If you were given a choice when first taking your “brick and mortar” business online to develop a website or set up a Page on Facebook, and you weren’t allowed to do the other which would you choose? Would you build a website and give up marketing through Facebook or would you set up a Facebook page and give up having your own website?
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As much as we might wish it weren’t so, we know errors are going to happen on our sites and in our applications. So far in this series of posts we’ve looked at the different types of errors that may occur along with some strategies for guiding users to take correct actions. This week we’ll finish up with a discussion of strategies designed to prevent errors and minimize the effects of errors when they do occur.
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This past weekend Leo Laporte made a troubling discovery about his social network that’s having him question everything he’s done with social media over the last few years and giving him one giant buzz kill.
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When designing websites and other applications are there ways we can guide users to make correct choices, help them interact with our systems, and generally make our systems more usable? A variety of strategies exist to improve our interface designs and today we’ll talk about 2 of them.
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Over the last week an interesting conversation developed on my small business forum on the subject of collecting a deposit before beginning service based work like design. Standard practice is for web designers to collect a deposit for a project prior to starting work. There are some reasons why as well as a few issues associated with the practice.
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Errors happen. It’s inevitable that any system will fail at times. Often failures are attributed to human error. Most, though are really due to design errors. As designers what can we do to minimize errors and their effects on our sites and in our applications?
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With every decision and action you take, with every message you communicate, you build your brand. Those decisions, actions, and messages will appeal to some more than others and in so doing will determine who your clients will be. Ultimately it’s your brand decisions that choose your clients.
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Redundancy is the use of more elements than necessary to maintain system performance in the event that one or more elements fails. It’s probably not a word you think about much when creating a new design, but it’s an important principle of design and one you use all the time, even if you aren’t thinking about it.
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Search results for a phrase like “web design services” should quickly tell you there’s a lot of competition out there. Why should someone hire you instead of any of those other companies listed in the results? What is it that you offer that they don’t? What is it that you do better? How you answer is how you differentiate your business and stand out in a crowded market.
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