About Me
— Keith Mander, Just PoohI've found Jack to be a highly professional and talented web developer.
— Keith Mander, Just PoohI would have no hesitation in recommending Jack to any client.
I've been working in the web development field for over 8 years, as a freelancer while concentrating on my degree, as a full time employee of a web design agency, and now freelancing full time.
I've built web sites for individuals, through to large businesses, starting from simple information/brochure sites, to advanced online shops with payment processing. I build web sites that are standards based, accessible, search engine friendly, with a focus on usability. I'm a graduate of Brunel University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Multimedia Technology and Design. I'm based on the south coast of England, in Brighton.
What I Can Do For You
Design
By employing modern, standards based design practices I build sites that not only look good, but are highly optimised for search engines and accessibility. This allows your site to attract and support the biggest audience, while making it as easy as possible for search engines to index its content.
I also take advantage of client side scripting to enhance sites with interactive features and animation. I employ the practices of progressive enhancement and graceful degradation in all such features, so that users without support for these technologies aren't left in the dark.
Development
In addition to frontend development I also have a great deal of experience in backend coding and database design. I have built a number of advanced systems for ecommerce, content management, email management and many more.
Whether you're looking for a search engine, voting system or discussion forum to be added to your site, or you need an entire web or intranet application building from scratch, I can assist with planning, designing and building it.
Anything Else?
I offer a number of other services as well, including maintaining existing sites and updating outdated code to improve accessibility and search engine optimisation. If you feel your site could do with a refresh, or want to completely rebuild it from scratch why not get in touch
I can assist with reviewing existing sites, looking for potential problem areas, and suggesting new features or enhancements that'll increase usability and make your customers lives easier, thereby boosting sales.
Technical Skills
I have a great deal of experience using (X)HTML, CSS, ECMAScript (JavaScript), PHP 5, SQL & MySQL.
I also make regular use of—and contribute to—the Zend Framework in many of my projects. This allows me as an individual to produce much more advanced sites and applications, in less time, without the needing a whole team to work with me.
Standards Based and Accessible?
Modern web design practices encourage standards based design and accessibility. Designing with the web standards defined by the W3C helps to ensure aesthetic and functional consistency across different web browsers. Designing with web standards also enhances search engine compatibility (and therefore rankings), because a pages underlying mark-up is as clean and easy to understand as possible, even for search engine spiders. This also makes the underlying mark-up as lightweight as possible, potentially saving on bandwidth and hosting costs; and makes development and maintenance quicker and easier.
It is also very important to ensure that your website is accessible to as many people as possible, including those with disabilities; and the best place to start with this is by employing standards based design practices. There are a number of guidelines on commissioning and building accessible web sites, but in the UK the most relevant set of guidelines is PAS 78, published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.