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  • Bobby 11:28 am on May 17, 2013 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags: ,   

    Case Study — Typographic Design Patterns And Current Practices | Smashing Magazine 

    From a Smashing article. Very INTERESTING numbers here about RWD Fonts.

    SOME NUMBERS ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF RESPONSIVE DESIGN

    42% of websites implement responsive design changes, including for layout, image scale, content and font size.

    At a display width of 500 pixels:

    • Average line height: 28 pixels
    • Average font size of body: 15 pixels
    • Average number of characters per line: 77

    At a display width of 700 pixels:

    • Average font size of headlines: 36 pixels
    • Average font size of body: 15.6 pixels
    • Average number of characters per line: 82.7

    At a display width of 950 pixels:

    • Average font size of headlines: 37.9 pixels
    • Average font size of body: 16.1 pixels
    • Average number of characters per line: 84.8

    At a display width of 1600 pixels:

    • Average font size of headlines: 40.7 pixels
    • Average font size of body: 16.2 pixels
    • Average number of characters per line: 86.8
     

  • Bobby 1:10 pm on April 29, 2013 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags: infterface design   

    NOTES: Future Insight Live – Monday Work Session 

    Interaction Design – Beyond the Wireframe

    Interaction designers should be involved in all parts of “The Process” but typically only get used in the “Design” phase.

    Mind Blowing moment #1: “The  Interface isn’t the solution!!”

    Major step that is ALWAYS missing in design. NO STRATEGY behind the WHY of the site. Jumping to the interface isn’t the right solution. We don’t solve the problem without synthesizing or strategizing the solution.  This creates too many revision, no respect for IxD, and makes the designer crazy.

    So how do we fix this problem of not thinking enough before jumping to an interface????

    • Things to think about:
    • Who am I working with?
    • Who can help me solve the problem?
    • What is the problem?
    • Who am I solving for?
    • What is information/content that I’m working with?
    • Modeling the solution (sans interface)
    • Getting the team on board <<< YIPES
    • What is the information priority?

    ———————-BREAK TIME—————————

     

  • Bobby 8:17 am on April 9, 2013 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
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    Banner Ad’s Creators Dismayed By Its Current State | Digiday.

    Ours is an industry that kills the goose that lays the golden egg. Emails in 1994 had 100 percent open rates. Banners performed almost as well. I don’t even answer my land line anymore, because the only ones who call it are telemarketers. If advertisers can make the phone suck, imagine what they’ll do to content marketing. Between print, radio, tv, phones, The World Wide Web, tablets and now mobile phones, our industry has been given so many opportunities to be great. We keep fucking it up. Sure, not all ads can be fabulous, but our batting average is pathetic.

     

  • Bobby 8:22 am on April 5, 2013 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags: conversions, copy,   

    Warning: Good Copy is More Valuable than Design 

    AMEN:

    2. A great home or landing page design should come only after extensive research and getting inside the head of your customers… crafting good copywriting makes you understand your product, and more importantly your customers.

    We’ve all seen lorem ipsum on rough design concepts… I’ve even been guilty of it too. However, why the hell would you start designing intricate details without any clue as to the message your trying to convey? The messaging should be dictating these design decisions, or at least guiding them.

    via Warning: Good Copy is More Valuable than Design… | Robert Williams.

     

  • Bobby 8:56 pm on April 3, 2013 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    Latest Web Design Trends – Infographic | Enfuzed.

     

  • Bobby 8:36 am on April 1, 2013 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
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    Better in Theory than Practice | Digiday 

    “Full-service” agenciesAs their margins continue to erode and the cost of acquiring new clients grows, agencies are increasingly looking for new ways upsell existing ones and to offer “one-stop” shops for their clients’ needs. The result is that many agencies refuse to specialize and instead claim to do everything well. In theory, that makes sense. Why should a client hire six different agencies if it could hire one. In practice, it doesn’t work like that. Most agencies tap major agencies primarily for a single service, like media buying or creative, but not both. Some execs argue agencies are actually better off selling themselves as specialist, rather than generalists, as the digital world continues to fragment. There will always be a place for broad strategy, they say, but execution is still best handled by specialists.

    via Better in Theory than Practice | Digiday.

     

  • Bobby 10:55 am on March 26, 2013 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags: , flat, skeuomorhpic   

    Material Honesty on the Web – Flat vs. Skeu 

    Today there’s a materials debate between flat and skeuomorphic design. While design debates are healthy, too much finger-pointing is prolonging the problem—web folks on all sides are still figuring out their sensibilities to and vocabulary for web materials.

    via Material Honesty on the Web · An A List Apart Article.

     

  • Bobby 9:41 am on March 21, 2013 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    15 Alarming Stats About Banner Ads – AKA Banners SUCK 

    15 Alarming Stats About Banner Ads | Digiday.

    Here are 10 facts about banners that might make you wonder if there’s got to be a better way.

    1. Over 5.3 trillion display ads were served to U.S. users last year. (ComScore)
    2. That’s 1 trillion more than 2009. (ComScore)
    3. The typical Internet user is served 1,707 banner ads per month. (Comscore)
    4. Click-through rates are .1 percent. (DoubleClick)
    5. The 468 x 60 banner has a .04 percent click rate. (DoubleClick)
    6. An estimated 31 percent of ad impressions can’t be viewed by users. (Comscore)
    7. The display advertising Lumascape has 318 logos. (Luma Partners)
    8. 8 percent of Internet users account for 85 percent of clicks. (ComScore)
    9. Up to 50 percent of clicks on mobile banner ads are accidental. (GoldSpot Media)
    10. Mobile CPMs are 75 cents. (Kleiner Perkins)
    11. You’re more likely to survive a plane crash than click a banner ad. (Solve Media)
    12. 15 percent of people trust banner ads completely or somewhat, compared to 29 percent for TV ads. (eMarketer)
    13. 34 percent don’t trust banner ads at all or much, compared to 26 percent for magazine ads. (eMarketer)
    14. 25-34-year olds see 2,094 banner ads per month. (ComScore)
    15. 445 different advertisers delivered more than a billion banner ads in 2012. (ComScore)

     

    • RyRy 11:42 am on March 21, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Interesting stuff. Do they differentiate between ads with and without CTA’s? It would be interesting to see if ads with CTA’s effect those numbers at all. Sub-question: is an ad a failure if noone clicks on it?

  • Bobby 10:26 am on February 21, 2013 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags: , , talent   

    5 Ways Brands Are Cutting Out Agencies | Digiday.

    Interesting read about how brands are moving away from the need of agencies.

    Agencies love “Mad Men.” One reason: It shows when they were at the zenith of their standing with clients. That’s slowly gone away, along with the culture of drinking copiously during the day.

    Agencies are in a perilous position. As Digiday’s Confession series has shown, this is a known fact. At the root of all this is the tendency of agencies to cede power — to brands, to tech platforms, even to publishers. Digiday spoke with several sources on all sides of digital media — agency, brand, publisher, platform — to determine the five biggest disintermediation challenges now facing agencies.

     

  • Bobby 11:14 pm on February 18, 2013 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags: , , tablet   

    For Email, Users Reach for the iPad – eMarketer.

    Interesting findings:

    For reading emails, more than half of respondents chose the tablet as their preferred device, beating out PCs and Macs by over 20 percentage points. The difference was understandably narrower for sending emails, given that the keyboard is essential to writing emails. Just under half of respondents said they preferred the tablet vs. 41% who preferred a desktop or laptop computer.

     

  • Bobby 2:01 pm on February 7, 2013 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags: ,   

    RWD and eCommerce come together – Electric Pulp 

    You like apples? | Electric Pulp..

    We took a popular ecommerce store (O’Neill Clothing) that we’d recently redesigned and monitored conversions, transactions and revenue for three weeks. Then we quietly deployed the responsive conditions to the already live site and monitored for another three weeks.

    This was not an A/B test. We simply picked 6 non-holiday weeks that perform similarly year over year to get as near to similar conditions as we could.

    The “responsive conditions” were typical mobile patterns. We made the site fluid. We collapsed the primary navigation menu, allowing visitors to expand it by tapping a Menu link. We increased the size of the font, the tap areas and detail photos. We reduced the number of columns. We spent a lot of time just “fixing Magento forms.” Everything in a way that lets the O’Neill team continue to manage 100% of the content on the site.

    Here’s what we found:

    iPhone/iPod:

    CONVERSIONS: + 65.71% up
    TRANSACTIONS: + 112.50% up
    REVENUE: + 101.25% up

    Android Devices:

    CONVERSIONS: + 407.32% up
    TRANSACTIONS: + 333.33% up
    REVENUE: + 591.42% up

     

  • Bobby 2:05 pm on February 4, 2013 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags: ,   

    46% of Holiday “Mobile Price Matchers” Bought In-Store 

    More adult mobile owners used their devices to help them shop during the 2012 holidays than during the 2011 season, finds the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project in new survey results [pdf]. Among various actions taken, 27% used their device to look up product pricing “mobile price matchers”. While that was not up significantly from a year earlier 25%, what they did after comparing prices did shift. Specifically, 46% of this group reported ultimately purchasing the product at the particular store. That represents a significant 31% increase from 35% who reported doing so the prior year.

    via 46% of Holiday “Mobile Price Matchers” Bought In-Store.

     

  • Bobby 11:14 am on February 3, 2013 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags: , , minimal   

    20 Clean and Minimal Ecommerce Designs 

    Ecommerce is an ever-growing industry that is convenient for both seller and buyer. Shoppers can buy products without leaving the house, while merchants can manage a website rather than an entire store. But when developing your online store, you should approach its design the same way you would a physical store, and think about what your customers will want to see. Excessive clutter and confusing navigation will turn visitors away; quality product photos and a clean layout will draw them in. The success of your ecommerce site relies on the functionality of the store, as well as an attractive and professional look.

    This is a collection of twenty ecommerce websites that are especially appealing in the way of aesthetic design. While different in the way that they reflect their own unique brands, they share certain characteristics – subtle background textures and colors, attractive typography, creative layouts, white space and quality imagery – all resulting in beautiful, minimalistic designs.

    via 20 Clean and Minimal Ecommerce Designs | The Best Daily Online Resources for Web and Graphic Designers.

     

  • Bobby 2:40 pm on January 28, 2013 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
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    sparkbox/Build-Responsively-Workshop · GitHub.

    Not sure I ever posted this, but it’s Sparkbox’s Github from their Build Responsively conference.

    Some great stuff in here!

     

  • Bobby 12:30 am on January 28, 2013 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags:   

    Rise of Infographics: Marketing in the Social-Media Age.

     

  • Bobby 11:48 am on January 23, 2013 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags: , , ,   

    The Post-PSD Era < AGREED! 

    The Post-PSD Era.

    This is one of those posts that really makes me think and then cringe. While I totally agree with this…

    Throughout my career, I’ve watched immensely talented designers waste a shitload of time creating fully fleshed-out comps of what a website could look like. Pixels get pushed, details are sweated, pages are printed out, hung on walls, and presented to clients. Clients squawk their feedback, then designers act on it. They repeat this dance until everyone is content (or until nobody gives a shit anymore, which happens more often than you’d think). Only then do those pristine comps get handed (more like shoved) over to developers to build.

    It’s an increasingly-pathetic process that makes less and less sense in this multi-device age. I’m not making a case for ditching Photoshop altogether and designing solely in the browser (where are the blend modes in Chrome dev tools again?) but rather better understanding how we use Photoshop in modern web design (thanks Trent).

    I hate to see this era coming to an end.

    I will say that last year (’12) I started prototyping in a web based app called PROTO.IO This was the first time that I honestly believed I could design a complete site or mobile app and not rely on photoshop 100%.

    This doesn’t make photoshop something I wouldn’t use. I would use it to create background textures, icons, and any images needed, but the actual layout I can do in something like Proto.io.

    The advantage to using an app like Proto.io is that it will let me not only design the experience, but prototype the experience. It forces the designer to think about HOW something is used and not just what it will look like. It also lets you preview your work via the device you’re designing it for.

    So yes, I believe that we are in a Post-PSD era.

     

  • Bobby 4:56 pm on January 16, 2013 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags: ,   

    Walmart is Mobile Retailer of the Year – Mobile Commerce Daily – Awards.

    Is anyone shocked at this? I’m not.. it’s Walmart.

     

  • Bobby 11:24 am on January 16, 2013 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags: GenX, rant   

    Generation X Is Sick of Your Bullshit – AWESOME RANT 

    Generation X Is Sick of Your Bullshit.

    I know this isn’t about what we usually post on here, but it’s so awesome I couldn’t NOT post it.

     

  • Bobby 9:39 pm on January 13, 2013 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags: fireworks,   

    Touch Application Prototypes TAP. For iPhone and iPad, using Adobe Fireworks | UNITiD | Interaction Design & Usability 

    This prototyping technique is pretty intense. It’s something I’d consider trying If it worked for iOS, Android and Windows, but the limitations of only being on iOS is disappointing.

    Touch Application Prototypes TAP. For iPhone and iPad, using Adobe Fireworks | UNITiD | Interaction Design & Usability.

     

  • Bobby 10:43 am on January 9, 2013 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags: ,   

    Subtle Patterns | Free textures for your next web project.

    Great site full of … well subtle patterns.

     

     

     

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