Things have changed a bit however in the year since my previous post. Newer libraries are available, different plugins, the carousel itself has some additional features such as indicators. Instead of simply updating my previous post with the new info, I thought I might delve into some of the more common questions that were asked in my previous posts and show how to do the wireups in a few of the other common touch libraries.

If you’re looking for code explanation, this post isn’t for you, refer to my previous post on this subject.

Without any further ado here are some other examples of adding swipe support to bootstraps carousel.

Adding swipe support with jQuery Mobile.

Unless you need the entire library I recommend that you build a custom version available here select the “touch” checkbox under events, the current minified version of that for version 1.3.2 is below (jquery.mobile.custom.min.js)

Include this as a separate file in your document source and then add the following script to enable touch support within carousel (note that #myCarousel should match the ID or class of the carousel you’re attempting to bind to).

Adding with TouchSwipe plugin

If you don’t want to use jQuery Mobile or are having issues with it, TouchSwipe is another jQuery option for you TouchSwipe Plugin download this and include it in your project. To wire up support for carousel add the following script. *Thanks to Eric for the slide indicator fix here.*

Adding support with Hammer.js

Hammer.js is designed to be a straight Javascript alternative, however Bootstrap’s carousel uses jQuery so you’ll be loading that library anyway. Hammer does work with jQuery through. Grab a copy of it Hammer.js then add the following script to your page.

Which one should I use?

That’s easy, use the one that fits your project requirements the best. Seriously. Each and every one of these libraries is under 5k minified and gzipped (unless you’re going with the full jQuery.Mobile library). Choose the one that’s the easiest for you to work with.

How do I add swipe support for more than one carousel on a page?

Adding more swipe support for more than one slider is very simple. Change your script to include additional targets. The script below is for jQuery mobile just modify it to fit the library you need.

Have something to add? Feel free to leave a comment below.

Happy Coding.

The post Adding swipe support to Bootstrap Carousel 3.0 appeared first on Laz Creative.

Maybe it’s an image similar to the one used by Tim Brown in his TED talk about design thinking:

“A priesthood of folk in black turtlenecks and designer glasses working on small things.”

Perhaps he lives here…

and occasionally makes his way back to civilization to collect one of these:

And while these images are rooted in reality for some, for every designer they will only, by necessity, represent snapshots in time — fragments of a much less glamorous truth that is disconnected from the fashionable image design has come to represent in our maturing industrial society.

What you probably won’t see featured in a mainstream design magazine or blog is this image:

After all, design is not art. It has to function in a practical world for the benefit of those using its object.

As Mike Monteiro in his book “Design is a Job” said,

“A Designer solves problems within a set of constraints. Those constraints often come in the form of available materials (…), the audience for whom the solution is intended (…), and business requirements(…). What kind of problems? Well that determines the kind of designer you are. If you’re solving the problem of creating a chair that doesn’t’ hurt your ass if you sit in it for eight hours, you’re a furniture designer.”

Design requires careful planning and consideration — terms professionals use to describe the wailing and gnashing of teeth that occurs before the fun, visual side of design happens.

Think of the montage sequence in a movie that condenses months of labor into a five-minute musical short. The real work of design, the non-glamorous part, happens in the “montage.” It is the preceding months of hard work and sweat that produces these familiar “midnight moments” of paparazzi fodder.

Aesthetics and beauty, the visually gratifying finishings of our trade, which ARE important to marketing and branding efforts, take second place, by necessity, to the practicality of design.

Take for instance the chair analogy. Of what use is a beautiful chair that will not support the weight of the person for whom it has been designed? It would, in fact and by definition, be no chair at all, and the person who created the resulting pretty pile of rubble, no serious designer.

Design is a job — and jobs require work.

If you doubt it, take into consideration just a few quotes from one of the most revered and influential designers in history who invented the phonograph, motion picture camera, and the lowly, little light bulb:

• Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
• I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
• Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
• Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
• Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. 
• The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.

These are the resolute sentiments of a Thomas Alva Edison, a man whose work-ethic-fueled design innovations greatly influenced life around the world and, both figuratively and literally, helped light the way to the modern technological era.

So what keeps this designer going in the heart of the montage, at 3am (besides some serious caffeine intake) when the pressure is on and the solution to the design problem at hand seems elusive? A similar sentiment by another great man, Winston Churchill, given to me as a graduation gift by my father, Anatol Lazanowski:

It sits in front of me as a constant reminder, through the work day and night, of what success in the face of difficulty and adversity requires. It is something my father knows more than a little about as someone who is a first generation American — born from the peril of World War II, migrated to the U.S. at the age of 7 (poor and not speaking a word of English), served in the U.S. Air Force in Vietnam, was university educated and is now an accomplished engineer — the kind that solves complex industrial problems for a living.

This rock that sits on my desk, a simple paperweight, is one of the most important, influential gifts I have ever received — a true reflection of my father’s spirit and ethos. One day I hope to pass it on to my son, but most importantly I hope to pass on the priceless legacy behind the sentiment.

So you want to succeed at your endeavors and you are not quite sure what it will take? The answer is painfully and profoundly simple: Never, never quit.

Easier said by a paperweight than done, I know, but consider the following:

It has been scientifically validated that with each expression of determination and stick-to-it-ness, your willpower increases, working like a growing muscle of focused fortitude, making future challenges in life easier as you exercise the discipline of resolve.

So when the challenges of life, design or otherwise, seem insurmountable, and you are tempted to “throw in the towel,” take a second to think about the not-so-glamorous work of a designer who endured 10,000 failures so you could have brighter light in the darkness. Think about the words of a man who’s steel-like determination in the face of uncertain outcome helped defeat a dreadful Nazi military machine, so millions of people and generations to follow, probably yours, enjoy the right to live and the freedom to pursue their dreams.

Consider all of this, and more, and make a simple life-altering commitment:

“I will never, never quit.”

Photo credit in order of appearance:

• TED Conferences, LLC
• Bohlin Cywinski Jackson
• The Webby Awards
• Troublemakers Inc.

The post The Not-So-Glamorous Side of Design appeared first on Laz Creative.

There are a lot of website measurement tools out there. Finding the right fit for your website’s goals is important. Each of the packages below are tools to help you find out what is going on with your website. Using the wrong tool for the job will just lead to frustration. Some of the tools below are designed to work with a wide range of sites, while others have specific niches where they excel.

In the end, the best tool for the job is the one that you’re able to use effectively. If you like the layout, look and feel, report generation, etc., of a specific solution, and it provides you with relevant and actionable metrics, then it’s the right tool for the job.

Google Analytics — Free

The 800 pound gorilla of the web measurement space. Google Analytics has a very broad reach, designed to give actionable metrics to just about everyone. Installing it is a snap. Simply insert a small javascript snippet on the page(s) you want to measure, and you’re done. It’s widely used, and therefore has very broad support. You can find lots of help with this product on numerous blogs or from consultants. It collects a lot of data points and can give you an enormous amount of information about how visitors interact with your website.

On the flip-side, it gives you enormous amounts of information, so much so that it can easily overwhelm people, or get them focused on the wrong metric. It’s also yet another web property controlled by Google, which can be a pro for some and a con for others, depending on your privacy point of view. While GA does have goal tracking and “event” tracking, it’s not as robust as more specialized solutions.

Pros:

• Easy to install
• Wide support
• Free
• Lots of data

Cons:

• Information Overload
• Event tracking isn’t as strong as it could be
• Another Google Web property

Clicky  — Free to $50+/mo.

Click has been around for a long time, and it shows a bit in their interface. The pages and reports lack the polish of some of the other platforms. Visual appearance and navigation systems aside, the service does provide a lot of very good information. The amount of data coming at you can feel a bit overwhelming (much like Google Analytics) but the dashboards do have most of the important information available in a click or two.

One of Clicky’s “big” differences is in how bounce rate is calculated. Most other analytics packages track based on the next page event. Measuring bounce rate in this way can be a bit misleading especially for content providers. With Clicky, if a visitor lands on a page on your site and does not leave the site within thirty seconds, the traffic is not considered a bounce.

The bigger the package you get with Clicky, the more features you get, but the base (free up to 3000 page views per day) will get you the basics.

Pros:

• Free — Low cost
• Twitter integration
• Better bounce rate

Cons:

• Navigation systems and reports lack polish
• Information overload

Piwik— Free

Piwik is an open source analytics software. It is also the only one on our list that is self hosted. Piwik was introduced in 2007 as a replacement for PhpMyVisites. It offers the standard line offering out of the box. Piwik was created with expandability in mind and has a reasonable library of plugins that extend the base product. Development of Piwik remains active with version 2.0 on the horizon.

Since the product is self hosted there is no cost for the product itself. Being self hosted can be a benefit and a curse. It’s a bit more difficult to set up than your hosted methods. You’ll need to get a little bit dirty in your hosting control panel and transfer some files to your web host. There are some good tutorials on how to do this.

A big benefit here is you completely own the data, and you can, in theory, keep it forever if you have enough available space. You don’t have to worry about someone deleting or turning off access to your analytics data. On the other hand, being self hosted results in a little bit more overhead on your server. For most sites this isn’t an issue, but as your site scales up with traffic you might want to consider server load and perhaps move the package to its own host.

Pros:

• Open Source
• No Cost
• Active plugin development

Cons:

• Installation is a bit more difficult
• Self hosted can create performance issues.

Gaug.es — $6/mo — $48+/mo

Gauges is a newer player in the analytics space, but it’s got the weight of GitHub behind it, so longevity issues shouldn’t be a concern here.

Gauges is dedicated to getting the basics done right. The interface is very well done, with information streamlined and handsomely presented. Information is clear and concise, and you’ll never be in danger of drowning in data.

If you’re looking for goal analysis, funnel tracking, etc., this is not the platform for you. In fact, if you sell anything on your site, you’re not likely to find much value in Gaug.es. If you’re looking for simple, easy-to-understand reports and your core metric is site visitors, then this is a great alternative for you.

Front end developers will especially love some of the report features. Want to know what percentage of your site’s visitors support flex-box? Two clicks and you’re there.

Pros:

• Simple/Polished interface
• No data overload
• REST API and top-notch developer features

Cons:

• No Goal/Event tracking
• Not enough data

Real Time Analytics

I’ve separated out a couple of “Real Time Analytics” packages here, although all of the analytics packages listed thus far have real time information. The packages listed in this section are more focused on this niche. If you’re a content publisher that lives on the news jacking cycle, these packages may be of more interest to you.

Woopera FREE — $499+/mo

Woopera has been around for a long time. If you’ve seen some earlier views of this package, I’d advise you to give it a second look. The UI is polished clean and easy to navigate. Features abound in the package from run-of-the-mill analytics to its real time integrations.

One of Woopera’s neat features is direct engagement with visitors. Once identified, the user retains a name (e.g. “visitor 1” will remain “visitor 1” on subsequent visits).  You can rename these visitors to personalize each engagement. Woopera also allows you to open a chat window directly with a site visitor.

Site funnels are supported and user metrics are oriented more toward action items than toward page views making Woopera a strong contender in the action/event space

Pros:

• Clean easy to use interface
• Real time customer interaction
• Funnel Support

Cons:

• Price (though it’s consistent for the niche)
• Reports are a bit underwhelming

Chartbeat — $10/mo — N/A

Chartbeat is all about the here and now, and it does this beautifully. Chartbeat was designed for content publishers. All of its measurement metrics are based on what is happening on your site in real time. See social engagement, shares/likes as well as which articles are currently hot on your site. It does this in a very easy-to-read, big dashboard way. For a simpler website, I don’t see this platform providing much value. However, if you’re heavy into content with multiple posts per day and want a platform to help you react to the now, Chartbeat may be what you’re looking for.

At the time of this writing Charbeat is working on a product for people who sell items through their website, but it’s not currently available. If you sell items on your website, the current Chartbeat platform isn’t going to provide you with much value.

Pros:

• Beautiful clean user interface
• Social integration

Cons:

• Lack of historical reporting
• No funnel concepts
• Not for eCommerce sites

Event Driven Analytics

Much like the real time analytics category, some (but not all) of the aforementioned packages offer event driven analytics. The packages listed here focus specifically on this space and do it very well. If you sell products online or offer software as a service, you would do well to take a look at one of these packages.

 Mixpanel — Free – $2,000+/mo.

Mixpanel excels at giving you tools to slice and dice your customer events into meaningful data for your site or app. If, for instance, you wanted to understand which Google AdWord campaign is currently yielding the highest number of converted sales, it’s very easy to segment the data that way. Full funnel tracking, customer engagement, and retention are also available.

Mixpanel tracks events that you configure. This differs a bit from standard analytics packages that track all page views on a site. With events you can measure what you’re really interested in, such as a step in the sales funnel, a video download, a song play, or a contact form submission. Mix panel is also not limited to a website.  Event tracking can also be done in iOS or Android apps, or other web apps.

Mixpanel also supports people plans which can be used to track behavior of specific users or groups of like users. In the same way you would slice and dice an AdWords stat, you could easily find out the lifetime revenue of a specific customer, or customer class.

Setup is going to be a bit more in depth than a typical analytics package. You can’t just add a javascript snippet to a site footer and forget it. You do need to tell Mixpanel when to track an event. Their documentation is good, and this isn’t overly difficult, but it is more in depth than a typical package.

Mixpanel has a lot to offer. It can get expensive if you’re a very high volume site and are tracking hundreds of events, but there is overwhelming value in the data provided.

Pros:

• Easy to use interface
• Very specific and actionable event metrics
• App integration

Cons:

• Setup is slightly more difficult

Kissmetrics –$150/mo — $500+/mo

Kissmetrics is the “more mature” player in the space, having been around a little longer than Mixpanel. Where Mixpanel focuses a little bit more on the event space, Kiss focuses a bit more on the people space. Where “people” seems to be an afterthought with Mixpanel, it’s front and center in the Kissmetrics platform.

The interface in Kissmetrics feels a bit clunky as compared to the Mixpanel interface, which is clean and modern.

Pros:

• Very specific and actionable event metric
• Focus on customer
• App integration

Cons:

• Setup is slightly more difficult
• Interface needs a bit more work.

Both Kissmetrics and Mixpanel are excellent platforms if you’re a SasS (software as a service) provider or eCommerce site.  Both will provide you with great data. These platforms are under constant development and are rapidly adding features, so check out both offerings before you make a decision and see which works best for your situation.

Final Thoughts…

I should note here that we are not affiliated in any way with any of the providers on this list. The opinions expressed about each platform are based on our experience with using each of them. This list is also not exhaustive. There are plenty of other solutions out there as well, some free and some that are cost prohibitive to all but the largest of enterprises.  As we stated at the start, the real tool for the job is the one that you are able to use most effectively.

Stay tuned for the next article in our series when we discuss analytic terms and what they mean to your business.

Have something to add to the conversation? Feel free to comment below.

The post Website Analytics – Google and other measurement tools appeared first on Laz Creative.

Imagine the ability to create ceaseless variation in the small space of .1cm – 7.62cm  (the speculative range of a snowflake’s size in diameter). It is both wonderful and incalculable. It also points to the human potential for creativity and originality.  After all, most of us are designing in much larger spaces, albeit shrinking viewports with expanding pixel densities for interactive designers.

On the subject of originality, Ravi Zacharias, a renown Christian apologist observed that, in complete ignorance, one might gaze at the night moon and believe it to be a source of light, when in actuality the moon simply reflects the original light of the sun.

Ravi used this illustration to contrast the concept of original truth to competing claims that borrow, or reflect, the “light” of original truth — making them easily mistaken for sources of truth.  I will use this analogy to broach a difficult subject in the creative profession.

We walk a fine line as designers. We are receptive beings by nature, drawing inspiration from innumerable sources. With so many publications and interactive forums dedicated to showcasing, instructing and inspiring designers, the line between the illuminated and the “impostor” work becomes, at best, a bleeding one.

Most designers are not perched in high, windowed towers looking down on a serene valley while creating master-works in a zen-like state. The brutal reality is, many creatives work in the trenches under extreme pressure to perform creative miracles with severe budget and/or time constraints. Let’s not forget the occasional client turned self-appointed creative director.  The reality is enough to make the staunchest design purist want to cut corners and compromise.

So why write this post? Initially, because I saw this ad

and I remembered the original campaign:

Secondly, and more importantly, I believe we can all do better. If you doubt my sincerity, know I am writing this post having been both on the giving and receiving end of this issue more than once.

As creative professionals, we owe it to our clients and ourselves not to cross the line that divides inspiration from imitation. Not in the interest of preventing the potential humiliation of being caught with our “smocks down,” but because we are cheating ourselves, our clients, and denying our audiences the chance to experience something unique — the mark of something genuine that only you could offer: your snowflake-like fingerprint.

After all, your genetic code is speculated to be as unique as, and infinitely more complex than, a snowflake. Add to this your frame of reference: the structure of concepts, values, customs, views, etc., by which you evaluate data, communicate ideas, and regulate your behavior. More simply put, your frame of reference equals the sum of your life’s experiences and emotions, resulting in a genuinely unique perspective.

The possibilities for originality are endless.

Every day and every project is a new opportunity for creativity and originality. Under design duress, will you choose to have the courage to create, or will you cheat opportunity and cross the line by copying the works of others?

Take the time and have the faith to create.  If your design must be similar, let it be unique —  like a snowflake.

Infographic Credit: LOV

The post Design like Snowflakes appeared first on Laz Creative.

This blog series will help you understand the importance of website analytics, how to effectively use these tools and give you some general guidance on marketing campaign management. This series is intended to serve as introductory information. If you’re an expert in web measurement and analytics, this series isn’t for you.

Goals

If you’ve spent time and money on your website, chances are pretty good that you have a specific goal in mind for your site. Depending on the type of site and its function, these goals will vary. However, in order to effectively measure how your website is performing, it is essential that site goals be clearly defined.

If you use your website to sell sprockets, your goal may be to increase the number of e-commerce transactions your site generates per month. If your site is a blog, perhaps your goal is to increase the number of return visitors to your blog, or the number of people subscribing to your RSS feed.

If you don’t already have a defined goal, you should get started now. Take some time and figure out what mission your website should accomplish. Measurement without a goal is meaningless measurement. In order to know that we’ve achieved something we must measure it against some sort of standard we wish to reach (i.e. a goal).

Measurement

Prior to digital marketing, measuring ROI on marketing dollars was not an exact science. Measurement tools were difficult and in some cases completely impossible to implement. Measuring the increase in business was the typical “success” metric, but it was a bit arbitrary since multiple outlets were often used to spread the word. Knowing exactly what part of the campaign was working and where money was being wasted was too often a mystery.

In the digital age, it’s extraordinarily easy to know exactly what is working. Information can be obtained with tools that are free, and are very easy to implement. Adding a quick snippet of code to all the pages on your website gets you a veritable gold mine of data. This data can be leveraged to generate priceless insights into how your visitors are engaging and interacting with your website.

Getting the data is a great start, but simply gathering information isn’t going to affect your bottom line. We need to use the data to apply measurement to our site goals. We’ll need to ask ourselves some questions about the data we see, how it applies to our site and what (if any) changes we should consider in order to improve on our websites goals.

We all know the five W’s and the one H. These apply just as well to improving our sites goals.

• Who — What do we understand about the people who are interacting with the site?
• Where — Both physical location and more importantly, where did they find our site?
• What — What are they doing on our site? What pages are they visiting? What actions are they completing?
• When — What time of day are the majority of the people coming to your site? What day of the week has the most frequent return visitor?
• Why –This one requires some educated guesses. Since we’re not talking with a customer directly we can’t ask them why they came looking for a specific item or piece of content. We can make some pretty good guesses though, based on behavior patterns.
• How — How is the visitor using the site? Are they browsing on a mobile phone or tablet? Are they coming back at specific times of day or night. Do they avoid filling out forms?

These are just a few examples of some questions we can ask to quantify how customers are using our site, and how that relates to our overall website goals. Because online marketing changes at a rapid pace, constant measurement is essential to ensure your website’s success.

There are lots of tools to help you measure your site. Find the one that works the best for your website and goals. Stay tuned for our next article in our series when we discuss some of the most popular measurement tools and their pros and cons.

Continue to the next article.

As always if you have something to add to the conversation, feel free to comment below.

The post Website Analytics – The importance of measurement appeared first on Laz Creative.

While working on a recent project, I was asked to add swipe support to the image slider being used on the site. This particular site was using Bootstrap as its foundation and I was using the bootstrap carousel component for the slider.

So I did what any self respecting coder does and googled “Adding swipe support to Bootstrap Carousel”, not because I am lazy (well maybe just a bit), but because I prefer not to reinvent the wheel. This got me some results, but ultimately nothing that was currently functional.

Here is the solution. It’s actually very simple and it’s not at all limited to the boostrap carousel plugin, using another slider? No problem, this solution will work just as well on it.

The how to part:

First and foremost we need to support touch events and there is already a solid library for that jQuery Mobile. What we don’t need though is all of the weight that jQuery mobile has with all of the forms widgets and other items.

Here is a minified version of the core components that are needed to support basic touch events:

/*! jQuery Mobile v1.2.0 jquerymobile.com | jquery.org/license */
(function(a,b,c){typeof define=="function"&&define.amd?define(["jquery"],function(d){return c(d,a,b),d.mobile}):c(a.jQuery,a,b)})(this,document,function(a,b,c,d){(function(a,b){var d={touch:"ontouchend"in c};a.mobile=a.mobile||{},a.mobile.support=a.mobile.support||{},a.extend(a.support,d),a.extend(a.mobile.support,d)})(a),function(a,b,c,d){function x(a){while(a&&typeof a.originalEvent!="undefined")a=a.originalEvent;return a}function y(b,c){var e=b.type,f,g,i,k,l,m,n,o,p;b=a.Event(b),b.type=c,f=b.originalEvent,g=a.event.props,e.search(/^(mouse|click)/)>-1&&(g=j);if(f)for(n=g.length,k;n;)k=g[--n],b[k]=f[k];e.search(/mouse(down|up)|click/)>-1&&!b.which&&(b.which=1);if(e.search(/^touch/)!==-1){i=x(f),e=i.touches,l=i.changedTouches,m=e&&e.length?e[0]:l&&l.length?l[0]:d;if(m)for(o=0,p=h.length;oe||Math.abs(c.pageY-n)>e,o&&!d&&H("vmousecancel",b,f),H("vmousemove",b,f),F()}function M(a){if(r)return;C();var b=z(a.target),c;H("vmouseup",a,b);if(!o){var d=H("vclick",a,b);d&&d.isDefaultPrevented()&&(c=x(a).changedTouches[0],p.push({touchID:v,x:c.clientX,y:c.clientY}),q=!0)}H("vmouseout",a,b),o=!1,F()}function N(b){var c=a.data(b,e),d;if(c)for(d in c)if(c[d])return!0;return!1}function O(){}function P(b){var c=b.substr(1);return{setup:function(d,f){N(this)||a.data(this,e,{});var g=a.data(this,e);g[b]=!0,k[b]=(k[b]||0)+1,k[b]===1&&t.bind(c,I),a(this).bind(c,O),s&&(k.touchstart=(k.touchstart||0)+1,k.touchstart===1&&t.bind("touchstart",J).bind("touchend",M).bind("touchmove",L).bind("scroll",K))},teardown:function(d,f){--k[b],k[b]||t.unbind(c,I),s&&(--k.touchstart,k.touchstart||t.unbind("touchstart",J).unbind("touchmove",L).unbind("touchend",M).unbind("scroll",K));var g=a(this),h=a.data(this,e);h&&(h[b]=!1),g.unbind(c,O),N(this)||g.removeData(e)}}}var e="virtualMouseBindings",f="virtualTouchID",g="vmouseover vmousedown vmousemove vmouseup vclick vmouseout vmousecancel".split(" "),h="clientX clientY pageX pageY screenX screenY".split(" "),i=a.event.mouseHooks?a.event.mouseHooks.props:[],j=a.event.props.concat(i),k={},l=0,m=0,n=0,o=!1,p=[],q=!1,r=!1,s="addEventListener"in c,t=a(c),u=1,v=0,w;a.vmouse={moveDistanceThreshold:10,clickDistanceThreshold:10,resetTimerDuration:1500};for(var Q=0;Qa.event.special.swipe.scrollSupressionThreshold&&b.preventDefault()}var e=b.originalEvent.touches?b.originalEvent.touches[0]:b,f={time:(new Date).getTime(),coords:[e.pageX,e.pageY],origin:a(b.target)},g;c.bind(i,j).one(h,function(b){c.unbind(i,j),f&&g&&g.time-f.timea.event.special.swipe.horizontalDistanceThreshold&&Math.abs(f.coords[1]-g.coords[1])g.coords[0]?"swipeleft":"swiperight"),f=g=d})})}},a.each({scrollstop:"scrollstart",taphold:"tap",swipeleft:"swipe",swiperight:"swipe"},function(b,c){a.event.special[b]={setup:function(){a(this).bind(c,a.noop)}}})}(a,this)})

Or build you own custom version here (just select the touch event and it will include everything you need)

Take this and include it in your site script, or simply create a new script and add it into the document.

<script src=”jquery.mobile.custom.min.js”></script>

Now that we have touch support we simply need to hook that up to our image slider. That my friends is a pretty simple task:

<script>
$(document).ready(function() {
   $("#myCarousel").swiperight(function() {
      $("#myCarousel").carousel('prev');
    });
   $("#myCarousel").swipeleft(function() {
      $("#myCarousel").carousel('next');
   });
});
</script>

Taking a quick look at the code above, we’re attaching the jQuery mobile swipe right/left events to the carousel next and previous options. If you’re using another slider, simply hook to their next/previous handlers.

I’ve placed a demo online here for review.

Happy Coding.

The post How To: Adding swipe support to Bootstrap’s Carousel appeared first on Laz Creative.

If you’re like me, you think to yourself:

Awesome, I can write good content!   …  What is good content anyway?

With that question in mind, you head to Google. “What is good content,” you ask. What you get back is a cacophony of ideas. Most often I see:

• Get your title right.
• Pepper your keywords into your post.
• Write lists. People love lists.
• Make your post scannable.
• Continue the conversation.
• Make a call to action.

I’m not telling you anything that you don’t already know here; you’ve seen it all.  After all, you probably found this post because you Googled “what makes good content?” The problem with all of those bulleted items is that they are junk. It’s all internet noise.  This is not to say there aren’t good articles, lists and the like that fit those criteria. However, when everyone follows the same “this is good” formula, you end up with the unfortunate scenario where the gem is hard to distinguish from the junk — which begs the question: What is good content, honestly good content?

In my opinion, defining good content in a practical manner is pretty straightforward: Provide the content consumer with new and useful information. This can be a point of view about an existing subject matter or something that forays into entirely new territory. The content itself, however, should be created by you and help the reader solve some sort of problem, or provide a useful insight. The short definition of good content: Give the end user something useful. Herein lies the real challenge.

Everyone has a different point of view which is informed by a unique, fingerprint-like frame of reference.   These differences, wonderful and terrible, are what make the world go round.  However, with a full spectrum of inherent differences of opinion and definitions of what is considered useful, the content creator may, understandably, tremble a bit before clicking “publish.” 

While it is impossible to land on useful 100% of the time, there IS a synergy in what we find to be useless, regardless of individual opinion or point of view. Keyword stuffed articles, the same top ten lists we’ve seen on hundreds of other sites that shows up on yours — the list goes on. Noise, the natural enemy of good communication, is unfortunately abundant on the Web. If you find yourself contributing to the noise, it is fair to assume people will generally find your information useless.

Do not despair.

Here are a few rules that should apply to writing good content:

1. Stop writing for SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Seriously just stop it.

   Understand that SEO is a side effect of good content. Good content gets shared. Good content gets backlinks. Good content enjoys discussion. Why? Because, by its nature, good content is interesting and people share and talk about things they find interesting. How many times have you looked for something on the Web only to stumble onto drivel of awkwardly worded sentences in order that the author could meet some sort of keyword goal? It’s frustrating, it’s almost always useless and, as search engine algorithms continue to improve, it will be buried. According to Google’s Matt Cutts:

   “Good content trumps SEO.”

   If you don’t believe me, you should believe the head of Google’s webspam team. If you don’t believe him, then you may want to peruse the details of Google Panda and more recent Penguin update, a change to Google’s search results ranking algorithm. The new reality, and what has always been the truth, is good content is SEO.

2. Don’t write the same opinion piece that’s been published half a million times before unless you have something new and insightful and useful to add to the discussion. Anything else is just noise.
3. Keep it brief. If you’re writing a ten thousand word dissertation on why the Internet Explorer is the mark of the beast, your content consumers are going to get tired and leave. Every Web standards compliance-minded developer already knows IE is the devil. Get to your point so that we can comment on how much we agree (can anyone disagree?) with your assessment.
4. Grammar doesn’t matter. Ok, well maybe a little bit. If you’re writing a blog on the English language, then worry about MLA. For everyone else though, most of your readers aren’t going to care that you missed an oxford comma. You should go back and proof your work to make sure your idea comes across in a clear and concise manner, but don’t obsess over grammar. As Seth Godin has said:
   

   “Just say it”.

There are many more items that play into authoring quality content on the Web, but continuing would violate rule #3 … Plus we want to save room for Part 2.

What do you think makes good content? Be sure to weigh in below.

The post What is good content anyway? appeared first on Laz Creative.

Now, I’m not going to take part in disparaging one of the world’s finest chairs that once, very comfortably, supported the hindquarters of yours truly. What I will say is that by using this line of reasoning we should be in business long after Justin Beiber has 20 grandchildren (okay, bad example). It’s true, fancy pants we ain’t. Think of us as Billy Beane’s 2002 Oakland Athletics competing in an industry that has been conditioned to expect the “Yankee fineness.”

Allow me to paraphrase for those who aren’t sports fanatics and/or haven’t seen the movie Moneyball:

“There are rich agencies and there are poor agencies, then there’s fifty feet of crap, and then there’s us.”

We do not come from money. We do not have investors. Shiny offices with glass plated conference rooms? Yet to be built. Aeron Chairs? Nada. What little we have we are proud to say we own, and have earned by the sweat of our rapidly mouse clicking index fingers. The “soda money,” my friends, is “on the field.”

Now don’t get me wrong – we like nice things and would like to take our clients on long, leisurely tours of our immaculate facilities. We would like them to see their beautiful reflections in our stainless steel conference room table as they sit comfortably in a fleet of (that’s right) Herman Miller Aeron chairs. These things would be nice – a wonderful expression of our exceptional talent and capabilities. But if prematurely, at what expense?

The lesson behind the Aeron chair theory? Perhaps we are all too eager to portray financial success long before we have learned to properly respect a dollar? We are caught up in seeming, rather than being. We expect success without sacrifice.

Call me old-fashioned, but I believe we owe our clients a greater level of stability. After all, we would like to think they will continue to remain in business for many years to come, able to pay our invoices by making prudent financial decisions. Would we not be nervous if they were feverishly spending money they didn’t have as though they were trying to keep up with the United States federal government? Where do we expect this “keeping up with the Joneses” will lead?

In the cogent words of Lane Pryce, “Pennies make pounds and pounds make profits.” As long as this holds true, we will keep a careful watch over our pocketbooks. Not because we are greedy and want David Justice to suffer the indignity of purchasing his own soda, but because our talent will best serve our clients by staying in business. For now that means keeping the soda money on the field while our butts dream of Aeron chairs. Pardon the crude mixed metaphor.

Do you have an alternate point of view or an “Amen?” Please share your thoughts with us. We’d love to hear from you.

The post Keeping The Soda Money On The Field appeared first on Laz Creative.

From the makers of Coraline, a unique 3D feature animation “creeps” into theaters on August 17th. Along with the social buzz on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram you may have seen ads for Paranorman while watching the London Olympic games. The following spot was cleverly placed in the women’s gymnastics team final, and I will admit it produced a chuckle. Most noteworthy, to date Paranorman is the biggest stop motion movie ever made.

For those of you who appreciate the painstaking retro techniques of the artistic craft, specifically stop motion animation, you will appreciate the genius, if not insanity, of the masochistic effort undertaken by the Portland based animation studio LAIKA.

The specific technique used to generate the unique look of Paranorman is referred to as replacement animation where each new character sequence is created by removing and replacing a facial component or mask on the character puppet – sort of like the world’s most elaborate Mr. Potato Head. To generate just one second of feature animation required approximately 24 mask replacements. Each mask was individually made by utilizing 3D Systems ZPrinter® 650, a full color 3D printer that overlays many tiny layers of powder until you have a three dimensional object. The face is then dipped into a super glue to seal and strengthen the mask.

The creation of the the feature’s puppets were no slouching effort either:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcESvy3XRis

To give you a better feel for the painful scope of this project, let’s look at a few numbers:

• 66,400 rare earth magnets
• 31,000 – The ballpark number of individual face parts printed for the production
• 25,000 purple gloves
• 9,000 – The number of different faces it took to animate Norman
• 8,000 – the number of pounds of printing powder required to make the components for the feature
• 5,000 exacto blades
• 729 sheets of sandpaper
• 427 human years
• 300 puppets
• 77 – The number of gallons of super glue required
• 50 stages
• 2 gallons of white resin
• 1 massive warehouse

Photo Credit: LAIKA.

The post You Don’t Become a Hero by Being Normal, or a LAIKA Feature Length Animated Film For That Matter appeared first on Laz Creative.

“So, you design blog interfaces for some of the worlds largest corporations but you don’t have your own blog?”

The sheer embarrassment of our trademark answer “The shoemaker’s children go barefoot” became too much. So here we are. We have a blog. So much to say, so little time.

Or is it:

We’ll let you be the judges. But please, be gentle. We bruise easily.

Photo Credit: Despair, Inc.

The post Hello, World? appeared first on Laz Creative.