On Design

St. Louis UX Con - Register Now

2011-02-15T16:56:00.002-06:00

There's still time to register for the St. Louis User Experience Conference happening on Friday, February 25th!

The region's top UX professionals will be there giving presentations. Somehow I convinced them to let me give a couple presentations too. So don't miss out!

I'll be presenting a new, revised edition of my Viral Loops presentation, which reveals the keys to building an app that sucks in new users on its own, with zero marketing effort from you.

I'll also be presenting a completely new presentation explaining the fundamentals of using Twitter to engage with an audience, based on research I've been conducting since this fall.

Tickets are only $40. There's no other conference like this in the St. Louis region (or anywhere close), register now!

http://stlux11conference.eventbrite.com/

Upcoming St. Louis Web Tech Events

2011-01-11T10:20:00.002-06:00

Several web design, tech, and startup related events are coming up in St. Louis.

St. Louis Give Camp 2011 Jan 14-16

Spend a weekend hackfest style working with teams of designers and developers building or rebuilding web sites and apps for St. Louis charities. This is an awesome networking, skill enhancing, portfolio boosting, good doing event. It's free, and runs from 6pm Friday night to 8pm Sunday.

My Role: I'm a participating designer, and coordinating the other designers.

New Venture Night Jan 24

Formerly known as Geek Night, the only open startup event in St. Louis. Come hear ideas pitched, local entrepreneurs talk, and have a chance to meet other St. Louis tech people. It's free, and food will be provided.

My Role: I'm one of the organizers, and the MC

STLUX 11

Want to learn more about UX and web design? Go to the only major UX conference in the area! UX professionals will be giving presentations on usability, design, technology, mobile, Twitter, and more! Dave Gray, founder and chairman of XPLANE, is the keynote speaker. Don't miss this!

My Role: I'm presenting on Viral Loops and marketing with Twitter.

Pepsi: Mobile Killed the Brand Website Star

2010-12-22T09:38:00.001-06:00

Mobile and Social interaction is replacing websites as the best way for brands to engage with consumers, according to PepsiCo in an article on MobileMarketer.com.

“I can envision a world where the browser might no longer exist, when all investments in Web sites might be for naught,”
-- Bonin Bough

In the long term, easy and ubiquitous always wins over complexity and features. The result is more and more people mostly interact with the web, and therefor the world, through their phones, Twitter, and Facebook. They only go to the "full web" when they need something specific.

This has huge implications for website design and marketing. Instead of a starting point, a website is now a place a viewer arrives after engaging with a brand somewhere else -- a friend's Facebook feed, a tweet, a scanned 2D Barcode, or in the case of a phone app or mobile site, they may never arrive at a brand website. Strategies must account for different and many experiences, which requires more planning and more expertise. On the plus side, it also allows for more engagement, deeper loyalty and more information on consumers.

Don't get caught napping as this change hits the market like so many companies did back when the web hit. The brands that embrace mobile and social the fastest will leapfrog the ones that don't.

Design for Mobile First

2010-11-30T17:06:00.001-06:00

Why should you design for mobile first?

Luke Wroblewski has a year full of reasons.

jQuery Mobile Alpha 1.0 is Here

2010-11-09T16:05:00.001-06:00

Just in case you missed it, jQuery Mobile is now available in alpha. Go download it now, and start building those mobile pages!

Spam is Contagious

2010-10-27T12:56:00.005-05:00

I just found out my gmail was being blocked because months ago I called out a known spammer for trying to hire rockstar designers for minimum wage.

My mistake was linking to their site on my blog, which is in the sig file of my email. So any email I sent with that link was blocked due to being linked to a spammer.

Let that be a lesson. You can point out bad behavior, but whatever you do, don't link to it. Otherwise the internet decides you're guilty too.

A huge thank you to Matthew Porter, St. Louis entrepreneur and co-founder of Contegix, a totally awesome cloud hosting company. His quick detective work figured out what was going on.

Learn from Other's Failure: 25 Startup Post-Mortems

2010-10-11T09:20:00.001-05:00

Here are 25 great post-mortems of startups that have failed. The startup community is unique in its willingness to be honest and forthright, and the stories these 25 startups have shared are rich in lessons on what to avoid in your own startup.

Read them and learn from them.

When you're done, take a look at this slideshow from DropBox, a startup that has seen wild success.

What's Wrong With the UX of Facebook Groups?

2010-10-07T18:29:00.001-05:00

The new FaceBook Groups are a colossal failure of UX and Design (or rather, a complete absence of both). How?

Let me count the ways:

Anyone can add you to a group, without your consent. You can be added to the Flaccid Loser group, and then get endless pages of Viagra spam, without any action on your part.
The default setting is to get updates for every. single. thing. that happens with the group.
The settings to turn those notifications off are not on your central notification control page. They're on the group page.
Groups create the illusion of privacy, but anyone in the group can add someone. So don't join the People That Hate Our Boss group and vent unless you're absolutely sure no one in it will ever add a friend who will then add your Boss.
Speaking of old FB Groups, it's still there. With the same name as the new FB Groups. But with a totally different interface and functionality. Hopefully I don't have to explain how bad that is.
You can't delete them. At least, not as far as I can tell. Possibly they use the old Groups' method of requiring you to kick out every single member first. But since you can't lock the group to prevent people from joining, it's impossible to delete a group you created if members of the group don't want you to.

I kind of understand what they were trying for, but I think they badly blew it. If this is a preview of the other changes that are on the way, FB could be in trouble.

A Simple Way to Compare Two Arrays in AS3

2010-10-07T18:26:00.001-05:00

Here's a simple, understandable way in AS3 to take two arrays and extract the elements that are unique, or the elements that match.

It's always amazing to me how hard it is to find good, clear examples of this kind of thing on the internet. Maybe it's too elementary for the ActionScript 3 gurus to bother with. But since a quick search turned up nothing, and I ended up writing a couple of functions to do it, I figure I should share this for the next person that's looking.

Below are two functions. The first, findUnique, does the following when given two arrays:

Make a temporary copy of the first array.
Loop through the first array and on each element, loop through the second array to see if there is at least one match.
When a match is found, delete the matching element from the temp copy and stop the nested loop.
After the main loop is done, only unique values are left in the temp copy. Send that back.

The second, findMatches, does this when given two arrays:

Make a temporary empty array.
Loop through the first array, and on each element loop through the second array.
When a match is found, add the matching element to the empty array and stop the nested loop.
After the main loop is done, the empty array has all of the elements in the first array that are also found at least once in the second array. Send that back.

Here's the code:

package {
    import flash.display.*;

    public class arrayCompareTest extends MovieClip {

        private var array1:Array = new Array(1, 2, 9, 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 2, 10); //base array
        private var array2:Array = new Array(2, 2, 4, 9, 11); //remove these

        public function arrayCompareTest():void {
            trace("uniques: "+findUnique(array1, array2)); //produces 1,5,6,10
            trace("matches: "+findMatches(array1, array2)); //produces 2,9,2,4,9,2
        }

        private function findUnique(arr1, arr2):Array{
            var justArr1:Array = arr1.slice(); //copy arr1. You can't use justArr1 = arr1, because that's a reference, not a copy, and you'll be deleting the non-uniques from here
            for(var i:int=arr1.length-1; i>-1; i--){ //iterate backwards, so changes to the order of things due to deletion happen behind the iteration
                for(var j:int=0; j<arr2.length; j++){ //this can iterate forward, because you're not deleting anything
                    if(arr1[i] == arr2[j]){ //loop through all of arr2 to see if there is at least one match
                        justArr1.splice(i,1); //delete the matching value from justArr1
                        break; //stop checking. If you don't stop, and there are more matches, the wrong things get deleted
                    }
                }
            }
            return(justArr1); //send the array back
        }

        private function findMatches(arr1, arr2):Array{
            var bothArr:Array = new Array(); //start with an empty array
            for(var i:int=0; i<arr1.length; i++){ //iterate through the first array
                for(var j:int=0; j<arr2.length; j++){ //iterate through the second array
                    if(arr1[i] == arr2[j]){ //loop through all of arr2 to see if there is a match
                        bothArr.push(arr1[i]); //add the matching value to the bothArr
                        break; //stop checking. If you don't stop, one copy will be added for every match in arr2, instead of a single copy
                    }
                }
            }
            return(bothArr); //send the array back
        }
    }
}

BTW, the code includes everything in the .as file, even the package, import, etc. I find it really annoying when people leave that stuff off. Sure, it's superfluous when you know what you're doing, but somewhere out there is someone learning this for the first time that doesn't know what they are doing. To them a complete example is invaluable.

Addendum: as3corelib and casalib are both great libraries full of useful classes and bits of code for mucking around with arrays, among other things. But neither one turned out to be very useful for this specific case.

Prevent Horizontal Scrolling in Your Mobile iPhone Page

2010-09-29T15:46:00.002-05:00

When you're building a mobile page for iPhone, Android, and other smart phones, you will sometimes notice the user can pan the page to the right or left, leaving it off center and showing blank space to either side. There's an easy, two step way to prevent this.

First, add this to your header:

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width; initial-scale = 1.0; maximum-scale=1.0; user-scalable=no" />

Then add this to your CSS:

body {
overflow-x:hidden;
}

This will set the viewport (the windows in the browser, essentially) to the same size as the phone's screen, prevent the phone from scaling it up or down, and prevent the user from scaling it up or down.

The overflow style on the body will prevent the browser from showing anything to the left or right of the content you intend them to see.

It's simple, but fixes a frustrating problem that faces many people new to mobile design.

I've been busy... working on Tagious.com

2010-09-29T09:30:00.001-05:00

Why the hell haven't I been updating? I've been busy working on a new startup named Tagious (tay-jus, like contagious).

Starting today, we're releasing the alpha preview of Tagious, which gives full access to the current free version. We're rapidly iterating, and we're interested in any and all feedback. So go sign up.

What is Tagious? It's an ultra-simple way to build a universal signup page. Get signups on mobile for marketing campaigns, get signups on computers for event RSVPs, get signups for mobile surveys or coupons. It's can be used for almost anything where you need a minimalist page where people can sign up on almost any device, share with others, and have something happen after they sign up.

That last piece is where the magic happens. There are plenty of ways to collect signups. But they are one dimensional experiences. You sign up, maybe you get an email back. With Tagious, you sign up and then:

Take a survey
Get a coupon
Get a QR Code
Get access to other locked pages or content
Get links to other websites
Download files like PDFs or videos

And you can set up a page in 5 minutes. Or less.

Tagious is the only tool on the market that makes this kind of thing possible, much less easy. It's more useful than Twitter, and easier than Facebook. And right now it's free.

Go try Tagious now.

St. Louis iPhone & iPad Developers

2010-09-07T13:44:00.001-05:00

If live in St. Louis and you can code (and hopefully design) an iPhone / iPad / iOS application, can you send me your contact information? Because I get several requests a week begging me to help them find someone, and I frankly don't know anyone locally that does more than dabble that isn't already locked tight into a full-time job.

And if you're currently unemployed and have any kind of programming skills, start learning Objective C so I can throw jobs at you instead of turning people away.

Contact jjeffryes, email at gmail.com (ie: erase the middle part and replace with an @. If you don't know what that means you're either a spam bot or too dumb to write Objective C code).

The Best Way to Prevent Horizontal Jumping

2010-08-26T15:43:00.002-05:00

If you have a horizontally centered web site with multiple pages of different heights, sometimes it will seem to jump to the left or right when you change pages, because the scroll bar is appearing and disappearing.

The best way to prevent this is to force the scroll bar to appear on all pages, with this code in your CSS:

html {
overflow-y: scroll;
}

Thanks to CSS-Tricks for the code!

Designers: Go See Scott Pilgrim NOW!

2010-08-21T17:00:00.003-05:00

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is the best design movie ever made. The entire thing is like a live-action poster, with brilliant cinematography, graphics, and lighting. The frenetic effects are perfect, and screens are constantly splitting and segue-ing with the flow of the action.

It is a bit heavy on the geeky video game references, but if you know anything at all about video games you'll catch most of them. Even if you don't, it's worth it for the sharp blend of design and film making.

Go now, while it's on the big screen. Your inner designer will thank you.

Geek Night 3, Designers, Developers Wanted

2010-08-19T23:09:00.002-05:00

Wish there were more startups in St. Louis? Then start one! At Geek Night!

It's 3 hours of open idea brainstorming with fellow creative innovators. Find out if your idea is good, make it better, test things out, and all for free!

Next Wednesday, August 25th! From 6 to 9! With exclamation points!!!

There will be food and drink, and it's in the completely awesome new St. Louis CoWorking space.

Sign the hell up now!

BTW, tickets are limited, so if you're a slacker and wait too long, you don't get to come.

Flash Camp STL Sept 3

2010-08-12T23:51:00.002-05:00

What has a giant metal half oval and an awesome Flash conference? St. Louis does!

If you're interested at all in Flash, you should sign up right now. Otherwise September 3rd is going to arrive and the City Museum will be full of people learning about Flash that are not you.

Tickets are $60, $40 for students. Go buy them here, or learn more about Flash Camp here.

You are Not McDonalds

2010-08-04T11:29:00.004-05:00

It's easy to get a meal from McDonald's. You can pick from the menu, buy just what you want, and you get it in minutes for very little money.

It also leaves you fat and unsatisfied, eating the same bland, homogenized crap everyone else is eating. And if you want something different, you can't have it.

This is why professional chefs haven't quit in despair. McDonald's has no impact on them.

It is not your job to be McDonald's. They are not your competitor. Anyone that wants a cheap, generic, one size fits all solution will never be a good client. Ignore them. Your market is people that want quality, custom solutions that have a high ROI, not easy junk that doesn't.

When you're starting out, you'll run into a lot of people that don't understand the difference between a five-star restaurant and McDonald's. When those people walk in and demand a Kobe steak for $1.99, the five-star restaurant doesn't try to cut them a deal. They show them the door, and focus on bringing in their real customers that understand the value they provide. You have to do the same, no matter how many McDonald's customers you have to turn away.

(This post adapted from advice I gave to a good friend dealing with clients that don't understand the difference between a template and full website development)

This is Why, Adobe.

2010-07-16T15:29:00.000-05:00

Geek Night 2: New Location, More Tickets

2010-07-14T11:45:00.002-05:00

We just upgraded the next Geek Night to the incredible new co-working space at the Shell Building in downtown, and released 50 more tickets.

(as of this post, 43 of them are still available, grab one now!)

What is Geek Night, and why do you need to be there?

It's a free, open brainstorming session for startup ideas. You need to be there because you're smart, talented, and ready to break into the growing St. Louis startup scene. People like you gather to pitch ideas and form small groups to brainstorm on those ideas. Every 40 minutes or so everyone switches to a new group.

Think of it as a hackfest plus speed networking multiplied by open mike night.

Plus we have beer and food. And it's free.

This is also your chance to check out the co-working space being opened in the Shell Building, in Core's old office. Even if you hate ideas and having fun, it's worth going to see what they've done with it! It's going to be St. Louis's premier co-working location, where creative, innovative people from all over St. Louis gather to work together.

There are a lot of tickets, but they aren't unlimited, and they went fast last time. Don't be a slacker, sign up for Geek Night now!

Adobe Prepping CS5.5 To Get More of Your Money?

2010-07-11T23:46:00.002-05:00

This is disturbing, at the very least. Adobe is sending out surveys to gauge how much they could gouge someone for a Creative Suite 5.5. Considering 5 was released about 30 seconds ago, and was mostly underwhelming, this smells very bad for Adobe.

Apparently the survey also contains questions about a subscription service in lieu of buying an upgrade.

While this is all just rumor, and might be just some innocent research (if it even happened, this is the internet, so take it with a grain of salt), it does match up with the fact that Adobe has had big layoffs for two years in a row, and just had a serious blow dealt to it by Apple over Flash on iOS.

This is what happens when technology companies get taken over by salespeople. The technology withers, and the salespeople forget what they're supposed to be selling.

Special thanks to Julian Kussman for the link.

Design for the Social Web

2010-07-07T18:45:00.003-05:00

Remember the frothing and flapping that surrounded Facebook's creepy new features where it followed you around the web and integrated itself with everything so your friends new when you read an article or clicked on another site? That's the future of the web, and it's not going away. Facebook just got there a little faster than everyone else.

You need to embed social design into your thinking now, before the big wave hits. Do that, and you'll be well positioned to surf it to success. Don't, and you'll drown with everyone else.

Read the whole thing. Don't skim.

The Real Life Social Network v2

View more documents from Paul Adams.

BTW, Read Brass Tack Thinking

2010-07-07T10:37:00.002-05:00

Just in case you missed the link, Amber Naslund has a good take on the Influence Project FAIL. The comments on her article are an especially good read, with drive-bys by the editor of Fast Company and thoughtful posts by people that actually understand what real influence is.

Fast Company's Influence Project Measures How Dumb the Web Is

2010-07-07T08:57:00.002-05:00

Fast Company's new Influence Project is set to prove, once and for all, how dumb the web is.

They're touting it as a way to measure influence, by building an Amway style pyramid scheme of links. Instead all it's going to measure is rampant egotism, scamming, and internet non-celebrity.

And that's before the scammers, spammers, and 4chan get a hold of it.

To top it off, they've built the interface with a painfully slow, barely functional Flash interface from 2003. I almost suspect the whole thing is a colossal joke, built to point out how dumb we all are.

So whatever you do, don't click on this link to the Influence Project, don't tweet it out to your friends or put it on Facebook, and definitely don't be a tool and write about it on your blog.

St. Louis Game Dev Contest

2010-07-06T00:58:00.002-05:00

Do you want to break into computer games? Then take part in the St. Louis Game Dev Meetup's "The Digital Man" contest. It's a great opportunity to meet other game designers and developers, and to have fun building a game.

Here's the official blurb:

WorldKi is hosting its first local video game development competition in St. Louis. Named "The Digital Man," WorldKi's competition aims to bring St. Louis developers, artists, and designers together to collaborate, learn, and produce video games. All in one month.

The competition begins on July 13th with the announcement of the theme for the games. The competition lasts until August 13th, with a celebration on August 18th for the participants and declared winners.

Winners will receive The Digital Man trophy, an interview about their experiences for the WorldKi blog, and a video game review by one of WorldKi's blog contacts.

Interested individuals should check out the WorldKi forums for rules and to register. The St. Louis Game Developers will also be hosting a Meet-Up next Wednesday, the 7th, at the WorldKi office. Developers, artists, and designers in attendance can network and begin building teams, as well as enjoy some snacks and coffee.

If you have any questions or comments, please email Sam Coster at samc atsign worldki.com

How To Fail Your Free Trial Page

2010-06-29T10:59:00.002-05:00

How do you completely fail your "Free" Trial page?

This is how:

Way to go, Fuze. Waste people's time and leave a negative impression of your company by requiring credit card information on page two of your free trial signup page. No one sane gives out their credit card for a free trial. You might as well put a "this trial is for dumb people that want to be ripped off when we try to sneak charges onto your card when you forget to cancel the trial only" sign on the page.

Truly, it seems like the main key to being successful is to not be an idiot. That alone should immediately raise you above most of the competition.

Google can Remotely Force Install Android Apps Too?

2010-06-26T08:45:00.001-05:00

Hmmm. This isn't so great. Google can install any software they want on your Android phone whenever they want, without your approval. Or knowledge.

google install backdoor

Android Can Remotely Kill Your Apps if they're Evil

2010-06-25T22:46:00.003-05:00

It turns out Google can remotely killswitch apps if they discover one is malicious. This is good, it should make people much more confident in their phones.

Link

Why Android Phones Don't Have Lines

2010-06-24T12:00:00.003-05:00

Today is the day people line up to get their iPhones. The lines are going to be on blogs and TV, and they will enforce the perception that the iPhone is something worth waiting in line for.

Android doesn't have that. On purpose.

Apple gets to concentrate all the desire for iPhone into a single release once a year. Google, because it allows many carriers to put out Android phones, diffuses desire for Android across them. On top of that, it allows the carriers to brand the phones themselves, so that many consumers don't know which phones are Android, or even what Android is.

This doesn't mean Google is wrong, or Apple is right. Google has a different strategy. Their core business is selling ads and tracking users. For that they need Android on as many platforms as possible. They don't make money from selling you Android, so they don't care if you love it or not, as long as you use it. Android isn't a brand. It's plumbing.

Keep that in mind when you see the inevitable articles, posts and rants about Apple vs. Android after today. Selling a single, highly focused brand is very different from selling plumbing, and it's not useful to directly compare them.

Worst of Craigslist: Rockstar Designer, McDonald's Wages

2010-06-21T22:12:00.005-05:00

These guys have just posted one of the saddest design jobs I've ever read on Craigslist. Here's what they're asking for:

"crazy hours"
"constantly pumping out off the charts quality work"
"we may email you at 8 PM on Friday night and need a Powerpoint presentation designed for use the next day at noon"
"Working with us can be hectic and frustrating BUT it is also exciting and fulfilling"
"Modern/Web 2.0 Webdesigner who can ALSO code"
create custom WordPress themes
edit video
Flash animation, ActionScript, can code custom video players
layout books
expert in print design of all kinds

This is for a full-time, in-house designer. Apparently they're really concerned they'll get resumes from people that aren't up to their standards, because they close with "We want fresh, hot, incredible designs. Currently we have good people we're working with, but outsourcing is really stifling our creativity and slowing us down."

No doubt you're wondering what they're going to pay this god incarnate of design?

$80k?

$100k?

Maybe $120k? (gotta lure someone away from a hot outfit on the coast, after all...)

No, they are offering one lucky designer $500 dollars a week.

A week.

No, not a day. A week. $25,000 a year. Twelve dollars and fifty cents an hour.

I can only hope that was some kind of terrible typo on their part, rather than them actually believing an insanely skilled and talented designer would work for them for less money than they can make waiting tables or mowing lawns.

EDIT: I've just found out they are notorious spammers too, and linking to them has blacklisted me on spam lists. So I guess they got their revenge.

Do It Like Mint: Idea to $170 Million In 3 Years

2010-06-21T18:14:00.002-05:00

Aaron Patzer explains how he made Mint.com a colossal success in just 3 years. It's very close to lean startup methodology, and a good roadmap for any other startup that wants to be successful.

You should read the article yourself, but I'll summarize some key points for the lazy people:

Validate your idea before you go too far. Mint started as something different.
Solve a real problem with a large market. This seems like a no-brainer, but there are countless startups that attack worthless markets.
Go after long-term markets. Don't chase fads or build on other companies. You're just asking for your market to vanish overnight.
People that make things are worth a lot more than salespeople or business people. Focus on having great designers and developers, don't bother with sales staff until later (or never).
Have a working prototype before trying to get funding. Even better is having a working product.
Make revenue from day one. If you aren't generating money from your first real user, you're doing it wrong.
Have a real advantage. You need better features, better technology, or better design than your competitors. Otherwise you don't really matter.
Projections are BS. Pay attention to money you're making now. Anything you think will happen in the future has no bearing on reality.
A blog is cheaper and more effective than marketing. Especially if it's good and honest.
Cultivate loyal followers, make them alpha testers and treat them well. They'll become your best marketing, and they'll do it for free.
A great domain is important. You can do well without one, but you'd do even better with something short, easy to remember, and easy to spell.
You need great design, you need to test the hell out of it, and you need to never be afraid to throw away what you think is best when your users prove you wrong.

Seriously, go read it. It rambles a bit, but it's full of gold.

Web Design Process - 47 Media

2010-06-21T11:03:00.003-05:00

FortySeven Media has a great play-by-play of their web design process for the gorgeous Visual Recipes site up on their blog. Check it out for ideas on how to improve your own.

AT&T Servers Just Died

2010-06-15T15:49:00.002-05:00

Maybe I shouldn't have Photoshopped that fake server melting image. I just tried to upgrade my iPhone (again) and got this from AT&T:

Border Radius Requires Height on iPhone Form Buttons

2010-06-15T14:42:00.004-05:00

If an iPhone form button doesn't have a height specified, it will ignore attempts to set corner radius in CSS.

This took me by surprise today. It works fine in desktop Safari, Firefox, and even Android phones, but iPhone requires height on the style for form buttons. Without height, it will render gradients and dropshadows, but not rounded corners.

It doesn't seem to care if width is set or not.

Here's the code:

.button {

border:2px solid black;

width:150px;

height:40px; <---- required only by mobile Safari

padding:4px;

-webkit-border-radius: 20px; <--- webkit radius

-moz-border-radius: 20px; <--- Firefox radius

border-radius: 20px; <--- for Opera and any other browser that actually wants to follow the official spec

}

Did This Happen To You Too?

2010-06-15T13:34:00.002-05:00

The Worst Website In the World

2010-06-09T15:04:00.002-05:00

No, seriously. It is.

Don't click on this link.

Really, just don't.

I warned you.

Why Apple Wins

2010-06-04T11:59:00.001-05:00

Because user experience is what matters. Period.

Not price, not feature list, not marketing. Those things can give you a short term bump, but only user experience creates massive, lasting success. Only user experience turns your customers into your marketing team. Only user experience makes people love you, instead of just buy you.

Mike Rundle explains this perfectly on his post "Why Apple Succeeds & Others Fail." Apple understands user experience.

If you try to please everyone, and add every feature anyone might have ever wanted, because you're terrified of turning away even one potential customer, you end up with unfocused junk that does nothing well, and pleases no one. That's a formula for failure. Instead emulate Apple. Build what you love building, identify the people that want that, and sell it only to them while ignoring everyone else.

That's the formula for success.

You Can Make It In St. Louis: Scorch Agency's Story

2010-05-22T16:11:00.001-05:00

Read the (abbreviated) story of Scorch on their new website's blog. They've gone from zero to success in just a year and a half, thanks to hard work, talent, and a bit of luck.

This is the kind of story we need more of in St. Louis. People have been laid off left and right. The smart ones do like Chris, they pick themselves up, they gather their inspiration and allies, and they build something new. There are a hundred Chrises out there right now that could do the same.

What are you waiting for? Get out there and be awesome. Just like Scorch.

What the Hell is Microsoft Doing?

2010-05-20T16:58:00.001-05:00

Today had a flurry of announcements from Google, and next month we'll have a flurry of announcements from Apple. The two are in an arms race to seize hold of the future of computing, while at the same time Google is battling Facebook for the future of the web. All three companies are innovating like mad, and building incredibly exciting products.

In the meantime, Microsoft is putting out a new phone that only matches the current Android and iPhone phones. Not the ones about to arrive.

This seams really strange. Usually when Microsoft gets serious about a market they produce really solid products. The Xbox. Visual Studio and C#. I've even learned to respect how solid their graphic design tools like Expression and Blend are (and given Adobe's recent hijinks, I might be switching soon). But there's clearly a revolution coming and so far Microsoft hasn't shown any sign about getting serious about it.

Are they keeping their powder dry and waiting for the right moment, or making a huge mistake?

Websites Without Flash: Chaotic Moon

2010-05-20T10:00:00.001-05:00

Many of the people that are defending Flash in the ridiculous Flash vs. HTML5 wars have claimed that you can't build websites that are as engaging and interactive in HTML5 as you can in Flash.

To them, I would like to present this little gem I found today, Chaotic Moon:

The entire site is built in HTML and jQuery, with a style that is both hip and saturated while still being very usable and well designed (no mystery meat navigation here). It's cross browser compatible, SEO friendly, and (this is the important part) still useful and readable even with javascript and CSS turned off.

Yes, it's still a good site in a completely crippled browser. That, my friends, is excellent web design.

Don't listen to people that are too lazy to do it the right way. You can and must design your sites in HTML, and you can do so in a way that gives you all the eye candy and fun while still being findable and usable. Learn something from Chaotic Moon, because they're doing it right.

I Need to Know More Good PHP Devs

2010-05-19T22:07:00.001-05:00

I get a lot of emails and calls for people looking for web talent. Lately I've been getting a ton of requests for people that really know their stuff when it comes to CMSes and PHP (especially CMSes built on PHP).

While I do know some very good people in town, they're getting too busy, and I need to know more. If you're an awesome freelance PHP developer, contact me at jjeffryes insert an at sign you know where gmail.com, and if I agree with your opinion of yourself I'll add you to my recommendation list.

This is Why Everyone Hates Flash

2010-04-28T11:01:00.003-05:00

Why is everyone turning against Flash? This is why:

Lately I've been seeing more and more Flash errors on the sites I visit. No doubt it's because a lot of people that have no idea what they're doing are creating crap ActionScript code. That doesn't excuse Adobe. It shouldn't be possible to compile a swf with errors like this, and if some hack does so anyway, the Flash player should just block the swf instead of throwing errors and slowing your computer to a crawl. Woe to those average users that don't even see the errors, who instead are left wondering why their browsers crash or lock up.

People are abandoning Flash for HTML 5 because Flash has some serious issues. If Adobe wants to stay in the game, they need to fix their problems, and do it fast.

CLARIFICATION: to the people that have pointed out I'm using the debug player: thanks, I know that. My point is that these errors shouldn't happen, period. It's worse for people that don't see the errors. They're still affected by those errors, but they don't get to see what the problem is. They just assume the internet sucks and that's why their browser crashes all the time.

This is why mobile is such a threat to Adobe. Mobile browsers don't allow Flash, and as a result they don't crash all the time. Which results in people preferring to browse the web on their mobile devices. If Adobe wants to remain relevant to the internet, it must find a way to stop it's tools from being used to make the internet less useful.

Raportive Isn't Perfect

2010-04-23T08:25:00.001-05:00

I really like Raportive. It's a simple, free way to get more information about people you're emailing in Gmail.

But it does give you bad data once in a while. Unless Sam's Club is working on a major rebranding project (gotta reach that young, pierced crowd looking for bulk prices...).

Facebook Open Graph

2010-04-22T13:18:00.001-05:00

Two coments:

1. Yes, this is FB taking over the web.

2. If you are a brand or an advertiser, and you don't have tech-savvy staff on this, you're dead.

I Haz a Square

2010-04-20T22:44:00.001-05:00

The St. Louis startup scene has a new member, and they celebrated tonight with a gathering at Pi. Jim McKelvey, one of the founders of Square, and Bod Lee, their lead engineer, were there, along with a wide selection of St. Louis entrepreneurs and early adopters.

I managed to get my own Square, but more importantly I met a lot of great people. Young entrepreneurs like Brent Beer and Mark Sands, the guys from Eleven Magazine, musician Erick Richards, Don the product designer of the Square, Mike from 3rd Degree Glass Works and even old co-worker Zach Becker.

It's truly great to see more startup activity in St. Louis. If more people knew how many things where bubbling under the surface here, we could turn local attitudes and perception 180 degrees.

A Rational Word about Apple Vs. Adobe

2010-04-12T00:01:00.001-05:00

The internet is full of sputtering rage against Apple for telling people that as of iPhone OS 4, they expect them to develop their apps using C, C++, or Objective C, just like they've been telling them they should since the beginning.

The anger isn't surprising. Don't be fooled, it has nothing to do with freedom, or ethics, or high-minded ideals. Apple is the coolest kid in school, and they're having and awesome party. Adobe wasn't invited, but it's telling everyone they're going to the party anyway, and they're going to bring all of the other uninvited people with them.

All those people just found out they're not getting into the awesome party. Ever.

There's nothing that can be done about it. Those people will be angry and will rant on the internet about Apple being Hitler, and in the meantime Apple will prevent the iPhone and iPad from being flooded with poorly programmed Flash apps, ensuring developers that bothered to learn the proper way to build apps are rewarded. Eventually the failure of Apple to implode under the weight of all the nerd rage will drain the vitriol from all but the most bitter, and life will go on.

Apple owns their platform. If they say you need to code a certain way to make really good apps, that's their right. As a iPhone owner if this means I have higher quality apps to choose from, and less shovelware, then that makes me happy.

Some blogs with non-crazy takes on this:

John Gruber is now the high-priest of the froth-free crowd

The Macalope's rather funny take on all of it.

Daniel Eran Dilger's 5 Myths of Apple vs. Adobe

A quick look at Adobe's history of trying to screw Apple

Daily Kos with a non-geek perspective on the iPad

Design Matters for Startups

2010-04-07T11:54:00.001-05:00

Design is one of the things that separates a successful web startup from the ones that fail, according to Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry in his post The 15 Startups I Would Invest In If I Had The Cash.

This is something that should be obvious, but in the developer-heavy world of startups, it somehow isn't. Too many startups think that doing something amazing with code means instant success. Unfortunately most things that are amazing to developers aren't particularly interesting to the rest of the world. To be successful, all startups must have designers as part of their core team, if not one of their founders. It's the job of those designers to understand what the users want, how to build it in a way they can use, and how to make it something they'll agree is amazing.

Pascal-Emmanuel says it better than I can, here's a quote from his post:

"Design Matters. The right thinking about design matters even more. A common theme among these startups is that they have what I would call a "design edge." Technology investors look for a "technology edge." I submit that now and increasingly, design edge will matter as much, if not more. The one failed startup in my portfolio, Path 101, was done in by (in my view), lacking product design. Design doesn't mean being pretty. "Design is how it works, not how it looks" Steve Jobs reportedly said. Hunch isn't particularly aesthetically pleasing, but it is very well designed. The best designed site on the internet is probably Amazon.com, but it's certainly not the prettiest. Good design means that a startup has 1) thought really hard and insightfully about how people would use the product and what for and 2) executed well on those insights. Design is what gives companies like Tumblr, Hunch, Foursquare and others their edge. And for potential investors, good design is valuable not just in itself, but as an indicator that the company has the right insights and capacity to execute on them."

Learn from this, and make sure design thinking is a core part of what you're doing, whether it's starting a company, launching a campaign, or just maintaining an existing effort.

Do You Really, Really, Really Want a Dictionary Word URL?

2010-04-05T13:07:00.001-05:00

If you absolutely have to have a real, dictionary word ending in dot com for your new URL, there's a site for you. WWW.LastWordsLeft.com lists all the words in the dictionary that still have a .com or .net registration still unclaimed.

You can finally be the proud owner of Anathematised.com, if you act now!

Can St. Louis Compete (Startups/Design)?

2010-03-28T23:16:00.001-05:00

The Post Dispatch had a rather depressing story today summing up the issues facing St. Louis. Chief among those issues was the vicious cycle of talented people, young and old, leaving due to the lack of opportunity and low local wages. This acts like a centrifuge, spinning away our brightest and best, and leaving behind a more and more purified lump of mediocrity.

It's a sobering but worthwhile read. Some of the comments are revealing too (and some are just dumb, but that's the Post-Dispatch for you).

I have no good thoughts on what to do about the crime, the inept and corrupt government, the highschool dropout rate, or the fact that we don't have beaches or ski slopes (neither does Minneapolis, Austin, or Chicago, and they're doing okay). But I do have some very good thoughts on how we can jump start innovation.

I've argued many times to local leaders that we need a St. Louis incubator like TechStars or YCombinator. Chicago has Excelerate and LightBank, both recently announced. Cities all over the country are doing it, why aren't we?

The simple answer is that we don't have a rockstar startup founder that's returned to town to invest in the next generation. And that's mostly because very few people from St. Louis have gone on to create successful internet startups (there's Jack Dorsey, Matt Galligan and... sorry, that's it). That's not going to change unless a miracle occurs and someone else here hits it big. Even then it would be years before they were ready to come back and invest, and that's assuming they didn't end up like Matt and decide to do that someplace more innovation friendly like Boulder.

I say we can't afford to wait.

To compensate for the lack of a founder, I propose we modify the standard 3 month incubator term. We put 30 smart, talented people of all ages into the same space with computers, software, servers, etc. They get $5k a month each to live on, with teams up to 4 people. The program lasts 6 months total, but at the end of the first 2 months, there's a culling. Anyone without a working, real product, gets cut. Every month after that, another presentation and culling. Teams that survive have to option of bringing in people that were cut if they don't have the max of 4 already.

At the end of the 6 months, the best of the best would not only come out with working, real products but they'd have survived a trial by fire that forced them to build something absolutely focused on success. They'd be taught by the teams that didn't make it instead of directly by someone that had succeeded in the past.

If we can throw $365 Million at a stadium no one needed then I say $2 Million towards the next Twitter is such a pittance that not doing it is a crime.

I'm on the front page of SlideShare

2010-03-04T16:51:00.001-06:00

Check it out. My presentation on Viral Loops is on the front page of SlideShare.net right now.

I feel all internet famous and stuff.

Steam: Worst. Login Recover System. Ever.

2010-03-03T21:02:00.005-06:00

I managed to forget my password to Steam, a game service I normally rave about. Their process for recovering it is as follows:

Click the "Retrieve a Lost Account" button (I didn't lose my account, just my password)
Tell them if you know your account (why not a separate button for lost account name, instead of making people that haven't forgotten their account name go through a useless step?)
If you do know your account name, enter it on the next screen (instead of the same screen. The account name text field serves the exact same purpose as clicking a button saying you know your account name, since if you don't, you won't fill out the field)
Wait an extremely long time while it does... something. The message just says "working" instead of telling you anything useful at all.
Eventually you get an email that gives you a validation code you have to copy and paste, and the secret question you're supposed to answer. I guess sending the question to your email is more secure than just showing you in the password reset screen. It certainly is more annoying.
Nowhere are you told if your answer is case sensitive.
You finally get to a screen where you can enter a new password. You're not told if you have to include numbers or capital letters, just that it has to be at least 5 characters. This becomes a critical flaw later.
Once again you get a mysterious "working" screen. Sometimes for several minutes.
When this fails, you are not told what went wrong. You're told your validation code, secret answer, OR password all could have been wrong, with no hints as to which was wrong, or what was wrong with them.

This is insanely bad usability. Pure, undiluted betrayal of the customer. The customer that is forced to go try again, and again, and again, never sure what they are doing wrong, or if anything, in fact, is wrong at all, other than the fact that they have to beat their head against the worst login recovery system ever made.

Now, having done this several times, and being at the point of wondering why you gave money to people that clearly take pleasure in hurting you, you might turn to the support email address they helpfully sent you. You might send them a terse message asking for help.

If you do this, instead of help you'll get two automated messages, both telling you (in slightly different ways, for no obvious reason) that in order to get help you must go to their website and create an entirely new login. And if you do this, before your new support account is activated you have to get yet another email and click on the link in it.

God help you if you forget the password to your support account.

Good password systems don't make your users hate you. Don't build yours the way Steam has.

Viral Loops: Making Self-Marketing Apps

2010-03-02T23:05:00.001-06:00

Here's a copy of my powerpoint from this weekend on Viral Loops. I have a lot more to say on the topic, and will be posting it soon.

Viral Loops: Making Self-Marketing Apps

View more presentations from Josh Jeffryes.

Can Agencies Survive the Internet?

2010-02-11T18:21:00.001-06:00

Bud Caddell thinks not. I've been saying it for years, so it's not like I'm going to disagree.

Read his post. Very insightful. The same forces that are disintermediating everything else are giving brands the power to do the jobs of agencies themselves. More importantly, as we move away from a broadcast model and towards a social, 2-way engagement model, it no longer makes sense for agencies to be the keepers of the engagement.

When this happens (it's already happening), how can agencies survive? I agree with Tim Malbon that agencies must become much more like software developers if they want to remain relevant. But I take it a step further. If agencies must survive, they must become software developers.

Software and the internet is making agencies irrelevant. But that software isn't a perfect fit for what brands need. The agencies that survive and prosper will take their knowledge of how to engage with customers and use it to build better software platforms for brand engagement. If you've been replaced by technology, use your knowledge to build and sell better technology.

The agencies that understand this now will be the ones that flourish while the rest whither away.

Designers in Startups: the St. Louis Innovation Camp

2010-02-08T21:57:00.008-06:00

No more waiting for the Recession to end. It's time for designers in St. Louis to kick the door down and go make some opportunity of their own.

I've been helping put together the event of a lifetime for any St. Louis designer or entrepreneur. The St. Louis Innovation Camp. Three solid days, from Feb. 26 to Feb 28, of presentations on starting your own company. Three days of learning from local leaders and networking with business people, developers and other designers ready to start new companies.

What makes this event different is it's not just focusing on business, or code. It teaches you about the business of building a startup, and the technology, and how design is vital for a successful startup company.

This is the first time an event of this size in St. Louis has brought together the business people that know how to fund and run a company with the developers that know how to code a product with the designers that know how to design and shape a product that people want and can use. Brought them together and shown them how to make it happen.

Tickets are $50 until February 14th. Sign up now if you've dreamed of starting your own company, want to work on something creative and new, or just want to meet the people that are going to be the future of St. Louis.

Design speakers include:

Ed Morrissey - Integrity

Dan Curran - NGAGE

David Garland - Rise to the Top

Jim Durbin - Durbin Media

Wesley Morgan - Morgan Studio/East

Chris Buehler and Mike Tomko - Scorch

Stacey Rynders

Tammie Hutto Egloff - Simply Pragmatic

Brad Nunnally

Daniel Cooley - DGCooley Consulting, LLC

Josh Jeffryes (me) - BusyEvent

Plus a ton of incredible people presenting on management, funding, technology, and everything else you need to know about starting a company.

Do. Not. Miss. This.

Sign up. Start something.

If Your Startup Is Killing You, You're Doing it Wrong

2010-01-30T11:26:00.003-06:00

TechCrunch Europe has a post about European startups needing to be more dedicated, like their American counterparts. When I read it, all I see is advice on being more stupid.

You have to work hard when you're a startup. But you should never work stupid. You don't have the time or energy to waste. Any time you start regularly working all night, or you find yourself wracked with stress, or you start canceling events in your private life because some emergency at work is too important, you must stop and realize one thing:

You're doing it wrong.

Having a startup company is about being smart, not stupid. Wasting time and getting stressed out is stupid. It robs you of your ability to think clearly. It creates mistakes that waste even more time. It destroys your health and ruins your family life, two things you desperately need to get you through real emergencies.

If something is too hard or too painful, innovate around it. Or just don't do it. Change your technology, change your business model, change your way of thinking. Be ruthless about not wasting time and energy. That's incredibly hard to do, but if you do it, you'll not only be happier and healthier, but your company will be more successful too.

No Flash on the iPad? Awesome.

2010-01-30T00:01:00.003-06:00

First off, I am a Flash Designer and Developer. I love Flash. I want Flash used more often, everywhere, in everything from computers to cars to children's toys.

And I am very, very glad the iPad won't have Flash.

The reason is amazingly simple: as an iPad developer, I can create awesome software and make money selling it to people. As a Flash developer, I can't.

I get paid very well to make Flash applications for companies. But there isn't a good way to make Flash applications that you can sell directly to everyone. Even if you did, it's too easy to for someone to decompile your work and resell it or give it away. The Flash marketplace has never matured because it's too open and uncontrolled, and that kills innovation.

Yes, you read that right. Too much openness kills innovation.

People have to eat. If you can't make money building great software, you're going to make a lot less great software. Apple makes it possible to sell software by tightly controlling the distribution of that software. If they allowed Flash on the iPhone or iPad, no one would need to buy apps, they'd just grab a free Flash app, and no one would make money.

Which means the great software would go away, and everyone would be stuck with crappy software that crashes all the time and slows down their device, just like we are with regular computers.

So stop crying about Flash, and hope CS5 really is great for making iPhone/iPad apps. It's your best hope for making real money with Flash.

Well Played, Aquent

2010-01-25T22:57:00.002-06:00

I have to admit, Internet Online Website is pretty cool.

And surprisingly deep.

Android: To Many Cooks for a Real Brand?

2010-01-07T11:18:00.001-06:00

A quick thought on Android phones:

The iPhone has created the idea in people's mind that the phone hardware and OS are a single thing. It's a much simpler, more efficient idea, and ideas like that always beat out ones that are complicated and hard to understand.

Does this mean that coming out with a constant barrage of Android handsets, all claiming to be better than the iPhone (and all failing) has a detrimental effect on Android's branding? Only one phone can occupy the mental space of "best" in each type of phone. I think Droid succeeded in making people understand that Android is a kind of phone, but now they're getting a stream of new phones that will end up sitting in the "like Droid 2, only not really better, and different for no particular reason" part of their brain. That would be like Coke allowing every regional distributor to create their own slightly different flavor of New Coke. Brand suicide.

Open Source is all well and good, but Google may have been better served to follow the Apple model of developing one truly great phone. That would give them a solid brand, instead of one that's at the whim of dozens of separate companies and marketing plans.

Wanted: Part Time Info Graphics Designer

2010-01-05T13:23:00.001-06:00

Washington University's Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts is looking for a senior information graphics designer to work on a long-term project. It pays fairly well, and it's 20ish hours a week from now to one and a half years from now.

Click on the link above to apply online, they need someone with some leadership and project management skills, in addition to design talent. Interactive and video skills are a plus.

No Public Beta for Flash CS5

2009-12-17T17:14:00.001-06:00

This is bizarre. After announcing a public beta for Flash CS5, Adobe has pulled the rug out from everyone and canceled it. The official reason is that there was too much demand. Sound crazy? Yes, it does.

I have two theories:

1. They are afraid a public beta will cost them sales on a product that promises to be very popular due to its ability to create iPhone apps. In the past, Adobe betas have been notoriously easy to crack. This could be a way to try and prevent a horde of free copies from flooding the internet (good luck with that, the third result on Google is a torrent of it).

2. They are afraid a public beta will result in a flood of poorly made iPhone apps created by 14-year-olds and hobbyists, which will forever tar CS5. They have indicated that they are very carefully working with participants in the private beta to deliver high-quality apps to iTunes, letting any fool create an app could turn into a PR nightmare.

As much as I was looking forward to the beta (we've got software we'd love to port to iPhone), if one of the above theories is true, especially the second one, I can understand what Adobe is doing. I'm just hoping they follow up with a wider private beta, and reach out to all the designers and developers that want to make great applications with CS5.

Is Mint.com The Coolest Company In the Universe?

2009-12-04T21:50:00.002-06:00

I don't know. All I know is they pour money into really sweet, totally useful design projects like this:

And this (click for larger image):

It's an incredibly savvy marketing strategy. By providing amusing, useful information that benefits people with no obvious ulterior motive they build trust, drive traffic to their site, and establish a reputation as a smart, dependable company with your best interests at heart.

All for a fraction of the cost of most PR or marketing campaigns.

Learn from this before you spend your next dollar on the old ways of selling yourself.

Basic Job Research: Find Ex-Employees on LinkedIn

2009-12-02T23:35:00.001-06:00

Wouldn't it be great if you could demand references from a new employer, the same way they do from you? As it turns out, the internet makes this easy, and turns the old relationship between a prospective employer and employee on its head.

Before you accept an interview, your first stop should be LinkedIn. Search for ex-employees of the company you're interviewing with. Then run a Google search on them, if you're in the web industry you'll almost always find a blog, twitter account, or other public profile that will allow you to contact them. Whether they love or hate their ex-employer, most people are willing to give you an opinion. Do this a few times, and you should have a pretty good idea of whether the place you're about to interview with is full of win or fail.

If you're an employer, you need to be aware that people are already doing this, formally or not. People I know have done it recently, for local companies. If you've treated your current and ex-employees well, then you have nothing to fear. If you've treated them badly, you may want to change your ways, before your supply of new employees starts to vanish.

LinkedIn and Twitter Fail

2009-11-27T15:43:00.001-06:00

Now that attaching your Twitter feed to LinkedIn has become widespread, it's had an unintended effect:

It's made LinkedIn's feed almost totally useless.

All it takes is a few of your contacts integrating their full feeds instead of just the tweets marked for LinkedIn for your LinkedIn feed to be flooded with useless data. Data you've already seen on Twitter.

Rather than making LinkedIn more relevant, it's made it a really poor Twitter app. No one needs another one of those.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Startup Weekend

2009-11-13T00:27:00.004-06:00

This looks neat. They have a vote on the site, vote for St. Louis, maybe we'll get one here!

Say Hello to the STL Social Media & Tech Report

2009-11-12T23:40:00.000-06:00

There's a lot of social media stuff zipping around St. Louis these days. If you want a better way to keep track of it than watching Twitter all day, you can click over to The St. Louis Social Media & Tech Report. It's a blog that tracks the goings on, meetings, events and miscellaneous gatherings in #STL that are connected to technology and social media. Very good stuff, give it a read!

BTW, I Won Two TAM Awards

2009-11-11T22:52:00.001-06:00

The cobbler's children are always the last to get shoes. It's the same in design. We've been so busy at BusyEvent that I've completely forgotten to tell everyone I won two TAM awards back in September for two Flash projects we did.

Both are implementations of a very advanced touch screen application I designed and programmed. The app is completely configurable via settings files, it can be made to pull arbitrary data from a backend and manipulate it in different ways,* on different virtual pages, all by changing an XML file. This includes loading videos and photos, zooming and panning the photos, searching the backend database, and more.

You can see examples of this application in operation at the Barnes Jewish College of Nursing, the Jewish Community Center, and the Holocaust Museum.

*this was the trickiest part. The same app can handle donor profiles with completely different sets of data, and can do things like split the fields on a character, append or prepend strings, load graphics by changing a field into a file name, and all kinds of other manipulations, all set by the XML

The StartUp CUE is Coming

2009-11-10T23:02:00.002-06:00

Entrepreneurs in St. Louis just got another chance to hit it big.

The StartUp CUE is a presentation pitch contest where people with new ideas have exactly 150 seconds to pitch to an audience of local business leaders, tech gurus, fellow innovators and the media. Three winners will get a pile of publicity, and everyone will get incredible feedback from their peers and a chance to talk to the kind of Saint Louis people that can put them on the map.

This is open to anyone, it's completely free and you don't have to have an actual product, or even an actual company. You can be a kid with a dream and a set of Powerpoint slides.

Our star-packed judge panel includes:

Dan Curran, President of NGAGE

Eddie Davis, Director of the Center for the Acceleration of African-American Business

Jay Delong, Vice President of New Ventures & Capital Formation at the St. Louis RCGA

Jorge Riopedre, President of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce

What are you waiting for? If you have an awesome idea and want a chance to show it to the world (or at least St. Louis), submit it now!

#STL Web Designer List

2009-11-03T22:01:00.000-06:00

I'm putting together a Twitter List of St. Louis web design people (it's also on Listorious).

This is a list I'll be actively curating. People that aren't active in design or tweeting about it will be removed.

People in related fields, like social marketing, will be included, as will people that impact the design scene, like recruiters. But only if they're awesome.

If you're not on the list, let me know through Twitter.

STL Designers, You're Missing the Haystack Bus

2009-11-03T01:00:00.002-06:00

Are you a St. Louis design agency or independent designer? If you're not on Haystack you're throwing money away.

I love to use it when I want some design inspiration, and to check out the competition. But when I look at the St. Louis page, I see only a few agencies represented. Why is that? Haystack is a great tool for finding clients, and with the muscle of 37 Signals behind it, it'll only get bigger.

So who is representing St. Louis on Haystack?

Big Wheel is there. Smart.

I should know Integrity. They're in St. Louis and growing, and doing smart stuff like actually hiring UX people. But I've never heard of them. Which kind of sucks, John Simanowitz sounds like my kind of guy!

Christopher Meeks, now that's a snazzy portfolio site! Take notes, kids!

Portable Worlds doesn't even have a web page, just a gmail account! That's entrepreneurial spirit!

Evermind ... as far as I can tell, they specialize in evangelical christians and vitamins. It's a niche that was waiting for someone to fill it!

Cajun is one guy or many? Learn to use consistent pronouns!

STL, step up and represent. Within the admittedly small world of Haystack, our design community is a few new/small agencies and a handful of freelancers. We're barely doing better than Springfield.

It's free, sign up now while the big boys are still sleeping.

Color Video ePaper: Kicking Print's Dead Corpse

2009-10-29T07:23:00.000-05:00

If Liquavista's demo of digital paper that can play video in color and act as a touch screen doesn't convince you print is over...

Liquavista October 2009

Then there's nothing that can help you. Seriously.

The Net In Five Years

2009-10-28T00:38:00.002-05:00

What will the the internet be like in 5 years? If you believe Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, it'll be:

Mostly social and real time (ie: like Twitter and Facebook, only more)
Mostly Chinese (not that you'll notice, they'll have their sites, you'll have yours)
TV will be dead (once broadband gives you real time video, no one will watch broadcast TV)
Real time search will be king (in other words, fads will come and go in 30 seconds)

Get ready, it'll be a wild ride!

ROI: Marketing vs. Usability in Design Agencies

2009-10-22T23:22:00.000-05:00

People sell what they know. Most large agencies are built on marketing, and the leadership is full of people that understand marketing. What they're not full of is people that understand the web. They know how print ads and TV commercials work, so they try to make the web work and look the same way. Which results in sites that look good, but don't achieve their goals.

The standard response to websites that don't convert users into buyers (or fans, or brand ambassadors, or whatever the goal is), is to use marketing to throw more bodies at the problem. If only the design only converts 10% of visitors, you just need more visitors, right?

As Craig Tomlin points out, this is a disaster waiting to happen.

When websites invest in usability instead of marketing, they get permanent boosts to conversion. No matter what their goal is, usability improvements are almost always a better thing to spend money on than marketing. More marketing will temporarily increase the raw number of visitors, but it won't increase the percentage of visitors that convert. Over time, it is almost always better to increase conversion instead of visitors.

This doesn't mean marketing has no place in a web campaign. It just means the priorities need to be changed. The first place to spend money is on usability, something few agencies spend much of their time on. Marketing should only be employed after usability has raised the conversion rates as high as they can go. Otherwise it's just wasted money.

Agencies that understand this, and sell usability up front, will prosper because their clients will see much stronger ROI. Agencies that don't will wither away as their clients dump them for more effective partners.

The 3 Things That Make a Successful Website

2009-10-21T23:44:00.000-05:00

There are exactly 3 things that make a website successful.

1. It's Easy to Get What You Want

People go to a website for a reason. They want something, and the easier it is for them to get it, the happier they are. Figure out the main thing your users want, and remove all obstacles (clicks, distracting graphics, dumb effects, page loads, excess forms, loading times) to them getting it. Be ruthless in trimming away things you don't need and your users don't want.

2. It's Clear There's More

Once your users have what they want, they will leave unless it's obvious there are more things available. They should be able to get right to what they are after, and then be able to explore out from there. They should also get the idea that if they return later, new things may be available. You can do this with news feeds, forums, frequent content additions or user generated content.

3. It's Easy to Share

Social media is your most powerful marketing tool. Make it easy for people to share what they like. Provide links to Digg, Facebook, Twitter, and other popular sharing tools. Make it as simple as possible.

If you do all three of these, your website will be a success. If you don't, it won't.

Marvel Superhero Squad Create Your Comic

2009-10-21T22:50:00.000-05:00

Marvel's Superhero Squad Create Your Comic online app is a lot of fun.

But I'm disappointed and perplexed that it can't be saved in any bitmap format, nor does it have any tools for sharing your creations on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, or anywhere else.

Redesigning

2009-10-20T20:20:00.003-05:00

Finally choose to go with the advanced layout editor. Kind of blech. Now I have to decide if I'm sticking with Blogger, or finally getting around to switching to WordPress.

Facebook Connect: More Important Than SEO?

2009-10-20T19:45:00.001-05:00

Facebook Connect might not be more important than search traffic from Google, but for some kinds of sites, it's rapidly catching up.

Consider these facts:

The Huffington Post is reporting that Facebook Connect drove 3.5 million visits to their site in September, an increase of 190% since June. They also report that those numbers are continuing to increase. [via allfacebook.com]
Chitika reports that visitors to sites arriving from Facebook are the most loyal visitors. This means they came to the site four or more times a week. The least loyal visitors were from search engines. [via Mashable]
Digg traffic has seen a huge increase this year, partically due to their integration with Facebook Connect. [via The Business Insider]
And finally, in May Facebook's traffic had increased to just under that of Google and Yahoo. [via TechCrunch]

What does this mean for you?

If you have a site with sharable, constantly updated content, like a news site, an entertainment site, or a blog, making it easy to share your content on Facebook is paramount. If your content includes user participation (either generating content or commenting on / reviewing it), then using Facebook Connect is also vital. If users are already logging into your site, Facebook Connect makes it much easier for them and make sharing your content on their Facebook feeds extremely easy.

The other thing to consider is whether your content is something Facebook users want to share. You're not going to benefit from Facebook integration if no one from Facebook cares about your content. If you have something useful, funny, interesting or newsworthy, it will be shared. If you don't, avoid chasing Facebook and stick to marketing methods that are better suited to you, like SEO and web advertising.

Image (CC) Brian Solis, www.briansolis.com and bub.blicio.us.

The Future Is Now: Everyone Can Shoot Pro Video

2009-10-20T18:48:00.001-05:00

When you can get Hollywood results from a $5k Canon prosumer still camera, you know things are going to change.

As with desktop publishing software and internet distribution, new video technology removes the equipment barrier. Now the only thing that matters is talent and dedication. If you have them, you can get the equipment, and you can compete with anyone.

Design Jobs In St. Louis

2009-10-20T13:44:00.003-05:00

XPLANE is hiring a designer. They need someone that can handle print, interactive, and motion design. And you have to be very good at sketching in front of clients. This isn't an average company or an average job, rock stars only.

Perficient is hiring a Senior Designer. They're looking for a UX/Web designer with some serious chops, lots of experience in web design. You'll spend some significant time on the road, so don't be afraid of airplanes.

Coders 4 Charities

2009-10-14T22:36:00.000-05:00

Coders 4 Charities

If you want to get some more web projects under your belt, even if you're a beginner, and help people out at the same time, you need to check this out. It's web people (including web designers) getting together to build sites for non-profit groups.

Not only is it a great way to get some experience, it's a fantastic way to meet other people in the field that are highly motivated.

Get out there and do some good!

Design Links Roundup

2009-10-14T21:48:00.000-05:00

What's currently in the dozens of tabs I have open in Firefox? These things are:

The Importance of Failure for Designers - good advice for web designers and UX pros.

Making it Work: Context - an excellent article on mobile web design, though it applies equally well to any application or web design.

Hard Work's Overrated, Maybe Detrimental. - people tend to forget that being creative is different from digging ditches. More hours and more pressure often result in less results, not more.

Five Qualities Venture Capital Firms Look For in Startups - insightful.

Pecha Kucha Night - an intriguing idea. Maybe I'll set one up in STL.

User Experience Designer vs. Creative Director - an interesting article, but it falls for the common mistake of thinking there is a divide between UX and design. There isn't.

The Difference Between Art and Design - how many times does this need to be repeated? Probably millions of times. Art is not design, design is not art.

50+ Amazing Jquery Examples- Part1 - full of useful techniques.

The Keynotes Of Web 2.0 Design Elements With 30 Dazzling Showcases - a nice overview of current design trends, though let's face it, the "web 2.0" descriptor is tired. At least it's more up to date than Web Design From Scratch's current style page.

20 Creative Agency Web Sites that Rock - exactly like it says. Though they really should have called people out for using stock images on their agency site (Cleverful, I'm looking at you. Fail.). I especially like Astuteo, Squared Eye (bonus points for a Process page), Imaginaria Creative (ditto), and FortySeven Media.

Tag Clouds Gallery: Examples And Good Practices - love the part about Tag Indexes. Much better than vanilla tag clouds.

Build an Insanely Great Web Service - great advice for building a web site or product.

Malo - a really nice, very small css framework. I really like it.

Looking for a UX Freelancer

2009-09-29T22:16:00.000-05:00

Someone I know is looking for a UX freelancer for a 90 day contract.

Must be an expert in usability, wireframing, flowcharting, work flow, etc.

Skills in HTML, CSS, Design, and DJing are bonuses.

Contact me (jjeffryes insert the appropriate symbol here plus gmail and the dot of the com) if you are or know someone that fits the bill.

jQuery Tools - Lightweight Easy Interactivity

2009-09-28T21:54:00.000-05:00

jQuery Tools is a new library from the guys that build flowplayer. It's just 5.9 kb, and packed with very useful interactions that are dead easy to add to your website.

More importantly, their site is loaded more than 50 examples, all with source code and how to guides.

If you're building a more robust web app, you'll want to use jQuery UI. It has more advanced features, but it's also much larger and more complicated. If all you need is a little extra UI sophistication, jQuery Tools will do the job.

The ultimate secret of freelance design pricing

2009-09-28T19:46:00.000-05:00

Step 1: Figure out how much money you need in a year to survive.

Step 2: Divide by 8.

That's your per-website project fee. Double it if a project will take 2 months, triple for 3, etc.

Ex: if you need 40k to survive, each website should cost 5k. 10k if it will take 2 months to complete.

Ignore the number of hours you put into each project. Your client doesn't care, and it doesn't really matter to you. You're fighting against your survival costs, and it costs you the same amount to live each month regardless of how many hours you work.

As soon as you have more work than you can handle, increase your fee. Do this every time you get busy, until you're not busy any more.

Another take on this:
Quality-Price-Ratio in Web Design (Pricing Design Work)

How to Open a Huge Text File

2009-09-24T14:28:00.001-05:00

If you ever need to open a really, really, REALLY big text file on Windows, I recommend Notepad++. It's a great lightweight free text editor. I use it a lot for simple note taking and doing HTML or CSS. Today I discovered that it can also open 700 meg text files when every other program on my computer failed.

IxEdit - jQuery Interactivity Made Easy

2009-09-20T22:20:00.003-05:00

IxEdit is an interesting tool for web designers that would like to add some interactivity to their sites without learning to code in jQuery. It has a wizard that builds the jQuery code for you, step through the wizard, tell it what you want, and out comes the code for you to paste into your page.

You still need to be a fairly competent web designer (ie: you can write your own css), and you need to have a pretty solid understanding of what you want to accomplish. If you meet both of those requirements, IxEdit might be a very much worth a look.

Counterpoint: personally, I think jQuery is pretty easy to learn, especially the kind of things you can use IxEdit to do. If you can handle complex CSS and light javascript, you're better off just coding jQuery from scratch. Then again, IxEdit generates jQuery code, and learning to use it also teaches you many of the basics of jQuery, so it could be a good first step towards learning the real thing.

Busyevent Nominated for Best Blog

2009-09-14T22:02:00.002-05:00

The BusyEvent Blog (designed by me), just got nominated for Best Educational Event Professional Blog. Cast your vote here if you're an event professional, or if you'd just like to see us get an award.

Fast Company Clues in, Big Design Still Dying

2009-08-31T23:29:00.003-05:00

Fast Company, a magazine/website I truly enjoy, isn't always on top of things. A case in point is this nice article detailing how small 10-30 person design shops have been kicking the crap out of 100-300 person corporate behemoths over the past few years.

This is something I thought was obvious as long as three years ago. Small design shops are smarter, more agile, and more efficient, and modern web tools make the bloat of huge advertising agencies obsolete. St. Louis is a great example. The agencies doing awesome work locally are small and efficient. The ones that aren't... aren't.

There Are No Idiot Clients

2009-08-30T23:31:00.000-05:00

One of the classic gripes of a designer is that their idiot client has ruined their design. It's also one of the most common mistakes designers make.*

When a client insists on "ruining" a design, it is almost always because they have a business goal the design isn't fulfilling. Instead of getting defensive, take a moment to talk to them and discover what it is they really want.

This can take a while, because they often don't know.

People hire you because you understand design, and they don't. When they think your work isn't what they need, they can't tell you that in design terms. They resort to random-seeming changes in the hope they'll luck into the right answer. When someone wants bolder text, what they really need is a more prominent message. When they ask for a starburst, they're really complaining you're not emphasizing something enough. When they tell you to make the logo bigger, their real concern is that you're not pushing the branding.

Turning their suggestions into a discussion of what they really need is difficult. It's much easier to make it into a fight and storm off. Sit down with them and ask them what the goals of the piece are. Try to find out if there are goals that weren't in the original spec. Discuss how to achieve those goals, and then rework your design to do that.

If you can uncover the true goals of the client, and design something that follows them, you'll end up with better, more effective design, and a happier client.

*There are exceptions to every rule. There really are some clients that are just flat out idiots. Take their money, make their changes, and find new, better clients as fast as you can.

Design Reading: inkblurt

2009-08-17T21:29:00.001-05:00

I've recently discovered Andrew Hinton's inkblurt blog. It's a great read for any designer, it covers UX and human behavior in ways you won't find on typical design blogs. Highly recommended for any serious designer.

STL Event: Google Wave Hackfest

2009-08-13T22:12:00.001-05:00

Unless you've been living in a cave (and forgot to bring you iPhone with you), you've heard of Google Wave. It promises to remake the internet, and potentially kill whole classes of industries, like email, IM, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

To get some hands on experience with Wave, and meet other STL Wave hackers, sign up for the STL Google Wave Hackfest.

When
Tuesday, August 25, 6:00PM - 10:00PM (approx)

Where

Technology Partners
707 Spirit 40 Park Drive, Ste. 120
Chesterfield, Missouri 63005

If you really have been living in a cage, here's a Mashable guide to Wave.

FancyZoom: a JQuery Lightbox that Works with Flash

2009-08-12T22:48:00.001-05:00

Getting lightboxes to work properly with Flash can be a big pain in the neck. Steve Smith has ported John Nunemaker's reworking of Cabel Sasser's FancyZoom to jQuery, and created a nice, easy to use jQuery lightbox that plays nice with Flash.

You can see a demo of the jQuery FancyZoom here, including Flash.

A few tips:

Add a display:none to any hidden divs. Otherwise they'll briefly flicker into view when the page loads, before the script hides them.
Be careful where you position the hidden divs. They'll zoom from their hidden position, this can look weird if they're off to the side or far away from the link being clicked on.
Only use the object and embed tags. If you use Dreamweaver to add a swf to your page, or you try to copy the code created by Flash's Publish command, the javascript will cause problems.

Download the source code.

Sometimes...

2009-08-10T08:08:00.002-05:00

Sometimes I feel like a hypocrite for not installing Silverlight.

Then I remember I'm emulating the user experience of 90% of normal people, and I feel better.

Design Examples: Spoon Redesigns A Site

2009-08-05T10:21:00.003-05:00

Over on the Spoon Graphics Blog is an excellent behind the scenes look at the redesign of DesignBump.com.

It's a nice insight into how a professional handles a site revamp, with lots of in-progress images.

St. Louis Web Design Event: Social Media Club - Evolution of the Web

2009-08-04T21:58:00.000-05:00

The Social Media Club of St. Louis is holding an interesting event on August 20th, focused on how social media is changing the web. The current RSVP list is packed with local design leaders, so there will be some nice networking opportunities on top of the valuable discussion.

Moderator:

Scott Spradlin - @scotts, Software Architect, .NET User Group Honcho

Panelists:

Ken Sipe Ken Sipe - @kensipe, Technology Guru, Author, blogger, Java guy

Clint Edmonson -@clinted, Architect Evangelist, blogger, Microsoft guy

Brad Nunnally - @bnunnally, Usability Pro, blogger

Micah Herstand - @micahherstand, Coder, Author, Semantic Web wiz

Learn more and RSVP

What: SMCSTL.com Monthly Meetup
When: Thursday, August 20th at 5:30pm
Where: The Coronado

Find out more about the Social Media Club.

Here's a video of one of their previous events, posted by Scorch Agency.

We Won a CEMA Award!

2009-08-04T14:09:00.001-05:00

David Schenburg, one of the founders of Busyevent, presented our new Event Bookmarking platform at the CEMA Technology Shootout a few weeks ago, and came home the winner!

You can watch his presentation on the Busyevent website, it's on the front page. If you've been curious about what we're building over here, this is your chance to see it.

208 Years Later, A Lesson From Weaving

2009-08-03T23:01:00.000-05:00

In 1801, Joseph Jacquard invented an automated loom.

Manual loom operators dealt with it by forming an angry mob and nearly killing him.

Not long after, there were no manual loom operators. There's a lesson in that.

As a friend of mine likes to put it, it's the job of technologists to eliminate other people's jobs. That was true in 1801 and it's even more true now. Technology is changing faster than ever today, and it's a constant challenge to keep pace with it.

If you're a designer, you need to be on the cutting edge of what's happening in social media, mobile devices, SMS, user generated content, and the revolution in distribution (and the connected rise of the amateur) made possible by the internet. You need to be aware of the coming desktop manufacturing revolution, and you need to understand which industries are collapsing and which are booming.

It's a lot to take in, and it can be overwhelming. But you don't get to opt out of the future. It's coming, and you need to find your place in it.

Should You Stop Designing For IE6?

2009-07-15T18:25:00.005-05:00

YouTube recently added itself to the list of sites that are dropping Internet Explorer 6 support. It joins Twitter, Gmail, Basecamp and many others (see the screenshots from my virtual machine running IE6 below) that are reminding users with IE6 that the site may not work for them in the future.

What does this mean for you as a web designer? Should you join them and stop worrying about IE6? It all depends on who your clients are.

A small number of web users are still using IE6 (7.6% according to Statcounter), and most of those are corporate users whose IT departments have standardized on IE6. YouTube and sites like Digg can safely ignore those users, since their focus is on casual users. If you're developing a site or application focused on corporate clients or business people that will access it during working hours, IE6 support is going to remain important for you.

What Do You Do About IE6?

There are a number of simple, common-sense things you can do to make designing for IE6 along with newer browsers easier.

1. Always use a separate style sheet for IE6.

This is easy to do with a conditional comment, which only loads your IE6 hack file when IE6 is detected. It looks something like this:

<!--[if lte IE 6]>
 <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="ie6_fixes.css" />
<![endif]-->

You don't even need it to be a full style sheet. Load it after your main style sheet, and only include the changes you need to make to get things working.

For example, I use the following to style the navigation tabs on www.busyevent.com:

.nav .tab{
display:block;
background: url(../images/navTabLeft.gif) no-repeat left top;
height: 31px;
}

The IE6 style sheet contains the following:

.nav .tab{
display:inline-block;
padding:8px 0 0 0;
height:23px;
}

Notice that the IE6 sheet doesn't overwrite the background property, because it doesn't need to. It only overwrites properties that have to be different for IE6.

2. Keep your IE6 styles simple

Reserve cool effects and css tricks for other browsers. IE6 bugs are difficult to overcome sometimes, so be smart and use your IE6 stylesheet to downgrade IE6 users to a simpler, plainer website. If you do this properly they won't lose much, and you'll save yourself tremendous headaches. You might even discover a simpler website is better.

3. Ask if IE6 is important, and bill for it

It takes time and effort to compensate for IE6. Include that in your contracts as a line item, and ask your clients if they want it. That way they're aware of the issue, and you're not doing unnecessary work. You also get an opportunity to show that you offer extra services, instead of having to explain why you didn't put in the extra hours (sometimes many, many hours) to make everything work in IE6.

One additional tip. The best way to test IE6 is to run it in a virtual machine. There are other solutions out there, but all of the ones I've tested either made my computer unstable, or didn't truly replicate IE6.

YouTube is the most blatant.

Twitter is a little nicer about it.

Gmail has a soft sell.

37 Signals made their move a long time ago.

References:

TechCrunch - a gleeful article on the decline of IE6 support

The Washington Post - a mirror of the same TechCrunch article (Washington Post getting news from TechCrunch? A sign of the times...)

ReadWriteWeb - a brief article on YouTube with some interesting statistics on who uses IE6

SlashDot - you can pick up the hardcore geek response here.

My Chat With The Creative Outfit

2009-06-30T17:56:00.003-05:00

Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I discovered The Creative Outfit. They're a trio of talented young St. Louis creatives that have banded together to form a great design agency. They're an excellent example of how smart, fresh talent can succeed even in the midst of a recession. Patrick Keefe, the Creative Director, was kind enough to spend a few minutes talking to me about their company recently.

Disclaimer: I feel really bad about this, I conducted this interview a while ago, but a combination of a heavy work load and some personal issues with our unborn baby sidelined my blog. Patrick is a good guy, and I can only apologize for the delay.

But enough grovelling, on to the interview!

First question, can you tell me a little bit about who you are, and how you became a designer?

My route to the design world is a strange one and I'll try to convey the short version. I have a degree in Political Science from Saint Louis University and was enrolling in law school upon graduation. After I graduated, I realized that I didn't want to spend three years in a law library. While I was at SLU, I taught myself HTML and how to wrangle Photoshop as a hobby, which was a lot of fun. I decided to try my hand in the creative industry and got a job as an interactive designer. I worked for a year or so and realized how much I loved the work but also realized that I would benefit greatly from design school. I enrolled in Maryville University's Graphic Design program shortly after and got another bachelors degree in two years.

I took an internship at ProWolfe Partners after graduating and spent a few months soaking up everything I could, including as much of the business side as possible. Despite having limited experience, but being a born gambler, I decided to take a shot on my own.

I spent another year freelancing for a few agencies and picked up a couple of my own clients, gained some valuable experience, and met some great people who proved to be valuable resources.

How did you end up starting a design company?

When realized that I could design in all environments but couldn't program worth a damn. That's when I sought out my partner, Kent. The dude is a wizard and we compliment each other perfectly. Since we met and formed The Creative Outfit (TCO) we've gained a TON of momentum. I can speak confidently to prospective clients because I know I can give them great design and Kent can develop amazing user experiences.

Describe the other principals, Kent and Erin, and how they became part of The Creative Outfit.

The Creative Outfit is a triad of sorts. I do design, Kent does development, and Erin does strategy and copy writing. We came together more out of necessity than anything else. I never had a really profound vision about what TCO would be for me but I did respond to the needs of my immediate market. Specifically, I found that clients needed great strategic direction, effective copy, and awesome user experiences. I couldn't do all of that on my own.

Oh, and Erin is my little sister so I was throwing her a bone. Okay, that's not true. She has actually been helping me out of situations for a couple of years so it was only natural that she partner up with Kent and myself.

Do you have any other employees?

We don't have any full-time employees but work with a couple of contractors when the load gets too heavy, which is probably going to happen more and more this year.

You seem like a pretty young group. Does that give you any advantages or disadvantages when dealing with clients?

Definitely both. On one hand, I am still feeling out all the roles I have to play and trying to anticipate the needs and expectations of our clients. On the other hand, I can respond with a great deal of agility to those needs and expectations because we are still developing and refining our core processes.

Your leadership is evenly split between design, development and business strategy. How does that affect how you work, vs. other agencies that are more heavily weighted towards just one of those areas?

After speaking with a lot of my designer friends, I realized that a lot of places, at least it seemed this way from their accounts, were too focused on design, or too focused on development, and almost never focused on content. I believe that design best serves its masters when it helps to more effectively communicate the content; not serve as a vehicle that necessitates content. Strategy, and therefore content, should come first. Design and development then support that broader strategy.

Describe your work environment/office.

Right now? I'm in a Caribou Coffee in Midtown Atlanta. Kent is probably in his basement lair in South City. Erin is likely on the L in Chicago heading back to her apartment. I generally work from my condo in the Loop but we don't have an office space yet. That's our big goal for the end of 2009.

You might expect that to hinder our efforts, especially when wooing clients, but that hasn't been the case yet. I let my enthusiasm for a client's project give me all the credibility I need. If a client is put off by us not having an office space yet, that's okay with me. It probably wouldn't have been a good fit anyway.

What's your work schedule like? 9 to 5, 10 to 10, completely random?

I always tell people that I'm too young to be overworked. I truly believe that. While I always maintain a balance in my life, I'm basically on call for most of my clients. My day ends when the work is finished and no days are off limits.

If there's one thing I learned during my time in Ireland though it's that you should take off every beautiful afternoon and go outside. I'll get my work finished later. Besides, insomnia runs in my family and I live way too close to Forest Park.

St. Louis and the country are in a pretty serious recession, have you found it hard to land new clients and start a company?

I think the recession actually plays into our favor. We have such limited overhead and we're so young that we have to price ourselves very competitively anyway. With more companies looking harder and longer for value we are more likely to get the nod, or at least a serious look.

What sets you apart and gives you an advantage over other creative companies?

I think it's our balanced approach to design, development, and strategy. We're also very charismatic and engaging. Our clients really appreciate that. I also take every possible opportunity to find a way to say 'yes' to my clients, even if it requires rethinking the entire strategic approach or cutting a budget.

What are your biggest challenges as a company right now?

Positioning ourselves for growth. We desperately need to meet some talented, hard-working developers who might like to do some contract work for us. As we meet more people and get our name out there, we're getting a lot of attention. I can only hope the momentum continues and being prepared for growth remains our biggest challenge.

Does being located in St. Louis make it easier or harder to find and keep clients (or no different), and why?

That's a great question. I can't really answer beyond anecdote. On one hand, there are fewer potential clients than in a place like Chicago but there is also less competition. Ultimately, I love this city and think it deserves world-class design so I try my best to seek out and retain clients that appreciate our vision.

St. Louis has an issue with attracting/retaining creative talent, have you encountered this when hiring, and if so what did you do about it?

Since I'm still so close to Maryville and some of my old professors, I get to see the real deal talent coming up the ranks before they even hit the streets. I have a handful of names in my pocket when the time comes to hire some designers.

Do you have a particular type of client or industry you focus on?

We're doing several boutique e-commerce sites right now and I'd love to do more of those. From an intellectual standpoint, there is a lot to consider when designing and developing online stores.

Otherwise, I hope to get my hands on some non-profit projects so I can contribute great design to smaller non-profits that otherwise don't have a chance to get beautiful materials.

What size client do you normally deal with?

We've been handling a lot of small businesses so far but we're in the proposal process with a couple of pretty big companies that would likely lead to great long-term relationships and require a lot of hours.

Describe for me the process you use on a project. Do you use wireframes, mood boards, brainstorming sessions, discovery phases, etc.?

We meet with our clients first and I always ask the same question right away: What do you want this business to achieve? That questions goes a LONG way to identifying the appropriate approach to their project. More importantly, it answers whether or not the project even makes sense.

After thoroughly investigating objectives, Kent, Erin, and myself reconvene and think about the long-term impact of possible solutions, not only from a branding standpoint but also from a business standpoint. We then provide for the client a detailed report of our ideas, with the associated costs and components of each plan.

Once we decide on a direction, it's time to get down to work. Our process in that regard is pretty standard: design, refine, get approval, develop, test, etc.

We use wireframes for web projects that involve tons of information and sometimes I do mood boards for identity projects. As I said before though, we like to stay really agile and just react to the personality and needs of the client so we don't push these processes on them unless it makes sense.

What kind of software do you use (Adobe suite, Visual Studio, open source alternatives, etc.)?

I dream in Adobe, man. I readily admit my over-reliance on Photoshop but I have pretty good chops with InDesign after working for a shop that did almost all annual reports.

What platform do you build your websites on, LAMP, Java, .net, Cold Fusion, Flash?

Kent is a LAMP guy but he can work in a .net environment if he has to. We both try to avoid Flash unless it's absolutely necessary. Since it's not 2002 anymore, that hasn't been too much a problem. Speaking of Flash, we really, really love jQuery as a substitute for things that Flash would have been used for a few years ago. It's so light and easy and marries beautifully with CSS.

Do you use frameworks or CMSes in your web development, is so which ones and why?

Kent has developed a modular and extremely agile CMS that we use for all of our web projects. It's light weight and very easy to deploy. The CMS makes it easy for our clients, or us, to manage sites. As we come across new client needs, we devise new modules for the CMS and deploy them as necessary. It's been a great approach so far.

Before I met Kent, I was doing all of my development within Expression Engine, which is an awesome CMS. It's just a little more robust than necessary for the average site and eats up a lot of hours. Clients also forget how to make updates pretty quickly since the admin area is a little intimidating.

Hand code or Dreamweaver (or hand code in Dreamweaver)?

I hand code in Coda since I'm a Mac nerd and Kent hand codes in Dreamweaver. He wishes he could use Coda and he's jealous of my Mac.
(Kent's note: That claim is entirely false.)

Would you like to mention any other tools you use?

Graph paper and my trusty Pilot Precise V5 for sketching letters and logos.

I also dabble in FontLab but I'm a total novice and could really use some help with my metrics.

Pontificate for me for a minute on how the industry is changing, and where you think it's going.

For better or worse, it's going digital and, more specifically, mobile. At some point in the near future we'll all be even more connected to the internet than we already are. The iPhone has provided something of a blueprint for a platform that finally addresses connectivity, usability and beauty. Its success has already spawned copycats. Companies will realize that they need an effective mobile presence as they vie for the eyes and ears of potential consumers. Furthermore, the imminent death of printed newspapers is a harbinger for this change in my opinion.

Any big plans for The Creative Outfit and the future?

I want to own a warehouse like Rob Dyrdek and his Fantasy Factory, but mostly for the zip line. Having two bulldogs would be cool too.

Other than that, I want to see TCO continue to grow, continue to provide a great service to its clients, and also provide my family, Kent's family, and Erin's family with the means to live a balanced and fulfilled life.

Link Roundup - Design and Usability

2009-06-10T17:21:00.002-05:00

I've developed a habit of leaving tabs open in Firefox for weeks. Usually they're things I haven't had a chance to look at, or that I plan to write about or share. They've started to get out of hand again, and it's time to admit I won't be writing anything insightful about them any time soon. Instead, I'll share them here and then close those tabs forever.

This time most of them relate to Usability, Web Design and User Experience Design (UX or UXD).

10 Most Common Misconceptions About User Experience Design - A nice overview of misperceptions about UXD.

Simplifying Website Usability: The 3 Step Approach - a pile of excellent examples of sites that break down user actions into 3 easy steps. That's a good way to increase user participation and completion. The designs are inspirational too.

The 21 Most Popular Blogs for Web Designers - are they really the most popular? I don't know. But it is a good list of design blogs you should be reading. I have most of them in my Sage list. Some of my favorites: devsnippets, noupe, webdesigner depot and WebDesignerWall.

10 Tips to Create a More Usable Web - some nice, often forgotten tips on making sites more usable.

Pushup - a cute, non-offensive way to remind people to stop using ancient, broken browsers.

1 line CSS Grid Framework - a clever example of creating a CSS grid with just one css class. It might not be something you would use, but it does a good job of showing CSS grids don't have to be complicated to work well.

7 Quick CSS Enhancements for Better User Experience - some great tips, the "Prevent Firefox Scrollbar Jump" is one I wish I'd had on many past projects.

The GOOD Transparencies Archive - a collection of amazing information graphics.

Designing For Sign Up - an absolutely brilliant presentation on making better sign up experiences for web applications.

The Superb Abduzeedo's Illustration Team - a bunch of really awesome, inspirational illustrations. Some are NSFW, so don't click the link if that's a problem.

If Clients Dealt With Everyone The Way They Deal With Designers...

2009-06-02T15:09:00.001-05:00

So true.

The Vendor Client relationship - in real world situations

Designers Have More Taste Than Talent

2009-06-01T18:10:00.001-05:00

Dustin Curtis redesigned the American Airlines homepage after being frustrated with it, and received an illuminating email from one of their UX specialists. Rather than stop there, he spun it into a very interesting post on one of the things that makes a great designer.

To paraphrase, a great designer has more taste than talent. Their ability to see the quality in other things is greater than their own ability to produce it, which leads them to constantly push themselves to do something better. It is from this constant dissatisfaction that greatness springs.

I'm not entirely sold on Mr. Curtis's extension of this idea to corporate culture in general. Perhaps a better way to put it is that when a corporate culture loses it's ability to see the whole, and starts focusing on meaningless details, it suffers. When it cares more about price, prestige, rules, profit or fads than it cares about holistic excellence, it fails. This is no different from design, where every project must succeed as a whole, not as disparate parts.