Joy Of Code - Web Design Training and Consulting
Code Aid
A RESCUE SERVICE FOR AILING WEB PAGES

Do you have a web site that's gotten out of hand? A mess of Biblical proportions? Does it need to be rescued from drowning in tag soup? You know something has to be done with your web site, but you can't get around to doing it for one reason or another.

I can bring your out of date and totally messed up web design up to modern web design standards. Given my experience as a web design instructor, web master, and site producer, I've developed highly productive and efficient methods to complete your project quickly and thoroughly.

Code Aid, my web site remediation service, transforms pages that don't follow any web design standards to ones that do.

I don't make web sites. I make them better.

Why Standardize Your Site's Code?

BENEFITS OF CONFORMING YOUR PAGES TO WEB DESIGN STANDARDS

  1. Your pages will be optimized meaning they will work better in the greatest number of browsers and; operating systems. Pages that are optimized download faster because there's no bloated, messy code. Optimization is your first step toward providing a superior user experience.

  2. Your site will be easier to manage. When your pages use best practices of web design, copy, images, style, and other media assets become more manageable. Making changes to grow or contract your site becomes simpler, quicker, and less costly.

  3. Your pages will be future compatibility proof. Adherence to standards is your way to ensure that your designs will work in future technologies - new browsers, wide screens, projection systems, mobile devices - and that your pages' design will not become obsolete. You'll avoid technological obsolescence and frequent re-designs.

  4. Increases the likelihood of you're site being found in a relevant search. Using web design standards is a major part of the search engine optimization process. Good XHTML markup helps search engine robots, like googlebot, to properly categorize your pages into search engine systems.

ESPN, AMAZON, YAHOO!, MARKETWATCH, WIRED and others have undergone site revisions moving in the direction of adherence to web design standards. They've realized savings in design overhead and have positioned their sites to work well in emerging technologies. By going in the direction of standards they've also increased the likelihood that their sites will be easier to use and accessible to a wider audience.

If the big guys have gone this way, how about you? With all of these reasons - and there are even more - there is no reason not to have your site rescued.

What Can Be Rescued?

Here are some of the things I work on:

  • Web Page Templates(either templates you've made or have purchased)
  • Existing web pages (one or a group)
  • Formatted Email
  • Photoshop comps that you want transformed into a web page
  • CSS files

The rescue process can take place before, during or after a site has been launched.

What Can Be Done To Aid Your Pages?

Some or all of the following can be done for your template or site:

  • removal of junk and proprietary code, such as
  • removal/replacement of outdated code, such as replacing with CSS font styling properties
  • removal of unnecessary tables and replacing with div where it makes sense
  • removal of unnecessarily nested tables
  • use of list markup instead of table or tags
  • use of list markup with CSS to replace image rollovers
  • inclusion of the alt attribute for all images
  • inclusion of markup to support accessible design

Two Ways To Rescue Your Pages

You want to keep your pages' 'look and feel because your users/customers like your site. You'd prefer the benefits of cleaning up bad old code by retrofitting your web pages to the good stuff, without breaking the pages' design. That's the first approach.

OR

You want your pages to be rescued and you don't mind having your design altered a bit to improve how the site looks and how it navigates.

No matter which approach you choose, I consult with you to determine the scope of the project before any work is done.

What's The Procedure For Rescuing Pages?

Assessing Your Needs

What are your objectives? Has your site been up for a number of years but it's become a design management nightmare? Did you just create (or buy) a template that needs to be optimized before you can use it to produce many pages? Are you thinking of a site re-design using the same content but with better code?

The scope of the work is determined in this phase. It normally includes the processes described in What Can Be Done To Aid Your Pages?" but it can include other services, such as link checking.

Doing The Work

I use an array of analytic and remediation tools to help me rescue your pages. As good as many of these tools have gotten, most are not as good as my personal line by line code checking where needed.

Given my experience as a web design instructor, web master, and site producer, I've developed highly productive and efficient methods to complete your project quickly and thoroughly.

Delivering The Goods

Deliverables always include revised files that conform to web design standards as agreed upon. Documentation explaining what was done is also available.

Telephone Consultations

I also offer consultation by phone. I review your site or page and provide rescue advice for you, your designer or webmaster. Hourly fee is $100. There is no charge for pre-call work.

Fee

I will work on a flat fee basis if the scope of your project is well defined by both of us. Loosely defined projects are priced at an hourly rate.

Need To Learn More?

Feast your eyes on these articles which further explain the value of optimization.

Ready?

bud@joyofcode.com or 973 235 1452