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Egyptian Web designers Freelance Cost Survey

Freelance Website Designers in Egypt Charge

 

Hi All,

I would like to make a survey for all the Web Designers ONLY IN EGYPT.

Egyptian market is really expanding when we take about software or web design and I really noticed there is a HUGE need for web designers these days whether for a Full Time web designers or Freelance web designers.

From here came the idea of making our self more stable and confident in the market, this survey will help us getting full view of how much we charge this days and how much we should charge when we get contacted for a freelance website design work inside Egypt.

For Better Results This Survey Only Apply on:

• Junior Web Designers
• Senior Web Designers
• Junior GUI Designers
• Senior GUI Designers
• User Interface Designers
• Senior User Interface designers

To get the most near results, I will make the survey available for only 1 Month and can be increased if needed. The Survey Result Will be available here without any charge for download.
If you are interested, Please share This Post or send it to your friends
Best Regards,
Mohammed Alaa
Egyptian User Interface Designer

Home Page Usability for Designers

How to create successful home pages?

A lot of organizations focus on the home page BUT the home page is the least important page in your website. So it’s probably the page you should finish last not first.

You think it’s the first page everybody is going to see first. So you start working out on it first. But what the designers have to do is first to figure out what is the most important content you have in the website. So you can create a usable path in the home page to the most important things you want to do in the website.

I think designers will hate me!

Most of the designers will yell at me now and say that the home page is the most important page because it’s the entry point of users who are coming to the website so they designers need to make a positive impression for users who is just arriving.

I will compare the home page of the website like the Lobby of the Hotel. And when people go to any hotel the lobby is not the most important place in the hotel. If you just arrived from a long tired trip and you are having an early meeting in the morning or looking for some rest and you need to sleep before you go. Then common sense says you will be just looking for the bed to sleep or bathroom. So the Lobby is not going to be the place you want to be.

When people go to a website they just don’t go to the website to have a look or hang around. Like you don’t know go to a Hotel Lobby just to look at the Lobby. People go in because they have another thing they want to do there and you want to get them to that thing.

You Only Have 5 Sec.

And that thing is what’s most important if they go to the nice home page looking for something and you lead them to another thing. They are going to leave immediately actually you only have 5 Seconds to get their attention to what they are looking for. And you can check it yourself with a Google Analytic you will find the home page is the most exit page in your website

And I think what makes the people focus on the home page is because it’s the easy thing to focus on it’s that decorative page that we can really do some nice stuff and it’s easy because it’s one of them.

Case Study

Amazon.com
Nobody goes to Amazon.com home page looking for a specific book or gift for someone. Nobody buy a product because it’s featured in the home page of amazon.com or a product that you can find in the recommendations of Amazon or from the section of other customers bought this.

News Websites
News websites are different from any other website if you have news or something people are coming for. If you heard an important news such as for example now you can change 1 pound for 1 US Dollar (Hopefully!) then you will go to any news website. You will find this news in the home page. then you will give it a click to read the whole story. So study what you just did!! You went to the home page you found the news in the first page you give it a click and you leave the home page to read the article or the news you came for.

Conclusion

If want to really focus on the home page you should first study your visitors know why they come to the website and what they are looking for. After than create for them short path that can lead them to what they want with few mouse clicks. And focus on how to get the users away from the home page as fast as you can.

Finally I Hope You Enjoy it, please write me here your comments or suggestions for what do you want the next article to be

Mohammed Alaa
User Interface Designer

Usability in Egypt 101 - Closer look on usability from scratch

Usability in Egypt 101

Usability is a qualitative attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use. The word “usability” also refers to methods for improving ease-of-use during the design process. Usability consultant Jakob Nielsen and computer science professor Ben Shneiderman have written (separately) about a framework of system acceptability, where usability is a part of “usefulness” and is composed of:

• Learnability: How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they encounter the design?
• Efficiency: Once users have learned the design, how quickly can they perform tasks?
• Memorability: When users return to the design after a period of not using it, how easily can they re establish proficiency?
• Errors: How many errors do users make, how severe are these errors, and how easily can they recover from the errors?
• Satisfaction: How pleasant is it to use the design?

When evaluating user interfaces for usability, the definition can be as simple as “the perception of a target user of the effectiveness (fit for purpose) and efficiency (work or time required to use) of the Interface”. Each component may be measured subjectively against criteria e.g. Principles of User Interface Design, to provide a metric, often expressed as a percentage.

It is important to distinguish between usability testing and usability engineering. Usability testing is the measurement of ease of use of a product or piece of software. In contrast, usability engineering (UE) is the research and design process that ensures a product with good usability.

To start Planning for Usability you must Answer this questions:

• Who are the users, what do they know, and what can they learn?
• What do users want or need to do?
• What is the general background of the users?
• What is the context in which the user is working?
• What has to be left to the machine?

That’s it for now, but we are coming back later!

Mohammed Alaa
User Interface Designer

Website:  http://www.seniorwebdesigner.com
My Blog: http://www.egypt-webdesign.com

The First Usability Group in Egypt

The First Usability Group in Egypt

WAHOOO! Finally I had the time to focus on making the first usability group in Egypt, I’m so excited to start this group as a return back to my community, sharing what I have learned so far and exchange my knowledge with the famous web designers here in Egypt.

Usability in Egypt will take you beyond designing or developing typical websites that is hard to use!

We will give a full idea about:

• Usability 101
• Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
• User-Centered Design (UCD)
• Human Factors
• Cognitive modeling methods
• Prototyping methods
• Testing methods

And much more…

If you are a beginner or an Expert I would like to invite you to become a part of the first usability Group in Egypt.

You can Join our Group Here:

Yahoo Groups:    Egypt Usability Group in Yahoo
FaceBook Group: Egypt Usability Group in FaceBook

This group will not be successful and helpful without your cooperation and I will give it a fair part of my time to make it useful for everybody.

Thanks,
Mohammed Alaa
User Interface Designer

When your client want to pay the half of your work

Real story we see hopefully not so often!

I would like to share this experience with everyone in the industry especially web designers in Egypt because we share the same culture and we face many of this problems everyday!

As always I was contacted for a freelance website with one of my satisfied clients, he asked me to go and meet him to discuss an opportunity to make a website design for him.

Everything went fine and I gave him my proposal and he accepted it without any negotiations and I got my first payment (The half of the offered price) and everything just sounds great! so I started to make him a design and he liked the first design I did with some revisions. We agreed on the design but he didn’t have the text content so I started helping him with the content till we finally make it happen.

I finished making the website and since he was out of Egypt I wrote to him an email that the website is ready for review. He didn’t come back to me! I tried to reach him for a month (meanwhile I finished another freelance project) and I was so upset from the way he ignored me even that I know he saw my email from the delivery and opening notifications of my emails.

So I decided to write him another email saying:

—————————————————————
Dear ….,

Hi I hope this email finds you very well. It’s been 1 Month since my last email and so far I haven’t received any response for PROJECT NAME website.

This project should have taken around 2 weeks and now is been more than 2
months due to delays of content and payments from your side Please check
our first emails you will see my deadline for PROJECT NAME was Monday
April 7, 2008.

During these 2 months I have finalize (from negotiations to upload
websites online) 3 projects which were larger than your website.

Also Note that the Website is finish since 29 of April and ready to go online, more time website doesn’t go online is more time losing money or not generation possible business for you.

I suggest we move forward on this and I am always ready to do so, this project is not resulting in a benefit for me anymore. I am sure you understand my situation and that besides my current formal job in office I have my own company that keeps me always busy.

Please let me know how we can resolve this at your earliest. and as always, send you my best wishes!

Mohammed Alaa
—————————————————————

I think the email did the impression I wanted, because after this fair email the client contacted me that he will be back to Egypt next week, so all what I can do is to wait for him to come.

The time has come for paying back!

When he came back he asked me to meet him, and he told me there is no need to wait for the website and he want to go online, so I uploaded the website online (he also have the hosting in my reseller and the domain) and I went to meet him in the agreed date.

And here is the Important Part:

I go to meet the client to collect the final payment after I already finished my work and waited him for 2 month to pay me, he goes saying “Oooh I’m sorry I will not be able to pay you’re the complete money now because I have to move out of Egypt and I will just pay you a part of the money now (which is10% from the last 50%) and we will be in contact and I will pay you but on long shots”

I heard that and I was so shocked from the way he treated me and for all the work I have done to make his succeed.

So I had to make a decision in these 5 minutes I was sitting with him! I had to choose between accepting this money and stop working with him OR to get angry and refuse to take the money!

What i had to do?

Actually I took the money he paid since this payment is for already finished work and I left the meeting, after 1 week I send him an email saying I will need the complete money within 2 weeks to be transferred to my bank account and since this email he didn’t reply me!

what you will do in this situations?

What do you suggest me to do! Should I suspend his website till he pays me? What you will do if you are in the same situation?

How to Make Deadlines to be your Friend

Hey it’s me again coming with an interesting article i just finished reading… Credits goes to the Author of the Article Steven Snell

The article is talking about every designer and developer nightmare which is (DEADLINES).

I’d like to take this opportunity to build on that post by looking not only at how we can increase our productivity in our day-to-day work, but also how we can change our mentality towards deadlines to create a healthier and more efficient work flow.

Abhijeet’s points and suggestions for meeting deadlines are:

1. Set expectations… with yourself.
2. Prioritize your work.
3. Keep track of dates and occasions.
4. Analyze your accomplishments every day.
5. Try to work only five days a week.

These points are great for keeping yourself on track and maintaining a proper balance in your work. From my experience I’ve found that it can also be helpful to turn the tables and put deadlines to work for you, rather than working against you. Click to Continue »

About Steven Snell

Making the Perfect Business Case for a Business Process

Another Article that i liked so Much. Patrick Gauthier you are Genius and your Article ROCKS!

Online Shopping Carts Getting Sucks

This Article is Really wonder full Credits Goes to: bradkay

Have you ever noticed that online shopping is nothing (and I mean nothing) like the real thing?

One can argue that this is a victory for consumers – that the terrestrial retail model has been broken for a long time (e.g. long lines, attitude from the service clerk, lack of expert guidance, etc.); however, I’d suggest that many online retailers are missing small, but important and often intangible cues that could make the digital shopping experience go from good to great.

Don’t get me wrong, the best online retailers today which include Amazon, Netflix, iTunes, Fresh Direct, William Sonoma, etc. have mastered ease of use and simplicity. The checkout process is often seamless and use of the semantic Web, albeit very limited, has made shopping more intelligent and intuitive. But, most online retailers still haven’t captured the essence of shopping which can be fun, surprising and even inspiring.

In the terrestrial world, stores like H&M create distinct ambiances for their customers. Music vibrates from in-ceiling speakers and there’s an intangible vibe that makes you want to touch, feel and experience the clothing. Whole Foods offers passerby’s tasters from boutique brands and organic and green products that make you feel good about spending $200 on groceries. Bicycle shops have the smell of rubber tires and the glistening shimmer of shiny painted metal objects.

Yet, when we traverse to the online shopping experience, we find ourselves trapped in predominantly 2-D experiences. There is almost no sense of community to help guide you through purchase decisions in real-time (I’m not referring to message boards or user reviews), little to no curation of products and the vibe is often flat and forgettable. Again, try to divorce yourself from the best-in-class e-tailers like Amazon and iTunes and look across the spectrum of the Web.

One Web site that breaks with convention and stands out because of its niche in the marketplace, curation of products and overall sensibility is 20ltd.com. The site offers limited edition, super-expensive and lux products that can only be found on this site.

20ltd.com is incredibly focused and simple, the aesthetic is sexy (looks like a black-velvet jewel box with gems inside) and the music selection is always fab. Everything is handcrafted – handpicked for the user. While 20ltd’s user-experience is unique to that particular brand, they’ve effectively picked up on some of the hidden cues that make shopping fun, surprising and inspiring.

With this in mind, here are a few simple pointers to help you improve your overall online shopping experience immediately:

• Create community. Let shoppers know who’s in the online store and what they’re shopping for through traffic mapping. Form partnerships with Chat providers (e.g., AIM, iChat, etc.) and allow shoppers to talk with other like-minded individuals in the store while their shopping. This can also be extended to video-chat for bleeding edge retailers.
• Incorporate sound design and music. Ambience can stimulate purchase intent and invite shoppers to linger and browse. This aspect of shopping is being woefully neglected across the board.
•  Curate your ‘storefront window’ (the homepage). Make sure your merchandising strategy is in perpetual motion and never allow inventory to linger on the homepage.
• Create more three-dimensional experiences.
• Use the semantic aspects of the Web. Make the user feel like you know and under his/her needs. Create a system that gets smarter with each interaction.
• Above all else, follow basic User Interface design principals. Big, clickable “Buy This Now” buttons should be placed in the upper right hand corner of the screen (we read from left to right) and always manage user experectations (e.g., this is a three step purchasing process. You’re in step 1 of 3).

Mozilla firefox website can’t handle all the traffic

as we all know mozilla was planning to make a record for the new Firefox3 final release, i don’t know what’s going on but looks like they will not be able to track even the number of downloads because there servers are down even the mirrors for the download is down also!

but that tells you that even if they will not be able to track the numbers most of the internet users is going for FIREFOX as altranative for IE and the other browsers.

Enough that for now but i will tell you later what happened with Mozilla!

New Features in FF3 CSS and JS

today i had some time to write since i’m working in a very big project that will move all the middle east to a whole new Generation of technology… more details will come when i finish it!

today i downloaded FireFox 3 the last release it’s not yet full version but will not be too many features added in the final version.

they have supported more of CSS that we had to write some hacks to let them work on firefox 2 and let’s get our hands dirty inside the coding…

• The display property’s inline-block and inline-table values are now implemented.
• The font-size-adjust property now works on all platforms; previously it was only supported on Windows.
• rgba() and hsla() support for color (bug 147017)
• :default pseudo-class support (bug 302186)
• -moz-max-content, -moz-min-content, -moz-fit-content, and -moz-available values have been added to width, min-width, and max-width (bug 311415 and bug 402706)
• HTML soft hyphens (­) are now supported.
• Pre-formatted tabs work much better in proportional fonts, following the CSS 2.1 spec.
• The ime-mode property is supported.
• The CSS text-rendering property for HTML is now supported (bug 387969).
• -moz-border-*-start and -moz-border-*-end CSS properties are implemented (bug 74880).
• -moz-initial is now implemented for almost all CSS properties (except quotes and -moz-border-*-colors) bug 80887.
• window.getComputedStyle() now supports all supported CSS properties (bug 316981).
• content’s none value is now supported (bug 378535).
• cursor’s none value is now supported (bug 346690).
• Background images now properly clip to a -moz-border-radius (bug 24998).
• white-space’s pre-wrap value is now supported (bug 261081).
• Selectors like :first-child, :only-child, :last-child (bug 73586), :empty (bug 98997), or the + combinator (bug 229915) are now updated dynamically (bug 401291).
• Negative z-index values are supported correctly.

Firefox also have implemented javascript 1.8 as part of Gecko 1.9 (which will be incorporated into Firefox 3).

 <script type="application/javascript;version=1.8"> ADD CODE HERE </script>

now you can write more short code to achieve the same target in JavaScript 1.8, the language is now becoming similar to Lambda notation.

JavaScript 1.7 and older:
function(x) { return x * x; }

JavaScript 1.8:
function(x) x * x

you see it’s gonna be more fun! if you wanna read more you can check the Mozilla page

I Wish Micosoft surprise us this year with enough testing for IE8 by resolving IE7 bugs and not bringing a new bugs

Now it’s time for me to go to sleep :0 see you next time

Byeeee

My Fun Night watching Step Up 2

It’s been ages i didn’t have some happy time. I went to the VIP Cinema at Citystars to see “Step up 2 Movie” i have to say the movie was amazing and the last Dance ROCKKKKKK. i really advice you if you didn’t see it yet you have to see it.

Fun Night watching Step Up 2

Now i will leave you to sleep because i have too much work tomorrow Have a great day

Mohammed Alaa
User Interface Designer / SEO Specialist in Egypt

Style your Form Buttons with Only CSS and Zero Javascript

hey welcome to my blog I’m happy you are here to check my CSS techniques today i will show you how to style submit button without any JavaScript and how to make rollover effect! can you believe it ZERO JavaScript and tested on all browsers.

CSS Used


#button {
display: block;
width: 175px;
height: 45px;
margin: 0px auto;
}
#button input:hover{
background-image:url('images/clicktosend_hover.gif');
background-position:left top;
background-repeat:no-repeat;
}


HTML


<div id="button">
<input name="Button1" type="image" value="button" src="images/clicktosend.gif" alt="Click to Send" width="175" height="45" />
</div>

Here you can See a Preview And here you can download the tutorial files Download Now!

Why Do You Work So Hard?

My Advice to you is to not work hard but Work Smart

This article i’ve seen it before and i would like to share it with everyone here. It says:

There remains this enormous and wicked sociocultural myth. It is this: Hard work is all there is.

Work hard and the world respects you. Work hard and you can have anything you want. Work really extra super hard and do nothing else but work and ignore your family and spend 14 hours a day at the office and make 300 grand a year that you never have time to spend, sublimate your soul to the corporate machine and enjoy a profound drinking problem and sporadic impotence and a nice 8BR mini-mansion you never spend any time in, and you and your shiny BMW 740i will get into heaven.

Read the rest of this entry »

Web Design and Coding Rappers

Web Design and Coding Rappers

The Poetic Prophet (AKA The SEO Rapper)

i found this Vedio on YouTube very Helpfull information for designers jejejeje.

i REALLY Like it!

Technology Fun

DIYer builds fully-functional NES controller coffee table, earns mad respect

by Darren Murph, posted May 9th 2008 at 9:42AM

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