A Better Responsive Web Design Process for 2016

For responsive websites, you should present actual, responsive examples for a client’s review. This is where responsive prototypes can be valuable to your process.

Using responsive prototypes is not the same thing as designing in the browser, a practice which many web designers feel stifles their creativity. You can still use your graphics program of choice to establish some visual direction and layout choices, but you should then translate those choices into an interactive presentation.

When designing web pages, there is a temptation to work on the easiest pages first so that you have some deliverables to show your stakeholders. This quicker turnaround may be nice, but in your design process you should focus on the most challenging and extreme scenarios.

Take the common example of designing a page that displays articles (blogs, press releases, case studies, etc). That page is sure to have a title near the top. What happens to the design when that title is two or three times longer than what you have designed for?
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5 Steps for Managing Creative Feedback – HOW Design

If any part of your assignment is unclear, ask for more information up front. You can avoid sticky feedback situations later by doing this work early on.

Sometimes the client or suits won’t ask you for exactly what they need. Read between the lines to find actual business objectives (“We need to drive more web traffic to eCommerce site.”) behind their tactical requests (“We need a cool website.”). This is what they need. If those objectives aren’t clear, be sure you get answers before you start creating solutions. – See more at: http://ift.tt/26ljJMI
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How to Optimize Web Images for the Best User Experience

Move image optimization into the initial design phase of the project. Making decisions about size, complexity, and selection of images at this stage can help ensure that pages aren’t overly “heavy” when they launch. For example, while not specifically an “image” optimization, the use of a large number of web fonts can add greatly to page load time as browsers load these assets. For an optimal UX, limit your selection of web fonts.
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PDF/A-1 1A and 1B – A Difference Without a Distinction

PDF/A-1 1A and 1B – A Difference Without a Distinction
It turns out that the following information about PDF/A may be more than you need to know, but forewarned is fore-armed!

There has been a great deal of discussion about PDF/A as a specific PDF file format and some confusion about the two flavors of PDF/A. PDF/A is subdivided into 1A and 1B – these are each referred to as a “Compliance Level”. For legal practices, the question at hand is whether a specific Compliance Level will be required by the Federal Courts under new rules for PDF/A format. Federal Courts began requiring that electronic court filing documents be submitted in PDF/A format in 2011.

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Introducing The Periodic Table of Content Marketing

Strategy

The fundamental key to success. Planning and focus is essential. You need a clear strategy, mapped to your long-term business goals.

Format

Content comes in many different shapes and sizes. Note that you can use multiple formats for a single piece of content. Slice and dice!

Content Type

These are based on the common types of content that work well for our business. Many of them will work well for your brand too. Sometimes you’ll use multiple content types for a single piece of content. You could file this periodic table under a few different types.
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16 of Our Most Popular Lemon Desserts

Includes Pan-Baked Lemon-Almond Tart (20 minutes)
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Get Employees Involved in Content Creation

Make the content submission process easy
Consider that some employees may not be tech savvy, even though they can write content that converts. To streamline the submission process, create policies and procedures that are easy to follow. You may consider (if you’re not already) using the following platforms:
WordPress. Create multiple admin logins for employees and set them to Editor status.
Email. Create an email address for submitting content, for example, content@company.com. You may consider setting up parameters around subject lines, i.e., January 2016: Social Media Content, to ensure that content is forwarded to the right person.
Dropbox. Create a folder for content. You may want to create subfolders, e.g., podcasts and case studies. The pro account will cost around $100/year.
Google Drive. If you use Google Docs, you may want to use Drive. You get 5GB of free storage. After that, it’s $1.99/month for 100GB and $9.99/month for 1TB.
Think tanks. Encourage and allow brainstorming se
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Finding the Right Color Palettes for Data Visualizations

To make sure color palettes are extremely accessible and easy to distinguish, they must vary enough in brightness. Differences in brightness are universal. Take any monochromatic color palette and test how it looks in Protanopia, Deuteranopia, and grayscale mode. You’ll quickly be able to tell how accessible this palette is.

From a purely mathematical standpoint, a color progression that transitions from light purple to dark yellow should feel roughly similar to a transition from light yellow to dark purple. But as we can see, the former feels natural, and the latter not so much.
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PDF UA and WCAG 2.0 Mapping

any organizations are tasked with implementing accessibility in their electronic content and related applications through adoption of the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0). WCAG 2.0, however, was written with Web content in mind and to be technically neutral in its prescriptions for Web technology. The application of WCAG 2.0 to other electronic content technologies, especially technologies that are not essentially of the Web, requires interpretation to determine how to apply WCAG 2.0 Principles, Guidelines and Success Criteria.

There are instances in which a 1:1 mapping does not exist, and in many cases, such as in PDF, it is generally appropriate to consult the accessibility standard (if any) developed specifically for that technology. – See more at: http://ift.tt/1ofuMEU
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How to Use Google Analytics to Improve Your Content Strategy

Data you can extract from Google Analytics can help you:

Create more engaging content
Determine which topics and formats to focus on the most
Identify elements of your strategy you should change or drop altogether
Make more informed strategy decisions

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