Mobile First?

One of the recent catch phrases in web development these days is “Mobile First”. The idea behind it is that since mobile now comprises the majority of web traffic, that’s what should get our most attention.

To many web designers, mobile first means “do a mobile layout first and then worry about the desktop experience later.” As a result, these designers give up the freedom that having a blank canvas affords. In other words, their designs look overly simplistic when viewed on a large device.

Should it take many screens of scrolling to find the information I need?

We fought for this

I started building websites professionally in 1996, when dial-up internet was the norm, and layouts were done using HTML tables. Once a page size exceeded 200KB, it was considered too large. We designed for 640 pixel wide screens at first, and if you happened to have 800 pixels on your CRT monitor you learned to live with condensed layouts.

Imagine my delight when CSS allowed designers to really work with the screen size instead of against it. Soon you could use fancy graphic backgrounds, custom graphic buttons, even rollover effects which didn’t require JavaScript programming.

Along the way bandwidth steadily increased. Nowadays a single homepage can easily exceed 10 MB and nobody complains. In the right hands, this can result in very beautiful experiences on the web.

The better way: User First

Websites are for people, not devices. If you remember that, a lot of the building blocks become easier to craft:

  • User interface isn’t just simple—it should be always organised to take advantage of the space available so the user can get more done, quicker.
  • Use less data if you can provide a comparable user experience. Compress your scripts. Lazy load your images. Choose the right image formats. Use an adaptive image compressor on your server to serve smaller images to mobile users.
  • Make it pretty and then simplify for mobile. People simply like to see graphics and the simple fact is that larger screens allow for more. Make sure it’s appropriate, but let your creative muscle get some exercise.

Web design is a craft, and it is communication. Embrace your end user and you will enjoy your job, and your users will enjoy what you produce.

Adobe: It’s not too late to learn from Coca-Cola

Edit: this article was written prior to Coca-Cola’s scandal in 2021 and is not an endorsement of everything the company does. Give credit where credit is due, I say.

Another year is gone now, as is “Adobe Flash Support”. People all over Twitter are reflecting on what they miss about Flash and I find it curious because the software still exists as Adobe Animate and it is still able to do everything Flash ever did, and more. Being the year end, I believe it’s time for another exercise in hindsight. I’ll spare you any year-related puns at this point.

As I reflect on all this I have come to an epiphany:

If Flash belonged to the Coca-Cola company it would be going strong today.

Remember New Coke? I would encourage you to review the story if you weren’t around in 1985. I see many parallels between that saga and the one of Adobe and Flash.

Like Coca-Cola experienced, Flash was in a big decline in its own world. Apple had disallowed the Flash plugin from their devices and there were a few “security issues” uncovered. Losing popularity, both companies felt it was time for a drastic change. Coca-Cola famously changed its formula. Adobe’s solution was to change the name of Flash IDE to Animate.

When “new Coke” came out, the brand was on everyone’s lips and they received a lot of negative publicity—just like Flash. What Coca-Cola remembered at that point is that Coke is not just a product. It is a brand which people loved. They wisely back-pedalled, and not only did they restore the old formula but they used it as a springboard for renewed marketing efforts and came roaring back more popular than ever.

Today, Flash is on everybody’s lips (in the web world at least) and Animate is just a verb that people can do with almost any software out there.

So will Adobe learn from its mistakes…

…or will they just let Animate continue as a discoloured droplet in the Creative Cloud?

It’s not too late to rebrand again. Flash was not just a product, it is a brand synonymous with creativity and fun on the web. Whether they call it “Flash Bang” or whatever, Adobe would do well to reconnect with that web nostalgia and bring back the Flash name. If all the old consoles can do it, they can too.

Finally a WordPress rant

I received an email today announcing the JetPack CRM (a plug-in for WordPress) and something finally snapped.

I’ve been holding this back for some time because I know of many good developers and clients out there who I love and respect, who are enthusiastic users of WordPress to the exclusion of all other CMS’s. I don’t want to offend anybody, but sometimes the truth needs to be told. So what’s the thing I’ve been wanting to say for so long?

WordPress is designed to be blog software and people who want a truly versatile web platform should look elsewhere. Word. Press. It is a press for words and it is way overused on the web. There, I said it.

Peek Under The Hood
(non-tech-heads feel free to skip this)

Log into WordPress and look at the top of the side menu. “Posts” is the top item (assuming you don’t have Jetpack installed). Get to know WordPress at a technical level and you eventually start to learn about an important feature called The Loop. What is the main function of it? To retrieve and display Posts. Yes, Pages are a good WordPress feature and essential to a basic website. However, look in the database and you discover that they are simply a special kind of Post. If you get into WordPress development you will likely have to learn about other Custom Post Types, because many plugins will piggyback on this system to store their own special data. The paradigm of handling posts is irreversibly embedded in WordPress and affects everything else that happens. Developers of plugins often have to piggyback on that system or replace it completely with their own application framework of choice.

Posts are ordered by date, and at the time of this writing you still have to install a special plugin simply to have the ability for custom ordering of posts. It seems strange that a “web platform” doesn’t provide this out of the box, doesn’t it? For a blog however, it makes sense.

Maybe I’m being melodramatic, because I am also going to say that no matter what system you use, you must understand its limitations and know that the more you add, the more cumbersome it will become to administer. If all you need is a simple information or marketing site with some news updates here and there, WordPress is fine and its Gutenberg editor and media manager are very good. Like an iPhone it will be easy to use and serve you well for many years. I have recommended it more than once, and I use it for this blog. On the other hand, like an iPhone rigged up to function as an audio recording studio you will soon wish for a better solution if you try to go much beyond what WordPress does out of the box.

Nicholas Dionysopoulos, a longtime developer of both WordPress and Joomla software, put it very well when he said, “Not every site fits in the watered-down, content creator-centric approach of WordPress.” He said it while extolling some of the virtues of the upcoming Joomla 4 release. I personally will often choose Joomla CMS to build websites. It simply does more out of the box and is actually easier than WordPress to administer, customise, and bend to your will when you know how. However I will also add that not even Joomla is perfect for every situation. It also can become unwieldy when not managed properly. There are plenty of other good solutions out there in the same way as there are diverse problems to be solved. The secret is choosing the solution wisely at first and try to future-proof your solution as much as possible. Here’s some tips on how to do that:

Don’t be afraid of a learning curve

Be willing to learn a different system even if you are more comfortable with another. You learned it once already and you can have fun doing it again!

Decouple if possible, but only if the connections are good

While there are useful plugins for WordPress or components for Joomla, I often recommend using external services for certain features. For example, Mailchimp is bullet-proof for mass mailings and integrates nicely with a lot of other services. There are very good CMS-only stores which let you customise completely, but external stores like Ecwid or Shopify can be better sometimes. They are easy to integrate with many different websites and can make it easier for you to integrate with other systems such as Wal-Mart or certain dropshipping providers. Furthermore if you need to change your website CMS later on you will not suffer from so many migration woes later.

Don’t be afraid of minor expenses

A small investment in the right tools now can help you avoid more headache and expense in the future. This might mean paying a small fee for a high-quality plugin, or a small monthly fee for an external service. An elderly co-worker of mine once advised me, “the quality will be remembered long after the price is forgotten”. This is true.

Don’t be afraid to bring in the pros

Sometimes you don’t have the time to learn about all this tech stuff. If you tap into the right professional you can sometimes save hours of time crafting a solution. I was reminded of this today when I phoned a draftsperson about a potential house improvement project. He rattled off point after point of useful ideas to consider. I left wishing he had billed me for the advice.

Be tough on your web developer

Whoever builds your website, ask them for the rationale behind their tech decisions. If they only do WordPress, chances are it’s because it’s all they know. If the website is bundled with a larger marketing program, don’t be afraid to inquire about using another contractor for the technical work.

Conclusion

Where was I going with all this? Oh yeah. Please don’t use WordPress as a CRM. You owe it to yourself.