The Web continues to grow and change at a rapid pace due to increased connectivity speeds, improved browser platforms and the advancement of mobile technology. Many of our clients now maintain an online presence with a company Web site. As online technology evolves, however, these clients will soon face outdated and inaccurate Web sites.

Greetings from your favorite thunder::tech designers! You may know us as the guy that designed your Web site, or the girl that created your accordion-fold brochure, but on a day-to-day basis we do so much more. Ever wondered what a day in our trendy shoes is like? Well, wonder no more::

7:30 a.m.
We wake up, check our calendars for meetings, then we drive/bike/run to the office. After we walk/jog/huff our way up five flights of stairs, we play a little game of lunch box Tetris with the fridge, and power up the computers.

9:00 a.m.
We all start our mornings with a cup of strong coffee--as long as whoever made it remembered to actually put grounds in the machine. We typically go through our voicemails, our emails and our blogroll before the hour turns to double digits.

We supply the tunes for the entire fourth floor—and that's no easy task when you have designers, developers, PR and a couple clients to please, but we manage to get the job done. Connie usually kicks it off with the Minnesota Public Radio Song of the Day, then she'll turn on WOXY, or a last.fm station. Since we work in a musical democracy, we take requests through something we like to call tRL: thunder Request Live.

10:00 a.m.
Then it’s time to get down to business: we'll work on a logo design, look at some design books for inspiration or draw by hand before we even touch the computer.

Noon
It’s lunchtime and we either:
brown bag it, mooch a ride to Subway, call in an order to Danny's for a tuna melt, prepare a salad from organically grown ingredients or hope for a lunch presentation with the added bonus of free pizza!

1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
So its back to work for these designers! We might:
- Get feedback from our team on our latest brochure, which is actually quite easy since we sit so close together
- Ask a developer for feedback on a Web site design
- Eat 99 dum dums
- Throw in a little email checking and responding
- Attend a client meeting or two or three
- Play rap if it’s a Friday afternoon
- Cross completed goals off our white board
- Shrink down our staff to the size of "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" to dance on our conference room table
- Fill up our water bottles, Starbucks mugs, or tiki heads, because it’s that time of day where if we're not careful, Robert Goulet will get us
- Work on an ad layout and send it to the client to see what they think of our masterpiece

5:30 p.m.
Is it that late already? Time sure flies when you're Illustrating, InDesigning, Photoshopping, and Fireworking like it’s your job. We shut down our computers, turn off the lights, fly/walk/jog down five flights of stairs, and run/bike/drive back home. Time to ret::tire for the evening, then do it all again tomorrow!

For our second edition of get::ting answers, Public Relations Intern Andrea interviews our Design Intern, Laura.

Andrea: As the graphic design intern, what do you do on a daily basis?
Laura: There really is no typical day, every day is different. Usually, my day consists of a mix between client work and internal work, which includes a variety of print and web design.

A: What do you like best about interning at thunder::tech?
L: My favorite thing about thunder::tech is definitely the people who work here. I enjoy the open atmosphere and the fact that it isn’t unusual to see someone ride past you on a skateboard or scooter. Having cool clients and projects to work on is a definite plus too.

A: When you were young you thought you’d grow up to be…
L: Probably a teacher or a rockstar, maybe both, like Jem from Jem and the Holograms.

A: What’s currently playing on your iPod?
L: Kanye West and Duffy.

A: What’s on your perfect ice cream sundae?
L: Twist soft serve with M&M’s.

Interns Laura and Andrea take in the view from thunder::tech's rooftop deck.

Unotron may have unseated hand sanitizers from their market-cornering pedestal of quieting the nerves of countless germophobes everywhere. In a nail biting trial performed at thunder::tech by our operations administrator, Kristin, tech company Unotron allowed their washable, easily-disinfected keyboard to be put to the test for WKYC Channel 3’s “Try It Before You Buy It” feature.

Unotron’s latest keyboard boasts the ability to be scrubbed and rinsed, negating the millions of germs that find their way into our keyboards. (Insert horror movie-worthy scream here.) Utilizing SpillSeal® technology, its keys are sealed to prevent water damage, thus allowing it to be cleaned at the user’s discretion.

Kristin tested the keyboard’s typing functionality and found out how washable it was by pouring a bottle of soda over the keyboard and scrubbing it in the sink.

To see Kristin’s keyboard experiment and to find how she rated the keyboard, check out this video:



You can learn more about Unotron’s keyboard here.

Each week, one of thunder::tech’s different departments will provide some insight into their field. This week, our development team shares some insight on Web browsers.

We have been involved in too many Web projects to count, and in each project there can be hundreds of items to iron out before designing and developing. From determining the look of the site to deciding what information should be required on contact forms, there are many vital questions to be answered. The one question that tends to be overlooked is, “Which browsers are we aiming to be compatible with?”

The obvious answer would be “All of ‘em!” While this may be a heroic statement, it really isn’t suitable for all projects and could lead to spiraling budgets and blown deadlines.

Any developer (thunder::tech developer anyway) knows that there are an almost infinite number of browsers available with their own ideas on how to render styles, html code and images.

The rules of browsers have evolved over time. Old coding languages changed to accommodate new methods and new languages are added to fill voids in the technology's capabilities. The organizations releasing browsers occasionally disagree on which capabilities are necessary and how the language should implement them.

Specific information has not always been available with regards to the interpretation of the rules and small details have fallen through the cracks. The W3C now publishes recommendations for Web development languages and specifies these details.

There is a reluctance to fix interpretation issues and to standardize all browsers together in newer versions because complex sites may have - either intentionally or inadvertently - used these inconsistencies to build a working Web site; thus, fixing one problem may break several existing sites.

As is true of all industries, Web browsers will continue to grow towards standardization; however, bugs and interpretation details will always exist. New capability requirements will lead to new languages which will not have every interpretation detail ironed out, likely causing the next generation of user-experience features to be equally disjointed. Nonetheless, organizations have begun to realize the power, convenience and potential of standardization, which is, we believe, the most necessary step towards solving the problem of browser diversity.

So, where does that leave us? Which browsers should you choose before a Web project?

Start by examining your core audience/users to find out what the purpose of your site is by asking questions such as:

• Is it an internal company-only intranet?
• Will it be a corporate Web site?
• Will the Web site be geared toward customers?
• Does the Web site include ecommerce?

To develop a company-only intranet, you can develop for a specific browser, but to develop a site with wider reach, you should remember the most popular browsers such as FireFox, Safari, Opera and Chrome.

Make sure to also educate the designers and developers of your Web site on your goals, purpose and core users. They should also be able to recommend the best possible direction.

As you are developing your new Web site, test on a variety of browsers to not only help you recognize where your development issues are, but to make sure that your goals and the needs of your audience align.