Entries Tagged 'consulting' ↓

Those who are active in the field of mobile web design are going to find this site a true source of inspiration. You see, it gathers together salient designs from all over the web in order to give you enough of a thrust when you are designing a mobile-compliant site and hit a dry patch.

When it comes to the actual sites that have been submitted, there is really so much variety at play that if you scratch behind the surface (or just by glancing at the opening screen if your luck is in) you are bound to find something which will set you going.

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Learn more about CSSiPhone.com in Dataopedia.com

Find out how much CSSiPhone.com is worth with Stimator.com

I think we’re all aware that our actions have consequences for ourselves and, often, for others. I’m going to talk about such a situation that is relevant to iPhone developers.

I’ve had to turn down some development work while writing More iPhone 3 Development. This isn’t a big deal, as I expected that to happen when I agreed to do the book, and I like to see it, because it tells me that our platform is still doing well. However, a surprising number of the projects that I’ve turned down have been to fix iPhone applications written by other contract developers, something I don’t consider to be such a good sign.

Even if I were available to take the work, there’s something inherently uncomfortable about these situations. Some developer whose identity is unknown to me wrote this code. That developer has no chance to respond to my criticisms and I, in turn, have absolutely no idea of the situation under which the code was written. I feel like there’s no right way to point out flaws in code like this. Yet, to fix the problem or even give an accurate estimate, those problems have to be identified.

In one such recent instance, the potential (and very trusting) client actually sent me their code along with the description of the problem. I knew that I couldn’t take on a hefty project until the book is finished, but the description of the problem sounded like something that I might be able to be fix quickly and easily, so I looked at the code that evening.

The problem was exactly what I thought it was going to be based on the description, and I thought I’d be able to fix it with a few dozen lines of code over not more than a couple of hours, which would be a win for the prospective client and the client’s users who were experiencing significant performance problems with relatively low volumes of data. In a well-designed application, fixing this specific problem wouldn’t have impacted anything outside of a single class or, at worst, a handful of classes. It was a bottleneck in pure “Model” code in the MVC sense. In theory, as long as I didn’t change the way the object’s data was accessed and updated by other classes, I could change the implementation details, such as how the data was persisted, without impacting anything.

You know what they say about theories, right? They work great, in theory. But in practice…

So, yeah, that theory didn’t pan out. I started looking at the rest of the project looking for potential cross-depenencies and I found that my assumption was totally and completely wrong. The underlying data store wasn’t only vended through the data class, it was accessed directly by literally dozens of classes. In fact, all the actual persistence code – both loading and saving – (with the exception of encodeWithCoder: and decodeWithCoder:) was contained in controller classes. And there were dozens of these controller classes, many of which were nearly identical except for a handful of lines, which seemed to indicate a general lack of design or forethought. The core problem was thus made significantly harder to fix by a desperate and unrequited need for refactoring. There were, literally, several dozen classes that could have been written as a single-class or, at worst, a couple of subclasses with a common parent. The entire project looked like one thrown together by a tragically inexperienced developer, or one who didn’t have any use for “this new fangled OO shit”. Seriously, there should be a link to this project on the Wikipedia’s spaghetti code entry, in the section on “Spaghetti with meatballs”. Reading the project made me feel like I was in some weird programming equivalent of Poe’s Law; I don’t think I could intentionally create code this convoluted.

Now, I wish I could say that I’d never seen nor written bad code, but that wouldn’t be true. I’ve seen lots of bad code over the years and have written more than I’d care to admit. Despite that, though, this code was worse than most of what I’ve seen, and that’s saying something, given that my job for several years was fixing problems in other people’s code.

After a couple of hours, I came to the inescapable conclusion that this job was beyond my ability to take on right now. I’m almost positive that it would be more work to try and fix the multitude of problems in this code than it would be to just rewrite the application from scratch. Even if not, the end result would certainly be better. Out of fairness to the prospective client, I had to explain why I had to turn down the project, something that seems likely to cause problems for the previous developer. I couldn’t, in good conscious, not tell him, however. I did put it in far more diplomatic terms than I am doing here in my blog, at least, where I sometimes personify the fact that ‘tact’ is a four letter word.

The high demand for iPhone developers has made it a profitable livelihood and, I think, has caused many people to offer their services as iPhone developers without truly adequate experience. Hell, I’ve been working with the SDK as long as anybody outside of Apple, and I sometimes feel like I don’t have “truly adequate experience” with it – that’s the peril of a new technology I guess. Regardless, when you’re developing for a client or employer rather than yourself, you really need to be aware that there will be downstream developers affected by the decision you make or fail to realize are there in the first place. When you cut a corner to save time or fail to use good design because you don’t know any better or don’t care, that decision may very well have significant consequences for your client and for other developers who inherit your code.

Good application architecture and writing good code takes a little longer in the short run, but in the long run, it requires much less of a time investment to maintain. Yes, I know most of us bill by the hour and writing bad code is far more profitable than writing good code, but don’t do that. Seriously. That’s worse than just being ignorant of how to write good code. Despite the economy, there’s no shortage of iPhone development work right now, and even if that weren’t the case, you owe it to your clients to give them the best code you are capable of writing.

Addendum: Based on some of the comments, I fear that this post has come across as rather more judgmental than intended. Contract software development, especially for clients who are not familiar with the process, is extraordinarily hard. No contract developer has ever, ever created a perfectly designed, bug-free application. In the real world, you have to deal with deadlines, unreasonable demands, and tons of other factors that work against you delivering a perfect application. I am not unsympathetic to this at all, as I have experienced it myself on countless occasions.

I intended this only as a cautionary tale to give you something to think about when deciding whether to cut a corner or to skip doing that rewrite you know you need to do, not as an indictment of anybody. Believe me, looking at some of my early contract work, I’ve got some pretty harsh words for myself.

One of the most important traits in a developer is the willingness to accept that no matter how good you are, you do make mistakes. You will never stop making mistakes and you will never stop being able to learn from those mistakes. Sometimes, you can even learn from others’ mistakes and save yourself some pain.

©2009 Jeff LaMarche.
http://iphonedevelopment.blogspot.com

AppStoreHQ just published a searchable directory of all *published* iPhone app developers (i.e., at least 1 app in the App Store). IMPORTANT – if you do contract iPhone dev work in addition to shipping your own apps, you can edit your listing to reflect that so potential clients can find you. The directory is here: http://www.appstorehq.com/developers

What it does

In a nutshell, this is a new service that will enable you to share and edit both estimates and invoices over the web. There are many apps out there that let you create an invoice, and that is certainly useful. The only thing is that creating the invoice is just the start of the process. From that point onwards, it is not uncommon to have to send and receive a wealth of mails to clients and collaborators alike. This new app gets around this problem by creating a centralized platform that lets anybody connect with each other on the spot.

This is done by compressing the disparate e-mail threads into one conversation that will let anybody keep track of everything, and see where the project is headed and recall how it all started.

At the end of the day, this tool will be of use to freelancers and established agencies alike. If you want to figure out the ways it can best help you out, simply pay the site a visit and sign up for the 30-day free trial that is available.

In their own words

“Let’s face it, there’s a glut of invoicing apps out there. While there are some that come close to hitting the mark, they all manage to ignore the most important part of doing business: communication. Creating the invoice itself is only the first step – it’s invariably followed by days of back and forth email, corralling payments, haggling, and worst of all, a constant stream of CC’d emails updating your team. Ballpark is made for the real world: it centralizes communication with your team and clients into an easy use system that simplifies the process for everyone.”

Why it might be a killer

Such a tool caters both for small startups and those that already have more mileage, and it will let them maximize efficiency in a cost-friendly way.

Some questions

Are there different plans available? How can I find out which one will be the right one for me?

Link: http://www.getballpark.com
Our Review: http://www.killerstartups.com/Web-App-Tools/getballpark-com-send-estimates-invoices

What it does

We all are becoming more and more accustomed to turning to Twitter when we have to look up information. It is only fit, then, that different directories will crop up, giving us a good overview on any concept that we may be interested in. That is exactly what this website does – it collects information on different Twitter businesses, many of which include promotions.

This database can be browsed both alphabetically and by number of followers – the latter will give you something of an idea of the standing of each business. Moreover, the homepage highlights these businesses that have attracted the biggest numbers of followers so far, so that you can always see who are making waves online in a more or less immediate fashion.

Appropriately enough, you can tweet every featured company as links for doing so are provided.

On the other hand, if you want to have your business featured on the site you can do so effortlessly. This process involves setting down tags and so on. Furthermore, you can let twitterers know about any promotions through the site, and draw more attention to your business this way.

In their own words

“Twibs was created by a small group of people with one purpose: Give twitter users a place to find businesses on twitter. We are big believers in the power of twitter to connect customers with businesses. We’re working on making it easy for consumers to find businesses, both local and national. Keep in mind, we’re just getting started, so there may be small glitches and features missing, but don’t worry, we’re working hard for you to keep helping consumers find your business on twitter!”

Why it might be a killer

It is a direct way of knowing which businesses you can count on when it comes to the famed micro-sharing platform.

Some questions

How many businesses are already featured on the site?

Link: http://www.twibs.com
Our Review: http://www.killerstartups.com/Web20/twibs-com-twitter-business-directory

Some questions

Why not simply use PayPal?

In their own words

‘The Invoice Machine takes a new clever approach to online invoicing. It’s beautiful and simple-to-use interface makes producing professional looking invoices a very pleasant experience.’

Why it might be a killer

The end result really looks pretty, and it has some powerful tools that you can use.

What it does

The Invoice Machine is a web application tailor-made for producing nice looking invoices, and keeping track of them at the same time. The whole focus of the site is on making things easier that before when it comes to generating invoices, but also to make them look a bit prettier and making the whole process a bit more efficient.

When one starts thinking why one should use this application it becomes notoriously apparent that the app itself allows a new clever approach to online invoicing. Everyone knows what a big pain it is to produce and chase all of those invoices to your clients, and see if you really got paid what you had to. With The Invoice Machine this has become a lot easier, because you can begin registering your clients and products and services, and then making new invoices can be done super simply. Every time you generate a new invoice you just need to chose the options from the pull-down menus and input the amounts and then you can send the invoice straight away. Another powerful feature is the possibility of detailing and rapidly calculating tax discounts and other variables regarding the invoice itself so you don’t need to pull out your calculator every time you have to produce an invoice. The service is also available in several languages, thus making it very versatile.

The service in its most basic form is free, however if you would like to send more than 3 invoices a month, then you will need to start paying a fee in order to use it.

Link: http://www.invoicemachine.com
Our Review: http://www.killerstartups.com/Web-App-Tools/invoicemachine-com-making-invoices-pretty-simple

Deciding to become a freelance worker can be a scary proposition. Sure there is an allure to picking what projects you work on, but it can also be stressful not knowing where your next paycheck will come from. Luckily there are numerous resources out there that not only help you find more work, but also loads of tools to help you do your job more efficiently with a professional edge.

We’ve gathered over 85 tools and job sites for a variety of freelancers and web workers. While a lot of these items are focused on web design elements such as photography, programming and writing, we made sure to include something for everyone.

Have more resources to recommend? Tell us about them in the comments.

Work Tools

It’s important for freelance workers to be as organized as possible. After all, it’s up to you to track your time, individual projects, create your own invoices, and more. There are tons of great tools to simplify this for you. For example, GetHarvest.com can help you keep track of your time spent on projects in differing locations, and Zoho Invoices can help you create professional looking invoices to send to clients.

Adobe AIR Apps

AgileTracker – Allows you to keep track of time spent on projects by client, and if you are using AgileAgenda, you can sync them with each other.

Google Calendar Invoice Creator – Allows you to use Google Calendar as a way to keep track of your hours and then import that data into this app to automatically generate invoices.

Klok – Klok allows you to easily keep track of your time spent on multiple projects. You can easily start and stop tracking by just clicking a button for each project. You’re able to generate multiple reports based off of this information.

Ora Time and Expense – Ora allows you to track expenses, keep a list of your tasks, run a timer on your tasks and more.

Sundial – Keeps track of time spent on multiple projects & clients and allows you to generate reports based on any time period.

Timeloc – Offers multiple features such as running several clients with different billing rates per account, setting different timing intervals, audible alerts and much more.

Vertabase Timer – You can track time on projects for various clients and then export that data to other systems so you can generate reports and invoices.

Invoicing

BillMyClients.com – Has import & export capabilities, allows you to save invoices locally at any time, HTML customization for better branding, recurring invoicing, PayPal integration and other features.

Blinksale.com – Create invoices from their templates, or you can use your own CSS to custom design one of your own.  Also allows you to import clients from Basecamp, create tags for better organization, set up recurring invoices and more.

CannyBill.com – CannyBill can help you accept credit cards, export data to QuickBooks, automate invoicing and late payment notices and a host of other tools.

CitrusBill.com – You can automate late payment notices as well as customize the look and feel of your invoices while managing all of your payments.

CurdBee.com – A simple and straightforward invoicing solution that also integrates with PayPal and Google Checkout.

Endeve.com – Endeve allows you to customize invoices, import clients from Outlook, track which clients owe you money and a whole lot more.

Fluttervoice.co.uk – A UK-based invoicing service that allows you to generate new invoices and keep track of your payments.  Your clients can also login to see all of their invoices with you at a glance.

FreeAgentCentral.com – Helps you to invoice your clients, keep track of billing, prepare your taxes, and more.  Focused on freelancers in the UK.

FreshBooks.com – FreshBooks allows you to automate late payment reminders, track your time and expenses, customize the look of your tools for a full branded experience and more.

GoToBilling.com – Get paid from an emailed invoice, keep track of your clients, use marketing tools to gain new ones and more.

InLattice.net – Give your clients web access to their invoices and receive confirmation that your customer has viewed an invoice. InLattice integrates with major online payment systems and other tools.

InvoiceJournal.com – InvoiceJournal allows you to send invoices for free via email or print them out to be sent by snail mail.  Also allows you to use multiple currencies.

InvoiceMachine.com – Customize your invoices with logos and colors, use their built-in timer to track your billable hours, create PDFs of your invoices and more.

InvoicePlace.com – InvoicePlace lets you send invoices, track all payments, generate reports, export to Word & Excel and more.

Invoicera.com – Invoicera offers you several time saving features such as automatic repeating invoices for frequent clients, integration with multiple payment gateways, printing, management and more.

InvoicesMadeEasy.com – This service allows you to email or physically mail invoices yourself, or you can pay as little as a $1.00 each to have them mail invoices for you.  Offers all of the usual features to boot.

Invotrak.com – Allows you to track your time sheets, generate invoices, see who has paid you, generate various reports to see how you are performing and more.

LiteAccounting.com – Create invoices you can send via email, save them as PDFs, set up recurring invoices, and more features.

SimplyBill.com – Save your invoices as PDFs, create quotes for work that you can later convert to invoices, get alerted when an invoice is overdue and numerous other features.

SimplyInvoices.com – SimplyInvoices integrates with the Basecamp API to give you full integration with your account and allow for easy invoicing based on your Basecamp activities.

Winkbill.com – Set up recurring billing, export invoices as PDFs, accept payments via PayPal, multiple templates to choose from and more features.

Zoho Invoices – The popular Zoho online office suite has an invoicing feature that can be used for free for a few invoices a month, but you’ll have to pay if you have numerous payment requests to make.  Allows you to import and export data, set up templates, set up recurring billing and more.

Time Tracking

GetHarvest.com – Harvest offers pricing plans from free to premium, but offers an amazing array of platform integrations such as iPhone, Basecamp, Beanstalk, a WordPress plugin and more.  Offers both time tracking and invoicing.

MyClientSpot.com – Helps you keep track of your billable hours, staying organized, tracking leads and numerous other features.

Tickspot.com – Allows you to keep track of your time spent on a project and even see how close you are to using up your client’s allotted budget.  Also offers a free iPhone application.

Time59.com – Keep track of your time and expenses and generate invoices that you can send to your clients.

TimeIQ.com – Keep track of your billable hours. Allows for exporting of data, generating reports at your own specified intervals, and several more features.

Toggl.com – Toogl allows you to manually keep track of your time or use their timer.  They also offer both an online version or a Windows-based download that you can use on your desktop.

Miscellaneous Tools

Bizzvo.com – Allows you to import contacts, keep to-do lists, take notes, log phone calls with clients, create invoices and more.

Cashboard -A Basecamp compatible tool that allows you to use Mac OSX, Windows and iPhone applications to update your customers on projects, send invoices, accept payments and more.

CreativeProOffice.com – CreativePro Office allows you to manage your clients, projects, tasks, invoicing and more all in one easy web application.

FreelanceSwitch.com Rates Calculator – Have no clue what you should be charging for your hourly rate as a freelancer?  This rates calculator asks you a series of questions about your working situation, how much you want to make and so on, and then gives you a suggestion of how much to charge per hour.

Homecourtx.com – Gives you a customer management system as well as the ability to pass files back and forth and invoice.

SimplifyThis.com – SimplifyThis is both an appointment book for keeping track of your meetings, and any of those that might be billable, as well as a full invoicing service with payment gateway integrations.

So you’ve got the tools to do your job, but do you have the work to do?  Photographers have tons of places like iStockphoto where they can open an account and sell their images with little to no hassle.  For writers there are places such as Helium.com, where you can write any time you’d like, on any subject. While places like FreelanceWriting.com will help you find steadier work.  And if you’re a programmer, there are sites like GetAFreelancer.com, where it seems people will always need workers for more highly technical jobs.

Freelance Photography

123rf.com – 123 Royalty Free pays you a 50% commission on downloaded images, and also allows you to earn money for referring subscribers and new photographers alike.

BigStockPhoto.com – BigStockPhoto pays you between $.50 and $3.00 per download for your photos, and even higher for special requests.

Dreamstime.com – Photographers can place their images here for a sale and receive between 50% and 80% commission.

Fotolia.com – Commissions range from 33% to 64% depending on your exclusivity and your ranking based on the total number of downloads you’ve sold.

FreelancePhotoJobs.com – Find all sorts of freelance photography jobs for magazines, weddings, websites and more.

ImageCatalog.com – Depending on licensing, ImageCatalog pays photographers anywhere from $.40 to $40.00 per download.

iStockphoto – Photographers can earn from 20 – 40% commissions on each photo they sell through this royalty free site.  (Disclosure: Mashable has a partnership with iStockphoto)

PhotoStockPlus.com – You can earn commissions up to 85% with a 3.25% processing fee for both photos you sell as well as products you put your images on such as mugs and other products.

Shutterstock.com – Shutterstock pays a flat rate of $.25 a download and increases it to $.30 per download when you hit $500 in a pay period.  You can also earn commissions for referring others to the service.

Freelance Programmers & Web Designers

DesignQuote.net – Potential clients with design and graphic art work post jobs that freelancers can browse through and post bids on to win contracts.

FreelanceAuction.com – Allows you to bid on listed jobs for all aspects of programming and design.  Numerous listings for Web coding and design work such as logos.

GetAFreelancer.com – Focused on a wide selection of computer related work from basic site design to developing full sites for Joomla, OsCommerce, WordPress and more.

LimeExchange.com – Offers jobs that freelancers can bid on, and then you can continue to use the service to check in with one another throughout the lifespan of the project.

oDesk.com – A marketplace for freelancers to meet up with clients and look for work.  Clients can leave ratings and reviews for any freelancers they hire to help them get future work.

ozLance.com.au – Focused on Australia, ozLance has listings for Web development, content writing, audio/visual work and more.

Project4Hire.com – Contractors post technical programming or blogging jobs they have available and freelancers bid for the work.

RentACoder.com – Has thousands of open coding projects and a newsletter you can subscribe to so that you receive daily notifications of new projects as they come available.

ScriptLance.com – ScriptLance focuses heavily on programming assignments, but also features some listings for blog content creation.

SearchWebJobs.com – A job site focused on Web related jobs with a section dedicated to freelance engagements that indicate if you must live near the office or if you can work from anywhere.

Freelance Writers

BloggerJobs.biz – Numerous blogging jobs from all different styles of blogs that range from freelance to full-time.

FreelancePortfolios.com -A resource allowing writers to set up portfolios to show off their work and skills to potential employers.  Also has some job listings for people looking for work.

FreelanceWriting.com – FreelanceWriting.com features a mixture of articles and resources to help people break into freelance writing, and also offers some job listings and links to other resources.

Helium.com – While not so much freelance writing as writing “on spec,” you are free to write articles on any subject and then you can earn revenue from a portion of their advertising sales related to your articles.

Jobs.ProBlogger.net – A jobs board over at the well known ProBlogger for freelance and full-time bloggers looking for work.

JournalismJobs.com – Features job listings for blogs, newspapers, magazines, newswires and other forms of print and online media.

Online-Writing-Jobs.com – Offers all sorts of freelance writing job listings for magazines, reviews, resume writing, blogs and more.

Suite101.com – Freelance writers of all stripes can write articles on just about any subject of their choice and get paid a share of the advertising for the entire life of the article.

WritersWeekly.com – A weekly ezine dedicated to freelance writing that features articles and some listings for jobs.

WritingBids.com – A site that allows various online and offline publishers to post writing gigs that freelancers can bid on in an attempt to win.

WritingCareer.com – Features listings of freelance writing jobs as well as guides and advice for aspiring writers.

Miscellaneous Freelancers

AllFreelanceWork.com – AllFreelanceWork offers a support community as well as a jobs board for people looking for work in web design, sales, marketing and more.

Amazon Mechanical Turk – Run by Amazon.com, Mechanical Turk offers all sorts of quick freelance work from simple things such as doing searches for Creative Commons licensed photography to writing full articles for web sites.

BizReef.com – Contractors post their jobs and freelancers bid on the work in a number of fields such as graphic design, marketing, photography and more.

ContractedWork.com – Businesses needing work done post their projects and then freelancers can bid for the work.  Has a heavy concentration on web site related work, but does also have listings for other fields.

Elance.com -A well known freelancing website with just about every type of job you can think of from high end coding projects to engineering, finance, copy writing and a lot more.  Freelancers can set up profile pages listing all of their skills and what services they offer.

FreelanceJobs.org – Freelancers can set up a profile explaining their background while employers can post jobs for computer workers, Web designers, writers, translators and many more fields.

FreelanceWar.com – Listings for editors, writers, web designers, journalists, copywriters and pretty much everything else you can think of.

Freelancers Union – In addition to providing excellent resources for freelancers, the Freelancers Union offers a “Gigs” section.

GoFreelance.com – Has job listings for writers, sales, photography, marketing and several other fields.

Guru.com – Freelance work in every field including things such as fashion, broadcasting, illustration, Web design and more.

iFreelance.com – Site for freelancers and employers looking to connect for numerous types of freelance work such as writing, design work, Web programming and more.

ProZ.com – Focused on translators and translation services, ProZ also offers message boards for freelance translators to talk about issues concerning their business.

Skillance.com – Enter what your skills are, set up a profile, and let contractors search for the people that best fit their project.

Sologig.com – Listings of freelance consulting jobs from around the United States in numerous fields such as aerospace, sales, legal and numerous other fields.

TheFreelanceNation.com – This site pulls together listings from 119 different freelance job boards with listings for legal work, web design, photographers, PR and many, many more fields.

Vois – This virtual outsourcing site allows users to find a wide range of projects from simple logo design to full websites, SEO help, and more. In addition to finding projects, you can collaborate with clients on the site.

More freelance and web worker resources from Mashable:

- 7 Productivity Tips for Freelancers & Web Workers
- 40+ Places to Sell Your Designs Online
- 6 Ways to Publish Your Own Book
- 6 Reasons to Start Coworking
- CAREER TOOLBOX: 100+ Places to Find Jobs

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, kutaytanir

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6 Ways to Publish Your Own Book
Mashable NextUp NYC Debuts This Tuesday
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by Lee Munroe

You may have a personal portfolio website for a number of reasons. If you’re a freelancer, then you’d need one to showcase your work and allow people to contact you. If you’re a student (or unemployed), then you’d need one to show prospective employers how good you are and what you can do, so that they might hire you. If you’re part of a studio, then you might use one to blog about your design life, show people what you’re doing and build your online presence.

A personal portfolio website is all about promoting you. You are a brand, and your name is a brand name. No one is going to know about your brand unless you get it out there; and if you’re a Web designer, developer, writer, gamer or any other type of creative, then it’s essential that you have a good portfolio website.

You may want to take a look at the following related articles:

• Creating a successful online portfolio
• 50 beautiful and creative portfolio websites

What makes for a good personal portfolio website?

1. Logo

Your logo is usually the first thing a user sees. In the Western world, we read from left to right, top to bottom, so it makes sense to put your logo in the top left of your website so that users can immediately identify who owns the website.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be your name, but if you’re trying to promote yourself online, then it’s a good idea to go by your name. And always link your logo to your home page. It’s a common convention that users expect online.

Mohit goes by the alias of CSS Jockey.

Jason Reed uses a signature-style logo of his name.

2. Tagline

Once the user sees who owns the website, they’ll want to know what it is you do. This is where you explain what you do with a tagline. Your tagline should be short and snappy, summarizing what you do.

Things to ask yourself when writing your tagline:

• What are you? A designer? A writer? A developer?
• What do you do? Design websites? Develop games?
• Where are you from? Country? City?
• Are you a freelancer or do you work for a studio? Are you looking for work?

Sarah Longnecker makes it clear that she puts together videos and is good at it.

3. Portfolio

This is a personal portfolio website after all, so your portfolio will determine whether the website is interesting or not. People will want to see your previous work to decide whether you’re good or not and for general interest, to see what you’ve been up to in the past.

Depending on what you do, your portfolio should contain big high-quality images, clearly accessible to the user. Always include a link to the live version of the website you worked on, and link your screenshot to the live version (another common convention that people expect). Include a short description for each project, including the different skills that you needed to complete the project.

It’s never a bad idea to get a testimonial from a client. Your visitors might also be interested in the stages of development for your projects and how you arrived at the final outcome.

Leigh Taylor displays nice clear screenshots of previous work and indicates what software was used during development.

4. Services

Your tagline summed up what you do, but you’ll want to go into a bit more detail here about each service that you offer. You can’t expect potential clients to guess what you do based on your portfolio, and you don’t want to leave them wondering whether you offer a particular service or not.

Make it clear, and break it down: Web design, development, video, copywriting, branding, etc. You may want to be even more specific: corporate branding, church website design, Flash banner ads and so on.

Chris Spooner clearly indicates the services he offers for both print and Web.

5. About me

It’s all about you. Let people see the man or woman behind the mask (i.e. website). Share your background, where you came from, how many years you’ve been in the business, etc. The more details you give, the better your users can form a bond and build trust with you.

If you’re not camera-shy, show a picture of yourself. This will give potential clients peace of mind by allowing them to see who they’re dealing with, and it adds an element of trust.

Don’t be afraid to show off your awards and recognition here. You want people to know you’re good at what you do.

Chikezie Ejiasi shows us a photo of himself and even lets us know how to pronounce his name.

6. Contact

This is one of the most important elements of a portfolio website but is often hidden or even neglected. A potential client has browsed your website, is impressed with your portfolio and can see who you are. Now they want to hire you.

Your contact information should be obvious and easy to access; don’t hide it in the footer. Let people know they can contact you for a quote or a chat. Use a form to make it easier for users to contact you (so that they don’t have to take down your email address and then open up their email manager). A form also allows you to ask for specific information, such as name, email address, website URL, details of inquiry.

Stuart Johnston offers clear contact details throughout his website but also provides an easy-to-use contact form.

7. Blog

A blog is always a good idea. Blog about your area of expertise; show you know what you’re talking about. It will help promote you and prevent your website from lying static.

Let people follow you by subscribing to an RSS feed, and show off your most popular blog posts to new readers.

Be sure to enable comments for feedback. Don’t make users register to add a comment to your blog, and don’t use anti-spam Captcha software, which only turns people off from commenting. There are plenty of anti-spam plug-ins available that don’t require users to do extra work.

Chris Wallace uses his blog about Web design-related topics to help out other people in the industry and to engage in discussion.

8. Call to action

Ask yourself what you want to get out of your personal portfolio website. Do you want to be hired? Attract more blog readers? Maybe you just want people to know who you are.

Each page should have a call to action, a “Next step.” The best way to accomplish this is with a “call to action” button that is clear and stands out from the rest of the page. Link it to your blog, portfolio or contact page, and use appropriate language (e.g. “Hire me,” “Request a quote,” “View my portfolio”).

Matthew Brown’s call to action is a contrasting button that stands out from the rest of the website.

9. Use social networking websites

Now that people have an interest in you and your work, encourage them to follow you on other websites. Make it clear that they can follow you on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, etc. Make the most of social networks and have a group of friends to call on if needed.

Sam Brown offers clear links to other websites he uses, allowing us to stalk him.

10. Language and communication

How you conduct yourself is important. Remember, it’s a personal portfolio website, so be personal. You don’t need to sound like a corporate brand with no emotion. Be friendly and personal, but also clear and precise; don’t ramble. Once you write all the text for your website, read it again and see if you can cut it in half.

Marius Roosendaal uses a relaxed and friendly tone on his website.

Other tips:

• Let people know where you’re from. This is always interesting to know, and some clients prefer to work with people nearby or in the same time zone.
• Validation is important, especially for Web designers. If you’re going to be building professional websites for clients, then your own website’s code should at least be valid.
• Link images, not just text. Most people will click on images, expecting them to point somewhere.
• If you don’t have any previous clients for your portfolio, create a WordPress theme, design an icon set, develop a Twitter mashup, etc. You have a lot of possibilities, and there’s a big difference between having one project to show in your portfolio and having none.

40+ beautiful personal portfolio websites

Robbie Manson

F. Claire Scroggins

Timothy van Sas

Ole Martin Kristiansen

Maru Velázquez

Chikezie Ejiasi

Miki Mottes (Flash)

Jakub Krcmar

Mopa

Chris J. Lee

Pedro Lamin

Cartonblanc (Flash)

Leigh Taylor

Alex Coleman

Sarah Longnecker

Toby Powell

Jay Hafling

Elliot Jay Stocks

Tony Geer

Marius Roosendaal

Ryan O’Rourke

<img /> is everything (Phil Thompson)

Leigh Taylor

Design Me (Marek Levak)

Matt Dempsey

Brad Candullo

Andre Augusto

Rob Hawkes

Magnus Jepson

Corking Design (Daniel Cork)

Evan Eckard

Alexandru Cohaniuc

Miles Dowsett

Andrew Bradshaw

Shannon Moeller

Vitor Louranco

Mark Dearman

Wong Yeng Kit

Chris Wallace

Spoon Graphics (Chris Spooner)

Fabiano Meneghetti

Mark Wallis

Chris Morris

Paiko (Heiko Brömmelstrote)

Conan Robbins

Henry Jones

Winnie Lim

Greg One (Gregoire Hoin)

Mark Hadley

David Appleyard

Design Moves Me (Roy Vergara)

Brian Murchison

Mike Precious

Digital Deceptions (Duncan)

Chirag Solanki

Jason Reed

Johnston North (Stuart Johnston)

Penflare Designs (Sean Farrell)

Nine Lion (Chikezie Ejiasi)

Brian Wilkins

Jason Santa Maria

David Hellmann

Guillaume Pacheco

Dave Lam

Luke Stevens

James Lai

Alessandro Cavallo

CSS Jockey (Mohit)

Kerry Nehil

Darren Hoyt

Matthew Brown

Digital Mash (Rob Morris)

The Things We Make (Mike Kus)

Ed Merritt

What do you expect to see on a good personal portfolio website?

Anything important we’ve missed? What would make the difference between your deciding to hire someone and deciding against it?

Further reading:

• 10 characteristics of excellent portfolio websites
• 50 excellent designer portfolio websites
• Creating a successful online portfolio
• 50 beautiful and creative portfolio websites
• Call to action buttons

About the author

Lee Munroe is a freelance web designer from Belfast. You can see his other writings on web design on his blog, or follow him on Twitter.

(al)

© Lee Munroe for Smashing Magazine, 2009. |
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Post tags: design, Design Showcase, portfolios

Today we’d like to introduce to an interesting new CRM web application called Dashboard.

Dashboard joins an increasingly populated market of small business CRM apps including our favorites Tactile CRM, Highrise, Batchbook and PipelineDeals.

The reason why I thought this was a worthwhile mention? Primarily because I’m a sucker for a clean UI, but more importantly because it’s seems to focus on the absolute basics: converting leads to deals.

With just four main sections (dashboard, to-do’s, leads, deals) to the application, Dashboard appears to take the 37signals mentality one step further by making things ultra-clear and ultra-simple. To make the most of the tool, add your various leads, assign the todo’s required to each of them to convert them to ‘make things happen’ and once you’ve sealed the deal – convert them into “deals”.

As you would expect, each lead or deal can have notes attached to them, to-do’s and documents. There is a decent search facility which organises your searches by to-do’s, leads and deals.

There are other limitations, the most obvious being you can currently only add leads into the app manually or via CSV file, undoubtedly, other methods (email!) should be added shortly. There are minor bugs and the app cannot currently compete with the features other established players bring, however the app is free and looks to be so for the foreseeable future whilst new features and functionality are added. If you love your apps clean and simple, this is a must try.

via Carlos Granier-Phelps in The Apps Room on Friendfeed.