After this thread, I might be making a lot of enemies. What the heck? Here it goes:

Is it just me or do most naija websites have the following characteristics (NOTE: speaking in generalities here. So don't crucify me just yet )?

1) When featuring people, such people bare no semblance to Nigerians. Some show oyibo.

2) Are mostly templated

3) Are heavy on graphics/flash

4) Have some graphic/flash that is always popping in your face, thus distracting you from the reason you are on there in the first place

5) Try to cram the whole site's content onto the home page

6) Show total disregard for SEO

Did I miss anything?

This thread is not meant as a bash o! The aim is to hopefully help our fellow coders in naija to code with web standards in mind.

Thanks,

You could add

1. Almost always feature links to Nigerian newspapers -- as if we need them

2. Use very tiny fonts

Alas,  i  have done all the above in extreme fashion,  i once scanned a 30 paged brochure and used image-maps to create hyperlinks,  that website took an hour to load on a linkserve link of 1999. but all that is behind me now. i sometimes feel the urge to physically paint my monitor with light-bulbs and little flashign bunnies that scroll text in a marquee. drugs and special psychiatric  help has managed to keep the beast in me tamed.

so back to the issue.

Yes most naija websites are like that for the following reasons
1: The well-paying client usually knows what he wants and it must look like a sunny beach with lots of waves and bare-belly bikinis. so the web-designer eventually capitulates to designing for the client's eyes and ears.

2: Nigerians are hardworking and love the work of their hands no matter how ugly and disabled it looks,  a lot of web-designers (not developers) want to sit back and look at the squiggly lines they have just constructed with frontpage and a few javascripts. rather than take the best 5 international-standard websites and dubb the mutha off them,  they simply stick with their in-experiece and generate the crap you have just mentioned.

3: You get what you pay for,  if you pay N60 and expect to see Reuters.com youwill be sadly disappointed with punchng.com. so web designers just plonk a lot of effects pick up the cheque and move on,  Naija is not an easy place to work as a website designer.

Hopefully, a national competition will springup where web-designers will be encouraged to build better websites and win large prize monies. whay say you?

lagerwhenindoubt,

u hv given me an idea o

Perhaps we could even set up a competition here on nairaland. I wonder what the prize wd b

A competition can't do much to encourage webmasters to follow the right path. The most effective websites don't win awards because web design competition judges see them as being plain. The most effective website draw traffic and bring results. The people who are in a position to motivate webmasters are their clients.

Thank you Nwoke. I've seen some very easy-to-navigate websites get bad comments and ratings while flashy ones with lots of effects get commended.

Visit Google.com -- is that your idea of beautiful? You see some people praising poorly developed flash websites that require you to for example drag a link from one end of the screen into a tin can before it moves to the next page, amidst much animation.

I don't believe in that kind of design -- I believe all websites shoul be viewable accross all web browsers -- not 'you need the latest version of Internet Explorer and the Macromedia Flash plugin to view this site.'

I'll reserve more comments for later.

Can someone please tell me how i can post my own comment.
As you can see this is my first time using this site

well my nuke site is not that bad http://www.igbolandia.com

Nwoke and Zahymaka,

The competition, like say, in figure skating, would have parameters. I am not necessarily thinking design. I am thinking standards. So, here are some of what I am thinking of:

1) Low page weight
2) Page validates against XHTML strict
3) Page done in 100% CSS

So, say someone needed help. One person comes up with a template, another adds pepper, and another salt. In the end, it would turn out like an open source project. From there, who knows? some company spots it and end-result is a spot on CNN, which in turn leads to major wazo.

I know, my mind tends to wander a little too far, but hey, nothing wrong with that abi?

Romeo, your site didn't seem to come up. Ke du ko di with that? LOL

I don't know but if you're talking of standards, my site is XHTML 1.1 -- http://azuka.zatechcorp.com. Every page validates.

Zahymaka, aka Jackie Chan

My point exactly. I visited your site. U used standards to code it. From that standpoint, it looks good. I personally could care less about design. I am a web standards zealot.

So now, take this further - we get others to show off their stuff. In the end, we collect sites/templates and vote on the best (as in "perhaps here u shdn't have used too many classes, or u shd hv used a paragraph tag here, instead of divs, thus suffering from "divitis". End-product? One mean mutha of a site we could perhaps parade to potential clients

Thanks

I know i am not a magician and if not for poor insight (i should have been born in yankee,in a swanky literate-type suburb) and hyper-speed inflation.
I would be a perfect web-weaver/software-architect.

Anyways, here is what i have used on my way to the path of Salvation. you will thank me enough

1: http://www.asktog.com A site that focuses on good web-weaving (semantics, style, usability, accessibility, then features)

Here is what i have learned
1: Functionality is key (The site must not only do what it was designed to do, but must achieve the objectives set-out by the client. (and i do not mean things like traffic stats/Brand positioning/SEO and the other buzz-words we IT-types use to scope clients)
2: Usability: a very stubborn but wealthy software developer insists on duplicating a manual process in VB6, it takes exactly the same time it would in the real-world as it did on the ML370 Proliant Server with 2Gig of RAM, your website must be usable because people do not particularly surf to see beautiful websites, fine they like it whenever they do, but that is not their objective. You like google.com because it is usable and it is functional and meets your objectives (most times)
3: Accesibility: if you were born in the 70s youmust have seen the birth of DOS and word-perfect, all the hundreds of keyboard short-cuts and alternative tips. if i do not have a mouse, i should be able to use your website at least 50% of your website.

If you noticed, i do not mention anything about looks, why, FORM AND FUNCTION these two areas when developed to a good level will add all the beauty you will ever need

ask BMW and Honda

I feel humbled talking in the presence of such gurus as lagerwhenindoubt and my2cents. More tips please.

E b like say lagerwhenindoubt pass me o - im grammar too much: Proliant server, swanky literate-suburb, hyper-speed inflation, gigs of RAM. I bow o LOL

Just kidding larg*, na so I dey like do small yabs. In the end it's all good.

I don't claim to know it all. I just like this site so much that I feel I should share knowledge based on what I have learnt from my various experiences. Someone else may sign up tomorrow and rubbish all my comments, who knows.

Here is a site I worked on: http://www.southsouthforum.org/index.html

Let me know what you think,

1) Low page weight
2) Page validates against XHTML strict
3) Page done in 100% CSS

my2cents, i like your standards-style approach. i think what will add more punch and marketability is style.

design is as important as coding standards.

I am not a core-IT person, infact you can classify me as one who stumbled into IT. I am not an afro-wearing, moniker-bearing, opensource fanatic. I am what you call your everyday user with a little curiosity and lots of motivation.

I can understand a site that delivers 100% function and i love it when everyone is tuned towards achieving well thought out standards, but guess what,  the Business-side drives innovation which drives IT and what drives the business-side is effizy (it is not what you do that counts but how you look doing it)

I think if we followed a strict-standards approach, we come up with the SAAB, efficient, functional but out of favour with the manufacturers themselves. why, cos it looked like a skoda next to a skoda.

I think we should be encouraging Standards with style and appeal (I don't mean sexy, just good-looking)

on your take of 100% CSS, I am still struggling with sites that use CSS to limit font size pixels that do not change with screen resolutions, instead, they have this unsightly widget that allows you to change font-size and background colors and other uneeded CSS tricks. why the extra effort when we should have just done the obvious and available.

I love that site my2cents. It's simple and easy to navigate. Your banner shouldn't eat up half the page space however.

I've once had someone tell me to get a better banner. I told him that was my personal mascot and to bug off. I hated it when he said I took "simplicity" to the limits. I countered that the only instance of javascript on my page is the dropdown menu [only for IE -- it works just fine on other browsers that support the :hover pseudoclass for all elements].

For me, a user's being able to get around my page easily is my top priority -- not effects that dazzle you on your first visit and get you annoyed on subsequent ones.

Zahymaka alias Jackie Chan (sorry o, but I can't help it ),

Thanks for your input. The banner thing was a hot issue during the architecting phase of the project. In fact, it is the sole reason why the pages on the site are heavy. In the end, the guy paid so I had to dance to his tune . There are a few things I have noticed so far though that if given another opportunity, I would have made better.

South-south governors have seen the site and they love it. I am hoping that through that site, I get to set my feet into their offices and realize my dream of moving back to Nigeria, even it is for a few months, to do some web work there. Who knows? I may even move back permanently and set up shop as a consultant. Gotta start somewhere.

Here is another one, a pet project of mine: http://www.geocities.com/myibibio/

You might be in luck Nigeria: Niger Delta - Govt to Commit $160 Billion, Create 20,000 Jobs for Indigenes
http://allafrica.com/stories/200604190013.html

Back to your site,  all i can say is that the banner needs some "re-laying" are you a fan of Before and After Magazine? Teaches you (among other things) how to use simple 2-tone colors and layout to achieve works of magic.

Take a look at this site. i chose it becuase yours reminds me of it http://www.alumni.hbs.edu/

My issue is. people are usually not bothered about looks when it comes to a site like this, they are seeking info. this is were you will likely face your crankiest challenge yet. i say so because i work in Naija.

should you move to Naija (I think they made a mistake with the $160 billion but that is Naija for you) with your site gob-smacking good as it is, some dude will come up with something just as good but with more style and get the job ahead of you. why, people like function, but form is what they see and what they will most likely judge it by, (judging a book by its cover)

Yeah -- I've seen that one already. You might have to work on that Ibibio Dictionary domain however -- if it belongs to you.

_{Why do you call me Jackie Chan?}

hmmmn, teh news section, do you update it manually? you could try allafrica.com they have an RSS feed, some you can sift and display South-South news and not have need for the manual process or you could combine both

Thanks for your input guys,

The Ibibio site was my very first CSS site. I took lessons learnt from there and applied to the south-south site. I intend to take lessons learned from both of these and apply them to a new site I am working on.

As for domain, since it was a pet project and I wasn't sure of traffic outweighing cost, I decided not to get its own name. Based on popularity, I am seriously thinking about it though.

The news site on southsouth is manually updated. I did this on purpose as the guy said he would rarely put new items. As you may have noticed, the last item was posted on 4th of January. Not to mention, his fees did not cover anything more than that LOL

Zahymaka, as for you being called Jackie Chan, dat na wetin I c for your profile now. I take it you are a fan Hey, nothing wrong with that, I have all his films

In the event I am able to move back to Nigeria to do some business, I know who to holla at first

Thanks once again,

I'm not in Nigeria -- at least for now. larger. . etc etc, you're a harvard grad?

I am not in naija, but in Atlanta. From your profile I noticed you aren't in Naija either. Regardless, if the price is right, I am sure I could entice you out of your present abode, even if it is for a couple of months

I'm a student. You can read about me on my site.

largerwhenindoubt,

on your take of 100% CSS, I am still struggling with sites that use CSS to limit font size pixels that do not change with screen resolutions

I just wanted to mention (not a bash, just an FYI) that it is possible to achieve the above via fluid fonts. The problem with most sites is that the coders just pick up a book, cram it, and implement the first code snippet they see, without taking it into context. Taking fonts for example, most sites use pt, or px. Some don't even give any units. pt is a print font. px isn't flexible. On the other hand, if you use % as a unit, this is fluid and should change with screen resolution/when u user elects to have a larger font via their browser.

As for coding via standards with style. It can be done. You just have to know it very well. Check out (if not already) this site: http://www.csszengarden.com/. On the right nav, click on the various links to change the design. Same site, but content is positioned in different spots. This is the beauty and strength of CSS.

Sexy sites can be coded in CSS. It just requires a certain level of mastery

I always design sizes with pixels -- that's how it's meant to be. Maybe you're still using Internet Exploderrer -- but all other browsers enlarge font, css or not. The font-size attribute is the base size or the size "normal" or "medium" is supposed to show in your browser.

I don't use IE. I am a FireFox zealot. As a matter of fact, I code in FireFox then test in IE.

I tell you who uses IE though: over 90% of web users. I work for http://www.autotrader.com. 95% of our users use IE. Try changing font sizes on our site in IE and tell me what you see. By the way, autotrader.com is the #1 site when it comes to buying and selling cars in america. I don't say it because I work for them. I have seen the stats. We are currently working on a new version of the site that will be 100% CSS and employ fluid design.

You have to remember, when you are working on any site, you are coding for the user, not fellow web developers (who, I read somewhere, make up only about 1% of web users worldwide)/IT guys. If an overwhelming majority come in using a particular browser or operating system, you have to accomodate them first, before others.

Bottomline, FireFox is good, but if the people making it possible for you to recieve a paycheck are for the most part using IE, then from a business perspective, the site has to look good in IE, very good

BTW: I checked out your bio - you need to get out of WV man. Based on what I read about you, the coal might be beginning to affect you. LOL just kidding o!!

Many users are switching to Firefox and Opera nowadays. That's simple. I use a 13px font most of the time so my work is fairly easy to read accross all browsers.

my2cents - can we talk on YIM?

just giving you a heads-up
Mozilla users warned--upgrade now
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6062713.html

I am sure you all have our site, www.oneloveng.com in mind when you talk of an ideal web site