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Evaluating Web Site Designers
This page is mostly a discussion concerning the evaluation of web site
designers. To ensure that your web site will have its maximum impact a
high quality job must be done. For this to happen, the designer not only must
be well versed and skilled in the HTML standards and their effect on
various types of user software, but also needs skills and
experience with Java, scripting, databases, backend programming, and web
server interfacing.
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Compare Designers and Developers
ETSA provides the highest quality work at the best possible price. Please
compare our work with other Internet Service Providers, that
way, you will know we offer the best service.
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Compare Quality of Work
Do not just compare what we say, take a close look at the work we and
others have done. If possible, use different browsers to
compare the pages. While various browsers may not be
able to present a page as nicely as a Netscape browser, the page should
show clearly and in an easily readable manner. A quality design will
ensure that the information on the page is always well presented,
regardless of the particular browser that a user has. ETSA ensures
that the page design always adheres to the standards, so that every user
has the best possible presentation of the pages with their browsers.
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Ensuring Proper Design
Talk to several designers. How do they verify their code? Do they run it
on one or more browsers to check how it appears? The
correct method is to use specially designed verification software to ensure
that the proper code is being used, in addition to verifying the appearance
on several browsers. A number of browsers are tolerant of certain typos and
omissions. Without running verification software, code defects that could
cause serious problems in less tolerant browsers, can be missed.
At ETSA we not only check the presentation of pages with a variety of
browsers, we also use specially designed software to verify the code
in all pages. This ensures all pages developed by ETSA, meet the highest
standards.
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Designing for the Web, and Netscape and Microsoft
A number of 'designers/developers' only create pages for viewing by Netscape
browsers or only for Microsoft browsers. It is an incorrect assumption is that
to achieve the best effects on the Netscape or Microsoft browsers, pages can
not be designed for a good presentation on other browsers. The truth is that
the design can, and should be able to
give the best presentation on Netscape, Microsoft, and all other browsers. Skill,
knowledge and a little extra work is all that is required to achieve both
the special Netscape and Microsoft effects, and still offers an excellent presentation
on all browsers.
Why design for special Netscape and Microsoft features? Approximately 80 to 90 percent of
the web users have these browsers. It is important that the
features and effects these people expect are provided in the pages. Equally
important are the other 10 to 20 percent of the people. It would not be wise to
ignore such a sizable segment of the market. This is why at ETSA we
design all the sites we develop to achieve both the special
features and excellent presentations on all browsers.
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Maintaining High Standards and Quality
It is fairly easy to pickup a book and learn the
rudimentary skills to design a web site. However, constant practice, study, and
professional networking are required to have the knowledge and ability to
perform a high quality job. At ETSA we actively participate in professional
web development groups, follow the activities at W3C (the web standards
organization), and join discussions and conferences, to maintain our
lead in web site design and development.
Find out if the other designers regularly participate in forums and web
developer groups. The interchange between fellow designers ensures
awareness of the latest developments, potential bugs, and up-to-date
standards.
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Interactive Pages and Special Effects
Find out if you will be able to have interactive pages, Java, ActiveX,
databases interfaces, and "server-side includes". It is possible you may not
want or need these features now, but as the Internet continues to rapidly grow
and develop farther, it is likely that these features will be desired soon.
With ETSA, interactive sites, "server-side includes", and other features
(such as animation), are no problem. We can design and develop all features
desired by our clients. We provide multi-host servers that are configured
to accept and handle interactive sites and server-side includes, and provide
the coding for interactive pages.
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Costs
Finally, compare costs. You will
find that our services are the
highest in quality for producing web sites, due to the knowledge and
experience acquired, which allows us to be very effective and efficient,
and our prices are among the lowest by maintaining very low overheads.
By all means, please check with other web designers, and be sure to also
check with us. We provide no charge consultation for planning, laying-out
development, and design of web sites. You will find that the best choice
is
E.T. Smith Associates.
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