Now Twitter allows customers and businesses communicate faster than before whether it relates to customer service, advertising or sales.

Setting up a Twitter account is simple, so I don’t need to run you through that, but I can provide you with some useful tips:

1. Keep your username short – With only 140 characters available, people only have a short amount of space to message you. If your username is long, their messages must be shorter. So the top tip is: Keep it short, keep it simple.

2. Consider your username – Should it be business orientated or personal? In some cases, customers prefer to hear from a real person. Using your own name will help personalize your messages. However if you’ve already built a strong brand for your business, then you may want to use your business name over your personal name.

3. Avoid embarrassing usernames! This is a big one, your Twitter account represents you as a person or your business/organization. Be sure that you want to stick with your username, because you’re going to be using it for a long time!

1. Project Outline

We start by introducing the idea and outlining the fundamental features of the application. The secret behind great applications is to focus on basic functionality and to get it absolutely right. We want to produce an application that has a fantastic, intuitive user interface which is simple and fun to use.

We also want to focus on security, since we’re likely to be storing sensitive information such as addresses, password and emails.

Our client area application is designed to allow our clients to login and check their project’s progress, let’s start by breaking down the primary aspects of our application:

1. User management – This application is designed to be used by multiple users, associated with multiple user groups. We’ll also want to allow these users to edit any personal details (such as email, addresses and passwords).
2. Project Tracking – We’ll want to allow our clients to track the progress of their projects, along with any necessary information such as start date, end date, project overview, etc.
3. Project Assets – Since we’re already tracking each project, let’s also allow users to manage any project assets (such as images, files, documents, designs, etc).

And there we have it, the 3 primary features of our application that we’re going to focus on. This is a great start for our client area; it covers utility, communication and security.

2. Define Application “views”

We’re still very much within the planning stages. We have our primary features outlined clearly, so we know what we need to implement. Before we can start designing our application, we need to know exactly what to design.

So, we begin by thinking about what “views” a user might encounter during typical use of our application.

• Login
• Project List – viewing all associated projects
• Project Detail – Investigating a project’s progress
• Project Assets – Assets (images, files, designs, etc) associated with a particular project
• Account Settings – Allowing the user to edit their personal details (emails, passwords, addresses, etc)
• Logging out

By roughly breaking down the application into views, we can see exactly what’s involved in building this app. We know what we need to design and we know where to integrate the functionality.

3. Design

At this stage, we know what we want our application to do, plus we know exactly where that functionality will appear.

Designing a fantastically-awesome UI isn’t easy, but by following some rules we can make our lives that little bit easier. We want to make sure the application is:

1. Simple
2. Responsive
3. Consistent
4. Efficient

1. Simple – The interface should be very simple and clear to use. We can use techniques such as language and flow to help our visual elements such as icons and layout.
2. Responsive – A good interface provides adequate feedback to the user’s interaction. This could be through the use of loading graphics or validation messages.
3. Consistent – As with websites, an application requires a good level of consistency throughout. Consistency is important, as it will help users build interaction patterns and familiarity.
4. Efficient – The entire idea behind this application is to improve productivity. Through the use of technology such as Ajax, we can make sure our users aren’t left waiting around for a response from our application.

Design is a long process, however it’s important to remember that you don’t need to get it perfect the first time around. Web-application development is an evolutionary process. Over time you’ll make additions and improvements.

4. Implementation

Once we have a solid design of each application view, we can begin actually building our application. This involves the actual programming and extensive testing of each script.

5. Launch

It’s time to push the application live – of course, only once the application has been rigorously tested, and each aspect is working as intended!

And that’s how we design and develop web-based applications. It’s an efficient process, which ensures we cover the fundamentals of application development.

I get questions such as: “Why would my customers want to know what I had for lunch?” and “My customers don’t care about my cup of tea! Why would I bother?”.

I answer: “You’re right, they probably don’t care but…”.

So I thought that writing a quick article discussing the advantages of Twitter was called for.

• Twitter is extremely popular. This leads to the fundamentals of social media – sharing. Twitter messages are commonly shared over and over. Spreading your message across a mass audience.
• It’s completely free! It’s not common to come across a marketing tool that requires absolutely no financial investment.
• People volunteered to hear for you – They’re a prime target audience. Make good use of them!
• Every tweet is indexed by Google – The more people talking about your tweets the more content indexed by Google. The better your overall search engine ranking will be.
• Twitter is completely open and public – this leads to a phenomenon known as “social proof”. Everyone can see who is reading and interested in your expert opinion. It also helps build credibility and reputation.
• It’s fun! Twitter is fun to hang out on. Simply chatting to potential customers can really convince them to choose you over your competition.

So there we have it. Some reasons why Twitter can help your business. Of course, social media is exploding right now, but you’re definitely not too late to get on the twitter bandwagon.

Stay tuned for an upcoming post discussing some best practices when using twitter.

1. Get away from Facebook, Twitter and E-mail

We all know that these social media outlets are time eaters, and they’re not all that helpful when you’re behind schedule and need to get on with your work. Switch off your notifiers and avoid logging in, you’ll get much more work done. And if you’re too busy answering e-mails you’re not being busy completing that work, consider checking your email once a day.

2. Just 10 minutes

We all have that mental block. With a huge amount of work looming ahead, you may not feel like you want to start it at all! To help, I tell myself “I’m just going to work for 10 minutes”. You’ll often find that you end up working for much longer.

3. Adopt a focus boosting technique

There are several out there, personally I use the Pomodoro Technique. It’s relatively simple, you work in 25 minute blocks. Each time you complete a block take a 5 minute break – completely detach from what you’re working on. Get some air, food or drink. Once you’ve completed four 25 minute blocks, take a longer break. I find 30 minutes or so does the trick. Rinse and repeat. There are even apps to help you out. Check out Focus Booster.

4. Make a list

Lists help out a great deal. At the end of each day I make sure to list out everything I need to do the next day. I then prioritize my tasks by urgency and work through my list step by step.

5. Take a break!

You may feel this is anti-productive (well, it is – if you take too many breaks – that’s just called procrastination), but taking a well earned break can really help re-align your focus and get you back on track.

Well, there you have it, 5 ways to get you back in the game. Let me know if you have any of your own tips and tricks to staying productive.

Well, you’ve heard blogging can help your business, but why? In no time at all blogging has gone from geek-speak to mainstream web. Everyone has a blog, and this is exactly why your business needs one too.

What is blogging exactly? In it’s simplest form, blogging is just regularly updating content. Software such as Wordpress provide fantastic platforms and easy access to this form of marketing.

Why Should You Start Blogging?

So why should you blog? How can it help your business? The main reason is simple, everyone else is. Including your competitors. Of course, blogging brings many other advantages too:

• Raises brand awareness
• Increases traffic to your website
• Low cost marketing
• Helps build a solid SEO (Search Engine Optimization) foundation
• Builds relationships with your customers, clients or prospects
• Helps position you or your company as a thought leader within your particular niche.

A blog will allow you to share your thoughts, opinions and knowledge related to your industry. It will help install trust and confidence in you, your business and your products or services. A well-written article on a product can turn a reader into a customer, which is an extremely valuable tool for business. So please, if you have a small business, consider blogging!

With Google and Google owned Youtube both dropping support for IE6 or earlier, I figure it was about time developers advertised the fact that IE6 is an out-dated browser and clients shouldn’t expect these browsers to be catered for.

Fred Wu states:

I will *try* to make my sites and apps compatible with IE6, but only if the consequences (i.e. increased development time and code complexity) are negligible.

This is a good way to look at the situation, and I’ve been doing the same for the past 12 months or so. However at this point I’m quite happy to not support IE6 at all. But instead, if the client requires this feature it will be estimated and invoiced as additional development work.