Calgary Web Designer & Marketing Strategist - UxD, IxD, IA.

6 Reasons why businesses should choose WordPress for their websites

jenniferarmour — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 17:30:57 +0000

Online branding and marketing is expensive. It doesn’t have to be! Whether you are a small business owner or lead your marketing department in a large company there are many options to choose from when it comes to web sites and collateral. Being informed can save you ALOT of money.

WordPress is an open source web technology solution that can provide your business with all the tools necessary to build and maintain a highly professional online enterprise. One that can integrate well with your traditional methods of doing business. It can be used for community based sites, corporate lead generating sites, e-commerce sites, multi-employee publishing sites, wiki’s, and even intranet’s.

Number 1

It is scalable, flexible, highly customizable and easy to use.

Number 2

Integrates with an unlimited number of other online business solutions. Business websites generally have various components which need to be integrated or streamlined into existing business processes. Examples may include email marketing providers, accounting, contact management systems, or other lead generation sales tools.

Number 3

It is free and there isn’t one feature that you could think of that can’t be implemented using WordPress. While it is simple to install and configure out of the box you will need an experienced developer to customize and build a feature rich site. The WordPress community of designer’s and developer’s is large and thriving.

Number 4

Security & Backup. I often hear from misinformed business people that the reason they would never consider an open source solution is because of security. Web security is only as good as your company’s network security. Following that is your server’s security. Both sides will need to be trusted. WordPress offers the simplicity of many tools for daily/weekly/monthly backups.

Number 5

Mobile & Smart Phone site design. You will obviously want your site behave and look good on other devices. The ability to do this with WordPress is, again, simple.

Number 6

You will never lack for support. WordPress’ community is one of the largest in the world.

Favourite New Creative IPad App

jenniferarmour — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 23:13:46 +0000

I typically play games on my IPad like Mahjong and Sudoku to relax my mind. Too much thinking ruins creativity. I have been wondering and half-heartedly searching for an app that was designed to stimulate creative thought or solve problems. Downloading many from those long lists “100+ iPad Apps for Designers and Creative Types” has caused me some disappointment.

Yes, I have the Free Adobe Ideas. Thank you Adobe. I am not really intending to use my iPad to do anything graphic. My laptop is just fine. I like to think of it more as my think pad. I don’t really want to have to utilize any large graphic apps. Wish to keep it dumbed down. Some good productivity tools (Things), a writing app (Chapters) that organizes well and lastly tools that enhance new ways of seeing things. Tools to provoke thought and creatively stimulate.

A couple of days ago I came across Creative Whack Pack by Roger von Oech. Happy was I!

It is fun and goofy but thought provoking at the same time. There are workshops designed to see you through a “problem” and facilitate a new perspective on that problem. This app has some depth, is well thought out and actually useful. I have to give myself “WHACKS” constantly.

Highlights

84 Illustrated Interactive Creativity Strategies
20 new creativity strategies (based on the thoughts of the world’s first creativity teacher: Heraclitus) for a total of 84
Full notepad editor for capturing and sharing your ideas while you’re doing the creative workshops
Automatic “suggest-an-Issue” to force you to address different problems
You can easily email your workshop notes to yourself

Content Inventories and Audits

jenniferarmour — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 21:43:35 +0000

Content inventories are can be a highly useful and sometimes unavoidable depending on the project. If the web site is large in scale (lots of content) and there is a migration planned, outdated and duplicate content or perhaps the information architecture no longer makes sense. Content audit’s can never hurt. Unless you are the one preforming the task.

There are many free tools for doing content inventories:

Don Bruns – Automatically Index a Content Inventory with GetUXIndex()
Content Inventory Template – by Adaptive Path
Rice Content Inventory (xls)
Check out A Map-Based Approach to a Content Inventory at Boxes and Arrows.
Task analysis grid (pdf)
Persona Chart (doc) – by Adaptive Path.

building web forms to enhance the user experience

jenniferarmour — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 17:30:55 +0000

Forms are perhaps one of the most important objects in any interface. You can design, build, and communicate a brilliant compelling message but if your lead generation forms lack usability your business objectives will fail. Most of us know that a web site’s function is to realize a set of business objectives.

Here is a Form Usability Checklist from an older article by A List Apart.

As web technologies and apps have advanced we are better able to facilitate increased usability with forms. Here are some of the best tools related to modern trends in building web forms to enhance the user experience.

MooTools Form Validation

MooTools is a compact, modular, Object-Oriented JavaScript framework designed for the intermediate to advanced JavaScript developer.

MooTools Multiple Select

Here is an example of using MT to stylishly select multiple items in an input list.

Custom Styled Checkboxes and Radio Buttons using MT

Examples here.

MooTools Textboxlist meets autocompletion

See the example here.

Live Validation

Live Validation is a small open source javascript library which is based on the idea that we need to inject more personality into otherwise boring forms. It was built for giving users real-time validation information as they fill out forms.

fValidator

fValidator is an open source (free) unobtrusive javascript tool for easy handling form validation.

JQuery Inline Form Validation

See demo and download here.

Styling File Inputs using CSS and the DOM

A solution to ugly file inputs using JS, CSS and markup. View it here.

The Fancy AJAX Contact Form

A degradable, stylish contact form using PHP, JQuery, and CSS. Demo and Download.

Form Assembly

Form Assembly is a service based form, survey and questionnaire creation tool and is one of the pioneers in building saavy forms. There are 100′s of form example templates and themes to choose from and modify that user’s have submitted. The form creation process as a user is unbeleivably intuitive and simple. Love what these guys do.

Luxington takes on the Sunshine Coast

jenniferarmour — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 17:25:01 +0000

Of the six pup’s i decided to keep one. I named him Luxington because i thought it sounded regal. He was the smallest in the litter and the most unique. It was very difficult to let each of the pug’s go off to their new homes. They left each left with their own baby bag and blanket. None of them have any health concerns other than the typical breathing issues. Lux has had a nose job which helped his snoring.

Pug Puppies are Angels

jenniferarmour — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 17:12:56 +0000

Following the birth of 6 healthy pugs puppies I had my work cut out for me. I moved my bed to the lower level of the loft to keep things in order. Taylor, the mum, wasn’t all that interested in being maternal. I had heard pug’s weren’t typically good mother’s. It seemed quite the inconvenience to her. Yet we managed to grow the pups into healthy balls of energy and fun.

Pugs in White Satin

UI Stencils, Templates & Tools

jenniferarmour — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 23:17:46 +0000

Free Stencils & Templates for user interface design

Konigi has created an amazing, free OmniGraffle Pro (version 5 but also works in earlier versions) template for User Experience Design with the formats you’ll need most for interface and interaction design. It includes storyboards, wireframes, persona charts, and site map layouts all with stylish graphics. Super useful template. Download it here.

Just the stencils. Konigi has created an amazing set of wireframe stencils i have come across so far. It includes all the basic elements you need to mock up user interface layouts. Find it here.

Yahoo! Design Stencil Kit version 1.0 for Omnigraffle and Visio with Ad Units, Calendars, Carousels, Charts and Tables, UI Controls and more. Download here.

EightShapes Unify is a collection of free templates, libraries and other assets that enable user experience designers to create more consistent and effective deliverables faster. Not super easy to install (InDesign App) however. Read More and Download.

MediaLoot has created a pretty nice, free web UI and button set. Available are control buttons including arrows and basic symbols, info and text boxes, breadcrumbs, buttons, and other navigation elements, drop-down and collapsible box styles, speech bubbles, search forms and loading elements. Find here.

Linowski has designed a tool to help visualize user interface states as well as user actions in a clear and rapid manner. It is called Interactive Sketching Notation.

If you are a UX, interactive or IA designer check out FluidIA.

960 Photoshop Grid Template by 3point7designs.

Process Maps

jenniferarmour — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 22:19:58 +0000

Product, software, & web design process guide including milestones, deliverables, and teams.

Download Experience Design Flow

Download Design Process Map

The Creative Brief

jenniferarmour — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 22:00:25 +0000

Various creative and web brief templates for any sized projects.

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Web Project Needs Analysis Questionnaire

jenniferarmour — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 01:53:04 +0000

This questionnaire is used to gather general information from a client or company seeking to start a new web project. The questions are meant to facilitate a discovery process of your current status and where you are headed with specific online initiatives. Feel free to modify the questions to suit your own needs.

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