Well, whatever it was that I needed from not doing web design for awhile, I got. And I managed to do enough stuff on my own music site, agreatwhitebird.com, that I kept my html, css and design skills up.
I'm still looking to form a little web agency with one or two partners, but I'm also looking for small business clients and part-time employment opportunities.
So let me know if you need some support with little web projects. I never did stop using the 'net, or stop having a nice computer, but I did stop using phones for awhile. And then, whatever I needed to get out of that, I got, and now I've got one again. But I don't publish the number anymore. So it's start-out-by-email, continue-by-phone type business again.
In terms of how to do usability testing on a small scale, for little projects, my plan is to agree on a group of three testers with whoever my client is, and then they can compensate them with product or whatever. The smaller the project, the shorter and more casual the testing can be. I'm not sure why it's tough to explain usability testing to clients. It's just like proofreading. You're not asking for feedback, you're not asking for editing, you're just noticing where somebody gets confused while using your site. It can be done over Skype, it can be done at the client's place of business, it can be done through email, whatever. It's not a big deal. It's just been weird not to be able to do it at all, given how much insight I've always gotten from even the quickest, simplest sessions. Five minutes of watching somebody using some site, and both my client and I are like "oh, yeah, okay, we'll just retitle that section" or "oh, those links aren't obvious enough" and you get a massively improved situation. That's the deal with that.
So I'm still not offering the whole suite of creative web services. I'm still not doing Flash, dynamic HTML, interactivity, scripting, databases, stuff like that, and I don't plan to. It's not my game. There's tons of cash in the field, and other people can have it. I'm into making web documents that users understand, and I can fit into a team of people who, together, offer the full package. But for a basic site for a little company, artist or whatever, I've got that stuff. I do HTML, CSS, web graphics, typography, and a smattering of other bits and pieces of stuff that often go along with those things, with a focus on small business consulting and usability. Looking forward to some new projects after a bit of a break.
