Tag Archive: website development

1. Why Aren’t Clients Seeing the Changes I Made?

   I think all developers have been there. We make a style change and ask the client to review it, only to have them say that it looks exactly the same as it did before. Then, we have to walk the client through “shift-reloading” or emptying their browser’s cache—an extra step that can seem like arcane gobbledygook to some clients.

   Why does this happen? 

   In order to limit the number of expensive network requests for assets like stylesheets and JavaScript files, browsers will store a local copy of these files on your computer’s local hard drive or memory. Since styles and JavaScript change so infrequently, there is often no need to repeatedly download the same file. Retrieving a file from your hard drive is loads faster than grabbing it from the Internet. Doing so also helps limit the amount of traffic hitting the website’s server, making other requests that much quicker and reducing stress on your site’s server.
   To get a sense of the items that are cached in a browser, you can open up the browser’s Developer Tools and go to the “Network” tab. The Developer Tools are available under View > Developer > Developer Tools on Chrome for Macintosh and More tools > Developer tools on Chrome for Windows.

   

   Once the Developer Tools are open, make sure to uncheck the “Disable cache” option. If the browser’s cache is disabled, nothing will be cached and this demonstration won’t work. If you are a developer, and want to ensure seeing the most recent changes you’ve made as you work, this is a good way to accomplish that goal.

   

   Once “Disable cache” is deselected, open up a web page, keeping the Developer Tools open to the Network tab. It could be any page – even this one. The Network panel will show all of the loaded assets on the page you loaded. This will include the images, the JavaScripts, the stylesheets, and even the underlying HTML of the page itself. You will see a lot of information for each of the downloaded items. One of the Network Panel columns is “Size” which, as you probably can guess, shows how big the downloaded item is. If you don’t see “Size” in your list, you can right-click on the headers for the list of downloads and customize the columns to show.

   

   Now, there is an exception to the size of the file being shown in this column. This happens when a file wasn’t accessed through the Network at all but, instead, through the browser’s cache. The browser will cache some items on your computer’s disk and some items in memory.

   

   If you look at the time taken to load elements you will notice that the disk cache is generally much faster than accessing items through the network and the memory cache is faster still. This is great for performance. This is not so great when a client wants to review the changes made to the stylesheet on their site, though.

   Do you still have the Network Panel open? If so, you can view the difference that “shift reloading” makes. While holding down the Shift key on your keyboard, click the browser’s reload button. Most of the same assets that came from the disk or memory cache will now show their file size because the shift reload tells the browser to get a fresh copy of all of these files. This allows the user to see any changes made, and helps get development back on track.
   Pulse Marketing Agency is a full service marketing agency located in Bangor, Maine.
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2. A Mobile-Friendly Website Isn’t An Option—It’s A Requirement.

   Website designers know that people aren’t going to spend much time on a website that’s difficult to use.  Good designers, in fact, pay attention to the ways their sites are typically viewed and adjust their work accordingly. In earlier days of the web, this meant restricting a site’s width so that people with smaller monitors wouldn’t have to scroll sideways to see everything, and avoiding the use of effects that were only available to users of a single browser (for example, Netscape Navigator was one of the only browsers available in the 1990s that supported blinking text).

3. Common Website Mistakes That You Can’t Afford to Make

   Nowadays, company websites are as ubiquitous as the business card: nearly everyone has one. That means that the standard of quality has been raised. You can’t sit on a poorly designed, eight-year-old site and expect prospective customers to give you the benefit of the doubt. A website that doesn’t do your business justice is worse than no website at all: it means you are actively turning people away from your door.

4. Making the Most of Your Mobile Website

   It is impossible to deny the continuing growth of mobile computing. Nowadays, more and more people rely exclusively on smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices to browse the web, shop online, and stay in touch. I have asked my colleague Ian Marquis, Creative Director at Pulse Marketing Agency, to give us some tips to help you ensure that your company’s mobile website puts its best foot forward:

5. Make Your Website Work for You!

   This month, we have been discussing the ins and outs of modern website design and development, touching first on traditional HTML/CSS websites, then on Content Management Systems (CMS), and finally on the integration of Rich Media into your web presence. So far, we have placed a great deal of emphasis on content and the ways in which it can be included and managed – after all, your company’s website is only as good as the information it provides. But the highest quality content in the world is worth nothing if your website is not found on the Internet. This week, we will be wrapping up our Website Design and Development series with some information on how to make your website work for you.