Doepud Web Design

Gone phishing

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 16:32:15 +0000

phishing,web surfing,security

Internet speed and web accessibility

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 15:39:09 +0000

According to a report conducted by the Office for National Statistics (PDF 123kb), 16.5m households now have broadband access which is an increase from 6.6m in 2006. This is great news for web designers and web application developers who need to deliver a top quality experience to their end users without compromising too much on functionality. However, it doesn't mean they should forget about users with a slow internet connection.

The age-old issue of making a web site or web application accessible to everyone is still a big challenge today, especially in relation to internet speed. Designers and developers understandably want to provide slick and user-friendly experiences but this often means using web technologies that require a fast internet connection, like video or JavaScript-powered applications. It's would be very easy to ignore a potentially large share of the market by not considering users on devices with slow connection speeds (like mobiles) or users in developing countries who are faced with geographic limitations.

So it's a great to see forward-thinking from the likes of Facebook who recently lanched a lightweight version of their extremely popular social site. It's called Facebook Lite and perfectly illustrates how inclusion is possible, for even the most demanding web applications.

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Things to ask before you redo your website

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 20:05:46 +0000

Seth Godin presents questions that you should ask if you're thinking of redesigning your website. It's the perfect companion piece to the article we wrote last year entitled Questions to ask before hiring a web designer.

Godin asks obvious but important questions like What is the goal of the site? and How much money do we have to spend? How much time? but also asks things more pertinent to specific business types, like Do we want people to call us? Are we earning permission to follow up? and Does showing up in the search engines matter? And there's undoubtedly many more that could be added to the list in relation to your own business. The important thing to remember is that the planning and (re)designing of a website is not an easy task. Whether your business is large or small, there's always many aspects to consider but as Godin reminds us, Does the organization understand that 'everything' is not an option? How true.

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Netiquette and capital letters

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 20:12:04 +0000

In the wake of the recent sacking of a woman from New Zealand for composing and sending emails that used lots of capital letters (including bold and red-coloured text), Laura Schocker of BBC News Magazine poses the question "Why do CAPITAL LETTERS so annoy us?". She goes onto describe the historical traditions of capital letters in print and how the traits of typographers have influenced today's web users.

When writing emails or blog posts on the internet, the use of italics and bold text is the recommended way to emphasise a word or phrase, however more recently the use of capital letters seems to have become the accepted norm. Perhaps it's laziness (just hold down the Shift key when typing) or just igorance (not knowing how to make text bold or italic) but the use of capital letters these days is regarded as aggressive behaviour or poor etiquette.

Our advice? Follow the simple rules of netiquette (net etiquette) and you'll be fine.

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Email marketing with SEO in mind

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 09:56:04 +0000

Rand Fishkin offers tips on email marketing with SEO in mind

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Turning a shopping basket into a wishlist

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 22:27:12 +0000

Research from Amaze and University of Glasgow reveals that customers use the shopping basket on your ecommerce site as a wishlist

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Achilles Heel

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 10:29:14 +0000

We recently launched a fresh new design for the popular Glasgow-based running shop Achilles Heel.

Alongside the clean branding, provided by the excellent design-ed, we built-in a bunch of great, new features including:

Customer Account area - a secure log-in area for customers to view and edit their order details
Search filtering - some fancy filtering functionality to help customers find exactly what they want, e.g. display only size 10½ shoes in the sale
Blog - not just Achilles Heel news but a varied range of running-related items with a dedicated team of bloggers
Poll - to get feedback from customers as well as encourage them to interact with the site

It may just be coincidence but since the relaunch there's been a noticeable increase in sales!

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Nobody cares about your website

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:13:06 +0000

Nobody cares about your website blasts Gerry McGovern in his post about what not to do when marketing your new service or product. He reminds us that the reason customers signed up for your newsletter or grabbed your RSS feed first place was because they liked the quality content (you know, special deals, top tips, free stuff... whatever). In short, give them what they came for and don't waste their time with niceties and small talk. I tend to agree.

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Protect yourself against disgruntled customers

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 09:47:11 +0000

OUT-LAW have posted some interesting news related to web site disclaimers. A recent landmark ruling suggests that if you explain to your customers via a disclaimer that the information on your site shouldn't be trusted you will be protecting yourself against potential lawsuits:

simply tell your visitors to seek further information before they rely on what they read and, hey presto, you're off the hook

Get those disclaimers attended to immediately!

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Occupational Therapy: An Introduction to Assistive Technology

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 12:37:34 +0000

This great little five minute video from Jennifer Hunt provides a good introduction to assistive technology (AT), covering a definition of what AT is, why people need it, where it gets used and potential barriers to using AT.

The purpose of this project was to create a distance learning tool to be used by occupational therapy students to establish a foundation of basic knowledge of assistive technology and its purpose for occupational therapists as well as consumers of occupational therapy.
The multimedia movie serves as a tool in the distance learning communities of occupational therapy students. Its visual and auditory impact allows the student to self-direct scholarly exploration and promotes flexibility and diversity in learning environments.
Jennifer Hunt

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How to choose stock images for your web site

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 10:47:13 +0000

Tips on how to select stock images for your site and the best places to get them!

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Deafness and the User Experience

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 16:03:38 +0000

A List Apart published an insightful article last year by Lisa Herrod which focusses on Deafness and the User Experience; a subject that all accessible web designers should be aware of. The main thrust of the article is that simply adding audio captioning to video is not enough:

we need to stop thinking of deafness as simply the inverse of hearing - we need to understand deafness from both a cultural and linguistic perspective.

On so many levels, from understanding deafness culturally and linguistically to semantics (like the difference between captioning and subtitling - captioning is the transcription of speech and important sound effects while subtitling is a written translation of dialogue) to technical appreciation, like how a phrase or passage of text is best transcribed (or translated) to understanding how a web site should be designed and built, it's clear that there's no quick-win solution that will ensure a website is accessible and usable for Deaf users; it's the combination of all these points.

HTML 5

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 00:27:52 +0000

An overview of where we are with HTML 5

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nooked

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:37:27 +0000

We're excited to announce the latest version of nooked which was launched last week.

nooked offers publishers and merchants the opportunity to connect effortlessly through a concept called feedcommerce. Feedcommerce translates as enabling distributed ecommerce. In essence nooked takes a merchant's RSS feed of products and distributes these products via widgets. And then publishers add these widgets to their sites to enhance and compliment their own content... oh, and to make money as well!

The idea is if you publish, for example, a photography web site you can display product offers related to photography. Your visitors get added value and the potential for picking up a great bargain. And you get the chance to make money when visitors click-through and purchase something! It's a win-win situation.

Here's an example widget:

Loading widget...

If you've got your own site and want to add a nooked shopping widget go to the nooked site and get started. If you want to make money from traffic through your widget you'll need to sign up first.

If you're a retailer and have a list of products available as an RSS feed then you can get your products onto nooked shopping widgets and in front of the right people. Simply upload your products and pay when someone clicks-through to your online shop. Join the nooked retailer network.

What a great idea: feedcommerce!

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Questions to ask before hiring a web designer

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 21:35:08 +0000

Questions to ask before hiring a web designer

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A new site for LS Tierney Ltd

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 11:30:42 +0000

We're proud to announce a new brochure site for LS Tierney Ltd, an IT consultancy firm based in North Lanarkshire, UK. This is a simple brochure site with a secure contact form. We designed the logo too!

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Stop getting spam by teaching Thunderbird which emails are junk

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 12:45:57 +0000

This article article explains how to teach Thunderbird what emails are spam and what emails are legitimate.

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Changing your saved password in Mozilla Thunderbird

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 18:16:53 +0000

Changing your saved password in Mozilla Thunderbird

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Modifying your options in Mozilla Thunderbird

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 18:10:41 +0000

This article describes how to modify some basic options in Mozilla Thunderbird to achieve a sound basis for sending and receiving emails.

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Modifying your account settings in Mozilla Thunderbird

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 18:08:37 +0000

This article describes how to modify the basic account settings in Mozilla Thunderbird

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Miles the painter

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 18:05:07 +0000

We're very proud to announce a new Doepud client site for Miles the painter.

Based in Callander, Perthshire in Central Scotland, Miles the painter provides all domestic and commercial painting services, ranging from a simple freshen-up to larger, commercial work.

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POP or IMAP?

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 17:26:22 +0000

This article explains the difference between POP and IMAP by comparing the pros and cons of each.

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Read your email with Mozilla Thunderbird

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 17:18:40 +0000

This article describes the process involved in setting up Mozilla Thunderbird in order to access and read your emails.

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Just Browsing

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 13:27:45 +0000

An overview of web browsers and assistive technologies.

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Your site is launched, now what?

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 13:04:25 +0000

A guide to helping you make the most of your new site.

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