Great user design interfaces are easy for the average person to use. It's that simple.
For almost 20 years my role as a technologist has been to foster bridging the gaps between what I call "engineer/programming thinking" and "user thinking." Engineers and programmers, while they may be brilliant, do not usually grasp how their end users see things.
I put users first and use the technology to support them. When designing an interface I'm constantly considering and reconsidering how users are seeing and using the site. With the latest developments in Javascript managing sites can be easy and completely WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get).
I specialize in XHTML, CSS, Javascript (AJAX) web programming with optimized OOP PHP/MySQL scripting/database back-ends. This means I am comfortable coding content management systems (CMS) from scratch for high-end sites or, for lower budgets, integrating and customizing Open Source CMS packaged software like Drupal, Wordpress or Joomla to build cost effective sites.
For e-commerce I integrate robust and free e-commerce packages like ZenCart or Ubercart.
For multimedia presentations I may use Flash or, for more user-manageable sites, people often prefer AJAX.
The most important factors to promoting your site is that the content is enjoyable and easy to navigate. The strategies I employ to help promote a site depending highly on the target audience.
Appealing content can be accomplished with many different tools from sophisticated blogs, community forums, and photo galleries to simple one liner news feeds (RSS feeds) promoting fresh and interesting content that will keep visitors coming back for more (called traffic conversion in the industry).
SEO (search engine optimization) is the common method used now to help promote your site in search engines. Utilizing free tools like GoogleAnalytics for providing feedback I continually refine your site's keywords to keep your site well profiled.
Custom Content Management System for visual artist John Duckworth. He wanted a slick and easy interface for keeping his galleries up to date as well as an elegant front end.
Stage 2 (Currently Under Construction) includes a Yii Framework based CMS with a customized drag and drop administrative interface.
Customized the Wordpress template's html and CSS to W3C standards.
Building an open source OOP PHP package for doing fancy image manipulations. Resizes and add special effects, with ImageMagick and Imagick, on the fly:
1. Resizes and crops images based on width:height ratios, and
2. manipulates images using user defined profile sets.
3. Caches variations for optimal performance
Converted a static site over to a Content Mangement System (CMS) at a very economical price. Keeping with the budget I managed to make a flexible site that will show up in search engine rankings and even got them free hosting at Dreamhost.
Built a bilingual Japanese/English site, with a nifty yoga pose database/dictionary to promote my yoga workshops.
I've been involved in technology and web development/architecture with many companies, big and small and from industries as varied as holistic healing to toy stores, for 20 years now. In addition to those companies profiled on my portfolio page here is a short list of other clients I've had management roles with: