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One of our talented designers recently spoke at an event hosted by Drupal 4 Gov covering everything you need to know about style guides. Check out his presentation below as well as our Drupal page.
[slideshare id=61191203&doc=drupal4govstyleguides-160421124819]
Ever heard of the expression you get what you pay for? I think we all have, right? Sure sometimes when you invest in something you have a great experience but sometimes... You don't. And we can't help but think about that experience when you paid for something and it didn't turn out to be what you thought it would. The same goes true in the tech industry, and if you aren't careful you may not ask the right questions in the contract process which could lead you down a shaky path resulting in a negative experience. In order to avoid this mistake all together it is important to ask your potential website or app developer the right questions before you sign the dotted line.
Here are a few questions to get you started when you're hiring a web or mobile application development company. And remember, if you aren't getting the loaded answers you are wanting to hear, then you should probably keep looking for another company that may better fit your needs.
What does your company portfolio look like, or who have you worked with in the past? Can you give describe some of the products your company has created in the past?
The WHO is always important to ask. If a company can't tell you who they have worked with in the past, RUN! Once you have an understanding of their past clients you can do a little homework on your own.
We have worked with a wide array of clients ranging from the government, consumer and startup companies launching hundreds of products over the past few years. We value our experience working with clients in all sectors as well as the opportunity to take on a new challenge. Head over to our portfolio to see our web & app development work.
How do you communicate with your clients?
Communication is very important in all aspects of life but in our case it is vital to have solid communication when a client is working with their project manager. Once a new client comes on board they talk through their needs and based off their needs we decide which tool is best to use to maintain fluid and consistent communication. We are very flexible with communication tools, if one client wants to use something other than what we suggest- we are all ears! We love trying new things. A few tools that we use the most are Confluence and Basecamp.
There are always disadvantages to any tool you use for communicating but these are just a few of our favorites. Which tool do you like to use?
We know that your website content is great and valuable but what use is that content if no one can find it? We have created this on-page SEO guide to ensure your newly published content is well optimized and visible in organic search listings.
Before we begin writing our content, we’ll want to determine a keyword focus for the copy. A great tool to help determine a keyword strategy is Google’s Keyword Planner. It provides data such as your monthly search volume as well as visibility into your competition. You can stay as broad as you would like with your search or you could narrow your search to include specific regions, cities, even languages.
After we’ve established a priority keyword to target, we’ll want to weave it into the copy. It’s important to remember here that keywords should only be placed in the copy when it’s natural. Don’t stuff the page with keywords! It is important to write for the user first and search engines second.
There is not a magic number of times a keyword should be placed in a page but generally, it’s best to place it in the title or in an <h1> or <h2> tag. If it makes sense to put it in another place, great! But don’t go overboard.
Because we know you’re up to date on web design best practices, we know you’ll have beautiful images thoughtfully displayed throughout the page. These images can be optimized, too.
There are three key considerations when optimizing an image: size, title, and alt text.
Your new page or post is going to need a URL. There is a lot to consider here, but here are a few best practices:
”Awesome Blog Post” - /blog/awesome-blog-post/
Cross linking is a great way to increase user engagement and a search engine’s overall understanding of your website. Does your new page or post mention:
If so, link to them! Continuously serving up relevant content to the user is a great way to keep them engaged in the website. In fact, you might like this post on SEO for single page applications.
Metadata is data that helps to describe other data- simple right? Well metadata also helps search engines understand what a specific page is about, it is a piece of the SEO process.
If you follow these basic guidelines then you can sit back and watch the traffic roll in!
You often hear the term, “you are what you eat” - It’s cliche, yet an accurate statement. The principle ideology for this term is that your overall health is determined by your eating habits. In simpler words, the better you eat, the better you feel. This same concept can be said to be true in the sphere of online marketing. Bottom line, the richer the content you use on your platforms, the healthier your brand is but the only draw back: you must know your audience in order to capture what content they are specifically looking for.
Let’s pretend websites, online marketing channels and social media platforms are your “body”, and the content that you put online is the “food”. What am I talking about? Your brand! Each platform serves a similar purpose; to connect and convey a message. The value of strong, unique and consistent content is a must. If you mock others, choose content that doesn’t reflect your brand, or don’t care much in devising and developing a well put together platform… well, it’s like you just ate 4 Big Macs, 13 Kit-Kats and a dozen donuts. It's unhealthy to eat those things right? Well it's just as unhealthy to have a lack of knowledge about your audience and the content you are posting.
Buzzwords can get thrown around such as “digital branding” and “digital footprint”, few understand what these mean, and fewer know the value. I’m here to explain the importance of why your digital brand must be taken care of so that your brand succeeds online.
Vanilla or Voluptuous?
Some people like cookie cutter online techniques, websites and social profiles. Others just want to stand out. In order to produce the results you want, you must understand your brand and your audience. It is imperative to recognize that the process of developing a brand is a much larger, and can often seem like an on-going task that is never-ending. It stretches beyond social media, web development or even dumping money into Pay Per Click ads, you must DIG!
Having a website, marketing strategy, and social media channels is a great start but it's just the beginning. I have a few simple guidelines: You must be passionate about your brand, you must have clear goals that link back to your company, you must understand who your target market and audience is. After these steps are completed you can then create a strategy across your different platforms to best plan how you want to convey your message. Having rich content can influence your brand as well as your reputation, remember, branding gives meaning to why we do what we do.
Data is everything
Any follower, friend, foe, potential date, or client will want to know everything about you before they meet you. Where do they start? Google of course. And for some, Bing. Whichever search channel they choose to use, they will more than likely find you (hopefully). So what does your company portray? Are you really great at what you do? Why? Does your presence showcase this? These are just a few of many questions you need to internally ask yourself in order to develop a marketing strategy that works for your brand. Do not create content just because you think it might work…
It’s not a race, or a marathon… It’s a lifelong commitment.
If you have a unique combination of experiences, and characteristics that create the foundation for determining your niche you are on the right path for success. To be successful in the digital space, it behooves you to choose an area of expertise that you can engage with overtime. Over the course of your business and life you become more intimate with your work and the world around you. The process of branding is always evolving and fluid, so you must be proactive versus reactive to your brand presence. I suggest consistently connecting with the world around you.
Now the question is how will you make your mark? How will you serve your audience? How will you stand out? Have you asked your peers for feedback on your digital presence? Make your impact today.
There is nothing more annoying or frustrating when you are a tourist or behind a tourist using our unbeloved, outdated ticket machines. This mammoth pay station from the 70’s is far from simple, don’t let the 3 “simple” steps fool you. When you have a moment, watch people straining to read the fares, attempting to read the screen or even guess where to start when trying to get a metro pass. This machine is not friendly to small individuals, handicap, or people that speak English as their second or third language.
Unlike DC, today's global cities like Paris, New Dehli, Rome, Tokyo, London, and New York all use touch screen vending machines to purchase metro tickets. This allows the person to push updates easier, target machine issues, accommodate different languages, and provide a familiar use of the digital generation.
Why didn’t we already do this? Instead of rolling out new machines that are up-to-date with the digital era we live in, the DC Metro has been forcing their new technology into a past old broken systems. As a result, you are waiting behind a lost tourist, a local tweeting about a broken machine, or missing your train because you can’t load your card fast enough... It's time to unsuck our ticket vending machine.
Question is.. Who Rides the Metro?
Locals
These are the 658,000 D.C. residents that are using the metro as a way of travel to get around the city. They are constantly reloading their SmartTrip cards since they take the bus as well and more likely to purchase a monthly pass.
Huntington station mgr w/ID replied "honey I don't work here I'm just helping" when I told her machine didn't work. Really? @unsuckdcmetro
— Kelly Schindler (@kellyeschindler) March 29, 2016
Daily Commuters These are the 129,000 commuters that come from the DMV area Monday through Friday. They are using the metro as their primary travel going to and from work. They are reloading their cards with large values in hopes of not needing to reload their cards as frequently. This group of metro riders are interested in monthly passes.
Missed a train at DCA b/c too much culture shock navigating Metros archaic fare machines compared to @trimet ticket app @unsuckdcmetro — Eric James (@efwjames) January 17, 2016
Occasional Riders
This group is a mixture of DMV commuters and visitors that have taken the metro on special occasions. They are not likely to know what the balance is on their card, or placing just enough money needed.
“@_realmattmason: DC metro is so confusing 😓”tell me about it lol have to ask someone for help everytime I go on it
— Holly (@hollaatholly7) November 14, 2014
Tourists These are the 20 million domestic and international travelers that come to visit Washington, D.C. each year. These visitors are using the metro for one trip, round trip, one day, or even one week. They care more about where they are going and how much but this is for the short term since they are visiting versus the folks that live in the area.
Traveling alone on DC metro for first time in awhile. Byzantine fare system. Map far from fare machine. No "you are here" to orient map. — Leigh Graham (@grahamad) March 24, 2016
How Might We:
Create a faster reload time for the daily commuter?
Check your balance quickly with no hassle?
Allow to purchase daily, weekly, and monthly passes?
Make the checkout process quicker?
Able it to translate into different languages?
Help tourist figure out the value they need on their card?
Build a machine that is handicap assessable?
Make the payment process easier to understand?
Seeking inspiration from around the world... any suggestions???
A mobile strategy is no longer a “nice to have”, while laptops and desktops are the most common device used to search the Internet mobile has proven that it is quickly closing that gap. Did you know that the majority of Americans will use a mobile phone for search next year and that phones will overtake desktop and laptop use for search within two years.
In case you missed it.. We were given the opportunity to speak on mobile strategy for the AddThis webinar. Be sure to watch our mobile strategy webinar to know how to best develop your mobile strategy.
It is no secret that the tech industry is heavily saturated with males. It has been fascinating to read recent studies on females in the industry as well as the success females have had coding. It is common to see female presence as graphic designers but not necessarily as developers, I never grew up aspiring to be a developer, it just happened over time.
Since I was a kid I remember my art teachers saying that I should pursue a career in visual arts, more specifically they told me to follow more of a commercial career. I loved to write, mostly poetry, so graphic design for me was a perfect combination of words + graphics, both things I truly love. I pursued my passion and graduated college as a graphic designer, and since then I've "converted" into a front-end developer.
I was not trained to be a front-end developer but I started to code my own projects because it was tiring as a designer to have developers change the vision I had of my layouts. I have been coding for the past 15 years and wouldn’t imagine going back to a designers position. I just prayed that the programming would respect the original look and feel... Which wasn't the case very often! I think my success has been in part due to my attention to detail, or at least that's what my bosses over the years have told me. I think it's by human nature that women have a sense of detail that most of the male population do not have, nor do they pay attention to it, that is why female developers have high success writing code.
What are your thoughts on women who code?
As the advancements of technology continue to change, communication is always evolving into different platforms. The first cell phone call was made on April 3, 1973, over the course of the past forty years the amount of technological advancements that have been made to improve how we communicate make 1973 feel like the Roman Empire. To put things into perspective, the first mobile phone was sold in the U.S in 1983 for almost $4,000 each. As history has proven, technological developments have rapidly occurred and it doesn't seem to be slowing down anytime in the near future.
Everyone seems to be on their phone, it is a singular point where everyone can gather information as well as communicate in a more convenient way, who wouldn't use the mobile platform?There is no question that mobile is taking over, people are more likely to use their mobile device first because it has become them most convenient way to communicate and find information. Nowadays who do you know that doesn’t have a mobile device? Statistics show that mobile has outgrown PC usage which shows how quickly the market has changed over the past ten years let alone forty years. I think almost everyone can relate, people use their phones to communicate and it seems like verbal communication is a thing of the past.
Enough about market change through the years. So what does this mean for businesses trying to attract the mobile customer? It means that you have to have a mobile strategy. We will be going over the how’s and why’s as to your mobile strategy this Thursday make sure to RSVP and join us at the following link Mobile Strategy AddThis Webinar.
Establishing Need
For the purposes of this post we will be focusing on a new native mobile app development project.
At the beginning of many projects, the customer often is looking for a new user experience (UX) for their application, but often truly don’t know exactly what they may be looking for. That’s why there are many tools and processes utilized in combination during what we often call the kickoff phase of a new project. These include, but certainly not limited to:
All of these tools and processes help the product owner and engineers establish direction for UX and UI design. From here UX flows, stories, and wireframes are created based on the established needs. Communicating this flow to clients and/or designers, however, can be challenging in some cases. Creating UX flow diagrams, documents stepping through wireframe screens, and manual walkthroughs can be effective, but also at times fall short of truly communicating the experience intended by the team. This is a critical comprehension needed for the long-term success and perceived user happiness with the project.
This is where rapid prototyping can assist.
Purpose
The ability to actively see and engage with a mock application can potentially be invaluable. Think of it like a window into the future of the application that a user can engage. Rapid prototyping provides several benefits to the communication and comprehension of a designed application UX. This engagement can provide solutions to questions not even discovered yet or equally uncover weaknesses and strengths of the design.
The experience of creating the links or interactions between the screens and elements following the designed UX flow can also be an exploratory session for the designer/engineer. It can help clear up issues such as form fatigue, menu fatigue, form handling, menus buried, etc. The value of this exercise can be invaluable in time-savings and quality assurance of the UX.
Tools Utilized
There are a plethora of tools available out there in the world of design for wireframing, design, and prototyping. For this post we’ll focus on two of these tools.
Sketchup is a powerful design application for Mac OS. It offers a host of streamlined features supporting initial wireframe development all the way through hi-fidelity design mockups. Honestly Sketchup is a whole topic in itself so we will just hone in on the features applicable to image creation.
Invision is a simple, straightforward web-based prototyping application that has a free option for anyone to use. The interface is clean, well-organized with drag and drop features to create and navigate rapid prototypes. These prototypes can be simple or complex in their animations and organization. The important features here include:
Content Creation
To create screens for a prototype, simply select an artboard from the left hand menu in the interface. Once highlighted, export options are available from the right interface menu at the bottom to export as a single PNG. This will create a screen to be used in the prototype.
A prototype in Invision can also now utilize overlays and elements. This means that things like menus, dropdowns, overlays, help bubbles, etc. can be utilized in the prototype to enhance and communicate the UX. To create an element in Sketch, all layers need be organized into a group. Highlighting the group, the user can follow the same steps above in creating a PNG, or other format, image to be used in the prototype.
Once all screens and elements have been exported into a folder, they can then be uploaded into InvisionApp.
Prototype Setup
Once Invision has been accessed, the user can create a new project. For this post again we’ll be focusing on a mobile platform. From here the user can then import images by drag-and-drop into Invision. Organize the order of the screens however designed and click on the first to begin editing.
Tutorials are available in Invision on how to create interface interactions, where they link to or their function, and transitions desired between all of these screens/elements. The complexity or simplicity of this UX being created in the prototype really depends on the current stage of the project and fidelity of the intended experience. For early prototypes we like to focus on simple transitions to not distract from the UX flow. Rapid prototypes are now possible in a short amount of time.
Once the prototype is established and reviewed by the team, it can then be shared with the intended user(s), whether stakeholders, designers, and/or product owner.
Utilization
Invision provides a very useful feature set with a link to the prototype. For mobile, the link is prompted to be saved to the user’s dashboard as a mock app. This allows the user to open the prototype as the UX of the application intends in most cases. From here the app prototype will respond to input from the user, who now has a functioning UX/UI combination at their fingertips.
The user then has a window into the actual flow of the application being designed.
Summary
JavaScript is a real language and it was during my first job as a Salesforce Developer that I was able to start learning the “language.” I remember adding a script on a visual force page and selecting elements while using classes. Not the best practice... but it was my first encounter with the language and I knew that it would take time to truly understand the fundamentals. At the time I didn't imagine the capabilities of the technology and how it was going to evolve and improve the way that we surf the web.
In the sense of paradigms I would say that I started writing JS code in the Imperative way, just defining functions and encapsulating logic to then use all those gears on a single purpose: fire a function onclick to show a modal window. Wow! Really impressive right? Just kidding.
[javascript]function sayMyName() {
alert(“You’re Heisenberg”);
}
document.getElementById("my_button").onclick = sayMyName;[/javascript]
At the same time during my first job I started attending classes at the university and in one of my classes, “Programming 2” we started to learn the famous: Object Oriented Programming, and then I started to implement this knowledge in my daily front-end work. I was able to think more on the responsibility that an object needs to have and the context where that object is going to hangout.
(function() {
"use strict";
var Heisenberg = function() {
this.name = ‘Heisenberg’;
}
Heisenberg.prototype.sayMyName = function() {
alert(“You’re ” + this.name);
};
document.getElementById("my_button").addEventListener("click", function(e) {
var heisenberg = new Heisenberg();
heisenberg.sayMyName();
});
}());
Of course the object-oriented paradigm is much easier to understand than the imperative one, and it’s also more modular.
But then I discovered a new way of thinking about my JS code: the functional way. This doesn’t mean that object-oriented is better or worse, but it’s another way of tackle situations. Let's see:
This solution looks shorter, because I am only using two functions (besides I have added a static return value on the getName function). You don’t need to forget everything you know to take advantage of the functional paradigm. I would say think more on the dependencies of the functions in the context in which they are called in order to know how to structure all the code.