99,5% of Portuguese companies don’t take the Web seriously. And what’s worse for them, they don’t take their custumers seriously. What happens? They WILL lose costumers. Many a company has lost me as a client, and I don’t think I am the only one, although I think many of my country mates complain but seldom do anything about it.
Please don’t see a website as a huge online brochure. If it’s online, people will see it, and try to interact with it. But you see, interaction is a two way street. If you frustrate my expectations, you will have a dissatisfied customer… uh and I can tell you, he will have more impact than 10 happy ones. They will learn, it will take some years. And I will be watching, most certainly from abroad.
Archive for June, 2005
99,5% of Portuguese companies don’t take the Web seriously
Tuesday, June 21st, 2005Can anyone help? bilingual site
Friday, June 17th, 2005Some time ago I wrote a post called “I am bi…lingual. Am I?“.
It is about my need to post both in English and Portuguese. I really don’t want to have to decide on only one language. So I have to find a good solution. Most of my colleagues’ sites opt for English only, for obvious reasons. Are there any examples of bilingual sites?
[PT] Há algum tempo, escrevi um post chamado “I am bi…lingual. Am I?“. Falava sobre a minha necessidade de escrever aqui no site em Inglês, mas também em Português. Não quero ter de decidir apenas por uma lingua. Por isso, quero encontrar uma boa solução. A maior parte dos meus colegas optam pela lingua inglesa nos seus sites, por razões óbvias. Conhecem alguns exemplos de sites bilingues?
Site slowly changing
Friday, June 17th, 2005After moving to WordPress some time ago, there is a lot done, and still a lot to be done.
- My site was static, almost hand-coded (geek!!). Actually, it was a great way to learn some XHTML and CSS, while I built it. I started moving the content to WP, but there is a huge amount of posts, some over 3 years old. I will eventually have it all in one place.
- The picture galleries have moved to flickr. I upgraded to the pro version, and have now sets for some of my trips. Here are a few: Moura, Azenhas do Mar, Barcelona, London, Berlin
- After completing this phase, some housecleaning will have to be done. Many of the old pages are still returned by the search engines, and that doesn’t look good
The site design will have to change. This default look is too… well, default.
Being my personal site, sometimes I don’t take care of it as much as I do to other projects. I do my best, as always.
Some more @media2005 – can’t get enough
Wednesday, June 15th, 2005WAI Web Accessibility Best Practices Training / 5 July 2005 / Lisbon, Portugal
Tuesday, June 14th, 2005Finally, the W3C discovers Portugal! There is a great need for trainings such as this one. I hope the language isn’t too techie to scare away many web professionals, not acquainted with accessibility and Web Standards issues. Keep it simple and make the benefits clear. Make it also clear that accessibility is much much more than a AAA seal of approval on a Web site. I’ll be there, and will share my thoughts here. Please let me know if you’ll be there, so we can meet and share some ideas.
“Registration is now open for the Web Accessibility Best Practices Training on 5 July 2005 in Lisbon, Portugal as part of the WAI-TIES Project (WAI – Training, Implementation, Education, Support). This training is hosted by Programa Acesso da UMIC (ACESSO Program of the Knowledge Society Agency in the Ministry of Science, Technology & High Education).
The Web accessibility training will be in English and will cover the following topics:
- An introduction to evaluating and retrofitting Web sites for accessibility
- An overview of resources that are available to help carry out an evaluation review
- Detailed instruction on evaluating links, tables, on-line forms, images, and scripts
There is no registration fee for the training; however, pre-registration is required. There are a limited number of spaces, which are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Registration will close when spaces are filled.”
@media 2005 – Day 2
Tuesday, June 14th, 2005I’m back home in Lisbon, and will finally report on day 2 of the excellent @media 2005.
I didn’t make it to the @media Party. I wasn’t feeling very well, so I went home to rest. I’m sure I missed a lot of fun and chances to network. Oh well, there will be others.
“Tactical Manoeuvres” by Douglas Bowman was a great start to the day. He took us behind the scenes of the Blogger redesign. It’s hard work.
Jeremy Keith took us on a journey into “The Behaviour Layer: Using JavaScript for good, not evil”. He introduced the concept of ‘Good Turtle, Bad Turtle’, and cleared some misconceptions that JavaScript can’t go together with Accessibility. As he put it, JavaScript is not bad… it’s what some people do with it that is evil 
After a tea break came another great presentation by my good friend Molly E. Holzschlag, entitled “Web Standards Workflow”. First, she addressed some questions that had emerged the previous day about the activities WasP was involved in. Then she went on to take a generic glance of past, present and future of developing with Web Standards, and how we can expect to be working in the near future.
After lunch, Joe Clark ‘Zoomed the Web’. He demonstrated the difficulties some users will face, when having to use the zoom tools of their browsers. And they are not few, users AND problems.
The last Speaker of the Conference was Andy Clarke, who gave a designers perspective of web development with a touch of controversy, and that is always welcome!
The wind down party was great also. I had a chance to chat with a few people, whose names I have to remember soon.
This was, as I bet all of us present agree, a great success. One could feel the need for such an event on the faces and interest of the attendees.
I left with a few good ideas to put to practice. One of those is to give another try in creating a group of Portuguese professionals developing with Web Standards. Keep checking this space.
In the meantime, countdown for @media 2006 has already started.
WordPl@y
Friday, June 10th, 2005@media 2005 – Day 1
Friday, June 10th, 2005I just got home from day 1 of the @media conference. A handfull of great speakers, with real content.
Jeffrey Zeldman kicked off the day, with an excelent Keynote speech on the evolution of Web Standards and web standards fight and advocacy.
Joe Clark got into accessibility: Simple Facts about a Tricky Subject. The whys, what it is, what it isn’t, why WCAG is good, and why it may not be that good.
Robin Chistopherson talked of the subject “Web Accessibility and Disability: A practical Introduction”. This was a fascinating lecture. Being blind himself, Robin provided us with a real eye-opener (no joke intended) on many accessibility issues, and reminded us of a few basic things we sometimes take for granted. It got me thinking more about these.
Next came Douglas Bowman. And who better than him to introduce us to the “Beauty of CSS”. He illustrated how standards are important and left us with wonderful resources to learn further.
After lunch, Patrick Griffiths, the man behind the conference, introduced the theme of CSS + XHTML. Many of us were already familiar with it, but it is never too much to insist on such important concepts. His site HTMLDog, is a must.
Andy Budd took us on a trip from an HTML based design to a table-free CSS + XHTML design. That’s the way!
To finish off the day in a great way, Ian Lloyd touched on the subject of Accessibility Building Blocks. His many examples and explanations were valuable.
This is but a small sample of todays events. I mean to discuss them im more detail but, as usual, I can’t promise that.
I arrived in London yesterday evening, didn’t sleep that well, and was up today shortly after 6am, I have a headache and don’t feel that great. I hardly socialised, but got to say hello to Molly, though I meant to talk to her some more (I have a CD for you). I’m sure tomorrow, feeling better, I’ll have a chance to take full advantage of the Conference.
Molly on Web Standards
Thursday, June 2nd, 2005Web Standards in the Real World: An Interview with Molly Holzschlag
“Molly E. Holzschlag is a recognized expert in the area of Web Design, deemed one of the Top 25 Most Influential Women on the Web. We’re big fans of Molly E. Holzschlag’s books on cascading style sheets, in particular Cascading Style Sheets: The Designer’s Edge and Spring Into HTML and CSS. UIE’s Joshua Porter recently got a chance to chat with Molly about her work”
One week to @media
Wednesday, June 1st, 2005
One week from today, I’ll be getting on a plane to Londow Town, where I’ll attent the @media 2005 Conference.
I’ll meet Molly and Zeldman, two of the people responsible for my present enthusiasm for the Web and, therefore, for my presence there.
After that I’ll take three days off to be with friends and pretend I live there. It will be sooooo good!