As the leading furniture source in the Yuba City and Sacramento Area… read more

Client: Legacy By Design
Location: Chico, CA
Industry: Agricultural/Financial
Spotlight: Agicultural Succession Planning

Technologies used: PHP, MySQL, XHTML & CSS, XML, JavaScript

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Client: RentScroll.com
Location: Chico, CA
Industry: Online Property Listing Directory
Spotlight: Member based rental property listing subscription service

Technologies used: PHP, MySQL, XHTML & CSS, XML, JavaScript, Credit Card API

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Site: www.chicograduate.com
Client: ChicoGraduate.com
Location: Chico CA
Industry: Paid Business Directory

Spotlight: Easy to Maintain and Manage Online Subscription Based Business Directory
Technologies used: PHP, MySQL, XHTML & CSS, Flash, XML, JavaScript

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Chico Web Design has reached an agreement with Tecmo Games to create a community driven website for Tecmo Bowl. Chico Web Design will work closely with the marketing team at Tecmo to create a visually pleasing and easily maintainable website.

Years ago, there was only one web browser that mattered, Internet Explorer! I know, shame on me. Today, you say the “IE” word around any web designer and they will cringe with bitter angst due to countless hours spent staring monotonously at their monitor trying to figure out WHAT IS WRONG!

With word of Google Chrome entering into the web browsing market, it really put a sour taste in my mouth. As designers, we follow a specific set of web standards to ensure that our websites will look identical from browser to browser and operating system to operating system. The problem is, with all of the newcomers to the web browsing industry; we have to keep debugging new issues!

Let’s back up a bit. Internet Explorer 6, in its day, was the only web browser to use. Microsoft had a monopoly on the web browsing market, so whatever Internet Explorer did became the standard. Because of this, sites were built specifically for Internet Explorer 6 and did not follow valid HTML rules, and bad code was interrupted as “working” code.

Then comes Mozilla’s Firefox into the equation! Great! Finally a web browser that follows the W3C Standards. Mozilla decided that it was going to follow the proper rules set out by all of the standards boards. Now the fun begins!

So, bring in Firefox 2, don’t forget that every browser will need some sort of upgrade at one point. Now we have Firefox 3! Great, IE 6 is around but don’t worry, IE 7 will maybe kinda sorta help clean up some of those bugs. Oh no, here comes IE 8 which is released in Beta! You also can’t discount all of the new users who have moved over to Apple because they have Safari 2 on their machines which has just been replaced by Safari 3! If you’re head’s not spinning already, don’t worry because now we get Google Chrome, WHICH by the way, is only released for XP and Vista, not Apple. Did I mention Apple iPhones or BlackBerrys?

That was a mouth full!

The issue isn’t that we have a plethora of great new browsers; the issue is that the old disheveled web browsers are still being used.

According to w3schools.com, 24.5% of all users online are using IE 6, as of August.

On a daily basis, we consistently have to code, re-code, hack, and re-hack valid XHTML & CSS to fit every browser across the board. The biggest of which, happens to be Internet Explorer 6.

As a project manager and designer, I can honestly say that for an average website, it can take 6-8 hours to create XHTML and CSS for basic templates. Then, it will approximately take another 2-3 hours, depending on the complexity of the site to get it to work in all browsers, specifically IE 6. We’ve spent countless hours, re-coding for IE6, so much so, I probably don’t even want to know the true number.

We keep adding web browsers to the equation, but haven’t taken any away yet. With 24% of the market using a tool like IE 6, which must be getting close to 8 years old, we’re still forced to find new ways to hack backwards and make them work on old browsers.

Personally, I use Firefox 3 and tend to like it the most. Safari has had some compliancy issues in the past with forms and simple WYSIWYG editors that really turned me off of their browser.

I wish I had a solution and could wave my magic browser wand and get everyone to upgrade form IE 6, but who knows when we’ll get to stop pulling our hair out supporting IE 6.

Can’t we get everyone to upgrade from Internet Exploder 6!

We are pleased to announce that Chico Web Design has moved its design studio to a new location in the heart of downtown Chico! Now located on the third floor, just above Starbucks in the Hart building, Chico Web Design will continue to create and integrate web technology for businesses just like yours.

This expansion will allow Chico Web Design to be in a more central location as well as provide more space and inspiration for our talented team of graphic artists to do what they do best, design! When you’re in the area next, feel free to step in and say hello!

Our new address is:

Chico Web Design
242 Broadway Suite 12
Chico CA 95928

We’d like to remind you that Chico Web Design not only specializes in creating visually appealing web sites, but we also can design anything graphic related, from logo and stationery design, to tradeshow booths and direct mailers. Chico Web Design can make your company image stand out from the rest.

I want to preface this discussion by stating that this topic is for advanced Ecommerce websites with multiple categories and product quantities ranging from 10 – 5,000.

We often get requests to bid Ecommerce websites here at Chico Web Design.  With every inquiry we get, we tell all our potential clients the same thing, “Every web site is different, and the cost is based on your needs, feature set, and business requirements”.  Believe it or not, it’s a true statement! When you’re looking for a car, you can’t pick up the phone and call your local Chevrolet dealer and say, “how much for a blue vehicle”, right?  Just as the car dealer would say, we would also explain, “we need to know more information”!  Below are some common functionality questions that we ask when speaking to a client for the first time about their ECommerce site.

Ecommerce Questions

1. Site Structure – Do you have any ideas of what you’d like your product catalog to look like?  I.E. If you have a retail store, sample categories would be something along the lines of, Handbags, Hoodies, Pants, Tops, etc.
2. Shipping – How would you like to handle shipping, flat fee ($6.00 per product), table rate (0-$24.99: $4.95, $24.99-$99.99: $5.95) or anything different? Express shipping?  2 or 3 Day shipping? International shipping?  Free shipping?
3. Wish list – Would you like to allow users to create a wish list and then send their list of products to a friend or family member?
4. Recommended products – Recommending products to cross sell with a product of interest is another value added option you may want to think about.
5. Shop by Brand/Manufacturer – Would you like users to sort by brand or manufacturers?
6. Tell-a-Friend – Would you like to allow users to send product links to a friend via HTML Email?
7. Featured Products – Featuring products is a great way to capture interest in specific inventory!  If this is something of interest, where would you like them place?  Rotating on the front page?  Above each category?
8. Sale products – Would you like a link to sale items?  We can implement sale functionality which would allow you to mark items already in inventory for sale.
9. Coupons – Do you plan on offering discount coupons?  Do you want to offer gift cards?
10. Newsletters – How often or do you want to capture emails for newsletters?
11. Taxes – Does your state have any special tax rates on specific products or product categories?

This is by no means a full list of questions to ask for every Ecommerce web site, but these are some basic questions to ponder when you are searching for a design and development firm to bring your dream business from a thought to reality.

Site: www.wealthstrategiesgroup.net
Client: Wealth Strategies Group
Location: Costa Mes, CA
Industry: Financial

Technologies used: PHP, XHTML & CSS

In the works for over a year, the official website for Saves The Day has finally been released to the public. Saves The Day, under label Vagrant Records, just released their new album “Under the Boards” and is touring the country for their new Bug Sessions album.

With strategic partners, Voltaic Brothers and Syosoft, Chico Web Design came up with a content management solution for the band to create and manage a community of fans to share videos, music, and photos.