Pemaquid Communications

Pemaquid has some state agency Clients who would love to partake of social media just like everybody else. The challenge is that the State of Maine has an accessibility policy that requires agencies to make sure they provide information in a way that’s accessible to the visually and physically impaired.

Enter Facebook. Facebook is loaded with Ajax-y goodness, the kind that’s hard for screen readers and other assistive devices to pick up. So, is Facebook accessible? Strictly speaking, perhaps it is. Here’s the more important question: is Facebook usable?

I posed the question to a colleague who’s been blind since birth and who has a Facebook account. His response:

Honestly, I hate the Facebook site. I hated the old one and try though I might, I don’t find the new layout much improved.

Admittedly, there now seems to exist heading navigation which is nice, but not knowing when pages update and so forth poses a real problem where accessibility is concerned.

I generally use Facebook via the mobile site which is much more accessible, but at the cost of a lot of features.

For example, there’s no way to access group discussion boards via the mobile site, certain notifications don’t show up and applications, well they can just be forgotten.

Still, for basic FB use, the mobile site is definitely the most efficient, most accessible way.

Pemaquid recently launched a brand new Web site for Eastern Book Company, a firm located in Westbrook, Maine that provides book acquisition services to libraries worldwide. Librarians place thousands of orders through the site each month.

EBC, run by brothers Dick and Steve Coyne, had decided that the time was right for a makeover. We had a few major objectives.

The Goals

Present a more professional image. Though the EBC Web site was fully functional and getting the job done, Dick Coyne wanted a polished look and feel that would present a first class image to customers (and more importantly, potential customers). The look developed by Pemaquid tied in with a rebranding developed by a local marketing firm and amplified it.

Improve the user experience. EBC strives to provide the best customer service in the book acquisitions industry. Pemaquid provided better views into the status of orders, book claims and especially book searching and sorting.

Content Management. We plugged in a custom version of the Pemaquid Content Manager to allow EBC to self-publish content to the home page and to create booklists and publish news.

Custom RSS feeds. EBC wanted to create custom RSS feeds for their booklists that would allow customers to easily get updates, via a feedreader, of booklist topics of interest to them.

The Technology

Yahoo User Interface. We used “YUI”, as it’s known, to provide AJAX sorting of book search results and shopping cart data. This reduced overhead as fewer calls to the server were needed for customers to navigate recordsets.

Ingres database. EBC maintains millions of book titles in Ingres (the-Open-Source-database-that’s-not-mySQL). We had to tie into that existing system, which we did using PHP.

mySQL database. The Pemaquid Content Manager was built for mySQL; any information not related to book ordering runs through this database.

The Team

In order of appearance…

Jamie Peloquin, Web Designer – Jamie took the EBC brand and created the look and feel.

Jen Ecker, Web Designer (Pixel Surgeon) – Jen was the one primarily responsible for taking Jamie’s design comps and turning them into XHTML and CSS. She added a dash of iconography along the way as well.

Sarah Hines, Web Design/Air Traffic Control – Sarah chipped in with project management and a little HTML coding here and there.

Jeff Norris, Web Developer – Jeff was the one who deciphered Ingres (this was our first Ingres project) and wired in the YUI grids and PHP scripting to talk to it.

Robert Brochu, Graphic Designer – Robert created a few graphics to add the finishing touches to booklistings towards the end of the project.

Rob Landry (Yours Truly), Chief Bottle Washer, Cat Shepherd – I did the business requirements analysis, information architecture, and installed the customized Pemaquid Content Manager and chipped in on the XHTML/CSS, as I usually do. Since it’s my business, I also get to do a lot of project management too (don’t envy me all at once, now).

The Future

The response from EBC customers on the new site has been overwhelmingly positive. I say: Good Start.

We’re currently developing an online marketing plan for Eastern Book which will include Twitter and possibly other social networks where appropriate, and we’re continuing to refine the the user experience based on customer feedback.

Recently Pemaquid Communications launched a redesigned Web site for Eastern Book Company, a firm in Westbrook, Maine that offers book acquisition services to libraries worldwide.

The launch was successful, and the site has been well received by both EBC and its customers. But the project was not without its share of bumps and bruises. Here are some things we learned along the way.

Never underestimate the time it will take to learn new technology.

EBC uses Ingres as its main product and ordering database. Like mySQL, Ingres is Open Source, but it’s far less common. It also uses a slightly different syntax than the more familiar mySQL. This was Pemaquid’s first Ingres project.

Having worked with SQL Server and even a dash of Oracle, I figured it wouldn’t be too long before I had Ingres doing my bidding. I thought wrong, sports fans. As I should have known, when working with new technology, plug a substantial fear factor into your plans.

If at all possible, have one designer “own” the entire Design Concept

I charged one designer with creating the concept for the EBC site, based on site navigation and wire frames I developed. I have to say it came off beautifully (many thanks to Jamie Peloquin). Then (mainly due to delays in development) I relied on a couple other hired guns to add some icons and graphics to rounds things out, and I added my own touches in a few spots. The results were a little underwhelming.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing tragically hideous about the site. It’s just that every designer plays their own brand of rock and roll, and that affects the overall cohesiveness of the look and feel. That’s true of the EBC site, and there were times when we could have paid a little more attention to details (we’ll be sprucing things up a bit over time).

If possible, make sure you don’t switch horses midstream when it comes to the design.

DIY can get you DOA

I’ve always been a Do-It-Yourself kind of guy. Probably because I can’t wait for someone else to do the job, and because my Inner Control Freak usually holds sway.

In the case of EBC, I figured, what’s a little Ingres database? It’s gotta be just like mySQL, right? Um, not quite right. Wrestling with the Ingres database and the particular dialect of SQL that it speaks led to delays. I should have brought in Jeff Norris, my database gun, much earlier in the game.

Know what you know, know what you don’t know, and trust that your Web slinger friends will help you get the job done right.

There’s a lot of twittering going on about social media lately (pun intended). I’m going to be weighing in on the subject April 7 with a presentation I’ll be giving at the Harrasekett Inn, co-sponsored by the Freeport Merchants Association and the Maine Merchants Association.

Here are the particulars:

We’ll talk about a few Web sites you may have heard of – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube – as well as a few others, with an eye towards harnessing them to develop a sensible strategy for extending your organization’s brand or mission online.

Why me?

Good question indeed. I’ve built my business not on social media, but on the smart Web site design, usability, accessibility and content management, and that’s what I do best.

On the other hand, I also feel passionately about taking a no-nonsense approach to whatever it is you’re doing online, and that includes social media. I also know as much about social stuff as anyone in Maine.

I first bumped into Twitter in March 2007 while attending the South by Southwest interactive conference in Austin, Texas (which I call the Superbowl of Web Design). I twitter up a storm as @portlandhead and maintain @pemaquid (for the biz) and @Bluezberry_Jam (for my band; I play bass in my “spare time”).

I’m also the first (and to my knowledge, still the only) Maine Web designer to have developed Facebook apps. Pemaquid has done four: Bluezberry Jam, Portland Diner, Jenny’s Cards and Lost on Liftoff.

Editor’s note, 3/28/09: since creating this post, I’ve learned of another Mainer who’s created Facebook apps.

Fun Facts

Here are a couple fun facts about social media, to help you understand why it’s so important to use them effectively:

• 5 of the 10 most popular Web sites are social networks
• 3 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day
• 13 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute

All that and more coming up April 7. See you there!

In the meantime, there’s a comment box below. You can use it. So give me your questions. What would you like to learn?

Do you work in Portland, Maine? Do you create things digitally, using bits and bytes? Do you think being around other, similar folks – “Digital Creatives” – would help everyone get better?

Then you should take the Coworking Survey for Portland, Maine. It’s a quick, 13 question affair (don’t worry pilgrim, we’ll have you in and out of there in no time) intended to help us (who is “us”? we’ll get to that in a minute) find out what others might like to have in a collaborative space.

I’ve been exploring the idea of developing a coworking space in Portland for about a month now, after some poking around in the commercial real estate scene.

Along the way, I’ve bumped into Jeff Norris, Sheila Reiser and Alana Post (perhaps you know us?), and together we’ve been experimenting w/t/idea. Fortunately, right now there is a lot of downtown commercial real estate to use as our laboratory. For now, we’re working out of a space at 28 Maple St.

Other coworking spaces in other parts of the country include:

• Indy Hall- Philadelphia
• Citizen Space – in San Fran, founded by Chris Messina and Tara Hunt, pioneers iof the concept
• Launchpad - in Austin, TX, home of SXSWi

If you’re a Web/Graphic artist, programmer, podcaster, digital video producer, information architect, copywriter – really anyone who uses bits and bytes to create stuff – we’d love it if you could take a minute to give us your thoughts on this idea, which I submit will be the work environment of the future. Or at least comment this post.

Keep an eye on this space for survey results.

Feel free to stop on by. There are 4 of us there right now; we’re looking for 2 more “Charter Members”.

it’s been said that the goal of good design, layout and typography is to honor content. I believe that an excellent Web design concept lends credence to what’s being written.

In some ways, a Web site is like a garden. After its built, if not carefully managed, the “weeds” start popping up and things can get a little overgrown. This site is no exception.

I’m proud of this site, but this site needs some adjustments, to keep up w/t/latest design techniques but more importantly to allow me to more easily do the things I’d like to do.

For example, on this blog you can’t easily highlight code snippets. That means more time is needed to style things any time you want to write about code, and that’s not a best practice.

So…time to weed the garden… or maybe even rototill it. Stay tuned.

Update: Created a style for highlighting code:

<script type="text/javascript" src=""> </script>
<script type="text/javascript" src=""> </script>
<script type="text/javascript" src=""> </script>
<script type="text/javascript" src=""> </script>

South by Southwest, the annual Super Bowl of Web design, is underway in Austin, Texas this week. If you dropped a bomb on the convention center you’d likely vaporize 80% of the world’s top Web design talent.

It’s a great place to meet the cream o’ the crop. I attended “South By” in 2007 and 2008 and had the chance to meet and converse with Jeffrey Zeldman, Dan Cederholm, Andy Clarke and Ryan Carson, among others. I also kindled new friendships with other designers from the New England region with whom I’ve often been able to bounce ideas around from time to time.

You always hear about the latest and greatest at SXSW. I first heard about Twitter, which has exploded into the mainstream in the last three months or so, at the 2007 event, just a few months after it had launched.

That’s usually how it is with SXSW. One year it’s blogs, the next, online video, then social networking. What’ll be the new wave in 2009? I recommend keeping an eye on innovations involving the mobile Web.

This year I opted to do other things, but now, as I follow the Tweets (SXSW has been the most-popular-tweeted-topic for the last several days), I’m wishing I was there.

When designing all these way-cool, bubblicious Web 2.0 apps, and when working with frameworks like jQuery, it’s easy to get caught up in the ajax-y goodness of it all and forget about accessibility requirements.

One reason many Web sites don’t have a higher degree of accessibility built in is that accessible design is seen as hard work. It’s one more set of best practices to wrap one’s brain around.

Often, for designers, it can seem to take the fun out of things (though it doesn’t have to be that way).

Drew McClellan has a recent blog post on the subject that illustrates the point. He talks about the Cappucino framework, developed by 280 North and billed as a way to build “desktop-caliber applications that run in a web browser”. The 280 guys are even working on a drop-and-drop IDE, called Atlas, for creating Cappucino apps.

I haven’t tried Cappucino first hand, but the word on the street is that this system is incredibly stunning, and the folks at 280 North should be congratulated for the accomplishment.

Cappucino’s javascript-laden framework, however, still has a ways to go to address accessibility issues. Hopefully, the 280 guys – and others developing similar systems – will take the time and do the hard work necessary to make sure their creations have a high degree of accessibility built in.

We can do it without losing the Coolness Factor. Focus on simple elegance in your design, make it your business to understand best practices for accessible design, and you’ll be able to build sites that work with assistive devices and are also fun to use.