Thoughts

Feb 04 2012

Derby of San Francisco: Unboxing a Beautiful Package Design

I just received my jacket from Derby of San Francisco. I’ve needed a good jacket for awhile now, and have been waiting for its arrival after we got a ‘VIP discount’ offer, and then had to wait for hours while the website crashed under all the pressure of the launch. Supposedly they sent out 500 discount coupons to get the jacket before it went public, and on the day of the sale they posted on Facebook: “Website crashed…. Over 5500 people clicked ‘Add To Cart’ and it CRASHED!!!” I usually leave quick-style when a website is unresponsive, but the discount and pre-public offering was worth me checking back in every few minutes. (500…5500…how many coupon codes did they give out?) [Read more…]

Jul 29 2011

The TOMS Shoes Catch-22: Everyone is Wearing Them

TOMS “One for One” Movement is brilliant. What better way to get our consumption frenzied society to give back than through shoes. Everyone loves shoes! [Read more…]

Jul 23 2011

From searching to send-off hugs: A perfectly persistent [offline and online] hotel experience

I just stayed at the Desert Star Hotel in Palm Springs, CA. And I really cannot say enough about the genius customer experience that owner Davy has created from beginning to end. If you go to Palm Springs, you must stay there! [Read more…]

May 26 2011

Make your restaurant website a magnet for drop-ins

As with everything else today, restaurant goers are on the go. And they are making decisions about which restaurant to patron on their mobile phones.

The faster mobile prospects can see what’s on your menu, hours of operation, and directions, the faster they’ll show up and be seated.Here are five ways to make your website ready for that on-the-go visitor who wants your info now: [Read more…]

Apr 02 2011

How college and university ‘web design’ degrees are failing our students

To help prepare web design students for real world web design, Colleges and Universities today must offer courses focusing on User Experience and User Interface design. You can have a complete, functional and informative website without Flash, video, and even jQuery, but you cannot do without solid, logical user experience and user interface implemented. [Read more…]

Mar 20 2011

Top 4 plugins every WordPress website should use

WordPress is an excellent platform to create your website on, but it does have its shortcomings: security, speed, and data backup. With the addition of the following 4 plugins, your WordPress site will be faster, more secure, and have a complete backup copy stored away. [Read more…]

Mar 11 2011

Using jQuery to duplicate a section of a form, maintaining accessibility

Blog post has moved: This blog post has moved to Tristan Denyer’s blog. You may continue reading, view the demo, and download the plugin there.

I recently had a client who wanted to allow the user to dynamically add a section to their form. No problem, I thought. Then I noticed that the duplicated section was using the same name, id, and for attributes, which means that the resulting submission would not plug in nicely to the database.
Continue reading, view the demo, and download the plugin on Tristan’s blog…

Jul 12 2010

What’s a benefit? And writing for dummies.

The editorial copywriter that I work with responded to me today (after I provided her with feedback on the headline that she submitted for this month’s article), “I guess I don’t understand what you mean by ‘benefit.’ In marketing yes, in editorial no—this sounds like [insert topic here] for Dummies—help me understand why this is important.”

Here is my response: [Read more…]