Mel Choyce

  • Why WordPress.com Rocks for Small Business Freelancers

    Disclaimer: I work for (and on) WordPress.com, so I’m obviously biased about how great it is ?

    WordPress.com is underutilized by freelancers in the WordPress community. When I hear freelancersĀ talk about making small business websites for clients, self-hosting WordPress seems to be the only solution people mention.

    That’s a shame ā€” WordPress.com can be a quick, inexpensive, and secure way to build a website. If you’re adept at theme selection and setup, you can sit down with your client and build a website in just a couple hours.

    Here’s why WordPress.com can be an attractive site-building tool for folks who target small businesses:

    Easy for clients to use

    The hardest part of setting up a site is actually setting up the site in the first place. This can be a huge hurdle for people without website building experience.Ā Once you’ve built up that experience, however, setup can becomeĀ fast and easy. This is the kind of skill freelancers build in abundance.

    Once a site it set up, clients just have to worry about updating and editing content themselves. WordPress.com’s content tools are fairly intuitive. With a bit of training tacked on to your site-building process, you can get your clients up and running on their new site in just an afternoon.

    Tons of Themes to Choose From

    WordPress.com offers over 350 free and premium themes, the vast majority of which are responsive. (As of this post, 167 free and 192 premium, ranging in price from $19 ā€“ $175. Most are in the $49 ā€“ $79 range.)Ā Though there aren’t any theme frameworks available, the number of available themes makes up for the lack of flexibility. The available themes, both free and premium, can be used for any small business site you can think of.

    All of the themes on WordPress.com have been reviewed for security, speed, and usability. They are maintained, even after retirement (which doesn’t happen until they’ve been around for a couple years). You don’t need to worry about a theme updating breaking your client’s site, or an ignored theme update becoming a vector for hacking.

    Once you buy a Premium theme, there are no recurring fees or subscriptions ā€” you can use it on that site forever. When it is eventuallyĀ retired, you can continue using the premium theme until you switch to a new one, at whichĀ time the theme becomes unavailable.

    If your client springs for a Business plan,Ā they gain access to all themes on WordPress.com, free and premium. It’s a nice perk in a more comprehensive upgrade plan.

    Built-in Constraints

    One of the best parts about WordPress.com is that it has a lot of built-in constraints.

    Because clients can’t upload any random plugins or themes they find, or add their own code to their site without you knowing, the risk of getting their site hacked through insecure code is pretty much eliminated. While this limits the kind of features your clients have available, it can also be used as justification forĀ keepingĀ their site small and focused. When you offer people the world, they’re likely to take it. Limited functionality = limited scope creep.

    Having limited features available also keeps your build time down. When you don’t need to worry about building functionality from scratch, or installing and configuring a bunch of plugins, you save time. When it comes down to it, most small business websites don’tĀ need a bunch of custom functionality ā€”Ā they can make due well enough with the tons of features WordPress.comĀ does offer.

    Provides Most of the Functionality You Need

    So what featuresĀ does WordPress.com offer?

    In addition to basic content management, it offers:

    • Custom domains and emailĀ support
    • Site stats for all users, and access to Google Analytics integration for Business users
    • Google Webmaster Tools
    • Tools for improving your SEO
    • Easy ways to add your contact information
    • Contact forms
    • Sharing across all major social media platforms
    • Portfolios for creative professionals
    • Testimonials to bolster your social proof
    • Some sweet imageĀ galleries options
    • Tons of content embedding options
    • Additional integrations from services like Eventbrite, Google Calendar, etc.

    Is it as comprehensive and full-featured as building a custom site for your clients? Heck no. But is it good enough for most small businesses? For sure.

    Maintenance and Support

    One of the best parts of going with a hosted solution like WordPress.com is what happensĀ after you finish building the site.

    Back when I was doing agencyĀ work, we’d end up supporting our small business clients pretty much forever. Unless you negotiate a retainer plan, getting emailed every couple weeks or months about updates can be a hassle when you have a bunch of clients or if you’re heads-down in another project.

    When you’re using self-hosted installs of WordPress, there’s a lot to maintain ā€” plugin updates, theme updates,Ā security updates, major release updates, etc. You can mitigate some of that by enabling auto-updates on your client sites, but if you client starts installing their own plugins or even themes, the risk of something breakingĀ can get pretty high.

    On WordPress.com, you don’t have to worry about that. All of the updates are taken care of for you and your clients behind-the-scenes. In the off chance that something breaks, WordPress.com fixes it right away. That means no ongoing maintenance or emergency 2am phone calls for you. If your business it built on ongoing maintenance and retainer plans, maybe this isn’t for you. If you want to serve a variety of clients without getting tied down to them for a couple years, then you should consider the benefits.

    It’s also a super reliable host. WordPress.com hosts some huge names in news and big media, soĀ you can be sure that if one of your client’s blog posts goes viral, or they getĀ linked to from Reddit or something, their site stays up. Downtime is very rare. If something does go wrong? WordPress.com has killer support. Free users get access to forum support, and Premium/Business users get access to email and live chat support (and I really do hope your clients have upgraded off of the free plan ā€” small they may be, but they are a business). Once you build the site, you can essentially push all of the ongoing support to WordPress.com so you can focus on new clients. Your clients get quick answers, and you don’t get emergency phone calls. It’s a win/win.

    Why not give it a try for your next small business client?

    mel

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  • “Software forever remains at the limits of what people will put up with”

    “Software forever remains at the limits of what people will put up with.”

    ā€” Maciej Cegłowski, Web Design – The First 100 Years

    mel

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  • Time Tracking and Burnout

    If we had a way of tracking these qualitative burnout factors, rather than merely the hours we spend on our work, we could better understand how much weā€™re pushing people, and how far our employees are from their own personal sweet spots. We could allocate projectsĀ in a way that best matches how people work, rather than treating themĀ (both people and projects) as fungible commodities. If we had a tool that sacrificed hourly precisionĀ for holistic accuracy, weā€™d suddenly understand a lot more about our ā€œcapacityā€.

    ā€” Geordie Kaytes, “Time Tracking: What Do We Think Weā€™re Measuring?“

    mel

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  • Giving Back: Getting Involved in the Design Community

    Today, as a part of my apprenticeship at Fresh Tilled Soil, I wrote a blog entry about giving back to the design community. You can check it out here.

    mel

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  • Learning by doing: how bootcamp chewed up amateurs and spit out apprentices

    I wrote a blog entry for my apprenticeship program! You should check it out.

    mel

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  • Design for Non-Designers

    I presented today at WordCamp Philly on Design for Non-Designers. As promised, here are my slides, which I’ve fleshed out with some extra notes for web:

    If anyone wants the abridged version (which is what I presented), you can comment here to let me know.

    Along with my slides, I also gave a quick design demo. You can see the images and notes for my demo here:

    Some resources for each design principle I talked about:

    Thanks again to everyone who attended this morning!

    mel

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  • I’m speaking at WordCamp Philly!

    I'm Speaking at WordCamp Philly

    I’ll be speaking at WordCamp Philly in a few weeks! (October 20-21, 10:15-11:00am in the Power User Track) Here’s what I’ll be presenting on:

    Design Basics for Non-Designers

    To non-designers, design can seem like a mysterious realm inhabited by natural artists — inscrutable beings whose heads are constantly in the clouds as they hunker down in Photoshop, desperately trying to get every last pixel aligned perfectly (Okay, maybe there’s a *bit* of truth to that). Realistically, design is just a series of informed decisions based on a set of principles guided by best practice. By learning the basics of design, you can make your WordPress sites and applications more usable and compelling. This session is meant for anyone new to design.

    Come and check me out if you’re there.

    mel

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  • The Art of Web Design

    Definitely a must-view.

    “HTML is the cockroach that will survive a nuclear winter.”

    – Zeldman

    mel

  • From The Great Discontent, @zeldman on Flash (and asking for help)

    I was readingĀ Jeffrey Zeldman’s interview on The Great Discontent and this quote stuck out:

    Another thingā€”donā€™t be afraid to ask for help. I sucked at Flash and Iā€™m glad web standards won for many reasons, but one selfish reason is because I found Flash unpleasant to use as a creative tool. I simply didnā€™t understand it well enough, but I was at a professional level where I couldnā€™t go to a community college and take a Flash course. Someone would say, ā€œThereā€™s Jeffrey Zeldman taking a remedial Flash class.ā€ You have to find a way to keep learning and not get trapped in whatever imaginary status you have.

    –Ā Jeffrey Zeldman

     

    I just found this really amusing and wanted to share.

    mel

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  • 3 Dynamic Web-based Stories

    The web is a pretty exciting right now. The significant andĀ unprecedentedĀ change and improvement we’ve seen in the past two years is astonishing. There is a new level of interaction that was previously only achievable by using Flash. We’ve been unshackled from relying upon proprietary software to make significant interaction possible, and the web today is much better off because of that change.

    A particularly impressive trend I’ve noticed in the past year is how people are starting to approach digital storytelling. As an open and collaborative environment, the web has the potential to change the very way we tell stories. Just think about it — at this point, there are probably millions of people who read almost entirely on their portable wireless devices. I have personally started to pack away my collection of books because I almost exclusively read on my iPad. The ability to have my entire library with me at all times is seductive. It’s never been easier to find, buy, and read books.

    Storytelling goes beyond books, though. An interaction-friendly web allows for a new way to experience stories. Here are a few web-based stories I’ve found particularly impressive:

    Mega Shark Story

    Mega Shark is the story of a shark who finds himself ostracized because, well, he is a gigantic scary shark. The story leads you through Mega Shark’s quest to make a friend. The illustrations are gorgeous. The art style is lush and vibrant, emerging you in a stunning undersea world.

    Mega Shark screenshot

    The story looks just as good on iPad as it does on a desktop or laptop. The transitions are smooth and natural, evoking the feeling of flipping through a children’s book. It’s easy to imagine sitting down and read this story to your kid (or niece/nephew, in my case).

    Mega Shark Screenshot 2

    Mega Shark is, as far as I can tell, one of the first stories to be created, not adapted, for screens. And it succeeds — boy, does it succeed. It has proven that maybe there’s a very successful future for children’s books on the web. Not just as ebooks, but as living, breathing, interactive entities in their own right.

    However, if you do intend on reading this story to your kids, you might want to read it through all the way first. Just because, you know. No spoilers, but it’s good to know in advance what you’re sharing with your kids.

    The next story is definitely not for kids.

    Hobo Lobo

    Hobo Lobo of Hamelin is an ongoing, slightly risque and overall pretty bizarre take on the Pied Piper by Stevan Živadinović. It’s a parallax style site which responds very beautifully to gestures (though is sometimes a little too sensitive), at least on my Mac. Unfortunately it doesn’t work very well on iOS, but Stevan admits that with some effort it wouldn’t be too hard to make work well on all devices.

    One thing this story takes advantage of that Mega Shark didn’t was the ability to play sound and subtle animations to help captivate readers. Which some of the mechanics of the story need a little refining, it’s an interesting take on telling a story using the advantages of the web to enhance user experience.

    Hobo Lobo of Hamelin Screenshot

    Stevan was kind enough to write up an entire tutorial based around how he created his story, so if you’re intrigued or interested in doing something similar you should give it a read.

    The last example today is probably the most impressive case of storytelling on the web I’ve encountered.

    Why the Sky is Far Away

    Why the Sky is Far AwayĀ (Pixel Fable) is the web adaption of a Nigerian Fable about — as it says — why the sky is far away. It tells the tale of how Aondo, the Sky, fell in love with a beautiful woman and how that leads to him fleeing far away from the earth.Ā This story is significant for a few reasons, the first of which is cultural:

    This project comes from the concept of Afro-Futurism. As a topic, Afro-Futurism isĀ rooted in history and African cosmologies, using pieces of the past, both technological and analog, to build the future. It is concerned with African consciousness, especially in the Diaspora, and it explores the methodology of liberation.

    Pixel Fable Screenshot

    But Pixel Fable isn’t just culturally significant, it’s also technologically significant. The project is a hybrid solution of many different available web technologies. Like Hobo Lobo, it also uses parallax to help enhance and control the flow of the story. It has a bright, enchanting illustrative style that blends texture, geometry and photography. Pieces of illustration blend together, hide and appear as you progress through the story.

    The most remarkable aspect of the story, however, is what’s called augmented reality. At the beginning of the story, you’re prompted to print out augmented reality markers. At specific parts in the story, you’re instructed to hold up each marker to your webcam.

    Pixel Fable Screenshot 2

    When you hold up the markers and play the augmented reality segment, the marker you’re holding gets transformed on camera into a part of the story, effectively bringing you into the story itself. (If you aren’t using the markers, there’s a video you can watch of someone demonstrating.)

    With this fable, storytelling has transcended beyond written and spoken word into something integrative andĀ immersive. It’s a beautiful example of the incredible capabilities of the web as a platform for storytelling, and it’s only the beginning. Just think of what might be possible for future stories on the web.

    Have any other good examples of digital storytelling? Feel free to share.

    mel

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