I have always had the belief that design was a utopian endeavor to be undertaken by the smartest people in the world to solve problems. That designers were by nature helping the world evolve toward better, more beautiful, more sustainable, and more useful artifacts and services. I believe in my soul that this is true, but I also know it’s not enough. More
Just before the holiday we received my oldest son’s current school progress report. (Thankfully he is a good student and always does well.) This reminded me of a useful tool I’ve found to help measure websites with regard to best practices for search engine optimization (SEO) and web marketing. The tool is the Website Grader. More
When I was a creative director at HomePC magazine back in the early ’90s, there were lots of articles making predictions about the convergence of PCs, TV, and telecom. Along came WebTV in ’96, a big box with a wired keyboard that made your TV into a monitor for accessing the Internet. Microsoft bought WebTV, but it never took off; it was very clumsy, with a bad browser among other shortcomings (not surprising). Now here we are in 2010, and you can plug your ethernet cable or wi-fi into your TV. Presto, you’re on the Web—sort of. More
Earlier this month I attended the Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA) conference in New York. The mission of SoDA is to advance the profession of digital marketing through education, discussions of best practices, and advocacy. The conference was billed as an “un”conference, which made the event conversational, collaborative—and at times a little too “un”structured. Still, it was a good experience. More
In a previous post, I talked about trimming the fat from content. But let’s face it: trimming the fat assumes you had good meat to start with. In a world where people have precious little time, if you’re thinking site redesign, content strategy has to be a main priority. More
I recently gave a lecture to the advanced web design class at Farmingdale College. When I met up with professor Jack Harris, he informed me that the kids, mostly juniors and seniors, saw Loewy Design’s page in the Flash/Dreamweaver Genius Guide, and they were looking forward to meeting with me. A bit embarrassed and very flattered, I asked Jack what book was he talking about and where could I get one. More
If you’re running a small business, at some point you probably thought: “there’s got to be a better way.” As small businesses become larger ones, systems and processes tend to get more complex. Yet sometimes the best solutions have fewer bells and whistles but fit better with the culture and operation of the company. More
Okay, imagine you’re on a trip and every sign you come across, instead of indicating “Turn Here,” has a two-paragraph explanation of exactly what to do. It describes the radius of the turn, the precise speed at which the turn should be approached, and so forth.
Now imagine your website as a road. What directions are you giving your visitors? Are you getting them from point A to point B quickly and effectively? Too often, websites are filled with verbose copy that will never be read. So in an effort to get our websites in shape we need to trim the fat. More
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