Ten Tips For Your First Email Campaign

I’ve seen too many web designers dive into their first email marketing project before doing the proper planning. There are some basic things you need to square away before you send your first email newsletter.

Chestnut, Ben. Digital Web Magazine (2008). Articles>Business Communication>Email

Extending The JavaScript Date Object with User Defined Methods

Applications, particularly business applications, can often require a lot of date manipulation, but that code could be simplified if JavaScript’s core Date object had some additional methods. In this article, I will show you how to add custom methods to the Date object that are inherited by each date instance.

O'Sullivan, Lawrence. Digital Web Magazine (2008). Articles>Web Design>Programming>JavaScript

Creating The Perfect Portfolio

At its core, building an online portfolio is much the same as any other design brief—the only difference is that you are your own client. So as with any design brief, it’s best to begin by asking yourself, “who is my target audience?” Let’s look at two types of portfolios.

Ta'eed, Collis. Digital Web Magazine (2008). Careers>Resumes>Portfolios>Web Design

CSS Not ([hacks])

As any web developer worth his salt will know, browsers can differ in their interpretation of CSS rules and properties. One way of coping with this headache is to use various hacks; they might (in some cases) be invalid CSS, but they force browsers to read only certain parts of your CSS and render your page or web site as close to how you intended as possible. CSS hacks are one of the common ways to send specific instructions to different browsers, be it to solve min-width issues or box model interpretations.

Suda, Brian. Digital Web Magazine (2008). Articles>Web Design>CSS

Everything You Know About CSS Is Wrong

Digital Web running a provocative article on CSS techniques? Shurely shome mishtake! In this extract from the forthcoming Sitepoint book of the same name, this article explains how you can use tables for layout in modern web design with a clean conscience.

Andrew, Rachel. Digital Web Magazine (2008). Articles>Web Design>CSS

Ten Reasons Clients Don't Care About Accessibility

Working as an accessibility consultant in an IT company is a very frustrating job right now. Highly publicized lawsuits and deep-rooted accessibility myths leave us with a lot to explain when the final product does not really help visitors. Our clients simply don’t care about accessibility as much as we’d like them to, and there are several reasons for that.

Heilmann, Christian. Digital Web Magazine (2005). Articles>Consulting>Accessibility>Web Design

Accessible By Design

The demand for accessible sites is growing, but web workers, like you, are often unclear how to make sites more accessible. Designing an accessible site isn't necessarily harder, but it involves unique limitations that make you approach design from a different perspective.

Pavka, Anitra. Digital Web Magazine (2002). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility

Innovative Design Inspired by Accessibility

To design innovative Web applications that create opportunities rather than barriers, study the variety of characteristics of people, situations, and devices in your audience--it will give you new perspective from which to approach your design.

Chisholm, Wendy. Digital Web Magazine (2005). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility

Seven Accessibility Mistakes (Part 1)

There are several reasons inaccessible Web products get published. One we discussed in my last article is that some clients just don’t care about accessibility. Their reasons make a lot of sense if you put yourself in their shoes. Another reason is developer mistakes. Making mistakes is natural, and suffering the consequences and learning from them is what makes us better developers and better people.

Heilmann, Christian. Digital Web Magazine (2006). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Case Studies

Seven Accessibility Mistakes (Part 2)

This two part-article discusses reasons why some projects fail to result in properly accessible products.

Heilmann, Christian. Digital Web Magazine (2006). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility

The Principles of Design

We can group all of the basic tenets of design into two categories: principles and elements. For this article, the principles of design are the overarching truths of the profession. They represent the basic assumptions of the world that guide the design practice, and affect the arrangement of objects within a composition.

McClurg-Genevese, Joshua David. Digital Web Magazine (2005). Articles>Web Design>Theory

Client Centered Design

What is the difference between user centered design and usability? Until writing this column I didn't have the faintest idea.

Koch, Peter-Paul. Digital Web Magazine (2002). Articles>User Centered Design>Usability

Building Intranets that Matter

Despite best intentions, intranets often fail to deliver on the value they promise. Why? Companies take an 'if we build it they will come' approach. Too often, intended users don't come. And if people don't use the intranet, it will never deliver value.

Singh, Shiv. Digital Web Magazine (2003). Articles>Web Design>Intranets

Three Approaches to Intranet Strategy

Every intranet is different, and every section of a company’s Intranet can be used differently. There are a number of different methods to how an Intranet can be used to benefit a company. However, the three most popular and most valuable are knowledge management, collaboration and communication, and task management.

Lash, Jeff. Digital Web Magazine (2003). Articles>Web Design>Management>Intranets

A-Z Indexes to Enhance Site Searching

On a Web site or intranet each of the alphabetically arranged entries or subentries is hyperlinked to the page or to an anchor within a page to where the topic is discussed. Since an alphabetical index can be quite long, it is often divided into pages for each letter of the alphabet. Typically, each letter is linked at the top of the page allow a jump to the start of that letter’s section of the index.

Digital Web Magazine (2005). Articles>Web Design>Indexing>Information Design

How Did You Get Here?

One of the most overlooked aspects of designing a Web site is how users get to it. Separate factions are often devoted to promoting, designing, and maintaining a Web site, and the lack of communication and involvement can lead to apathy or confusion. Too frequently is it assumed that visitors are knowledgeable about the company and Web site, and that they enter through the home page. False assumptions about visitor entry can plague even a well-planned, well-designed site.

Lash, Jeff. Digital Web Magazine (2003). Articles>Web Design>Usability>User Centered Design

Apples and Oranges

Usability and design are two fields that collide more often than not. But why is that? Why can’t we all just get along and center our efforts around delivering a better product, a top-notch Web site or a user-friendly interface. Everybody would benefit from an open-minded, reciprocal understanding. Right?

Hilhorst, Didier P. Digital Web Magazine (2004). Articles>Usability>Design>Collaboration

Creating a Site Design Plan

All the books tell me to set goals for my site. OK. They say that those goals need to be measurable and definite. Fine. But asking my client, “What are the site’s goals?” never seemed to get me what I wanted. It occurred to me that a better approach might be to get some background info from the client and then set the goals and present them to the client for approval.

Morrill-McClure, Karen. Digital Web Magazine (2005). Articles>Web Design>Planning>Information Design

Persuasive Navigation

Persuasive navigation is navigation that persuades a user to do something. That something can be anything that you want the user to do—buy a product, sign up for a newsletter, or download a game. By understanding user needs and matching them up with business goals, you can persuade users to go where you want them to go, making them happy at the same time.

Lash, Jeff. Digital Web Magazine (2002). Articles>Information Design>User Centered Design>Persuasive Design

Information Architecture is Not Usability

The distinction between information architecture and usability may seem like semantics, but there are significant differences between the two disciplines. Though they are often discussed interchangeably, and practitioners are often well-versed in both, information architecture and usability differ in their scope and areas of focus.

Lash, Jeff. Digital Web Magazine (2002). Articles>Information Design>Usability>Semantic

Time To Change

The landscape of web writing has changed. The value of well-edited and reviewed content is giving way to faster, less-refined posts on blogs, comments and services like Twitter. It is clear from the dwindling number of article pitches that many prefer to draw traffic to their own sites.

Finck, Nick. Digital Web Magazine (2008). Articles>Web Design>Publishing>Writing

RESTful CSS

In this article I will propose a new method for organizing CSS that better maps to how popular web application frameworks are built; and I’ll also provide some helpful code to make this easy to accomplish. The examples I use are based on Ruby on Rails, but the concepts should be easily transferrable to other MVC frameworks.

Heffernan, Steve. Digital Web Magazine (2008). Articles>Web Design>CSS

Are Accessibility Statements Useful?

An accessibility statement provides website visitors with information on how to utilize any accessibility features implemented, together with known barriers and how to overcome them. This information is usually presented on a dedicated page within the website. This article will look at the benefits of providing an accessibility statement together with common problems, before evaluating whether accessibility statements are useful.

Tomlinson, Leona. Digital Web Magazine (2008). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Policies and Procedures

Know Your Site

A good starting point for planning the future of your website is to analyze what you already have. To some extent we are doing this all the time. That is how new projects happen. However, a more formal approach helps to better inform your decision-making throughout the web project. There are two ways to better understand your current website: qualitative and quantitative.

Boag, Paul. Digital Web Magazine (2008). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Audience Analysis

Capture a Screencast with a Mac

While putting together a good tutorial movie for your blog or for an article you’re writing requires some thought and preparation, and would benefit from extra time spent on post-processing, the good news is that capturing screen shots and screen movies can be done inexpensively on a Mac. Although I take a glance at the wider context of preparing an entire tutorial and give you some tips along the way, my focus here is on the low-cost software you can use.

Jordan, Miraz. Digital Web Magazine (2007). Articles>Documentation>Video>Screen Captures