slideshow, or they would slow it down too much.

I’m not a PHP programmer, but I figured it out, and am pleased with the results (and with myself!). The thumbnails appear on a second page, and when you click on one, it links you back to the first page with the slideshow. See these Mexican fireworks for an example. Oh, and if you ever go to Mexico, take in some fireworks if you can.

The LaHave, from Timberframe House Plans

Visitors with screen resolution of 800×600 pixels, the smallest resolution commonly in use, is now just 2% for this site, down by half from this time last year. So it’s time to widen the display to the next level, 995 pixels, to accommodate the next widest common resolution of 1024×768. (The difference between 1024 and 995 is necessary to accommodate the scrollbar.) Yippee! This makes a web designer’s heart glad. It has been many years since we were able to move up from 580 pixels wide (for 640×480) to 770 pixels or so (for 800×600), when the 640×480 resolution dwindled to insignificance. More real estate.

Based on my client’s feedback, I’ve added a new multi-level menu to the site, which allows users to see a picture and some information about a houseplan before going to the plan’s page. The new menu eliminates the need for a page listing all the plans, which made finding your way through the site a bit confusing.

The new multi-level menu puts all the site’s navigation “above the fold”, where it’s easier to find without scrolling, and shortens the number of menu items in a row that the user has to find their way through. It has been found that more than 7 items in a row, in the same format on a menu, make many people’s heads swim – they have trouble finding what they might be looking for. I’m not underestimating people’s intelligence, but I’m learning not to overestimate the prevalence of dyslexia, Irlen’s Syndrome, and other causes of reading difficulty.

My client has another site, Arlington Frame Company, which builds timberframes, and people easily get confused by the relationship between the two sites. So we plan to make that clearer as we redesign them. For now, a new big button in the header leads people to the Arlington site.

I welcome your feedback as I work through this project with the goal of increasing sales of timber frame house plans for my client.