About Me
- Name: Ben Bailey
- Lives: Melbourne, Australia
- Likes: satay sauce, open-source, web standards, bicycles
- Dislikes: thick-based pizzas, web design that neglects the needs of the user
- Formal Education
- Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Information Management - Monash University
- Graduate Diploma of Multimedia (Grad Dip. Multimedia) - Swinburne University of Technology
Design philosophy
Keep it clean. Design that is simple and clean is the best way to effectively communicate your message.
The web is for everyone – you should be able to access websites, regardless of what device, browser or operating system you may be using, and no matter how obscure they may be.
I believe design for the web should be flexible, usable, accessible and beautiful. The canvas for a web document is not DL or A4, but can be anything from less than 5x5cm to more than 50x80cm, an exciting challenge for web designers.
Users’ needs are not to be trifled with – if they are not fulfilled they will go elsewhere (and rightly so!). Infact, the web is a democratic medium that does not tolerate individuals or corporations trying to prescribe how we interact with the web.
All the above epitomisess why my design is based around web standards, accessibility and usability. My work is clean, semantic, hand-coded XHTML & CSS. I pride myself on writing high quality code and ensure my work complies with W3C standards.
Work experience
Usability Consultant at Stamford Interactive
October 2006-Present
Front-end Web Developer at Oxfam Australia
February 2006-June 2006
Online Technology Coordinator at Tourism Victoria
I managed all technical and content update tasks for the corporate website tourismvictoria.com.au. I also consulted to the consumer website visitvictoria.com to produce code for new templates and improve site accessibility and web standards compliance. It was a challenging role that gave me valuable experience in working with a public sector marketing organisation.
Project Manager and Multimedia Designer at Simple Logic
At Simple Logic I project managed the development of websites, CD-ROMs and print design. I collected requirements and managed timelines and budgets, and was a technical lead in coding and technical production.
Websites I have worked on
See the projects page for a detailed explanation of projects that I have worked on.
About this website/colophon
Web Standards compliance
This site adheres to current web standards - technologies designed to deliver the greatest benefits to the largest number of Web users while maintaining the long-term viability of any document published on the Web.
I am very passionate about the importance of adhering to current web standards and web accessibility technologies.
Which browser should I use to view this website?
You should be able to view and use this website with anything that can access the Web. However if you are currently using a sub-standard browser - you are putting your computer at risk as well as missing out on a lot of cool features.
To get the best browsing experience as well as protect your computer from viruses and scumware I recommend Mozilla Firefox for PCs and Safari for Macs.
Source code
The layout for this site was written using XHTML Strict and CSS 2. All code validates according to the recommendations of the W3C.
I use PHP, JavaScript, Quicktime and Flash only where needed.
If you are using a device that does not support JavaScript, Flash or Quicktime the pages will degrade gracefully meaning they will still be functional and accessible. If required text-based equilivant of the information will be provided.
Who made the blog?
The blog is driven by WordPress which is a state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is free, very easy to customise and created with PHP and MySQL.