Findley's Driving School of Nuneaton
Let my professionalism be your guide!


About the Findley's Driving School website

Introduction

This page is entirely about the history of, technology that has been, currently is or will be involved in the delivery of this website, and things that I either intend to do or may do with it in the future.

Occasionally I come back and update this page so in that manner it is a perfect representation of the rest of this website.

History

I do remember advertising in the Yellow Pages prior to learning how to write HTML. Initially I was told by many instructors that this internet thing was just a fad, and that traditional advertising methods would remain the dominant form of advertising. Oh were they wrong!

I was certain that I was correct in my assertion that the influence of the internet would expand. The first incarnation of this website was written back in 2003 entirely using HTML and CSS.

There have been many changes since with this being the eighth entirely new site that I have developed over the years. Whereas coding, of whatever variety chosen, is the mechanics of a website it is undeniably the combination of the visual style and content layout that leads, informs and enhances the user experience.

I have read many interesting pages about the design and construction of websites from different points of view and for me they have all served to reinforce the one continuous thread that flows through all successful websites. The visitor experience has to be the central point of everything that I do. If it does not benefit them in some way then there is no reason to do it.

Development

The first site was HTML and CSS only and, though limited by this, worked well enough. As the internet technologies have developed and browser wars have thankfully ceased, this site has been changed to utilise those technologies. I have an ongoing improvement project relating to both the coding and content elements of the site.

The updating to the latest version of HTML and the incorporation of schema symantic Microdata into the XSL stylesheet took a little reading to get right and quite a while to correctly impliment as these things can change slightly from server to server. The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) meta tags have been partially integrated and JSON-LD is now being thrown into the mix. The Open Graph Protocol (OGP) data format is something that I shall look at for future use. For now my hands are full.

Technical

Since initiating this online back in the days of dial up 56k modems I have made significant changes. Not only to the design and content but the technologies used as well. Gone are the days of XML files transformed by XSLT style sheets (because at the time browser technologies were more intent on doing their own thing than correctly representing the standards). Similarly relegated has been ASP server pages.

I used to use a program called Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Professional for graphical and animated work but since this disappeared into Adobe they stopped supporting the version that I had. As most phones on the market at the time did not render the files anyway I stopped using it as mobiles were beginnig to be increasingly used to view the internet. An internet which at the time was far from mobile friendly.

It was always clear to me that mobile internet usage was going to drastically increase its market share purely for convenience. As such any further versions had to be scalable and usable on any screen size.

These days I am using a server which runs PHP, allowing me to do many things in the background preparing the pages before they are sent to you, meaning that your device simply receives a regular webpage without the need for additional processing.

Whereas your device receives a HTML5 coded webpage which is arranged by CSS in the traditional manner, todays site is once again contained in XML files which are transformed by XSL transformation stylesheets on my server by its PHP operating system. This combination of technologies ensures that the site loads quickly and renders properly on the largest possible number of devices whatever their screen size. Separating the style from the content with CSS makes it much easier for me to maintain and expand both.

The future

Marketing cannot stand still and the driving instruction industry is no exception. This website has been very successful over the years in getting my name into the public domain. There are always changes that can be made to a website to offer the user a better experience and I shall continue to make changes as time allows.