One of the hardest things to do as a designer is make a website look good while still being easy to understand and navigate. Google became Google by following this principle. To this day the home page has remained the same: a logo and a search bar with very little else. Most of us require more from the user than just a search — how can we accomplish this?

Krug’s landmark book on usability tells us to “Don’t Make Me Think!” Because he won’t - and neither will the rest of your viewers!

For those of you familiar with Tom Peters, one thing he speaks of is “elegant systems”. I am a big believer of elegant systems. You know your system is elegant when it is logical and intuitive what to do next. Remove the guesswork and hoops and just let people get where they need to go. Doing this with website design is never easy. Doing this on a budget is even harder.

If you are looking for a fresh look for your website and want to make sure it works well one thing you may consider is web templates. Finding a provider that offers a wide selection can be difficult but DreamTemplates is now offering 300 free templates to pick from. They are elegant. Easy and provocative on the eyes. Professional and clear in intention. In other words, DreamTemplates offers exactly what you should be looking for.

I have to admit I was skeptical of DreamTemplate at first. I’ve seen many template companies come and go over the years but their clear focus on usable design really caught my interest. They have such a wide selection it would be difficult to not find exactly what you are looking for. And the template download includes the source PhotoShop files so making modifications is fast and easy.

If you upgrade to paid membership you can use as many of the more than 1,000 templates they have on file as you like. You also get access to hundreds Microsoft Word and PowerPoint templates. And access to BrochureReady, IconObjects and ThemeLayout for access to thousands more templates. ThemLayout offers skins for WordPress, Joomla and oSCommerce so the value is clearly present for anyone who thinks their business will grow – and that’s exactly the point, right?

Remember to look past the flash when designing your website. Cluttered design does not make purchasing easier or conversions increase. It distracts the viewer and sometimes overwhelms them into quitting and moving on. Make sure your design is clear and easy to follow. And then you will have an elegant system of your own – and the conversions to match.

Net neutrality is about allowing the telcos to dictate prices on a case-by-case basis instead of equal pricing for all consumers. What this means is that Google - a company I dislike - has a high stock price and without net neutrality AT&T (or whoever their local carrier is) can hike up the price of bandwidth just for Google. As much as I disagree with Google, they should not be hamstrung by their internet carrier and neither should any other online business.

While the Republicans are in favor of creating a business-safe environment their fear of government controls is clearly clouding their judgment on this issue.

“When you control the pipe you should be able to get profit from your investment.” -Sen John McCain

Mr. McCain, I agree 100%. You should absolutely get a profit for your work. You should not be able to screw companies over on a case-by-case basis when you are a utility.

While the telcos merge to become the all-new-all-different… AT&T… uh… wait… it’s not new, it’s not different and this company was already broken apart once for anticompetitive practices. Why would anyone expect them to behave differently?

Ok, people can change and businesses are made of people so maybe AT&T can change. Though my experience with them just a couple years ago says different. AT&T bought out Comcast, the local cable TV supplier and the customer service was horrible. Rates were increased. And soon AT&T sold the Sacramento area back to Comcast. There were investigations launched to determine what the hell went on there because the whole thing stunk and a lot of consumers got screwed.

So, maybe they’ve changed in the last couple of years and really have our best interests at heart.

Why would they be lobbying for anything other than net neutrality then?

Net neutrality means everyone who competes online gets the same pricing based on fair market conditions. These conditions and price ranges are set by the government which is unfortunate though I don’t see a better alternative.

Removing net neutrality creates a hostile business environment and severely damages smaller businesses ability to compete. Removing net neutrality also creates an opportunity to reduce the freedom of speech that is enjoyed online.

This is why the Republicans are Wrong and why Net Neutrality is the Most Important Issue in this Presidential Election

If a competitor to the local telco starts building traction all the telco has to do is increase their rates to limit the competitor or completely wipe them out. Telcos are into many different services including the familiar long-standing telephone service.

Telcos offer Internet Service Provider (ISP) services. The ISP market is competitive and eliminating net neutrality would destroy that increasing internet access costs for general consumers and businesses.

Consider other services (I found all of these on AT&T’s website): Email, DNS, Digital TV (think: SureWest), VoIP Phone (think: Vonage), Managed IT Services/Networking, Website Hosting, Hosting and Application Services, VPN Services, IP Blocks, Specialized Software Engineering, and Integrated Solutions.

As more jobs are being outsourced away from the United States, giving telcos dictator-like power over what companies survive online seems pretty stupid to me.

Now consider a website that speaks against telcos (like this one is doing right now). To eliminate this “threat” a telco can just increase costs of bandwidth for that one site.

Consider education and how it is flourishing online. Now consider politics. If a politician wants to eliminate websites dedicated to an issue he opposes, he can make a deal with the telcos to surge-price those websites.

This is giving away too much power to people that have a demonstrated lack of character or regard for anyone beyond themselves. Even in the current environment telcos charge outrageous prices for simple services - just ask anyone that works in a data center. Connecting one carrier to another comes with a price tag of $800 per month for 3 feet of cable. Local loop charges are even more extreme.

Like I said at the start, I agree telcos should be able to make a profit. That’s good business and good for the economy. Being able to control the flow of communication within the US with price-gouging should be beyond the power of telcos.

Republicans should remember why they hate taxes

Taxes increase costs and damage a business’ ability to compete effectively. Giving telcos the power to price-gouge is effectively letting an independent business with no controls the ability to “tax” at will.

Why the War is Not as Important as Net Neutrality

There are two reasons the war in Iraq is not as important as net neutrality:

1. The war is temporary. It may drag on longer than you like but eventually it will be complete, or as complete as we decide to make it and we’ll move on. Net neutrality is an issue that will directly affect every American and every generation of American from here on out.

2. None of the politicians really know what to do about Iraq but they can all do something about net neutrality.

I am a long-standing Republican and I will absolutely vote for the candidate that stands for net neutrality - even if they are a Democrat. I hope, pray and suggest that anyone who reads this does so also.

Google is too big and is using anticompetitive measures to shape the internet - and all business - to their design. Either you believe that or you believe that they really do carry out their “do no evil” motto despite the countless reports to the contrary. At this point, I don’t see how I can change your mind (though I can probably guess your political party).

Anyway, last year I posted reasons why I banned Google from this site. Which is all good except…
Continue Blocking Google is too much work »

My favorite forums, SEO Refugee, has moved to a new server and with that the theme has been updated to match the colors and style of the home page blog. Congrats to Jim Cook, Refugee Admin and world-class website designer for a job well done.

With the new server also comes another great treat: blazing fast page loads. The Refuge was bogging down a bit over the previous couple weeks so the move was well-timed.

If you are a member and haven’t been around for a while, now is a great time to check in. If you are not a member - shame on you! Go register right now (it’s free).

I’m a bit behind revealing my stats for 2007. There’s been a lot of illness in my family and that set me back. Everyone is good now though so here’s the growth www.14thc.com experienced last year…

• Unique Visits increased an average of 6,096 monthly over 2007
• Repeat Visits increased an average of 8,357 monthly over 2007
• Page Views increased an average of 14,235 monthly over 2007

I’m particularly proud of the Page View increase because I was consciously working on that. Page views increased by about 8,000 more per month when the redesign finally hit. If you think your choice of website designer doesn’t matter you may want to consider that.

And I’m grateful for the jump in return visits. That shows people were interested in what I had to say enough to come back for more. It seems once I get people to the site I can keep their attention. With all the work that goes into writing, editing, etc. I think that is fantastic.

So thank you.

2007 saw some interesting personal challenges as an accounting error nearly wiped me out. I was charging 95% of my cost on new projects. That was making it difficult to figure out why I was working so hard without seeing any return. My big lesson for the year was how important proper bookkeeping is. I hope you take that to heart.

Last year I also got mad at Google. A lot. As they grow in size, money and influence they bear watching. Consider what the merger with Double-Click could mean when the same company has access to your surfing habits and personal data. Consider what it means when that same company is the worlds biggest, most-used search engine and supplier of online ads… by a lot. Consider what it means when their words and actions no longer match. Or when their purpose changes from mission from “organizing the world’s information” to dictating how you create and share your information (and how to charge for it).

Remember when Microsoft was the bad guy? My how things changed in 2007.

Last year was also the year of social bookmarking. Out of theory and into practice this site went popular on several SB sites causing big spikes in traffic with lingering growth.

Thanks for your votes.

Finally, I did quite a bit of SEO experimenting, merging sites, restructuring sites and even banning search engines just to see what would happen! The answer to the banning search engine question will have to wait for another post and may surprise you.

Thank you all for a great 2007. I wish you huge success in 2008.