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The 45 most powerful images of 2011

TechDept — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 09:12:19 +0000

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By Matt Stopera for Buzz Feed, 03 Dec 2011.

WTF mobile web

TechDept — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 09:00:28 +0000

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Mobile marketing isn’t a QR code

TechDept — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 09:00:41 +0000

While working with Tim Hayden, I’ve come to learn just how powerful mobile marketing can be. He and I have spoken a bunch over the last many years, and more formally (in a business capacity) in recent years, and there’s so much more that could be done for your business when it comes to how people interact with you via their mobile devices. The nuances and opportunities are vast, and the ability to drive off the path and crash your would-be customer into the bushes of a loss are almost equally big.

First, if you have a QR code pointing to a non-mobile-friendly URL, what’s your hope? If you deliver someone to a page that requires they squint, scroll, and otherwise manipulate content in an uncomfortable way, that’s the first experience that person will have with your company. Second, if you are simply using QR codes to redirect people to a URL, you’re missing a lot of opportunities for prospecting, for data delivery, for better service of the customer.

By Chris Brogan for ChrisBrogan.com, 09 Nov 2011.

Do’s and don’ts of call to action pages

TechDept — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 09:00:36 +0000

Good call to action pages (including landing pages and sales pages) are an important part of any website that either sells or asks visitors to sign up for something.

An effective call to action page can increase conversions and signups by a hundred percent or more (sometimes much more). As designers, we should know exactly what makes an effective call to action page, both in terms of actual design and the kinds of content they should ideally include.

Here are more than a dozen do’s and don’ts for crafting great call to action pages. In general, they’re not difficult to design well, but there are certain guidelines that sometimes run counter to a designer’s instincts, or what might work on other kinds of pages.

By Cameron Chapman for WDD, 10 Nov 2011.

Top 4 reasons your beautiful website doesn’t convert

TechDept — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 09:00:52 +0000

There can be many pitfalls on the way to getting traffic to that beautiful site you created. All the design and creativity in the world won’t bring visitors to your site. You have to know a few basic laws of optimizing a webpage for search before the traffic will begin to flow in your direction.

Below are a few tried and true reasons why your site may not be converting visitors to customers and what simple steps you can take to fix the problems you may be encountering.

By Kimberly Clark for WDL, 28 Oct 2011.

EU bans pre-ticked website boxes to aid consumers

TechDept — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 09:00:18 +0000

EU ministers meeting in Luxembourg havepassed a set of rules aimed at strengthening consumer rights, which the EU parliament backed in June.

They mean online traders will have to disclose the total cost of a product – including fees – and customers will have to actively opt-in to extras.

Member countries will have two years to implement the rules nationally.

For BBC News: Europe, 11 Oct 2011.

Write to be understood. Speak to be heard. Read to grow.

TechDept — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 09:00:42 +0000

One of the sweetest parts of being a parent is finding some memento from your kids’ past. My son Michael made this bookmark, probably in fourth grade. The thoughts are from his teacher and referred to a writing and reading program they’d just started.

It’d been pinned to a cork board in our kitchen for years; I’d seen it most every day. Then, yesterday, I saw it again, for the first time:

Write to be understood,

Speak to be heard,

Read to grow…

It’s really a simple mantra that covers, well, everything.

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By Jerry Colonna for The Monster in Your Head, 19 Sept 2011.

The difference (and relationship) between usability and user experience

TechDept — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 09:00:21 +0000

After web site accessibility, “user experience” (abbreviated as UX) is probably the phrase that most people tend to confuse usability with. Whilst this topic has been discussed by various experts in the respective fields, I feel the need to write about it for two main reasons. The first reason is that several posts I have encountered emphasize the distinction between these two terms, yet they fail to highlight the relationship that exists between usability and user experience. The second reason is that whilst most of the posts are similar in nature, I have found some minor, albeit very valid points scattered in various posts I have read. Therefore, the objective of this post is to discuss these two terms, whilst highlighting their differences and more importantly the relationship that exists between them in a clear, concise way.

By Justin Mifsud for Usability Geek, 11 July 2011.

A visualisation of US debt

TechDept — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 10:42:03 +0000

One Trillion Dollars

When the U.S government speaks about a 1.7 trillion deficit – this is the volumes of cash the U.S. Government borrowed in 2010 to run itself.

Keep in mind it is double stacked pallets of $100 million dollars each, full of $100 dollar bills. You are going to need a lot of trucks to freight this around.

If you spent $1 million a day since Jesus was born, you would have not spent $1 trillion by now…but ~$700 billion- same amount the banks got during bailout.

Annoyingly addictive….check out these musical balls

TechDept — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 09:00:29 +0000

Balldropping instructions: turn your sound up. Draw lines on the black screen to bounce the balls. Enjoy the music.

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By Chrome Experiments.