Mindfly Web Design Studio's Blog

Sweet Tweet at Boundary Bay

blogger.nospam@nospam.mindfly.com (Theresa Carpine) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 04:09:00 -1200

When local Bellingham brewpub Boundary Bay Brewery & Bistro tweeted that they were hosting a special beer and dessert tasting event for local Tweeps on Tuesday, June 30, 2009, I jumped at the chance to participate. As regular readers of my Mindfly blogs know, I love to eat and I especially love Boundary Bay beer.

Boundary introduced a Summer Dessert Menu, concocted by Donica Burnett of Bantam Cakes, earlier this summer and decided to consult their fans in pairing these delicious desserts with their craft brews. By enlisting Twitterers, Boundary fans not in attendance could follow the comments along on Twitter, envying every mouthwatering bite and drink.

I ducked out of the studio a little early to head to the Beer Garden for Sweet Tweet. Seeing the set-up of tables under a white tent on a warm summer day was a real treat, and the place settings with personal menus, red cloth napkins, and four empty glasses waiting to be filled with Boundary Bay’s finest brews gave the “focus group” a fancy feel.

Many of the Sweet Tweeters assembled are connected in Bellingham web development, social media, and marketing, but we also had a WWU student and a New Jersey-based photographer in our midst. As we waited for the beer and dessert to arrive, the group compared mobile devices, agreed on a hashtag (#bbst), and took a survey of how long we’d been Twittering; usage ranged from one month to “as long Twitter has been around.” We also enjoyed the fact that this was probably the one and only social situation where Twittering while eating and conversing with others was okay—nay, encouraged!

The first marvel of the event was the sight of Boundary Bay craft brews in pitchers, a rare if not completely unheard of occurrence. And then the dessert came. Kudos to Donica for the lovely presentation of each dish; they were almost too pretty to eat…almost.

I started with the Strawberry-Celebration Shortcake Shortcake and expected the super-sweet dish to pair well with the Lightner Ale, a light American-style ale, but found that the Dunkles Bock, a full-bodied German-style bock, complimented the sweetness of the fruit. Tweeters also recommended dipping the shortcake alone in the chocolaty Oatmeal Stout.

Speaking of the Oatmeal Stout, I loved the rich, black stout with the Cherry Porter Ice Cream Cake (photo above). The creaminess of the ice cream and the moistness of the cake brought out the coffee flavors in the stout, making this a perfect post-dinner pair.

I saved the Larabee Cake for last. This gluten-free dish offers an explosion of diverse flavors—chocolate mousse, fresh blueberries, and a lavender-lemon glaze—and this is where the Lightner Ale worked for me. It provided a refreshing finish that didn’t overpower the intense flavors of the dessert.

As a special surprise at the end of the tasting, Donica served up figs glazed in a stout wort reduction. Although I’m not a huge fan of figs (it’s the texture), you could drizzle that chocolate sauce on just about anything and I’d eat it. We were also treated to the recently tapped Imperial IPA to “clear the palate.”

Sweet Tweet turned out to be a phenomenal way for loyal fans and customers to feel like they have a say in the mission and service of Boundary Bay. It was definitely a win-win event; the Tweeps enjoyed sampling the beer and dessert, and the Boundary Bay team—General Manager Janet Lightner, Public Relations guru Amy Jones, and Dessert Chef Donica Burnett—received useful feedback on their menu and what their patrons want.

As opposed to an open-ended tweetup where you’ll find web developers and restaurateurs and realtors and politicians all clamoring about with no definable agenda except networking, the Sweet Tweet gave attendees a specific task during the event. Having that shared interest allowed a diverse group of people come together so that the networking aspect can occur naturally.

I definitely recommend using Twitter to reward and engage customers in promotions and events for your business. And I’m on board for any other Boundary Bay Twitter event in the future…may I suggest Eat & Tweet to pair brews with new entrée items or Cheap Tweet for Happy Hour specials?

Get Boundary's recap and links to more photos at Sweet Tweetin' at Boundary Bay Brewery.

Please Don't Hurt the Web: Why I Love Firefox

blogger.nospam@nospam.mindfly.com (Janae Wiedmaier) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 08:15:00 -1200

When I started working here almost a year ago (only about 20 days to go until I hit that mark, yay!) we were just starting to implement moving into CSS3 styles on objects and really focusing on the differences between browser capabilities. We're all aware, whether it be through rants on this blog, on our personal blogs, or through very frustrated tweets, how much of a pain Internet Explorer 6 is when it comes to making websites functional in such an old browser. And, when I say functional, I mean just that. We don't even demand that our sites look the same (in fact, we often insist that they don't), but merely just work in that poor dying horse of a browser.

That said, this blog post isn't about ranting about IE6, no matter how easy it is to do. What I really want to talk about is the fact that yesterday, Firefox 3.5 came out. Here at Mindfly, we've been waiting with baited breath to see it (not only be a faster browser, which is their big selling point) implement some of the quirky things that other browsers have put into play or that they're taking onto themselves.

For some time now, we've been working with things like rounded corners that function in CSS3, but do not validate for CSS2, nor work in all browsers such as Internet Explorer. However, with IE8 coming out a few months back, Safari 4 shortly before that, and now Firefox 3.5 yesterday, I really feel like browsers are moving forward into a new era of making my life easier. Despite the fact that IE still doesn't support rounded corners.

I've been talking about typography for some time now and our options with it. At first it was image replacement, @font-face, and sIFR. More recently I discussed the awesome use of cufon. Now I'm going to take a step back and say that thank heavens Firefox 3.5 has introduced support of @font-face. Legality issues aside, as that's a can of worms on it's own, Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer (amazingly) users will now be able to view sites that use @font-face with no extra work included through javascript or flash. There are rumors that Opera 10 will also be supporting this. If you want tips on how to put @font-face into your site, Kyle has written a great blog post about it. I am reminded, unfortunately, that one of my favorite browsers - Chrome - is not supporting @font-face. Yet. We can only hope that Google will implement it in the future (it can't be that hard, can it? Safari is a webkit browser as well!).

What are some of the other things that Firefox is implementing for us designers out there? You can get the full list at developer.mozilla.org, but my three favorites are:

Text Shadow: No longer will we have to use image-replacement to get text shadows in Firefox! Huzzah.
Box Shadow: Since Safari and Chrome both support box shadow, it's nice to see Firefox jumping on the bandwagon and making it easier for us to add nice little shadows to items on our sites that aren't text.
Improved Psuedo-Selectors: let me just say this (as it's only one of many) - :nth-child! If all browsers supported this, my life would be complete. I can't even count the times I have to select item 9 in a list of 13.

I'm looking forward to the chance to play around with all the new features and see how sites will render across browsers now and in the future. I also have to give Mozilla a thumb's up for their continual work to allow us to easily make sites look gorgeous in their browser. Between their support of plugins like firebug, the web developer toolbar, and colorzilla, I can't imagine trying to build a website without them.

Social Media Automation

blogger.nospam@nospam.mindfly.com (David Johanson) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:40:00 -1200

These days, social media automation seems to be a controversial Social Media and Internet Marketing topic. At what point is mass media marketing considered spam? If you have a Twitter account and ping off your blog are you considered a robot? I mean you wrote the blog post right?

Online Social Media is spam in a philosophical sense. You are not truly communicating in an original manner. You are using a robot like voice converted over to text replicator to simulate actual conversation. So at what point does this become or is this considered, computer generated malarkey?

In a perfect world...never mind, why would you even reference such a place? Let us leave the realm of intellectual debate and enter the real world. In social media, you cannot please everyone, believe me I try. I read somewhere that one of the greatest speaker’s was that he never wrote anything down therefore, nobody could dissect what he had said. In social media, when you get indexed, anyone can read it. Boy it sounds as if I am already defending my position. I am actually defending my clients. I work with real business owners who work in the real world. It has become apparent that today’s business owners don't have free time, let alone, the ability to dedicate more time to the “fad” of social media marketing. What I have found is happy successful clients make a happy successful business. Meaning, I will not pitch snake oil, but I will push what is effective and popular.

One of Mindfly's forward thinking clients is Aramco ExPats. Recently, we set up both a Twitter account and a Facebook fan page to make it easier to keep all of the ExPats and families current with new events. In this case, www.AramcoExPats.com already provided a very successful and informative blog feed. Therefore, resources for the blog updates and event notifications are already in place. To make it easier to update their Twitter we can set up an automated system that ensures that all important posts on the site will ping off to the Twitter and even Facebook Fan Page.

The point I am trying to make is this: Properly utilizing resources already set aside for PR is a time-saving tip for business owners. If you are already shouting out a message why not let social media's online word of mouth engine publically relate and duplicate? I believe this is already happening for anyone that watches a commercial or reads a newspaper. Is every commercial during the Super Bowl going to be something I want to see? No. Is every article in the Bellingham Herald going to be something I want to read? No. Marketing is about community and not all about me. Some people look at social media like a phone call or even group texting. I assure you, most business owners would love to replace their expensive paper syndication with green online multimedia marketing. You should and can always have a hub (usually your website) and if you can set your site up to automatically post to more social friendly outlets go for it, or you will become the robot. Welcome to the digital age.

So if you think social media automation is all about your 100 annoying twitter posts filling up my Facebook feed when I'm just trying to see what my buddies are up to, hide them; I do, I might even hide you. Don't let a few bad apples spoil the whole network. All in all, most social networks are fun places to converse freely ((except Myspace which is pure evil) no I'm kidding-kind of). So put down the torches and pitch forks and understand that social networking is just that-social, so understand as business owners jump on board so do their personalities and some of us just don't live in a perfect world.

Web Developer Weems and the Case of the Multiclass Bungler (AKA, IE6)

blogger.nospam@nospam.mindfly.com (Kyle Weems) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:10:00 -1200

A lot of conversation has happened in the past few months (that I'm aware of) regarding applying OOP principles to CSS. Well, it's called OOP CSS. I'm not really sure if we're actually dealing with the technique is truely object oriented, but the result is close enough for those that have been bandying about the term.

What is OOP CSS? I'll let the amazing Nicole Sullivan tell you in her Web Directions North presentation here, which I had the fortune of attending in the flesh (or meatspace, if you will. Do we still call it that?) If you're too pressed on time to watch through the presentation, then shame on you. However I'll offer a crude explanation: OOP CSS is making "modular" classes of CSS rules that take advantage of the ability to apply multiple classes to an element.

For more info, you should take the time to check out Jeff Croft's take on the subject here. In particular, check out the many comments.

This methodology can allow for some great reusability with CSS rules, with the intended result of reducing your stylesheet size. As an example that sprung out of Jeff's post's many comments, you could have elements representing success or error messages on a page that share the "message" class (with, perhaps, styles to help present a popup box-like appearance), but they also each have their own specific second class to help them gain unique styling traits, with the error message having the "error" class and the success message having the "success" class. This helps reduce duplicate styles, because both types of elements get the common "message" styles with them being defined only once in the CSS, with only the unique styles being declared separately.

So what's the problem with this technique? That's actually a question that's bound to open a fistfight of spaghetti western proportions among designers thanks to the strongly held opinions about semantic versus presentational markup, the futility of trying to mimic programming techniques with CSS, etc. But from my viewpoint, it's a good tool for helping simplify stylesheets, by which we save our clients money, which makes us more competitive in giving them more for their dollar, which is a must-have trait in this current economic climate.

But there is a major problem that we all need to be careful about, despite my approval. What is it? What possible blemish could exist?

Think hard. It's the Internet. What possibly could ruin any good thing on the Internet?

That's right. It's the undead shadow of life-stealing hunger that constantly radiates from Redmond. Despite having driven several silver stakes through its chest, even its own creator has been incapable of putting the dark beast to sleep. I speak, of course, of Internet Explorer 6.

I have another, shorter, four letter name that I like to call it. I've been informed by my employers that I cannot use that word on this blog. So instead I'll call it Carl, Black Beast of the Filthiest Bog.

Carl is a jerk. Or perhaps Carl huffed paint in high school and now simply doesn't know any better. Let this be a lesson to you kids, huffing paint will not make you into a good web browser. (Cue NBC's "The More You Know" Theme.) In relation to this problem, Carl has a really bad defect. Carl screws up when trying to render styles that are applied via multiple element declarations.

What do I mean by that?

Let's say you've got elements with the following class combinations: "error message", "success message", "error button". You create a style that applies to messages, but you want to create a style that also applies to just error messages (but not error boxes). What would you use as your rule descriptor?

If you said ".error.message" or ".message.error", you've been paying some attention in class. However, you've got a problem when it comes to IE6 rendering these styles. IE6 is only capable in these types of declarations of reading the last class in the descriptor. So the first example would apply (in IE6) to all "message" elements, and in the latter it'd be all "error" messages. This quickly makes things difficult for OOP CSS if you're not extremely careful in how you name your elements and what styles you give to what rules.

Having a hard time believing me? Please take a look at this test page, which uses lists as a simple example. View it in any average browser, then pull out your dusty system from the dark ages and take a look at it with IE6. You'll notice a slight problem with the list-item numeral markers on one of the lists.

What do we do about this? There's a number of options. As much as I'd like to say "screw IE6" and just ignore it, that's not going to work unless the site you're building simply doesn't get IE6 visitors (which seems unlikely considering it's market share). You can also take an approach like Andy Clarke proposes with his Universal IE6 CSS and serve IE6 a generic stylesheet to make it look clean and simple rather than feeding it the styles that the other browsers will receive. Or you can think out your class names with great care and make sure to arrange your styles with utmost care to prevent the need to refer to a group of styles with a mutli-class descriptor...

What you can't do is go willy nilly and ignore the problem, or you'll lose any cost savings you gained with the OOP CSS techniques in the first place as you revisit IE6 again and again to make the page usable for people stuck on that doddering malcontent of a browser.

Multiclass descriptors. Carl. Mortal enemies. Keep them apart if you want a clean site.

10 Lifesaving Tips to Ensure Your New Website is a Success.

blogger.nospam@nospam.mindfly.com (John Raasch) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 08:59:00 -1200

In particular order, leading up to #1, but certainly not an inclusive list, the following is a sampling of ideas that relate to successful websites. The temptation was to do a “top 10” list, however websites are all different and their markets unique.

10. Choose your web hosting company carefully.
Hosting costs are certainly worthy of consideration, but in the grand scheme of things they are a small part of the business operating costs. More important are the smooth functioning of your site, your email and your sanity. Don’t scrimp to save a couple bucks a month only to find your site down on a Friday night before a long weekend. Lost sales/credibility are irretrievable.

9. Keep in touch with your clients.
Great example of something we know we need to do, but few do well. If your website can capture any info from folks, you have the ability to stay in contact with them. Newsletters, surveys, and web 2.0 (things like Twitter and Facebook) work magic for future business. If nothing else, you are gaining name recognition.

8. Stand out from the crowd.
If you are in a competitive field, having a memorable and effective web presence is critical. In this day and age, template sites will get passed over without a second glance. Obviously, “standing out” can mean many different things, but the takeaway should be that your site needs to be noticed and acknowledged.

7. Contact me please!
So easy to skip this one…Make it super simple for folks to reach you, if that’s what you want. Is your email handy on all pages? Phone numbers? Seems sort of obvious really, but so easy to miss.

6. Keep content fresh.
This one has lots of reasons to be lower on the list, but I had to choose. Website content is so important from a SEO standpoint that it has the potential to be the most important aspect of your site. Think about adding a blog to your site. Keeping relevant content and semantically appropriate links, headers, etc. (really needs its own article).

5. Mobile Accessibility
Countries from around the globe are noting an increase in the number of people connecting to the Internet from mobile devices like the iPhone. As a result, ensure that your website is accessible from these devices. Create a set of CSS files to target this market.

4. Clearly define the “Call to Action”.
What do you want your audience to “do” once they’re on your site? Read something? Buy something? Fill out a form. Although the “to do” list can be extensive, make sure that whatever you want folks to do is blisteringly apparent.

3. Make the site easy to navigate.
Again, navigation ease seems obvious, but often missed. Ease of navigation is one of those intangibles that trip up even experienced designers. Just because you know your website backwards and forwards, doesn’t necessarily mean that your visitor knows where to go and what links to click. (Have you thought about doing a usability study? Mindfly can help.)

2. Design your site for your audience.
You may like rocket ships and dancing pink flamingoes, but is that appropriate for your audience? The site can be (and often is) all about you, but don’t over-do it at the expense of losing your customer. Remember your call to action. See #4

(Insert Drum Roll here)

1. Define your audience.
Spend some time researching your target market. Often, inexperienced designers produce designs that are simply “just designs.” Designing for the sake of a cool design has its place, but your new website needs to pull its weight. Instead of a missed opportunity, define your audience upfront and the project will be a success.

More on Typography: Ease Up With Cufon

blogger.nospam@nospam.mindfly.com (Janae Wiedmaier) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:09:00 -1200

Since my last post (about typography... which conveniently is also my last post), I've learned a few things:

I need an upgrade of Photoshop. Photoshop 7 just isn't cutting it for design. (Could I be any less subtle to the powers that be? Hint. Hint. Hint.)
Typography is a nightmare. Finding the font that you want that fits the site, then picking one of the three afore-mentioned (obnoxious) techniques, and then going through the actual implementation of it... and then having to debug it across the browser... Right. 'Nough said.
There has got to be a better way.

Luckily for me, you, and everyone else out there, there does seem to be a better way. It's not full proof. It's not even perhaps known of. But it does seem to fix a good 99% of my issues with type and the web, functions in all the browsers, and also is at least relatively secure. Don't quote me on the license issues for it, though, those aren't my specialty.

What is this mysterious bout of problem-solving amazement? One simple word. Cufon. Now, try to pronounce it. I think I've heard it about five different ways.

The next question, I'm sure, is what exactly is Cufon anyway? Well, that I can answer. Cufon is an implementation of javascript, SVG, and Canvas that slaps your font into place after the browser has loaded your website with an amazing amount of speed and efficiency. So... why do I like it better than image replacement, @font-face, or perhaps sIFR? Simple:

Compatibility: Cufon works in all browsers except IE6. Since it's run by javascript, it doesn't require you to have the most recent version of flash on your site. In fact, it doesn't require flash at all (and thank god). Not every browser has implemented the use of canvas or SVG, but with javascript mixed in, every browser (except stupid old IE6) is at least able to run Cufon.
Usability: Cufon is amazingly easy to install. Ridiculously easy in fact. Plug your font into their encoder, allow it to spit it out, and plug it in. For those of us who are CSS gurus and not developers, this means something very important: Cufon works like a breeze with CSS! For any of you who have been using sIFR to do your subbing in, and I have tried it myself so I am talking from experience, how difficult is it to actually A. Target a piece of HTML with sIFR and B. Actually then apply the correct CSS to it without tying yourself in a knot over word-spacing, line-height, and all the other joys of actually forcing your new flash text to over-write your old text in that pretty manner that you want? You know what I mean. With Cufon: Apply it, target it with javascript (Cufon.replace('h1')) and... voila! Apply your CSS as normal. No extra instructions, no obnoxious work-arounds, just put it all in and make it pretty. No stress and no grey hairs.
Speed: Taking compatibility into consideration with this one, @font-face is fast. It plugs your text in like normal. In the browsers it works in. Image-replacement is fast enough. You have to wait for the images to load and in the meantime, no text appears at all. sIFR is the slowest piece of $@%! on the planet. Luckily for us, Cufon pops up (leaving your regular text there until it does, styled with the CSS as normal so it looks nice) as soon as your javascript kicks in. Which is pretty darn fast in all the modern browsers.
Safety: As I said, I can't swear by the legality of it, but Cufon does imbed the font you upload into a new javascript file for you and requests that you specifically apply it to your domain. People can probably steal all the code and put it in their website, but they won't be able to download it for use at least.

From a designer's standpoint, 2 is probably the most important to me. I cut down on applying beautiful fonts to a website in under half the time it would have taken me using any of the other programs. And because I can't swear to be the smartest cookie in the jar, Cufon has a great set of instructions that pretty much spell out how to use it on your site. Add to that, it's compatible with most of the major javascript libraries, including jquery (my favorite) and prototype. Kyle gives a few more awesome reasons as to why he, as a devigner (developer + designer) loves it.

If nothing else, give it a shot. You might find that it blows you right out of the water.

How the Internet Can Save You Money

blogger.nospam@nospam.mindfly.com (Theresa Carpine) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 10:39:00 -1200

Are you sick of hearing about “these difficult economic times” and reading articles that offer tips for saving money? I hope not because this is another one. Here are a few Internet options that can help individuals save a few dollars, and they also allow small businesses and organizations to market their services for fairly cheap.

Twitter Specials

Although Twitter is a great way to drive traffic to your site, small businesses don’t even need a website to open an account. To promote in-store business, offer occasional Twitter Only specials. Just tweet “Mention Twitter and get 10% off,” and see if any customers turn up. A Twitter account provides an inexpensive advertising forum for businesses, and a web-savvy customer will love saving money on all the special deals they’ll catch around town.

One of my favorite local businesses to employ this kind of promotion is Mindfly’s neighbor, Film is Truth. I wasn’t even planning to rent a movie, but when @FilmIstruth tweeted, “Mention Twitter and get any DVD rental for just a buck” a few days ago, I couldn’t turn it down. And when I returned my rental the next day, I was definitely more likely to rent another flick since I saved a few bucks the previous day.

Knowledge is Free at the Library

Speaking of movies and saving money, a great alternative to renting movies at regular prices or maintaining a Netflix subscription is with the Bellingham Public Library and Whatcom County Library. This option is especially nice if you’re interested in documentaries and other non-fiction titles (they have lots!). You can search their Online Catalogue and place holds on any films or TV shows available in the system. You might have to wait a little bit longer to see some new and popular titles, but it’s all completely free (as long as you can avoid overdue fines).

If there’s something you’d like to see that’s not in the catalogue, you can fill out a Purchase Suggestion Form; basis for possible purchases are determined by appropriateness of the request to the library collection and available funding. If your suggestion is added to the library’s collection, the item will be held for you upon its availability.

Along with videos, you can also request CDs and, of course, books through the library.

Pay Bills Online

This one is nothing new or original, but it’s still a useful tip. Going paperless when paying bills is an easy way to “go green,” and you’ll also save money on stamps. A stamp here and there doesn’t seem like much, but it can really add up by the end of the year, especially now that prices for First-Class stamps have jumped again. I could go into a rant about how much stamps cost when I was a kid, and I could really sell it if I said “two bits” instead of 25 cents, but now we’re getting off-topic. The point is that most banks and utility providers offer opportunities for online payment; look into it.

Live Smart (and Cheap) with Smart Trips

I feel like I can never praise Whatcom Smart Trips enough. It’s a great, local resource that helps you keep track of all your “smart trips,” which is anytime you walk, bike, ride the bus, or carpool in alternative to a single-person car ride. Along with the knowledge that you’re doing your part to reduce congestion on roadways and air pollution, and saving money on gasoline, Smart Trippers are eligible for plenty of savings and prizes.

After you sign up, log on each month and record your trips. After 10 Smart Trips, you’ll get a Discount Card for special deals at over 100 Whatcom County businesses. Each time you make 100 Smart Trips, you'll receive a gift certificate to a local business. Participation as a Smart Trips sponsor is a great way for small businesses to attract customers who might not have otherwise visited the store or restaurant.

Now that you’ve saved a little bit of money, you can put a few bucks towards a beautiful new website, just like you've been dreaming of all these years.

SMX Advanced, SEOmoz, and Twitter…I thank you.

blogger.nospam@nospam.mindfly.com (Maya Belka) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 04:29:00 -1200

As a relatively new SEO marketer, I’ve been forced to catch up at a rapid pace. I’ve been through the WebCEO training class, watched SEO videos and follow industry gurus like Rand Fishkin, Pete Cashmore, and Danny Sullivan on Twitter. Attending the SMX Advanced conference would have exponentially augmented my knowledge; however, shelling out $1,495 for an all access pass (or even opting for the $795 in-house SEM exchange) was well out of my price range. But, not to despair! SEOmoz and Twitter swooped down and rescued me.

Being a SEOmoz Pro member, I was offered a chance to mix and mingle with the SMX crowd. I recruited Karina, another Mindfly employee, to join and we headed down to Seattle to spend the evening shaking hands, schmoozing, and absorbing as much SEO knowledge as possible. The first person I had the pleasure of meeting was none other than Geraldine Fishkin, Rand Fishkin’s lovely wife. From there, I met Rand, and proceeded to move through the A-list. I gained valuable insight into the importance of backlinks, the many uses of SEO Book, and the best little jewel ever…the SMX hashtag.

Upon returning to work, I quickly entered #SMX into my twitter search field and was overwhelmed by the plethora of SMX related SEO information. There were links to SMX highlights, personal blogs, liveblogs, presentations, interviews! Here I was, feeling sorry for myself as if I was the poor kid that couldn’t go to summer camp, but now? I hit the jackpot. As I type, the tweets pour in and I find myself sifting through the wealth of information my fellow #SMX tweeps provide. For the cost of gas, I have the tools necessary to advance my SEO knowledge and provide my clients with improved, up to date customer service.

So why am I posting this blog? Because there is always hope. Never let the lack of funds prevent you from advancing your education. The advent of social media and free web materials makes it possible for the average Joe (or Sue?) to participate, interact, and gain valuable knowledge without losing their shirts. I am grateful for SEOmoz Pro, but Twitter? You’ve done me proud. I am forever in your debt.

Paper Prototyping and Why Planning Your Website Is More Important Than Building It

blogger.nospam@nospam.mindfly.com (Heather Alvis) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 07:17:00 -1200

Before starting a web project, one of the most important questions I ask our clients is "Why do you want a website?" "What do you what your website to do for you?". Generally, the answer lies somewhere between wanting to get more clients and to have the site help bring in more business. The web has become the most important marketing source to most businesses, and our clients are seeing the importance of a strong web presence.

The first step in getting a website is to determine how to get a website, and lucky for us, people come knocking on our door to help them. We realize that our clients have expertise in something, but that it might not be websites, or anything to do with the internet. People come to Mindfly because we have expertise with current practices in web standards, web design, and online social networking. So, it may come as a surprise that we're putting a lot of energy into the beginning steps of a project, before we even turn on a computer. Getting back to the basics has turned out to be a fantastic move on our part, and we're doing more and more work with paper, scissors, tape and pencils than we've ever done before.

Enter the brainchild of Mindfly's Web Design: the Paper Prototype. Now, we don't want to divulge all of our secrets, but it is certainly worth sharing that a well planned website is the cat's meow. Not only are we able to better estimate the cost of a project after creating a paper prototype, but we are also able to visually show the client a project scope. Designers and coders develop a common understanding of the basic functions and layout of the design, and we start to identify red flags before it's too late. With a wireframe done in pencil, we can create a mock-up of any page of a site on the fly without color, images, fonts, and content getting in our way.

Here's how it works: Take a large sheet of paper that serves as the monitor. Then using a pencil, block out each section of the page that the client is requesting. For example, a page might include a menu, a sub-menu, featured products, subscribe to newsletter, opening paragraph, large photo, and a Flickr feed. All of these elements can be drawn roughly with pencil and cut out into simple shapes. We can then discuss hierarchy and importance of elements by specifically pointing at them and moving them around the page. The best part of a prototype is that it starts to generate new ideas and ways of thinking about a design. With everyone in the room looking at the same layout, the "ands" and "buts" and "what if's" all get addressed together. This has proven to be much more efficient for sites where a lot of content is to be presented to the users on a single page. The designer doesn't have to come up with all the ideas by themselves, and everyone has a chance to feel included and as if their concerns have been heard.

No matter if you're planning on having a "simple" site or a complex mix of videos, blogs, forums and articles, we can't stress enough the importance of planning it out on paper first. For your next web project, consider asking for a planning paper prototyping session, or try one on your own. The benefit of having Mindfly involved is that we have years of experience with the web that helps us develop questions, generate new ideas, and can evaluate the complexity of certain features. Regardless, if you include a planning stage in your next project, we can assure you you'll be much happier with the overall process, and you'll probably be more successful than if you didn't.

I love my job

blogger.nospam@nospam.mindfly.com (Sydney Cole) — Tue, 26 May 2009 14:17:00 -1200

Over the long weekend, some friends of mine were chatting at a BBQ. They were discussing the benefits of not having a job that you feel too passionate about. If you love music, for instance... you oughtn't do it for a living because you'll only ruin your love for it. You'll start to hate music. Doing it all day, and being forced to make money at it will eventually cause you to resent the very thing you once loved so purely. My friends went on to say that it would be better to do what you love in your spare time. And for your profession, do something mundane but practical. Like IT (technology).

I didn't say a word. But inside I was laughing my rear off - what with me being a computer programmer... and never having worked in any field other than IT (except when I taught piano in high school, but I digress).

For the record, I'm one of the lucky ones who has the best of both worlds. I get to have the practical down-to-earth job in a practical down-to-earth profession, AND I get to be passionate about what I do. I love the challenge. I love the logic. I love the clients. I love everything about it.

I'm pretty dang lucky, I guess.