SpicyWebDesigners.com by Luc Arnold

In the last little bit I’ve managed to write a few articles about web analytics and more importantly Google Analytics. Like most web analytics tracking software, Google Analytics uses what is known as a “tracking pixel” also known as a “tracking code”. Recently they’ve added some functionality to help you with web page load times. Now you might ask “Why is this important to me?” and the truth is that it’s very important if you value gaining more and more visitors to your website. By and large, most people that are out there browsing the web don’t like to spend a lot of time finding your web page. On average most people will not wait that long for a website to load before they decide to leave.Back in 2006, Akamai and JupiterResearch said that the acceptable wait time for a web page to respond and load shouldn’t exceed 4 seconds.

Now keep in mind that this was three years ago and today, with advances with web technologies I am sure that 4 second wait time is way too long today. With the advent of AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) it’s possible to optimize website to improve these wait times.

How AJAX works and why is it important to asynchronous web analytics tracking

The big point to understand about AJAX is that it uses JavaScript and XML to load the web page all at once, one time only. In classic HTML and CSS every time a web page is loaded because a call must be made to a web server to retrieve the web page. Think about any time you’ve refreshed a web page each one of those is a new instance of a web page created once the web page is reloaded. Using AJAX, only the information that has changed on the web page is reloaded not the web page itself. That is the important lesson here.

Source: Interakt

Now think, if you have the traditional GA.js tracking code from Google Analytics on your web page then that means that every time you load a new instance of a web page in your website the GA.js tracking code needs to be reloaded as well and this increases that web page load time. This is one reason why more and more people are using AJAX technology in their website today including the Google Analytics Development Team. Some of the big benefits of the asynchronous javascript tracking code as stated by the Google Analytics team are…

• Faster tracking code load times for your web pages due to improved browser execution
• Enhanced data collection and accuracy
• Elimination of tracking errors from dependencies when the JavaScript hasn’t fully loaded

Source: Google Analytics Blog

How easy is it to add the Asynchronous Tracking Code to your website?

Now the part that you’ve all been waiting for… how easy is it to add this to your website? The answer, it’s really very easy! Let me show you just how easy it is:

1. Get this piece of code…

<script type=”text/javascript”>

var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-XXXXX-X']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

(function() {
var ga = document.createElement(’script’);
ga.src = (’https:’ == document.location.protocol ? ‘https://ssl’ : ‘http://www’) + ‘.google-analytics.com/ga.js’;
ga.setAttribute(’async’, ‘true’);
document.documentElement.firstChild.appendChild(ga);
})();

</script>

Click here to get it!

2. Replace the ‘UA-XXXXX-X’ with the web property ID from your Google Analytics account

3. Add it the same way you added the original GATC (Google Analytics Tracking Code)

4. You are all done!

Before you install: Now if you already have Google Analytics Tracking Code in place on your website you are going to need to remove it first and then add the Asynchronous Tracking Code to your website.

Even if you are a beginner with web analytics or you are trying to understand how to use it for your business incorporating AJAX technology into your website to improve the overall user experience will only help improve the performance of your website and understand how people use your website.

“Asynchronously” yours,

Luc Arnold

Eric and Patty Rosol are the husband and wife team behind, RenderingEffects, their website design and development studio based out of Wisconsin in the United States. Together, Eric and Patty have built RenderingEffects from their collective knowledge in developing and designing websites over the past 6 years professionally. They use the power of Magento and WordPress to meet and exceed the needs of their clients with respect to developing ecommerce as well as standard websites.

Patty Rosol is a web designer and developer who is self taught who uses her knowledge of coding and design to build very cohesive websites. Eric Rosol is more focused on development but is focused on system administration tasks in the day to day operations of RenderingEffects.

Eric and Patty have created a great web design company focused standard platforms including Magento and WordPress as well as Quality, Communication, Flexibility and Creativity.

1. Patty, I understand that you are the designer and your husband, Eric, is the developer of your husband and wife web design and development team.  How do you balance your personal and professional lives as a couple in your business?

Well, actually Patty is the lead designer and developer. For her, knowing the possibilities of the code makes designing easier.

Eric does do some of the developing as well, but the majority of his time is spent doing all of the other services that we offer such as: hosting, email, pc repair/maintenance, and product photography.  He also handles billing, and helps to keep me focused as I have a tendency to constantly second guess my work.

We have a lot in common and share many of the same interests so working together seemed like a natural extension of our relationship.

2. Patty, as a web designer how do you keep yourself learning new technologies?

In my spare time I am constantly reading design blogs, books, and looking through the various CSS galleries.  I also spend a lot of time just experimenting.  I have folders full of design and code ideas.

3. When did you design your first website? How long have you been designing professionally?

We built our first personal website about 7 years ago, and we started professionally about 1 year after that. It was a rather quick transition, but we realized pretty quickly that it was something that we really enjoyed doing.

4. Where did the idea come from to start your website studio, Rendering Effects?

At the time that we were creating our personal website Patty was working for a photography lab, and they had a horrible website.  She told her boss that she could do better and he said “go for it”.  She managed to impress her boss, and some of their customers who started asking her if she could build them a website.  The demand was there so we decided to make it official, and we created Rendering Effects.

5. Eric, as a web developer what is the benefit of building websites and ecommerce sites using standard website development platforms like WordPress and Magento?

The obvious benefit of WordPress and Magento is that they allow our customers some control over their websites, while allowing us to be able to customize the look to our customers liking.

We were very excited when we heard about Magento because we weren’t happy with the other options that were out there.  Most of the other ecommerce platforms we had tried were just too limited with their features.  It was discouraging to have customers ask if their cart could do this or that, and we would have to say no… Or give them a hefty price tag for the adjustment which usually scared them away.

Sarah Enid Moule and Gennah NeSmith are both from Perth, Australia running Wildwood Creative, a small web and graphic design studio. Sarah has been designing websites for the past 7 years and Gennah started to design websites back in high school. They both admit to not being “coders” but they know the basics of JavaScripting, HTML, CSS and jQuery plug-ins in general. Sarah learned more about designing from the internet and is a self taught designer and artist and a few low level certificates and Gennah studied at TAFE (a Technical College) and Murdoch University and earned a certificate in Multimedia and a bachelor’s degree in Multimedia. Together they run Wildwood Creative with over 6 collective years of experience and have some killer design skills which they formed earlier in 2009. Keep an eye out for this tag team of designers as they continue to blaze new trials in the web and graphic design industry from their head quarters in Perth.

1. How did both you and Gennah get into web design? How long have each of you been designing websites for?

Sarah: I started getting into web design about 7 years ago, so I could build myself an online portfolio for my artwork. Once I started learning, I fell in-love and re-designed my website about once every 2 weeks! Consequently… I got bored of my own website, and now I make them for other people!

Gennah:  It all started in high school.  I was introduced to HTML and loved it. Something about using notepad to create something with structure and meaning, displaying things in such a way that made people more motivated to read, learn, and click!  I’ve studied off and on, played around with stuff in my own time.  The last few years I have been making websites for companies at a bigger web corporation, which defiantly lets you decide you are doing the right job!   I have been designing websites for 6 years.

2. Do either you and/or Gennah do any scripting on website design projects? If so, what languages do you script in?

Sarah: Not me! I do some very basic JavaScript but apart from that I mostly make the sites look pretty!

Gennah: We are not really the scripting type.  We know HTML, CSS and enough to jQuery to use plug-ins.

3. Being a two-woman web design company what do you find as an advantage of operating this way? Are there any disadvantages?

Sarah: So far I haven’t really noticed many pros or cons. I’m not big on celebrating the whole “two women taking on the world” thing. We are just two people; passionate about what we do who are always hard at work!

Gennah: We haven’t come across any yet.  At this point I would like to note, we are not feminists or do not want to be seen as two women taking on the world, rather two people who love making graphics, artwork and websites.

Sarah: Haha, yeah what she said! To be honest… I’m a pretty poor excuse for a female anyway, so really we are doing all women kind a favor this way hehe.

4. Where and what did each of you study while you were at college or university and is either of you a “Self-Taught” web designer?

Sarah: I am a self taught artist and designer. I did a couple of low level qualification certificates but everything I know I have learned from the internet. It’s the best university ever! I think when you are really interested in something; nothing can get in your way!

Gennah: I studied at eCentral TAFE(Technical College) and Murdoch University. I have both a Certificate in Multimedia and a Bachelor in Multimedia.

5. Would you said that both yourself and Gennah have different styles of design and if so how do you balance this in the web design projects that you complete?

Sarah: Definitely! Gennah is more of a corporate designer, she likes things neat and clean and shiny, where as I love designing crazy fun sites with lots of color and exciting photos. We are both able to do either style though which is great, but we play to our strengths. If one of us feels like a break, we high-five and change over, then give each other feedback and support.

Gennah: Sarah’s design is very friendly, free and artistic.  She is very good at using color to make things stand out and work well.  My style is more corporate, a little more boring but still neat and user friendly.  This is a good dynamic to have!

Jim Wiberley and Graeme White are both directors of Staak Ltd., a digital creative studio located in Royal Leamington Spa in Warwick in England in the United Kingdom. Together, this duo started Staak in late 2008 targeting the entertainment industry’s need for web design that suits their clients’ needs. Both had previously worked for other agencies and well known games companies so having their own studio for web design seemed like the next logical step to take. Staak is not only a proactive web design studio but it is also dynamic giving Staak an advantage over larger creative agencies. Together with Jim and Graeme and a few select freelance designers, Staak is making a name for itself.

1. When was Staak founded? How many people currently work at Staak?

Staak was officially founded in November 2008 by myself and Jim Wiberley. We’d previously worked for other agencies and well known games companies and having our own studio seemed like a natural progression for us. We’re a small studio with just ourselves and a few choice freelancers which we use on a project by project basis. We’ve always felt it’s our size as a studio that really allows us to be dynamic and proactive for our clients giving us an edge over some of the larger creative agencies.

2. Jim, Staak seems to have a lot of project work that involves clients from the entertainment industry including Sony, Xbox and Electronic Arts and I wanted to ask was it intentional to attract clients like this to your business?

The majority of our work has always been in the games and music industry and it was natural for us to continue in this area when we started Staak. We’ve always found that our creative style has been well suited to these types of clients and we’ve always really enjoyed pushing ourselves to produce the best work we can. Although having said that our work in the games and music industry does lead to further work with clients we wouldn’t have previously worked with.

3. What kind of quality practices do you have in place when dealing with a larger client to make sure the whole project is running smoothly?

Communicate at every step of the way! We can’t stress that enough. Without clear communication everything else falls apart. With larger scale projects we spec everything with the client and agree on schedules and budgets before moving forward. The one thing we’ve learned over the years is that every client has their own way of working. You can’t force someone into a process as it just won’t work, so there’s always a little give and take–but as long as you’re clear on the objectives and more importantly so is the client, you can’t go far wrong.

4. What is a day in the life like when of working at the Staak digital creative studio?

Coffee. Lots of coffee! We then kick start the day going over the studio schedule–what projects need looking at, any clients we need to get back to, fairly straightforward stuff. The important thing for us is keeping things fun and stress free. You spend so much of your day at work the last thing it needs to be is a pain in the ass. Luckily for us our jobs are pretty diverse. We can be knee deep in some motion graphics work or CSS one day, followed by a trip to a games convention the next–fun times!

5. What types of work does Staak take on currently? Motion Design? Web Design? Etc.

Although we’re primarily a web design studio we don’t particularly confine ourselves to any one particular discipline or area.

We do everything from full content managed sites (built with our own in-house CMS ‘Fuel’) to dynamic Flash sites and games with a sprinkling of motion graphics to pep things up! We’re always on the look out to learn new things. You can’t stop still in this industry–if you do, you get left behind!

Liam Faulkner and Katherine Boardman are web designers who run Twenty3Design, a small web design company in the United Kingdom. Liam Faulkner studied Multimedia Technology at the University of South Wales while Katherine Boardman has her BSc of Sound from university. They complement each other and have created some amazing web design work because of their vast experience in multimedia design, flash and graphic design.

1. How did you and Katherine get started in web design? When did you start designing websites?

Liam: I was always interested in web design.  Actually I have a bit of a coding background, I did a qualification in Visual Basic (of all languages), and when I went to University, I studied other programming languages, but actually found I like the visual design side of things best.  While at Uni I took on a few simple paid projects for clients, and learnt my freelance lessons designing and coding for them.  I then took a couple of full time positions as a graphic designer, but always had in mind that I will be working for myself, and it turns out that going freelance was surprisingly easy.

Kath: I fell into it by accident really.  My background was in Sound Technology, but I helped out on a few projects with Liam and found that I picked up HTML pretty quickly. I found coding incredibly satisfying and now can’t imagine doing anything else.

2. How long has Twenty3Design been in business?

Liam: Well, we’ve been Twenty3design full time for nearly 1 year …it’s our birthday soon!   We have both worked professionally for over 6 years, be that freelance or full-time and about a year ago we thought it was time to put all our efforts under one happy roof.

3. How many designers, developers and other creative people currently work for Twenty3Design?

Liam: There’s just the two of us.  We’re the designers, developers and project managers for our projects.  For anything we can’t do we rely on the extensive UK and US freelance community to lend a hand.

We’ve got some pretty good contacts built up now who we know we can rely on.  I think that’s the key for freelancing.

4. What are the biggest challenges that you face in web design currently?

Liam: I think from a design perspective the hardest and most crucial part is getting a really decent brief form the client.  It’s so important to understand what the client wants and needs, but sometimes they don’t know themselves or they’ll “know it when they see it”.  I guess what I’m getting at is that people are more web savvy than ever and managing clients’ expectations among the vast array of information available for them is an ever changing task.

Kath: Is it too obvious to say dealing with IE6? That said it does at least keep me on my toes .  Other than that I’d say for me it’s utilizing the correct technologies for the right project.  Sometimes clients want something fancy just for the sake of it and, although it might be nice to be able to bill for the extra dev work, you can over do it and ruin a good project.

5. Do you ever refer to yourself as a Front-end developer or a web designer? Do you code any of the web sites that you design currently? If so, what language(s) do you code in?

Liam: We code and design everything ourselves.  We have the luxury of being multi-disciplined; we can take on the coding and design aspect for our clients, providing them with the whole package.  We code in the standard languages: HTML, CSS and PHP as well as doing bits and pieces of other languages such as JavaScript when it’s required.

6. Where did you go to school and has it helped you become a better web design professional?

Liam: We both went to University in South Wales, but I’d say that real life experience has made us better professionals, nothing can beat that.  Our degrees certainly gave us the start we needed to find out what type of work we’re in to and the time we had while at Uni allowed us to experiment with taking on clients and managing projects for ourselves.

7. Since you first started how has the web design industry changed? Has it changed for the better? If so, how? If not, please explain?

Liam: The industry seems to have grown and developed in to much more of a community, everyone is chatting online using Twitter, comparing notes and sharing ideas.  It’s a nice industry to be involved with.  From a client perspective, more people seem to be tech savvy, giving people like us a little more freedom to be creative.  The openness of the design world has always been there, but now there are so many tutorials, blogs and communities that you can really immerse yourself it what ever you like.

8. What are your favorite tools to use when designing a web project? Why are they your favorite tools?

Liam: I love my Macbook Pro, can’t do without it.  I also use an A5 Wacom tablet when I’m doing illustration; it’s incredibly helpful to be able to sketch freehand.  Software wise I use Photoshop for web design and Illustrator for print work and logo design, they can’t be beaten in my opinion.  Oh and can’t forget pen and paper, cheapest design hardware available.

Kath: As a developer I live inside Coda.  I can do almost everything in there and it makes developing so much easier.  The other thing I really rely on is my notebook.  It might sound odd for a developer, but it’s always when I’m out and not by my Mac that I figure out how to solve some problem I’ve been stuck on for a while.  I’ve got to be able to note it down quickly or I’ll forget.