Issue 333August 23, 2011
Making up Stories: Perception, Language, and the Web
by Elizabeth McGuane / Randall Snare
Stories have been around as long as we have, helping us understand our world and ourselves. We learn and retain information best through stories, because they turn information into more than the sum of its parts. But what makes a story a story, and what does it mean for the digital world we’ve built? Elizabeth McGuane and Randall Snare weave an enchanting tale of attention, comprehension, inference, coherence, and shopping.
A Primer on A/B Testing
by Lara Swanson
Data is an invaluable tool for web designers who are making decisions about the user experience. A/B tests, or split tests, are one of the easiest ways to measure the effect of different design, content, or functionality, helping you create high-performing user experience elements that you can implement across your site. But it’s important to make sure you reach statistically significant results and avoid red herrings. Lara Swanson shows us how to do that.
Issue 332August 9, 2011
Designing Fun
by Debra Levin Gelman
How do you define fun on the web? Fun means different things to different people. Debra Levin Gelman says that to create fun, we need to allow users to create, play, and explore. Learn how to help your client define fun, rank its importance on their site, and user test it to create a delightful experience, regardless of whether you're designing for suits and ties or the sandbox crowd.
Web Governance: Becoming an Agent of Change
by Jonathan Kahn
Shipping is easy, making real change is hard. To do meaningful web work, we need to educate clients on how their websites influence their business and the legal, regulatory, brand, and financial risks they face without strong web governance. Learn why web governance is important to us as web professionals and how to influence your clients to think carefully about how to align their websites to their business strategy.
Issue 331July 26, 2011
CSS3 Bling in the Real World
by Chris Mills
It’s here, it’s queer, get used to it! CSS3 is fun and fabulous, and if we design with progressive enhancement in mind, we can add all kinds of CSS wizardry to our websites and applications without worrying about how things work (or don’t) in old browsers and outdated devices. But what happens if our audience includes folks who use non-Webkit-powered phones? And what if our clients still believe a web page is supposed to look and work the same in every device? Learn to make CSS3 yumminess as cross-browser as possible.
The UX of Learning
by Tyler Tate
Think of the last time you ordered a book, booked a flight, or bought a car. How did you choose which book to read, where to go for vacation, or which car was best for you? You may have searched online, read reviews, or asked others for advice to help you make an informed decision. In a word, you learned. Learning is a complex process with distinct stages, each with corresponding tasks and emotions. Understanding how users learn can help us design experiences that support the user throughout the entire process. To design better learning experiences online, start by learning a thing or two about learning itself.
Issue 330July 5, 2011
A Modest Proposal
by Nathan Peretic
Comedy is easy, proposals are hard. Even the toughest creative pros cringe when it’s time to put one together. Yet doing so is essential if you want to keep your doors open. A compelling proposal requires more than a jumble of clichés and a nervous estimate of costs. It needs structure, organization, and joie de vivre. Fortunately, you can provide that structure, no matter how complicated the final proposal needs to be. Learn the key questions every client needs answered—and how to use them as the basis of a proposal that convinces your client you’re the right team for the job.
RFPs: The Least Creative Way to Hire People
by Greg Hoy
If you work in any kind of service industry you’ve undoubtedly come across the Request For Proposal, or “RFP.” The RFP process has become a standard by which organizations solicit competitive bids. It attempts to level the playing field and minimize bias by holding everyone to the same requirements—no special treatment, no rule bending. In return, the organization issuing the RFP is able to select a vendor by comparing apples to apples. Alas, in practice, RFPs are the least creative way to hire creative people. The rigidity of the process, and the lack of meaningful dialogue makes this little more than a game of roulette. How can we successfully navigate the heartburn-inducing RFP process? And what can we as an industry do to turn RFPs into the exception rather than the default means of hiring an agency?
Issue 329June 21, 2011
Findings from the Web Design Survey, 2010
by ALA Staff
For the fourth year in a row, we’re proud to present the findings from the survey for people who make websites. Once again, we have crunched the data this way and that, figured out what the numbers were telling us, and assembled the sliced and diced data-bytes into nifty charts and graphs for your edification and pleasure. As in years past, what emerges is the true picture of the profession of web design as it is practiced by men and women of all ages, across all continents, in corporations, agencies, non-profits, and freelance configurations.
