UTEP AITP Presentation - 10/17/2012

The 10 Most Important
Things You Will Ever Learn
About Web Design and
Starting a Business
(Not Really)

UTEP AITP - October 17, 2012

Brandon Silverstein
• Graduated from UTEP in December
2004 with a B.S. in Computer
Science.

• Freelance web designer during
college.

• Started Impulse Development in
September 2006.

N U M B E R 1

Web design starts
with HTML and CSS.

<!DOCTYPE html>



 <html class="no-js"> 
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge,chrome=1">
<title></title>
<meta name="description" content="">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width">



<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/normalize.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/main.css">
<script src="js/vendor/modernizr-2.6.1.min.js"></script>
</head>
<body>



<p>Hello world! This is HTML5 Boilerplate.</p>

<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8.0/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script>window.jQuery || document.write('<script src="js/vendor/jquery-1.8.0.min.js"></script>')</
script>
<script src="js/plugins.js"></script>
<script src="js/main.js"></script>

</body>
</html>

body {
background-color: orange;
}

p {
color: blue;
font-weight: bold;
font-size: 5.0em;
text-align: center;
}

Semantic HTML

<h1>Most Important Heading</h1>

<h2>Less Important Heading</h2>

<p>Paragraph Text</p>

<img src="utep.jpg" />

N U M B E R 2

Good websites are
driven by content.

Content First

• Decide which content is most
important to the user.

• Organize content in an easy-to-use
navigation system.

• If a user can’t ﬁnd content, say
goodbye.

What are the two most
important things to users
when visiting a restaurant
website?

What are the two most
important things to users
when visiting a restaurant
website?

Menu and Hours

Home
History
Menu
Cooking
Catering
FAQ
Links
Contact Us
Careers

N U M B E R 3

Mobile devices have
completely changed
web design.

Mobile FYI

• 378,000 iPhones sold daily.
• 1,000,000 Android devices
activated daily.

• 371,000 babies born daily.
• Source: lukew.com

Flash
• Flash was very popular for building
websites.
• Apple killed Flash.
• iOS devices have never had Flash
installed (battery life, security risks,
etc.)
• Adobe won’t support Flash in Android
4.1.

Browsers/Devices
• Internet Explorer 7, 8, 9, 10
• Safari
• Firefox
• Chrome
• iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5
• iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad Mini
• Thousands of Android Devices

Deliver a uniﬁed
browsing experience
to all devices.

Full Site Mobile Site

Home Home

About About

Menu Menu

Events Events

Contact Contact

Responsive Design

• One set of HTML/CSS/JS code.
• Use CSS to change the layout of
pages based on device width.

• Google’s recommend method for
serving mobile content.

p {
font-size: 2.0em;
}

@media screen and (min-width: 768px) {
p {
font-size: 1.0em;
}
}

mediaqueri.es

responsiveprocess.com

N U M B E R 4

El Paso is a great
place to start a
business.

Starting a Business

• Work somewhere else ﬁrst.
• Find a good accountant.
• Find a good lawyer to prepare
contracts.

N U M B E R 5

Don’t write a
business plan.

Business Plans

• Business plans are educated
guesses.

• Business plans set unrealistic
expectations.

• Create a general mission statement
to follow.

N U M B E R 6

Learn how to say
no.

No!

• We turn down projects that are not
a good ﬁt. Budget, timeline, etc.

• We push back on client
recommendations if needed.

• You will never make everyone
happy.

N U M B E R 7

Know your price.

Know Your Price
• Don’t work for free unless it is for an
internship.
• Discounted work rarely leads to more
higher paying work.

• Hired a candidate because they told
me what they wanted to get paid.
• Be conﬁdent in your pricing and
ability.

N U M B E R 8

Taxes are the
worst.

Taxes

• Taxes aren’t the worst, but it sucks
to pay them.

• Pay tax throughout the year.
• Paying a lot of tax is not the worst
problem to have.

Network

• You never know who you are going
to meet.

• Word of mouth is very important.
• El Paso is very small.
• Join groups.

N U M B E R 1 0

Don’t be afraid of
change.

Change

• Change is scary.
• Try to make all business decisions
temporary.

• Change keeps you motivated.

THANKS!
BRANDON@IMPULSEDEVELOPMENT.COM

UTEP AITP Presentation - 10/17/2012

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