Ideas, insights and inspirations.

Take a look at this video. It was passed around our office recently.   We had a long discussion about it in one of our weekly staff meeting. If you were there, you could easily tell that it struck a nerve. I think that is because the core message in this video encapsulates what we try to do. In the video, Ole Scheeren, an architect, explains how he solved architecture problems differently. In each case, he could have built something standard to meet the need. He could have built just another big tower in the case of the Headquarter for China’s National Broadcaster. Or he could have built a group of towers to build 1,040. Both would have been sufficient and solved the problem at hand. But he looked deeper at the experiences and at the stories involved. He found that there were other problems to solve. Another tower wouldn’t become a pop icon figure and a piece of culture. … Continue reading

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Experiencing the power of computers used to mean being tethered to desktop “towers” or large clunky “lap”tops. Now that same power sits in your pocket, or it is wrapped around your wrist. In the last decade, computers have continued to get smaller, cheaper, and faster. And this trend isn’t slowing down as computing power is moving into other areas. We now have the Internet of Things and the power to connect to TVs, household appliances, locks, garage doors, lights, and a number of other devices. We have systems that monitor our furnace and the air quality of our house. It’s amazing. But as amazing as this hardware is, the real power lies in the software powering these devices. That is where the magic actually happens. It’s the software that gives us access to these devices. Think about all of the things that we can do now because of the software. Here are a few to get you thinking. You can: … Continue reading

As discussed in a previous blog post, we recently redesigned the Carnegie Mellon Today online magazine. With this redesign, the focus changed from a print-based quarterly issue to an online-only site with new stories both produced and promoted on a weekly basis. With roughly 80% of existing site traffic coming to articles (a number that is expected to increase with this new model), one of our project goals was to create an explorable experience that engages readers and increases the flow of traffic through the site. Keeping that in mind, we set out with a few ideas. A website’s navigation is it’s roadmap. It is the best place to start engaging the audience. We also know that it is the most popular way to explore. Like most navigations, ours is visible and consistent throughout all of the site, however, it becomes minified as readers scroll through articles, creating less busyness on the page while still keeping the navigation close by … Continue reading

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Over the past few years, the web industry has been very focused on devices. So much so that responsive design is defined as “building web content that shows up well on any device.”But focusing on devices isn’t enough anymore. By focusing only on devices, we are missing other experiences. Our web content is no longer stuck to a browser. It is traveling beyond it’s traditional medium. Take something like a news article — a simple piece of web content — and look at all of the different places this story can, and will, show up: Perhaps its original print medium; As a webpage on any device with a web browser — a computer, phone, TV screen, tablet, game console, watch, etc; On the homepage of your website; On a search results page; – or you can say on google but i would recommend keeping it open ended to all search engines. On a 3rd party website; In an ad on … Continue reading

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Over the past year, we’ve made several existing website designs responsive, including Shady Lane School, First Commonwealth, and CMU Today. As you can see from these examples, responsive web design (RWD) helps modernize an existing design while it helps you reach a mobile audience. It removes the burden of having to do new IA and designs for those sites. To complete a responsive transformation, there are a lot of challenges you have to work through from navigation to site performance. Here are a few things to consider before you make your existing site responsive. Navigation Most large sites, especially complex higher education websites, have a lot of content. This leads to large navigations with multiple levels and different placements – from top navigation to in page sub navigation. This is the most complex problem you encounter when making your site responsive. Transforming the navigation, which was designed to be used on a desktop, into something that can be navigated on mobile takes … Continue reading

Being a responsive web design agency, we know the importance of adding content on the web. But in app-centric world, it’s often forgotten how important content on the web really is. With the CMU Today project completed, I reflected on the benefits a responsive online magazine provides. Those benefits are directly related to what the web is for — a medium for sharing information. Here are three things you gain by making your site online and responsive. 1. Increase Social Reach – “Going viral” is every marketers dream. Right now, it’s easier than ever on the web. We live in a time of social networks, emails, and texts. Every article on CMU Today can be instantly and easily shared by its readers. Social shares allow you to tap into your readers’ personal networks. This lead to more people seeing the article and more shares by these people. Your article may not be the next viral cat video YouTube hit. But … Continue reading

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If you read our blog, read articles like this, or have a ton of mobile traffic coming to your site, you already know that making your website responsive is a good idea. In my last post, I even went through some of the other benefits of responsive design for your site. But what you might not know is that by making your responsive website, you’re also making your process agile. At least when it comes to the development of your online presence. By standard definition, being agile means you have the ability to move easily and quickly. Putting that in perspective of your business, company, or web project means the same thing. And doesn’t that sound great — working on a project that is quick and easy? I know what you’re thinking — how does making your site responsive make your business move quickly? Or easily? After all, making that site responsive probably wasn’t either of those things. But once you … Continue reading

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If you’re familiar with responsive web design (RWD), you know that one of its goals is to make your website easier to use on different devices. And if you don’t know what RWD is, I’m sure you still want your website to look good on all devices. More and more people are using mobile devices everyday, so it’s important your message is reaching them. What isn’t always apparent, though, is that RWD about more than making your site pretty on phones. It’s about working on any device that your customer may use, including assistive technology devices. It’s also about getting your content to your customers quickly and without delay. The great thing is, you can achieve these benefits by making your site responsive. Even better, you can achieve all of this without doing a major redesign. 1. A Solid Foundation As a first step in becoming responsive, you should begin with a solid foundation. Using a fluid grid is a … Continue reading

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When you search on Google, your results include data that is part of their Knowledge Graph – Google’s name for the way information is displayed beyond the normal search results. As part of the knowledge graph, Google lets you link your website search listings to your Google+ account using microdata. I used www.elliance.com as a case study to show how using microdata on a website can help produce richer search results. I’m sure you’re wondering, “What is microdata”? Well, it’s a way to make information on your website more available to the search engine providers. In essence, using microdata is a way of putting your data in a language that search engines understand. It allows you to explain data about your organization or company that’s available on the website — such as Organization, Address, People, and Events. Microdata adds more information to your HTML code, which makes it easier for search engine crawlers to understand what that data is for. … Continue reading

Here at Elliance, we practice what we preach — sending responsive emails just as we encourage our clients to do. Our upcoming newsletter will be our first. (If you don’t currently receive the newsletter and want to check out the result, contact us with the ‘Sign Up for Newsletter’ box checked.) The importance of making websites responsive is well known — it’s been the hot topic in web design for some time now. But there isn’t as much being published about the importance of responsiveness in emails. Think about the emails you read today. What did you read it on? On your desktop email client, like Outlook or Thunderbird? On your browser using GMail, Hotmail, or corporate webmail? On your phone or tablet using a built in client? In the few hours I’ve been awake this morning, I can tell you I’ve read an email using each of these methods. I’m not an edge case when it comes to my … Continue reading

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