So, it is boxing day and half the people at work took the week off and so I don't have that much to do. I end up finishing up the little I had to do and decided to do some last-minute surfing before heading home. I settle for the PHCN website as I haven't been there since it was NEPA. So I google for the site and find: http://www.phcnonline.com/TIMSClient/contact.htm . The link is #1 so someone did their SEO right. The lower part of the home page is a blaring red. Eh, it' okay. I am willing to ignore this. I also like the fact that I can pay my bill online. For a fee? Hey, for the convenience of not having to leave my house, I don't mind that at all.

I must confess, it is much better than the NEPA site. But it does have a few issues:

1) I ran it through a website analyzer. As simple as it is, it takes about 40 secs on a 56K modem. 24 images on the home page alone! The poor guy in the header is chopped into 2. Why bother? Now, having just returned from naija, I can attest to how slow some cyber cafes are. If the site followed web standards, it could have been made much lighter

2) The scrolling banners at the bottom. First off, what are those? sponsors? if yes, first and foremost, I tip my hat off to them for having that many. Having said that, I could barely concentrate on the links in the red section. Any reason to blast a gazillion ads in my face all at the same time? Chineke me!!

3) I decided to lodge a "complaint". The form leaves me to find out my district. Oookay. I remember seeing a "find your district" link on the home page (I am not smart enough to have played a guessing game with the dropdowns to see if I would be lucky on the first try ). I hit the back button and click the link. I was expecting some kind of map (of Nigeria) which color shades over each district. All I got was a bunch of text. So I say to myself, should I call the one I think is my district HQ? I said nope. I assume it is the PH district and go back to my form. Ah! It is the PH district. How much time has elapsed by now?

4) I forget to fill out a few fields and I hit submit. I had to wait (on my bourdex line at home) for the page to show up, only to be told I didn't fill those fields. Ha ba! I have to fill the form again?

Folks, don't get me wrong, I love my country and know despite the odds, we are still able to crank out code. Having said that, I think we have come of age to a point where we should be mature in our coding. No business logic will ever be used if a user doesn't find a site usable. Me in particular am unfortunately very impatient online. I want it now! If I wait small, I don leave b that.

From my visit, my conclusion was that we are yet to appreciate the part architecture plays in web development. Either that, or I wasn't talking to the right people. In the US, there are people who don't write a single line of code and yet they probably make more than the best coders. They are into SEO, usability and accessibility to mention but a few. All they do is go through studies and research and tell the code monkeys what to do as if given the opportunity, they could do it themselves and perhaps even better. Some of them, you just want to slap them, but fear the consequences

Here's to making 2008 a year where we develop sites that are usable, accessible, lightweight and aesthetically appealing!!

And they are bold enough to have the regular bulb that is being phased out in favor of energy saving ones on the homepage.

Looking at the design, many experienced webmasters will agree with me that it is quite a nice one. I have studied people that call themselves web designers on here and I have taken time to go through their works. Just a few truly understand the basics of web design, while most of them can't really do what they say,  they copy and edit layouts and they still criticise other people's works to the last dot. That's why am not active on this board anymore. What do we gain in criticising? I really don't know!! Good professional don't castigate,  there come together and discuss better ways to do things.

Let's learn the habit of appreciating other people's works and correct (if the need be) and not pose to be a 'guru'.

spking 4 myself:

Case study: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/case%20study
Criticism: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/criticism

I am always cautious of what Matthew 7:5 says. No one is perfect. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Those facts are irrefutable. What is refutable is that there are standard ways of doing things. Whether or not we follow them is up to us. Of course, if we follow them, we are the better for it.

If you read my piece carefully, you will note that I give praise where praise is due first and foremost. My point is here is that there is room for improvement. Imagine what would happen if we all chipped in to make a particular site better. It would be coding nirvana.

Let's learn to discern words and read articles in general in their entirety and speak from facts and not emotion.

YES, nothing on earth is perfect, not even your site

geez broadcode, you seem to be painting with a (very broad) brush. I wonder how long you had the above statement pent up in you just waiting to let it out. Now that you have, hopefully you feel better. After some brash posts from you earlier this year, I thought you had given the trade up. I guess not.

The funny thing is that I have never claimed to have the best sites on earth. Where you got that, I have no idea. As a matter of fact, should anyone want to do a case study of any of my sites, go ahead. We will all be better for it.

back to the issue at hand:
i will continue to post case studies. Again, if anyone disagrees, feel free to post a *civil* rebuttal. So, you might want to starting popping down some anti-High Blood Pressure tabs because it seems you will need it.

YES, nothing on earth is perfect, not even your site

and not even www.lagosstyle.com

C'mon boy. This is not a battlefield and I dont have a grudge with you. Criticise fairly and look at your own works before you fault others'.

na me u dey call boy? hmmm. okay, in the spirit of the holiday season, I will forget you said that. Battlefield? You bet. With me, it's always a battle of ideas in which case the ideas based on facts, and not emotions, should always win

Criticise fairly and look at your own works before you fault others

I do this all the time. As a matter of fact, I will do it right now. I just put up www.mbukakwaibom.com - a website in response to the lack of Akwa Ibom State's newspaper, "The pioneer" being online. Akwa Ibomites in the diaspora cried out for a single source of information and I provided it for them. What do you think (I can already tell that you will say the site is "simple" so don't bother with that one. The site is serving its purpose judged by the high number of unique visitors daily since its dec 23 inception )?

I have always known (which is why I always preface my request for reviews) that my designs are simple. I make them so on purpose. Having said that, they follow web standards which to me is paramount. In other words, if you had a website that said, "hello world", as long as it followed web standards, I could care less about it. Again, if you read my case study above, I haven't mentioned anything about designs. Rather I mention download times, my inability to find information, etc. I have always maintained that I am a web developer, not a "designer", "guru" or "webmaster" as many have called themselves on here.

Ever since I have met you on this forum, I have known you to be one who picks one paragraph, without reading to its conclusion, and drawing emotional conclusions. Ki lo de?

You said to you, the site looked okay. You should have left it at that and/or tried to refute my points above instead of turning it into a verbal attack (not that I care). The whole point of a case study is to expose potential problem areas and how to resolve them. I believe I have done both.