The good thing about the web is that there is real variety out there. I ran into an all-business website, Warthog Website Designers, owned by Martin Evers. After looking at his portfolio I requested an interview with Martin. He was kind enough to respond with the following interview.

How did you get into web design?
“Universities tend to get technology early and whilst working at a local university I became interested in the Internet in the early 90s. I was fascinated by the opportunities that this new medium of communication offered.”

Do you remember the very first site you designed?
“Yes, it was for a conference at the time frames were introduced so it used frames, a black background and every animated gif I could get my hands on. Quite a spectacle!”

Where do you get your art for these webpages?
“I create all generated graphics and glean photographic material from old publications and clipart libraries.”

What will be the next big development in webpage design?
“I hope that more designers will pay less attention to razzle-dazzle and more attention to the quality of the content – the reason for the site in the first place. Stylesheets are slowly coming into their own and while I don’t think they will ever completely replace HTML, they will assume a greater prominence.”

Have you ever worked with website templates?
“I have looked at them and discarded them – every site we develop is unique and quicker to design than to modify a template.”

What website template providers have you tried?
“I have looked at several whose names I have forgotten but being a skinflint, I resent paying $50 for a template that I could make a better job of from scratch.”

What was your experience with them?
“I make extensive use of stylesheets and most templates seem to rely on Javascript rollovers for menus. The Warthog site is a four year old experiment composed entirely of stylesheets.”

What do you think about Flash technology?
“It has its uses, not as irritating, pointless animations but to emphasize a point on a page. Its excellent at providing zoomable maps.”

What are the advantages and disadvantages of using Flash?
“Flash animations are often cleverly executed by folk with undoubted talent. However, proponents of Flash fail to see that the function of a website is the efficient transfer of data – either to provide information or to sell a product. . . Our policy is that every element on every page must earn it’s place there. If any element, including Flash, fails to enhance the effectiveness of the website, it is discarded. . .Used carefully, it can be an asset. Visitors to websites are always in a screaming hurry – get in fast, be informed, make a decision and get out. I fail to see how Flash can, to any degree, aid this process in most websites. Then there is the search problem. ‘I’ve spent R50,000 on this site and I’m nowhere on Google’. It’s a completely Flash driven site, mate.”

What are your sources of inspiration?
“I try to ensure that every website I create has accessible, comprehensive and persuasive content and to that end, Rachel McAlpine’s book, ‘Web Word Wizardry’ has been impressively fresh. Gerry McGovern’s newsletter on web content quality is also a source of support when I think the Internet is destined to slosh around in textual mediocrity. Stu Nicholl’s CSS site is always surprising me with it’s innovations. My sources of perspiration are clients who, against the best advice, insist on throwing the kitchen sink at the home page and then complain the day after publication that they can’t be found on Google. They then complain again after six months to tell me that only 27 visitors have been to their website and 21 visitors have been themselves.”

What are your favorite website designs that you did NOT design yourself?
“Most websites, from both tiny businesses to large corporations are poor in one or more ways, however good websites are instantly recognized as such even though a word has not been read. There is an innate balance, a kind of delicate mini-ecosystem that such sites create where all the subtle elements of the pages support each other and the sum is greater than the parts. Great care is also generally taken with the content of such sites and the visitor is regarded as king. . . .Unfortunately, the majority of websites in this country are desperate things!”

What was the toughest project or customer situation you’ve encountered?
“Some projects proceed smoothly and others do not. A typical example is that of the client with champagne tastes and a beer budget. ‘I’d like you to take a look at whizzbangs.com. I think it’s very good – what do you think?’ A look at Whizzbangs shows that they have a fulltime staff of four doing nothing but their website. . . As alluded to above, we have the ‘incremental handbrake’ specialist. ‘Can you just add this – and that – and a couple of these please, Oh - and we definitely need all of those’. Finally, the home page moves at the pace of the QE2 with an outboard – and they blame you for the 300kb. . .Finally, we have the ‘I know exactly what I want on my site – right down to the last comma’ pedant – ‘and I’m not interested in search engines’. He phones up a couple of months down the line asking whether there’s anything I can do to get his site ranked because its nowhere.”

What are your interests and dislikes in webpage design?
“Interests - the development of stylesheets is one although there are so many workarounds to deal with the plethora of foibles in so-called ‘standards compliant’ browsers that I think we’re some ways off dispensing with tables. . . Content – well written, absorbing, engaging and focussed on the user of the site, not the owner. Clients – particularly those who will rely on their websites for a large part of their revenue, who have no experience of web psychology and yet know exactly how their websites should look. Getting the highest search rankings for our clients! . . .Dislikes – plenty. Here’s a few . . . Slooooowww pages. Pages that still take more than a minute under DSL. Their owners say ‘No-one visits my site’. Massive Flash slideshows, 760 x 300 pixels of vineyards, mountains, leopards etc. etc. that occupy fully half the area of the average screen. Clients don’t realize that those 800×600 pixels are worth a fortune – get your message across in them, tell visitors what you have to offer in simple terms because you only have around 6 seconds of his attention.
Execrable content. Pages full of waffle, jargon, cliches, buzz phrases, acronyms. Tourism sites with ‘tranquil’, ‘bird lovers paradise’, ‘home from home’. For Pete’s sake, use some imagination! Flash splash pages – people still continue to produce them. It’s like slapping your visitor in the face. To fail to provide a ‘skip’ link is like also kneeing him in the groin. Then you see ‘Welcome to our Site’. If you have to provide a ‘Skip’, then why bother with the Flash?. . . Frames within frames within frames. In the stampede to get as much ‘razzle dazzle’ as the budget will permit, two simple truths are trampled into the dust. KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid and CIK – Content is King.”

Martin, I must say, in addition to sage advice you have a great delivery. And that makes me know how your webpages work. We appreciate your frank report, your experience and wish you continued success.

Let the Good Times Roll!
Arthur Browning