July 1998: Leslie Chivers

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July 6, 1998

The following article was originally published for the Site Builder Network Workshop (now MSDN Online Web Workshop.)

"Appealing art has to be clean to the eye -- minimal."

Leslie Chivers is the director of art and design at MindQuake . In college, while working on a degree in Fine Arts, he never imagined that he would be a Web designer. Later, however, Leslie decided to learn some technical skills that he could combine with his artistic skills. "I wanted to make a Web site to promote local Edmonton artists," Leslie told SBN. "I started playing around with the Web, applying what I had learned in other mediums, and I just became fascinated with it."

The college Leslie attended focused on traditional media and advertising -- which he says was fine, but not really challenging. "I wanted to create billboards that moved or newspaper ads that people could interact with, and that's what led me to Web design." Leslie says part of what attracted him to the Internet was that it has, "all the strength of traditional media, but more power and more fun as well." To see examples of Leslie's work, visit www.redcell.com and www.minibulk.com .

SBN: At the start of a new project, how much time goes into planning how the site navigation will work? What factors do you consider?

Leslie Chivers: Quite a bit. To me, that's the most important part. If you can't navigate through the site, then it's no good. It doesn't matter how great it looks or how flashy it is if someone can't find what they're looking for. Dynamic HTML is changing all of that, though. In a second version of a site we're doing, we have dynamic drop-down menus instead of a site map, so someone could go deep within the site right off the first page.

SBN: Do you gather customer feedback for any of your sites? How do you use the comments? What's an example of customer response that made a difference on one of your sites?

Leslie Chivers: With the RedCell site, we found out whether or not it is easy to navigate, whether or not the site is quick to download, whether it is appealing to the eye. We use the information we get to improve the site as far as the look and feel and ease of navigation.

SBN: What are some special concerns when designing a site for an international audience?

Leslie Chivers: Simplicity. That's the key. There are some smaller sites that we've picked up where the clients are only interested in promoting locally. We're advising them of all the possibilities of the Internet -- the international marketplace -- but some people are still a little hesitant. They don't really know a lot about the Internet. Some people just want an online brochure, which plays more to a local marketplace.

There are some larger companies, though, that definitely want their company known on a global scale. When we're playing to an international audience, we bring in someone who's more specialized to look at the site, because you don't want to put up a site that would be offensive. In one instance, there was one company that I used a monkey in its logo. They were trying to reach an international market. No one had told them that a monkey is actually offensive to some Asian cultures because it's considered a religious symbol.

SBN: What features supported in Internet Explorer 4.0, such as Dynamic HTML and Cascading Style Sheets, are of most use to you in your work?

Leslie Chivers: Actually, quite a bit of them. The Cascading Style Sheets I use quite a bit. I find Dynamic HTML just incredible because of its ease of use and consistent look. The more technology is developing, the more it is becoming almost like a print medium. I'm starting to find a lot of these programs now really similar to use, such as Quark Express or PageMaker.

SBN: What is the biggest aid to your creativity?

Leslie Chivers: This would have to be magazines. I love magazines, all of them. I get my best ideas from fashion magazines. I don't know why, I just do.

SBN: What, for you, is the essence of great Web design?

Leslie Chivers: The best Web design is always quick to download. It goes without saying that if a person can't see the site because their modem is too slow or if they don't have the plug-ins, then that site is a poorly designed. If a 28.8 modem takes more than 15 seconds to download a page, then it's questionable. If it takes 30 seconds, that's no good and you had better revisit the size of your images. Once you go beyond that, a site really has to be clean and easy to navigate through. Nothing is worse than going to a site and seeing links thrown everywhere and pictures that float all over the page.

SBN: What, if anything, is standing in the way of you realizing your best dream designs on the Web?

Leslie Chivers: Definitely speed. If speed were not an issue, every site I worked on would be loaded with interactive multimedia. Unfortunately, this is not the case. So, I'll just wait until everyone has a T1 coming into their home.

SBN: What screen resolution do you prefer to design for?

Leslie Chivers: I always design for 640 x 480 because it seems that is the resolution of choice. At the same time, though, I always flood the colors of the page out to 1200 pixels. This just makes it a little more interesting for people with larger screens. I also do a twin site using Macromedia's Flash. This takes care of that problem by offering scalable Web pages, so it looks the same no matter what the resolution.

SBN: What has been one of the highlights of your design career?

Leslie Chivers: This would have to be the RedCell site. It was fun creating a Web site for a company that was just emerging into the marketplace. An established company already has a set look and feel. Working with an emerging company is fabulous. You're there from the start, and it's really exciting.

SBN: How does designing for the Web differ from other types of design?

Leslie Chivers: When I first started, it was horrible. I was faced with lines of code that seemed to go on forever. The only thing I could do to control everything was to put tables inside of tables inside of tables (I still do this; it gives superior control). Now, it's a whole new game. With the introduction of Dynamic HTML, a person can control an image or piece of text using coordinates. This I find almost identical to print design programs, such as Quark.

SBN: What are some of the exciting technical innovations you're seeing, and what do they say about the future of the Web?

Leslie Chivers: The future of the Web will definitely be faster and easier. Everyone I know hardly watches TV anymore. It's definitely going to be the mainstream media. It's just a matter of when. Some of the predictions that have been made about e-commerce have fallen short -- but still, it's just a matter of time. If somebody can pick up a WebTV box for a hundred dollars and surf the Web on their TV, why not? Then you're not spending two grand on a computer.

Michael Moore/Microsoft Corporate Photographer