Monthly Archive

I have a love-hate relationship with the "SetLocale" function in ASP. A recent challenge was to build several international versions of a website. We wanted it have one code-base with different settings and translation files. ASP's "SetLocale" function was invaluable in getting this working correctly, but here are a few things you may want to pay attention to in a similar situation, especially in regard to setting currency display :

* Currently there is no "Euros" locale. With a Windows XP 2003 server, the only locale setting that shows Euro format for currency is "es-es" (which is Spain). So, if you want your German site to show currency as Euros using ASP's "FormatCurrency" function, you have to set the locale to Spain. It works, but doesn't seem ideal. Perhaps have a setting for "Currency-Locale" which you set before displaying any currency on your site, and then switch back to the original locale once you display?

* Notice above I said, "Windows XP 2003" as the OS...If you happen to have an older OS (in our case, one of our TEST servers is an older OS), your road is more difficult...you just have to trust that Euros will work on a properly updated server...either that or the headaches of trying to write your own CurrencyFormat function.

As long as you are aware of the above issues, you should be all set. A great summary I found for this issue is at this site.

Of course Visual Studio 2005 doesn't compile for .NET Framework v1.1. Of course you can't (easily) buy Visual Studio 2003 new. Who would want to do that? Well, me for one; at least until Adobe releases some Flash Remoting components for .NET v2.0.

In lieu of any built-in backwards compatibility support from Microsoft, there are a number of community solutions for Flash/Flex developers who through one circumstance or another are using VS2005 (or, of course, anybody else who wants to target v1.1 from VS2005). Microsoft has adopted MSBee as a VS Powertoy, so I guess that's as close to official as you're gonna get -- It's even got a fancy .msi installer. Jomo Fisher's blog entry explains what I suspect is going on under the hood of MSBee, and Gustavo Guerra created a build targets file that includes Mono and .NET Compact Frameworks, though it seems to be missing from Gustavo's link in that forum entry.

Of course, you could try to go the other way and fix Remoting instead of Visual Studio, which is what the developers of Flourine are trying to do with an Open Source (GNU Lesser GPL) Remoting library which supports both .NET v1.1 and v2.0. You have to build the gateway dll yourself, but once you do, you can use the wizard they provide for VS2003 or VS2005 to create and configure a project for your Remoting services.

Iterative design is the process of making small but significant changes to improve your site after its launch. The source of these changes is usually based on feedback from your target audiences and usability studies. As great as it is, it is hard for designers and clients to actually use iterative design as a concept because we tend to be well… perfectionists. Further, we all like to see a “finished” product when it is finished. Even with these drawbacks iterative design has proven to improve your site and some would argue it a necessary concept in design.

Iterative Design can be Difficult to Implement

The perfectionist trait in designers often rears its imperfect head. What will the client and target audience think when they see this rounded-corner box or that dotted line? How will they respond to red? We as designers want it to be right on our first try. The truth is you aren’t going to get it right the first try every time. And that’s okay.

Clients may also expect perfection. After all, they are paying you for your professional services. A finished project should only need to be “finished” once. The key term is expectation. Make sure to set the expectation of iterative design up front so your team and client will know that sites and interactivity take time to get right.

How to Iterate

After you have released your design, you need to measure your results. Feedback tools do just that, and can take on many forms: an actual form, a simple link on your contact page, or any page for that matter. There are also sophisticated feedback tools found on sites like Adobe. Choose a way to display your feedback tool, with the idea of gathering real feedback from real users. You can cater your feedback tools to ask general questions on layout, or more specific details like color or shape. It really is up to you and the level of detail you and your clients wish to iterate to. Feedback should come in, but do not act on anything quite yet. Strive for iterative design, not reactive design.

A warm topic these days. Along with other 2007 predictions, this is a great article and introduction into the ReadWriteWeb blog. I try to read this blog on a daily basis. It's always fun to imagine... also, Richard MacManus and crew are brilliant.

Think of CSS as synonymous to Web Standards Compliance?

A client just pointed out an error to me. I had been using CSS as a short-hand way of referring to Standards Compliance. The use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is such a large part of Web Standards Compliance, they have become almost synonymous to me, but they are not, in fact, synonymous.

Advantages to CSS

Sites will often use CSS to control content styling for things like fonts, headers, links, and tables. This separates many of the style attributes from the page content. There are a number of advantages to doing this:

• Pages easier for search engines to index and can be faster to load.
• Having style controls located in one place promotes stylistic consistency and makes it easier to maintain or change styles.

Advantages of Web Standards Compliance

It is possible (and even common), to have a site that utilizes CSS that does not adhere to web standards. Such sites, therefore, do not reap the full benefits availed through compliance to web standards. Benefits like:

• Better Search Engine Indexing
• Better Accessibility for wider range of browsers and devices
• Better accessibility for wider range of users
• Faster load times
• Ease of update and maintenance
• Ease of printing

Sites that use CSS will often use tables for layout

Generally, what we find is that although a site uses CSS for styles, the site layout is implemented using a complex system of nested tables.