The User Interface for the new Wordpress deserves to be noticed, not because it is good, which it might turn out to be, but because it is done-up by the people behind Happy Cog, a user-interface-design firm.
Wordpress has certainly come a long way, and the massive popularity of this blogging platform owes its credit not to the fact that it is opensource, but to the fact that it is so darn good-to-go and intuitive!
It plays nice with the search engines, the adminitration side was already well above average (even before being done up in the new 2.5 version), the themes that were available were so well thought out and well documented that learning web development itself became a charm!
I always have had a leaning towards ‘legally free’ software, and this platform has been my ‘weapon of choice’ to give to Treetech’s website clients. We actually write a theme for Wordpress, make some (a lot, in fact) tweaks with the WP core, and viola; search engine friendly and functionally sound website is ready!
Filed under: News — M Khan @ 2:56 pm on March 30, 2008
I did a post eons ago, it seems.
That post was well received.
While moving servers, that I did, again it seems, eons ago, the comments to that post were stuck in the middle. Thanks to God, the comments (which really are the heart of any website journal or blog) were only stuck and not lost.
Finally, I found the time (it’s Sunday today, please! ), to actually port the comments from my backup database to this website. It took a good one hour of my time, going to phpMyAdmin to access the “backed-up” SQL dbase
and then porting them to wordpress, comment by comment. Then moderating the comments’ timestamps (thank you Wordpress!) to get the chronology of the comments in order.
Finally, the post is ‘back in business’. If you do feel inclined, check it out here.
Thank you all who have commented and made that post a good discussion on Marketing and the Internet.
Unfortunately, it has not been done up properly. In fact, it has not been done up at all!
A lot of the website visitors are going to the website packages, only to be perhaps see just one ‘package’ (where the offering is so vauge that it may make your head hurt).
This has happened to others as well; paying attention to others’ websites will make you neglect your own. And this will go against practically everything that you preach.
The user experience needs to be improved. God willing. Here we go…
The primary job of design is to ‘disperse’ your attention in predetermined ways.
If you want your customers to click on ‘buy now’, the design should, in one way or the other, work towards that. Many-a-times, a design will take all the attention with the content being pushed in the background.
And by design, I am not referring to graphic design only but also information design. The following video of people missing out on your message should emphasize the importance of establishing the focus and then working towards it.
The sheer penetration and availability of the Internet can pose some interesting challenges in the realm of design.
Imagine an information kiosk in a village somewhere near the small city of, say, Pakpattan (in the province of Punjab, Pakistan). Now, assume that someone who actually knew what he was doing designed and developed the kiosk and it is ‘live’ and updates itself using the Internet etc etc. And the kiosk provides information regarding agriculture. Brilliant. People just walk up, click on, say, pesticides, and see its application methods with regards to different crops. Or click on crops and see different methods of fertilizer applications, pesticide and water use etc. All good. But what if you were to design such a system?
Recently, Treetech launched the Property Standard website and I ensured that basic SEO techniques were followed. The beauty of sticking to basics is that things get done and one is not confused or preoccupied or distracted by little fluctuations. For example, basic SEO is all about writing website copy with the audience in mind, and not the Search Engines. Many ‘SEO experts’, especially here in Pakistan, will cram their websites with their targeted keywords in an attempt to get their clients’ websites onto the first page of Google search results. This produces results in terms of ‘getting on the first page’, but that is not the desired result. One wants his or her company/business to be on any search engine’s first page because as more people see the results, they have a chance of converting to users by actually visiting the links. The real ‘game’, if you may, actually starts when a user is at your website. Getting users to your website is a challenge, yes it is, but if your user finds the website too crammed, boring or useless then the user will never be converted to a client.
Now, coming back to the Property Standard website; they are in the business of advertising properties from across Lahore to prospective buyers. Just see the following image of what Google did to their website because Treetech just followed basic SEO techniques:
Lahore Metblogs, for those who do not know, is a blog centered around the no-doubt glorious city of Lahore. LMB (as it is lovingly called) is a tiny part of the Metroblogging network of city blogs for pretty much every major city around the world (not to mention the not-so-major cities as well that play an important role, I think, in giving Metblogs its massive and across-the-board appeal). I personally am a blogger there and have been with LMB for quite some time now. This is the second time LMB’s ‘parent’ company - Metroblogging - has changed the design of their city blogs.
One of our clients is a Engineering Consultant, working from the heart of industry in Lahore; Kot Lakhpat. After intense draft reviews, his website is finally taking shape and looks good. (The website is actually a wordpress theme developed in house, which after heavy changes, will be released here… but more on that later). The website is currently in its final stages and will soon be made live at http://team.com.pk.
Another client is in the business of cars. Based in Japan, Aichi Motors exports cars of all types and sizes. Although their website draft is constantly getting delayed for reasons beyond the control of the client, the overall service delivered includes some great use of Google Apps for business. With a members’ section to match, I wish I had this website for my own use when I imported a car from Japan a year or so ago.
Wordpress has certainly come a long way, and the massive popularity of this blogging platform owes its credit not to the fact that it is opensource, but to the fact that it is so darn good-to-go and intuitive!
), to actually port the comments from my backup database to this website. It took a good one hour of my time, going to phpMyAdmin to access the “backed-up” SQL dbase
The page has been there for some time now.
