“Service Sales” as a business model has always been a good revenue earner, but the “uncertainties of business” and “depleting service revenues” have made companies look for something that assures them a return… thus reasons for Product Development and marketing!

Some of the pre-requisites that anyone who steps into Product Development understands (or may be should do, if they don’t) are  (1) they have to make revenue out of it (read it as continued revenue), (2) their product should have a target (should be sizeable) audience and (3) the product should have a long shelf life (should have a long term vision).

As more and more service companies move to product development – we decided to investigate, if SMART AIMS too could tread a similar path!

Before that though, we decided on a quick research to find out, if Product Companies are successful and if this model is just right for all. Results were eye-opening to say the least!

• Off every 100 Product Ideas that are shortlisted and put on the development table… just 2 see the end of a successful development phase and are released…
• Off a 100 products that are released, just 1 (one) makes for a positive ROI and the others are just lost and do not even make to the tables for the targets they were thought for!

With all these facts and ideas in the bag, we decided to place the following question to all our friends, partners and clients who have helped us be SMART AIMS.

Is a ‘SMART Product” the Future for SMART AIMS and how do we say that the product idea that we have (we do have more than one though) is the way to go?

Please take a moment to help us make the next move, do write in your suggestions and send us your comments and feedback to info@smartaims.com .

We wish all Merry Christmas and a Very Happy New Year, and assure you to be back older and matured with 2011.

Bidding adieu to 2010 and wishing that 2011 helps SMART AIMS grow and be more visible, we thank all for their continued support and cooperation.

SMART AIMS deliverables:

Designer’s perspective:
We start with a mockup.. try and get it to the point whereby the client is satisfied with it.. we go through multiple iterations.. and finally ..”The client selects and approves it”.

Developer’s Perspective:
The selected template is now to be integrated to Joomla.. a theme (layout) which is close to the one selected by the client is chosen and integrated.
The designer helps the developer it changing the backgrounds, css and implements the template as he had designed.
The developer now starts adding the modules/plugins that the template is supposed to have.. and changes the css for them appropriately to reflect the selected design.

Template Integration complete..

Added Requirements by the client:
Installed Joomla already. Use the current content and plugins into the Joomla template that we had built!

SMART AIMS Delivers yet again!

The brief this time just increased the work we had to do.. not within the scope of the project defined earlier.. but again.. being a customer oriented organisation we had to  deliver.

The template was uploaded using the Joomla Administrative Section:

Log in to Administrative Section

• Click on Extensions > Install/Unistall
• Select the Zip file for the Template designed and click on Upload File and Install
• Go to Extensions > Template Manager and select the newly installed template.

Phew! and we thought it was over.. but the game had just begun.. the plugins which the client had incorporated in the earlier Joomla template.. added to our woes.. we had to work on the css and getting them into specific positions in the template! It took time and effort.. but we did get through and updated the same for our client.

Final Result:

A happy client who paid us for doing that bit extra!.. well it was not about money.. but the way we went about the work that the client was impressed with..

Get in touch with us if you have requirements and for a great customer experience!

You might design a web site that looks fantastic but few people are going to see it if it takes a long time to load.

Designs should be optimized for the web and should not take more than 15 seconds to load. Remember, you might have a great design but very few people are going to see it if it takes a long time to load.

Ten tips to fast-loading web pages.
1. Minimize the use of images
2. Optimize images for the web
3. Use Tables creatively
4. Cut down the use of animated gifs
5. Design simple icons
6. Use background images instead of big images whenever possible
7. Try out CSS Styles
8. Use Flash sparingly
9. Design most of your site in HTML
10. Keep checking your load time

# Clear Navigation –
Once a visitor has come to your site you need to make them go through your site. To do this you need to have clear navigation. Make sure all your important links are at prominent places. Preferably right on top – that’s usually where a visitor first looks.

Make use of menus on the right and the left. Try to link to as many pages of your site. Let your information be accessible from all parts of the site. You never know what a visitor may be interested in. Try to also use the footer for your important links.

#Navigation tips.
1. Organized Links
2. Clear and Prominent
3. Consistent
4. Easy to understand
5. DHTML Menus

# All Resolutions –
Today, there are computers with all kinds of resolution. They range from 640 x 480 to 1024 x 768 and go even higher. Your job is to design your site for all these resolutions. The best way to do this is to design your site in terms of percentage and not pixels.

# Browser Compatibility –
Make sure your site is browser compatible. Your web site should look good in Netscape as well as in Internet Explorer. Don’t stop designing your site as soon as you find that it looks great on IE.
Usually Netscape gives some problems, especially when you try doing complicated HTML designs. But don’t give up too soon, usually with patience these problems can be easily fixed.

# Readable and professional looking fonts –
Don’t use Comic Sans and other fancy fonts that may not be available on most computers. If the font you use is not available in a visitors computer the web site will use the default font of your computer which is much worse. So try to keep to common and professional
web fonts. The fonts that we could always stick to are Arial, Tahoma and Verdana.

# Minimize the use of images –
I believe that sometimes simple designs are the most effective for the web. Keep your site simple but neat. Don’t clutter your page with big, bulky images that take ages to load. Instead use tables creatively and design eye – catching icons that will draw a visitor’s attention to a particular section of your site.

SMART AIMS feels – Visitors are usually more interested in content
than in design.

# Use of white space –
Try not to clutter up your page with too many images, backgrounds and colorful fonts. Again use the “Keep It Simple” principle by minimizing the use of graphics and using a lot of white space.
White space gives a sense of spaciousness and overall neatness to a site. We practice this.. check out our website.

# Check for broken links –
Always check for broken links within a site before uploading it to your web server. In Dreamweaver you can check for broken links by right clicking on any file in the Site Files Window and then clicking on Check links – Entire Site. If you don’t have this facility you need to upload your site and then check it using online tools like Net Mechanic.

We will keep adding to the list and would love to have your feedback.

Joomla! initially suffered  at the managing compartment, but with Joomla! 1.5, it made a huge step forward in solving this problem.

In order to understand the usability perspective for both systems, let’s try to simply post an image in an article.

Step 1:

We will have to choose a template to work with. Both platforms look the same and are very simple with host of options and themes.

For Joomla
1. Select “Add New Article” from “Control Panel”.
2. Now you must click on image icon bellow the text field and here you have the option to upload images or to browse existing images. Here you can align this image.
3. Type a Title, choose the Section and the Category.
4. Write the content, choose Published and Save the Article.

WordPress
1. Select QuickPress from the Dashboard.
2. Upload image with image icon button.
3. Type a Title and the Content.Here you can add some tags.
4. Now you can Publish your post.

When we have to create a website with more than 10 pages with different information, we can do this with both platforms. So when we start to put all the information on the site template, we’ll see the difference between platforms. It’s simple to accomplish these tasks With WordPress, as we only have to install some plugins, but with Joomla! we have to spend a little more time to re-organise the different module and then the menus from template. After this we have to link all menu items.

Joomla! is a big step forward regarding eCommerce. After we install VirtueMart on Joomla! it’s really simple to customize eCommerce, as multiple options are available to configure it. While WordPress offers a simple plugin with less options.

As far as the security level of both systems is concerned, Joomla! is placed on the top of the list because it offers multiple levels of permissions, thus becoming more flexible, while WordPress comes with just three levels of permissions.

Our conclusion, WordPress is well managed and is really easy to work with, while Joomla! comes with powerful options and detailed parameters for each compartment, giving us the possibility to manipulate and organize what you want and how you want.

The views projected here are our interpretation of things, and your experience could be varied, share it with us and we will be happy to learn together.

• Optimize your HTML code
• Maximize content area
• Minimize use of graphics
• Optimize all heavy image files
• Stick to simple designs
• Spread out your content neatly (should be readable)
• Use Text Links instead of graphic buttons
• Use Server Side Include (SSI) files
• Use Div tags instead of Tables (Web 2.0 look and css based)
• Minimize the use of Flash and external scripts
• Maximize use of CSS (no inline styles please!)
• Confirm to W3C validations of HTML and XHTML.

I am sure there would be many more, so please feel free to add on and lets learn together.

We were apprehensive to start with, not sure if we would do it, whether we would be succesful or a case of failure to adhere to the deadlines…but it was a client of ours.. a SMART AIMS friend, that just confided in our abilities.. and the result was a sharepoint portal on Health and Medical Care..

Its such a pleasently surprising tool, makes life so much easy.. and once you are thorough with the tutorials.. it works just as easy as any open source CMS.. though one has to be aware of concepts like master page etc, but knowledge of .net should help you take this step anytime now.

Sharepoint Designer.. the tool that works just like frontpage helps you edit and create new styles, change the look and feel of your sharepoint portal with such ease.. that you rather work with it to believe it.

We are learning to use sharepoint to provide optimum solutions..and will keep you posted of our learnings on this.. but if there is anything that our friends, readers and browsers can suggest us with.. we are truly game for it.