“Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that’s real power.”

Clint Eastwood

In order to be a successful and respectable web designer, it is essential to have respect. Not only should you respect yourself, but respect others as well.

What is respect?

According to www.merriam-webster.com, respect is “an act of giving particular attention (consideration), high or special regard (esteem), and the quality or state of being esteemed.” We should consider others and have a special regard for others.

What does this mean in the world of a web designer?

1. Respect Yourself

Have a good self-esteem and value yourself. If you think of the definition of respect and how it applies to self-respect, it means to consider yourself and to have a high esteem or special regard to yourself. When you have a good self-esteem, you will have more confidence in yourself and in your work. These qualities will help you succeed in your career as a web designer.

A performance coach and motivational expert Jim Jackson says in a motivational blog, “People with high self-respect can be around other people that are better than they are, because they can acknowledge their differences without sacrificing their own self-respect. They can acknowledge that the other person has skills and strengths they aspire to. They can accept that. They can understand that there are differences in the world and there are people who have different skills, talents, looks, personalities, values and backgrounds.”

2. Respect Your Boss and Co-workers

There are many ways we can show respect to bosses and co-workers as a web designer.

A few ways to show respect to your boss is:

to show up to work on time, listen to your boss, do your work, do not talk bad about your boss to others, and acknowledge your boss as your authority figure in the workplace.

A few ways to show respect to your co-workers is:

to show up to meetings on time, be a team player, do your share of the work or project, do not talk bad about your co-workers to others, and treat your co-worker how you would want to be treated.

3. Respect Your Clients

Clients are important. They are the ones that give us our jobs. Happy clients can lead to more jobs. They will come back to you and refer you to others.  It is very important to treat your clients well and to show them proper respect.  Respect their time and ideas.

 

Harry Roberts, a web developer from the UK, made a good point in his blog, “We’ve all had clients request silly, impossible or just outright disgusting things, but we’re professionals. This is where we educate, explain, justify and reason to the best of our abilities, using our knowledge as a tool and not a weapon.”

“Passion is your positive attitude in a world of negativity.”
–Jeff Blackman, Result$

Benefits of a Positive Attitude

A positive attitude is important in both your personal and career goals, especially as a web designer or developer. With a positive attitude, you will have reduced stress, better health,  better working relationships, more equipped to solve problems, and endless opportunities for success.

1. Reduced Stress & Better Health

People who have positive attitudes tend to have better health and deal with stress better than people with negative attitudes. Reduced stress and better health is a great benefit, especially to an incredibly busy web designer or developer. Better health leads to less sick days and more productivity on projects.

According to an article How is Having a Positive Attitude Healthy for You? by Stacy Mosel, “A positive attitude can lead to reduced levels of stress. According to the Mayo Clinic, a positive attitude and thinking optimistically can help you to deal with life’s stressful situations by reducing the effects of stress on the body. Positive thinking can increase the production of endorphins, which are the “feel-good” chemicals in the brain. Stress levels are lower in people who have a positive attitude because they are generally able to see the glass as half-full, and do not see themselves to blame for the occasional downfalls of life, as pessimists often do.”

2. Good Reputation

In my opinion, people with positive attitudes tend to have better reputations than those who have poor attitudes. We all enjoy being around the type of people who think of the glass as half full instead of half empty. We enjoy hearing their positive statements, positive ways to solve problems,  and are more likely to accept any constructive criticism from them. We feel built up, motivated, and encouraged when we are around people who are positive. I think most of the successful leaders have positive attitudes and that is how they lead their teams and companies into great success. The positive thinking web designer or developer can be a good asset to other clients, other designers, and companies.

3. Better Problem Solver

“Your problem is not your problem.

Your attitude – - how you handle your problem – - is the problem.”

John Maxwell, author

Positive thinkers tend to be better problem solvers than those who are negative thinkers, because they are more likely to see opportunities in solving problems and tend to not give up. Negative thinkers tend to give up more easily and see problems as bad things. The case is that problems are not necessarily bad at all. There will always be some type or problems, especially in the world of web design and development. We see problems daily- problems with our code and designs. Problems can be good…it really depends on how we are able to solve the problems that really matters. In fact, sometimes problems can lead us to better solutions.

4. More Opportunities and Success

As a web designer or developer, there are highways of opportunities and success. If we put on a positive attitude and put ourselves out there, we will find our way to the door of success. A positive attitude will help us overcome our fears and people will take us seriously. A negative attitude will keep us on the sidelines. If we cannot believe in ourselves, how can we expect our clients and bosses to believe in us?  I challenge each of you to start looking at the glass as half full, and start looking for the pitcher with endless opportunities to fill up your glass.

Credit: Free images from acobox.com

Trustworthiness is one of the most important characteristics that you can have. According to the article, Top 10 Characteristics Employers Look for Most in Job Seekers, by Kristyn Hammond, honesty is one of the top ten characteristics that employers look for in a prospect. No matter what field you work in, it is crucial to be trustworthy and honest. Just like when you are trying to find a new doctor that you can trust with your health, employers look for employees that they can trust. We expect doctors, police officers, firemen, and bankers to be trustworthy. We expect that our doctor is not going to give us the wrong prescriptions, that police officers are going to protect us when we call, that firemen are going to put out a fire, and bankers to not run off with our money.

What does it mean to be trustworthy as a Designer?

1. Know What You are Doing

When a client hires you to design and develop a web site for them, they trust that you know how to do the job.  If a fireman says that he has to use a fire extinguisher to put out a grease fire instead of water, you are going to trust that he knows what he is talking about. As a web designer, clients trust that you know how to create the design, have knowledge of color palettes, know how to get a domain name for a web site, and how to make the web site come to life.  They are going to trust that you know what you are doing and what you are talking about.

2. To Show Up

From time to time, whether you work for a web design company or as a freelance designer, you will have meetings to attend. As a trustworthy designer, you will show up at the meetings promptly. You will want your employers and clients to know that you take your position seriously and care about the projects on hand. If you do not show up to the meetings or call if you are unable to attend because something comes up, your employer or clients will lose trust in you and may think you are unreliable. If you are unable to show up to a meeting for any reason, be sure to make contact with your employer or client.

3. Finish a Project

Once a client hires you to design and develop a web site, they will trust that you will finish the web site within the time that was agreed upon. When you go to the salon to get your hair done, you do not expect that the hairdresser will just cut your hair on one side and leave the rest undone. You trust that your hairdresser will finish the job. If you do not finish projects, this can hurt your trustworthiness. Your client will begin to not trust you. If a project takes longer than the time limit agreed upon, notify your client. Keep your client updated, so he or she will not lose trust in you.  Finishing what you start is very important, and can relate to trustworthiness.

4. Say No to Copyright Infringement

Copyright infringement is a crime and there is punishment involved if convicted. If you are convicted for copyright infringement, your trust can automatically be damaged.  Copyright infringement for a web designer or developer has a similar impact as embezzlement does for a banker. If you get convicted for copyright infringement, web design companies or clients will not want to hire you. There will be a loss of trust. Make wise choices that will reflect that you are trustworthy. Make sure that you have the rights to use the fonts and images that you choose for the designs. If there is a statement that says a font is okay to use for personal use, do not use it on a commercial web site.

Trust is Good as Gold?

Trustworthiness is a very valuable characteristic to have in the workplace and in society. People like to work with people that they can trust.

According to the article, What Employers Look for in People They Hire, author Carol Carter states “Foremost on the list of “must-haves” for employers is integrity. If a candidate shows trustworthiness, follow-through and moral consistency, potential employers are much more likely to develop the admiration and trust necessary to consider offering a job.”

By maintaining your integrity, you will succeed in all areas of  life -in your career, business, and relationships. Trustworthiness is as good as gold. It always holds value and will never depreciate, as long as you maintain it and reflect that you have integrity.

Listed below are the links to the articles that I referred to in my blog:

Read more at Suite101: What Employers Look for in People They Hire: A Guide to Great Resumes and Memorable Interviews http://www.suite101.com/content/what-employers-look-for-in-people-they-hire-a129482#ixzz113ZzAMpx

“One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes…

and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

As web professionals, we will continuously have choices to make throughout our careers.  The key is to learn how to make the best choices we know how to make in each circumstance, and to live with the consequences. Another important key is to know that we are held responsible for the choices we make and have to live with the consequences. It is usually when we discover that we are responsible for the choices that we make, that we learn to want to make better choices.

The choices we web professionals have to make can be the simplest choices such as what music we will listen to while we design and how we manage our time. We will be faced with tougher choices such as how we handle difficult clients or if we go by the web standards or not. Many times, we may become indecisive and think that we do not want to make a choice. However, choosing to not make a choice is still a choice.

Practice Making Great Choices

No matter what kind of decision maker you are, you will make poor choices from time to time. The important thing is to learn to practice making great choices, so the poor choices you make are far less than your good ones. I think the most important choice types to keep in mind as a web professional are choices related to time management, professionalism, and integrity.

Time Management Choices

Time is very crucial in a web professional career. If you are not careful, it can get away very quickly, I have learned. The job of a web designer or developer can be very detail oriented, and if we are not careful a project may never get completed if we continuously focus on perfecting every minor detail. Do not get me wrong, being detailed and making sure there is a dot on every i and that every t is crossed, is not necessarily a bad thing. The problem is when we may get so carried away with trivial details that we end up not finishing a project within the time frame. Understandably, there may be times beyond our control, that we are unable to finish a project before the deadline. The important thing is to practice making good choices related to time management and practice choosing to finish projects before their deadlines. Work smarter, not harder. Make choices that will help you save time or manage time wisely, rather than waste time. It is so easy to take a break from a project with the intent of only checking facebook messages for a moment, and before you realize it, 3o minutes has passed by.

Professionalism Choices

I personally think that as a web professional, it is very important to be professional. If you are not professional, people will not take you seriously as a web designer or developer. Practice making choices that will show that you are indeed a web “professional”. Professionalism includes how you handle clients, your work ethics, and how you present yourself.  If you get on facebook and complain about one of your difficult clients, it is not very professional. That is a choice that can reflect you poorly. However, sharing projects or newly learned skills can be a good choice. It can exemplify that you are adept with your web designer and developer skills. Keep in mind that poor professionalism choices can possibly keep a client from wanting to work with you or hurt your reputation. Good professionalism choices can help you succeed and give you a good name.

Integrity Choices

Integrity can coincide with professionalism, since it is related to work ethics. Choosing to have integrity is one of the best things you can do as a web professional. People like to work with people that they can trust. Just one poor choice relating to integrity, can hurt your reputation and career. How often have you heard of bankers that ended up being caught embezzling money or the police officers that broke the law? Did it or did it not, change your image about them? I guarantee you that bankers that were caught embezzling money will have the most difficult time ever finding a job in the banking or money related business ever again, just the same with a police officer breaking the law.  It can take just one time for a web professional to cause copyright infringement to damage his or her integrity. If a web professional is charged for copyright infringement, it will be very difficult for them to find a job in the field. Practice making choices that show that you have integrity. One poor choice is not worth losing your integrity over.

Taking Responsibility

Lastly, it is very important to remember that YOU are responsible for the choices you make, not your best friend, not your dog, not your spouse, not your teacher, but only you. If you make a bad choice, own it and learn from it, do not play the blaming game.  Taking responsibility for your choices helps you to learn from your mistakes and to try to make better choices. Choices, from simple to complicated, are very important in a web professional’s career. The choices you make daily contribute to who you are as a web professional and can influence your reputation. Practice making great choices, so you will grow and develop professionally as a web designer or developer.

“Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people.”

Spencer Johnson

Are you an Honest Abe?

Scenario:

You are at work designing and developing a website for a client. It is getting close to the deadline. You have lacked behind on the project. You have had a rough week.  Your old dog Buster died. Your girlfriend broke up with you. Your computer has crashed. It took you several hours to get your computer back up. It is 5:00 p.m. You have 16  hours until the deadline to present the website to your client. You are planning on working late at the office trying to piece together the final touches of the presentation, when your best friend calls. He has tickets to the Thunders playoff game and asks you to go with him. They are really good seats, $175 tickets.  He got them last minute from his boss because his boss cannot make it to the game. The game is tonight at 6:30 p.m.  What do you do?

Do you say no to the tickets?

Let’s just say you could not say no and decide to go to the game with your best friend.  You have had a rough week and feel as though you deserve to go to the Thunders game. The tickets are free, best seats in the house, and how can you say no to a great game with your best friend? Plus, you can always go to the office early. You only have a “few” final touches to make on the website.  So you go to the game and have a great time and do not get home until midnight.

The Next Morning

You awake to a loud trash truck driving by your house. You look at your clock. It’s 8:30 a.m.!!! You set your alarm to p.m. instead of a.m. The presentation is at nine o’clock! It will take you thirty minutes just to make it to work! Oh, no, what will you tell your boss? There is no way you can have the final touches done in time for the presentation now! Oh, but wait…your computer did crash yesterday….you could tell your boss that your computer crashed and that is why you do not have the presentation completed. It is partly true. So that is what you do. You call up your boss and tell him that you were working on the presentation and your computer crashed. Your boss is very understanding and ends up calling up the client explaining the situation. The client is also understanding and is fine to reschedule the presentation and meeting. However, the “little mishap of the computer crashing” has caused much inconvenience to the client, your boss, and the company you work for. The client  traveled from New York to meet with your design team for the presentation.  The company you work for reimburses the client for the air travel and hotel accommodations.  The presentation is pushed back a month because of conflicting schedules. Your decision has caused a ripple of inconveniences costing money and time.

But for you, everything has worked out fine. Now you have plenty of time to work on the presentation. Your boss is not angry. Your client is on good terms.

Dishonesty is a Trap

You only thought everything worked out in your favor. Your boss calls you into his office a week later wanting to talk to you. He is not very happy. Come to find out, your client had an uncle that was friends with your best friend’s dad on facebook and sporadically came across a picture of you and your best friend at the Thunders playoff game. Not only did he come across the picture, but he saw a comment you made on your best friend’s facebook page that said, “Close one! My boss bought it that my computer crashed! I get another month to work on the presentation now! Only if he knew that I was at the Thunders game!”  Busted! Now the truth comes out.

Both your boss and your client are extremely angry and feel betrayed. Your client has lost faith in the company you work for and threatens to go elsewhere. Your boss fires you.  What started as a “white lie” has not only cost your boss, client, and company, money and time, but it has cost you your reputation. Your reputation is scarred.

It’s Always Better to Be Honest

In this situation, if you would have told your boss that you ended up going to the Thunders game because you had a rough week, intended on going to the office early to finish the website, and ended up oversleeping because your alarm did not go off, he might have understood….or, your boss may have been angry. He may have told you that it was irresponsible to go to the Thunders game instead of working on the presentation. However, the consquences would not have been as steep as the consequences resulting from your lie.

I wrote this scenario, because I think we can all relate to it somehow. We are all faced with decisions to make and we do not always make the best decisions. I think we have all been tempted to lie at some point in our lives.  Telling the truth is always better than telling a lie, even if the truth is not very pretty. People do not like to work with dishonest people or dishonest companies. Honesty and Integrity are very important qualities. Those qualities will make you stand out as a person and a web designer. Having honesty and integrity enables others to trust you and want to work with you. Be mindful of the decisions that you make and what consequences follow. Lying and taking a chance of not getting caught is not worth it. It is better to tell the truth. It will keep your integrity and reputation intact.

For class, I had to complete a tutorial using photoshop. I chose to do the tutorial to design an awesome band web site from www.dzineblog.com

How to Design an Awesome Band Website

This tutorial sparked my interest because my husband used to be in a rockband and I have always been a grunge girl at heart. Back in the day, I used to listen to Nirvana, the band that made grunge rock most successful in the 1990′s. Why not learn how to create a grungy web site? Might as well practice making websites for bands.  I actually used pictures of my husband and the band he used to be in, Stonewater, for the tutorial.

Techniques I learned?

1. Use of lighting effects to add to a background

I learned how to add a really neat effect to my background by adding a lighting effect by going to filter, render, and lighting effects in photoshop. I added a spotlight effect that made the band logo stand out more. It just made the background look more grungy and polished. I found this technique very easy, yet it can make a big difference.

2. How to create a stamp or branding iron

In order to complete the band web site tutorial, I actually had to dive into another tutorial about how to create a branding iron or stamp look.  This tutorial was very simple but enlightening! This technique can come in handy for edgy logo designs, added effects, and possible navigation buttons. This tutorial combined the use of text, a rounded rectangle, and layer styles to create a branding iron look.

3. How to use layer mask and the use of brushes to give a content box an edgy look

I got to learn how to create a really neat content box by combining a rectangle, layer mask, and grunge brushes. This was the easiest technique ever, but it can come in handy in many future projects. I think I could even create paper looking content boxes using this same technique.

4. The use of layer styles and opacity to sharpen the look

From previous learning and lynda online training, I already knew how to combine the use of layer styles and opacity. However, I feel like it reiterated what I need to always keep in mind. Layer styles help give images more depth and a more realistic look. The use of shadows, inner glows, and gradient overlays can make a tremendous difference on how an image looks.  I did learn how to combine overlay and reduced opacity to create more of a blending effect using layer styles. These tools come in very handy to create clean and polished web sites.

Any Challenges Encountered?

In all honesty, the only challenge I encountered was when creating the branding iron or stamp look. I forgot a couple of steps on the tutorial and had to redo the tutorial a couple of times to get it right. The tutorial was very simple, I just kept leaving out a couple of steps, when creating the rectangle shape and stroke layer style. It makes a huge difference on the outcome when a step or two is left out. Otherwise, both tutorials were very well written and easy to follow along.

Best Technique Learned?

My favorite technique learned was how to make grungy looking content boxes and  navigation buttons. I learned how to combine a layer mask and use grunge brushes to give the content box the grunge effect. The neat thing about adding a layer mask and the grunge brushes, is that it can be edited. Using an eraser with the grunge brushes will work too. (I actually used that effect for the grungy navigation buttons). However, it is more difficult to edit, if you decide to make changes later. I think this technique can be used to create paper textures as well. I will definitely use this technique in  future projects.

Tidbits Added

Milk Can Texture Effect

The tutorial was good about letting the learner be creative. The author of the tutorial mentioned that an image can be added to the background using a blending mode. Last weekend, I just so happened to take a picture of an old, rusty, beat up milk can and used that image in this tutorial. (I love taking pictures and closeups of random things). I added it to the background by using the soft light blending mode and reducing the opacity. It helped give a little more edge to the grunge background. The first picture below is a close up of the milk can. The second picture is the blending effect of the milk can image combined with the background.

My Final Touch

At the end of the tutorial, the author mentioned that additional images could be added and blended into the background. The author mentioned adding the images to the left hand side. Since I felt like the top right corner of the website was a little bare,  I added one big picture of the band and used the blending mode of lighten and reduced the opacity to 21%. I used the grunge technique of using the layer mask and grunge brushes to make the image blend in with the backgroung more and have an edgy look.

I have to admit, I was very excited once I finished this tutorial! I was amazed at how the easiest techniques can be used to create an awesome grunge website. I have always wanted to design a grunge looking website, and with the help of a tutorial, now I have!

And here is my version of the completed tutorial on how to design an awesome band website:

“Anger: The emotion that can make your sweat boil and tip the lid off, if you let it.”

We all get angry. We are only human. We would be robots if we did not get angry. No one said that we are not allowed to get angry. The important key is how we manage our ANGER. If we let anger get the best of us, we can end up saying things we regret, possibly breaking things, or do things that can compromise our reputation, especially as a web designer or developer.  How we manage our anger can affect our relationships with our coworkers and our clients. Who wants to work with someone that stomps around, yells and screams at the top of their lungs, or throwing things?

We are web professionals and it is necessary to act professionally with our co-workers and our clients, no matter how angry or frustrated we get.

I have dealt with situations and angry people numerous times, especially working in the customer service type field for over ten years. I have been yelled at by angry customers and it immediately sent my sweat boiling.

Here are some tips that I have learned over the years that help me deal with my anger before it explodes:

1. Take a Deep Breath

When you are in the situation where your client is angry and frustrated, take a deep breath and concentrate on your breathing.

According to an article Three Minutes to Stress Relief by Melissa Conrad Stoppler, MD, “Taking a restorative pause to focus on your breathing can also be a valuable anger-management tool.”

2.. Remain Calm

No matter how hard it may seem at the moment you heat up in anger, strive to remain calm. Sometimes when you remain calm in the situation where someone is yelling at you, it may end up calming them down as well.

In the article How to Remain Calm When Dealing With an Angry Person, author Ron Huxley says,”When you remain composed under pressure, it also encourages the other person to calm down and talk more rationally. By carefully listening you may discover that the angry person has:

• Magnified an incident out of proportion
• Misunderstood information
• Interpreted your statement or action as a personal attack
• Picked a fight to cover up a larger issue
• Made you aware of a genuine complaint that you need to address”

3. Take a Timeout

Sometimes you just need a timeout. If you are angry and dealing with an angry client, you may just need to step out for a moment to refresh and calm down. If you are on the phone with your client, ask them if you can call them back. If your client is in person, tell them you need a moment.  Wait until you calm down before you re-enter the situation or talk to your client. It is difficult to resolve an issue when both parties are angry.

The key to calming yourself down is to take a time-out-essentially a break or a delay-away from the situation that provoked your anger. There are two steps involved in taking a time-out from anger.

Tobias Miller says in the article, Taking a Time Out From Anger, “Get away from the situation. The first step in taking a time-out is to get away from the situation that has triggered your anger. You need a break to gather your thoughts before you do anything else.”

If you manage your anger in a positive way, it is not only good for your clients but your reputation as well. You will earn the respect as a web professional that is beneficial to your career.

“Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends.”

Walt Disney

It’s About More Than Design & Functionality

When clients look for someone to design and develop their website, not only are they looking for good design and functionality, but for someone that can help them meet all of their website needs. Many times they will want website maintenance performed, website updates, and search engine optimization. The key thing is when you offer services to your clients, be sure that you are able to perform those services. If you are not able to complete those services, it might be better to not even offer them in the first place.  If you tell your customers that you can do something and fail to meet their expected needs, you might end up with many frustrated and unhappy customers.

Don’t Take It Personally

No matter how great of service you offer, customers can still become frustrated or angry. One of the key roles is how you handle a frustrated customer. When a customer is upset they are usually frustrated about the situation, not you personally.  I have worked in a customer service department of a bank for over ten years and have had to talk to many frustrated and angry customers. I used to take it personal when they would call upset about a situation and start yelling at me. I have learned over time that customers may seem angry at you, but they are more angry about whatever the situation is.  One of the the important things I have learned is to be able to stay calm in the situation and listen to the customer completely to find out exactly what it is that they are upset about.  If you stay calm and reserved, the customer will usually calm down.  The most important step is what you do to resolve the issue for the customer. If you help the customer meet their needs, they will be pleased and the situation that they were upset about will not be that big of a deal.

I read a quote that states:

“If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends.  If you make customers unhappy on the internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends.”

The internet is a big place for web designers and developers.  You definitely do not want a bad reputation as a web developer all because you did not know how to help your customers resolve a problem. When I am trying to find a company to do business with, I will do research on the web to see what people say about them. If I see just a handful of bad reviews but an armful of good reviews, the bad reviews do not hold much weight in my decision to do business with a company. However, if I see mostly bad reviews, I start looking for a different company to do business with.

Do The Best You Can

You may not always be able to resolve an issue right away, but do the best you can.  Be sure to have good communication with your client or boss. Be honest and upfront about the situation. If you break your arm and are not able to work on clients’ projects, contact your clients to let them know.  More than likely they will understand.  If a customer is needing a deadline to be met, make some phonecalls to your web designer & developer friends to see if they can help out. Outsourcing work is not always a bad idea. The important thing is to do what you can to the best of your abilities to meet your customer’s needs.

An article that I found insightful is “6 Ways to Kickstart Your Customer Service” by Angela West. She makes some very good points on how to make customer service a priority.  Listed below is a link to the article.

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/01/6-ways-to-kickstart-your-customer-service/

“We have become not a melting pot, but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.”

Jimmy Carter

As I was about to write notes for this particular blog on Diversity, a music video came on my television with the following words on the screen:

What makes us who we are?

Hair? Race? Sex? Eyes?

Reading those words made me think about how large our Earth is with billions of people living in it. No matter how similar we may possibly be, we are all very diverse. We are very different from how we dress, what music we listen to, our beliefs,  our cultures, our abilities and our personalities. Even identical twins are not completely the same. According to the article, Do Identical Twins Have Identical Fingerprints? by Pamela Prindle Fierro,  twins’ “DNA is virtually indistinguishable”, yet they do not have the same fingerprints.

Web designers must keep Diversity in mind when designing web sites.

When we design web sites, one of the biggest things to consider is the site’s core audience. Who are we designing the site for? What age group? What cultures? What languages do they speak? Do they possibly have any disabilities? How can we accomodate the site’s audience so they will continue visiting the site?  We have a vast array of choices to make and things to consider when we design the site. This may take us investing a good amount of our time doing research, but the results will be well worth the expense.

Cultural Diversity and Web Design

Wikipedia states that cultural diversity is “the variety of human societies or cultures in a specific region, or in the world as a whole.” It is important to learn how to communicate with different cultures.  In the sense of a specific region, if we were to design a web site for an Oklahoma State University organization, we would not want to design the site with the colors crimson and creme, the colors associated with OU. There would be some angry “Cowboy” fans out there.  In the sense of the world as a whole, we should consider the cultures that vary from country to country. There are color schemes and pictures that may be appropriate for one culture but offensive to another. As web designers we may not always be limited to working with clients in America. We may have opportunities to work with people living in other countries. Not only is it important to consider diversity for design purposes, but for communicating with clients and understanding them as well.  If you were to meet with a client and they do not make eye contact with you, you might would get offended since eye contact usually means interest.  However according to the article Eye Contact: What Does it Communicate in Various Cultures, “if a Japanese woman avoids looking someone in the eyes, she is not showing a lack of interest nor is she demonstrating a lack of self-confidence; instead, she is being polite, respectful and appropriate according to her culture.” A good rule of thumb would be to do some homework and learn about the client’s culture before a meeting to prevent any possible misunderstandings.

Diversity and Web Accessibility

Not only is there cultural diversity, but there is diversity among people and their abilities and disabilities. Web accessibility becomes a very important topic when designing web sites. Web accessibility helps ensure that people who have disabilities such as visual, auditory, cognitive and physical, are able to access web sites comfortably. We cannot ignore the fact that many people have these type of disabilities and use the internet regularly just like people who do not have those disabilities. Once again, it is important that we invest additional time in making sure web sites are accessible.  When someone that has a disability is able to use a screen reader to navigate a site we designed, it is well worth all our efforts.

Diversity is a beautiful thing. If we were all exactly the same, our world would be such a boring place.

“As long as the differences and diversities of mankind exist, democracy must allow for compromise, for accommodation, and for the recognition of differences.”

Eugene McCarthy

I did some research to learn something new related to database development, and come to find out, the creator of MySQL, Michael “Monty” Widenius started a petition to “Save MySQL” from Oracle just in the past week or so. Supposedly the company that owns MySQL, Sun Microsystems agreed to sell MySQL to Oracle (a competitor) for over 7 billion dollars. Not very many people are very happy about this potential deal.  MySQL is an open source database that is very popular and preferred by many developers.

According to an article Open Source Database Users Fear MySQL Change In Ownership by David Hamilton, Mr. Widenius said,

“If those IPRs fall into the hands of MySQL’s primary competitor, then MySQL immediately ceases to be an alternative to Oracle’s own high-priced products. So far, customers had the choice to use MySQL in new projects instead of Oracle’s products. Some large companies even migrated (switched) from Oracle to MySQL for existing software solutions. And every one could credibly threaten Oracle’s salespeople with using MySQL unless a major discount was granted. If Oracle owns MySQL, it will only laugh when customers try this. Getting rid of this problem is easily worth one billion dollars a year to Oracle, if not more.”

The answer should be known in a short time on what will happen on the issue. I honestly do not know very much about Oracle, but from what I have read and learned about MySQL, it is an affordable, good database with great performance. Surely, Oracle would not completely kill MySQL. Will they do what they can to make more of a profit on it? Most likely they will. That will definitely affect the group of developers that  use MySQL and their pocketbooks and of course their customer’s and their pocketbooks.

Listed below is a web site set up to sign the petition designed to save MySQL:

http://www.helpmysql.org/en/theissue/customerspaythebill

Christina Traffanstedt