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Creating new, useful tools is what gets us out of bed in the morning. Often times we creat ...

Web design is something every business owner needs, because every business needs a website ...

You’re thinking about redesigning your website (or maybe need a new one from scratch). You ...

Creating a website for your business is an exciting venture. Working in an online format, ...

The work of making a website is never done. Once you put up the initial site, you need to ...

WordPress is the most popular content management system for a reason. It flexible, extenda ...

With an ample amount of premium WordPress themes available you might question the need to ...

One of the biggest challenges in interface design is deciding what this visual layer needs ...

The fourth WordCamp Ann Arbor just wrapped up, and the initial feedback is that it was the ...

One of the most common complaints about websites is that important information can be diff ...

2017 was the year of my foray into non-Camp WordPress conferences. They’ve changed my pers ...

The term "usability" receives a lot of attention in the web design space and with good rea ...

User personas are one of the most effective ways to improve the quality of your designs. O ...

Congratulations on starting a website redesign process. If your business or organization i ...

Have you ever tried a new product expecting it to be difficult but found it simple? Or how ...

Seven years ago I hired a business coach to help me through a difficult time in my career. ...

Being a designer means channeling your soul into bringing something new into the world... ...

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once said, "Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more ...

If you've done your job during the sales process, you'll have a solid understanding of wha ...

Usability discussions are plagued with self-reflection. Designers assess how obvious somet ...

Usability and investments are alike in the sense you get what you give. Very few design pr ...

WordPress was originally built for blogging. Eventually it evolved into a content manageme ...

WordPress has several handy functions for granular control over external assets. Specifica ...

Some designers treat usability as a series of checklists, assuming usability is no more th ...

The design phase used to be the most time consuming part of our project but now it's the s ...

Everyone agrees usability is important. Yet every day unusable websites find their way onl ...

Named one of the top 10 islands in the world by Conde Nast and top 10 sustainable islands ...

From the inception of WordPress VIP I've wondered what it was like to work on a VIP-hosted ...

You may question first how reliability has anything to do with design, but it's one of the ...

There is no greater factor in website success than the planning phase. You might be tempte ...

The longer you work with WordPress the more often you find yourself needing to do somethin ...

Having recently returned from WordCamp US, I find myself wondering if we're not paying eno ...

I am writing this a few days after WordCamp Ann Arbor 2015. This was the second WordCa ...

I'm sure you can picture a time when you've been ready to start a new design, opened up Ph ...

If you've ever done any permission management that alters what posts, pages or custom post ...

Designing for "beauty" has come under fire by many bloggers (including yours truly.)Th ...

A site's purpose can be split into satisfying the needs of two very different groups: stak ...

The first and most important layer in the hierarchy of design needs is functionality. If f ...

I used to furiously switch from task to task, completing small tasks as they came up while ...

Ego depletion... it sounds like something Freud would talk about or maybe what you had for ...

Designers aren't cruel, sometimes they just don't know better... I should know, I am one. ...

Custom post types extend the capabilities of WordPress in terms of what types of content c ...

Anyone managing a product will often be tempted to add features as a way of improving the ...

Below are my slides and summary of a talk I delivered at WordCamp Chicago, 2014. Link to v ...

When I was approached by a large publisher to author a book on design I was humbled by the ...

Anytime you design there exists a choice to do so intentionally or intuitively. The intuit ...

I was a web designer for over ten years before I understood that some of the best designs ...

Two years ago I authored a simple project visualization plugin dubbed "Project Status. ...

Considering the web is legally old enough to buy alcohol, we still make a lot of mistakes ...

I rarely remember my dreams. Sometimes they're gone so quickly I'm not sure I ever actuall ...

StoryTwo years ago while planing WordCamp Detroit 2011, the organizers and I decided t ...

Desired outcomes are the cause of all design. With the commercial web, design primarily ex ...

Last week the 3.7 Designs team was invited to speak at LA2M about customer service and cli ...

Skeuomorphism vs flat design, responsive vs device specific, web vs native app... These ar ...

If you define design as "to devise for a specific function or end," it's hard to imagine d ...

It's on everyone's lips, it graces countless blog posts and everyday more people are talki ...

Design is most effective when executed with knowledge of psychology. Knowing how people re ...

Logic and statistics drive many usability discussions. How many users accomplished a task? ...

One of the beautiful things about working at the forefront of technology is seeing the wor ...

As a fan of Jakob Neilsen and a skeptic of the "every design should be responsive" methodo ...

I respect navigation more than any other element on a website. Little else commands the re ...

Most discussions of speed and websites focus on response time, download footprint and rend ...

Earlier last week, I was pleasantly surprised when Jacob Nielsen posted a report on mobile ...

Don't care why I created the plugin? Skip the explanation and download it here.The mos ...

Over the past fifteen plus years of designing websites for other people, I have received c ...

Few websites are designed with bad intentions. If the designer or stakeholders care about ...

I see more web professionals specializing these days. There was a time where web designers ...

If you're anything like me you probably have six books you are reading at any one time. My ...

I try not to succumb to the lure of new design tricks but alas I am human. While I have be ...

Few words can describe the euphoria I felt upon learning of widespread @font-face support. ...

Early December 2008 was when I first held a prototype of what I would later call "The Web ...

I have shrugged off responsive web design for some time now despite it's growing popularit ...

Several years ago I wrote a post which became shockingly popular called "Free Project Mana ...

With design, there is no universal "best approach" that will apply to all situations. Thos ...

I run across references of design as art on almost a daily basis. Somewhere down the road, ...

I admire Andy Rutledge for saying what he thinks, even though I don't always agree with wh ...

Today, the vast majority of websites are still designed and built by talented generalists, ...

I have been a web accessibility advocate since as early as 2005. Since then I have done pr ...

Due to a few interesting posts on Forrst.com and some interesting client interactions, I h ...

I had the fortune of attending the Voices that Matter Conference last year in San Francisc ...

Trends come and go, people become excited about new concepts and old ones become old and b ...

“Frequently Asked Questions” is a phrase we all know and love. Or is it? Good question. Pe ...

You may be limiting the effectiveness of your homepage through the design treatment of you ...

Growing up I had many hobbies that I was passionate about. From computer to cars, fine art ...

If you are anything like me you started designing on the web because you loved design, not ...

If you have seen my Web Design Sketchbook project it should be no surprise that I am a hug ...

I recently did a presentation at local marketing group LA2M in which I explained how chang ...

Simplicity, so elegant yet so elusive.The web by and large does a terrible job of bein ...

I can remember reading an article in Wired magazine in 1998 that described the all to near ...

Not too long ago I posted an article that outlined ten laws to design by. I was ecstatic w ...

Concepts travel absurdly fast when it comes to the web. This is not surprising as those wo ...

If you are in the design business you will run into post-approval changes, nothing is goin ...

The four little words that make designers cringe, "make the logo bigger." We joke about it ...

— Updated May 2017As designers we have to be aware of the function of our work and des ...

Designers, how you show your clients/bosses a concept has just as much impact over sign of ...

I want to preface this post by first saying that I believe one of the great strengths of o ...

I will be the first to say that it is questionable if HTML5 is really a realistic technolo ...

There is so much that happens with web design it is easy to miss important pieces of techn ...

Great designs take advantage of typography. The days of limited font choices and poor anti ...

Being environmentally friendly doesn't just apply to automakers. We all should be aware of ...

In many ways I am a creature of habit. There are some things that I end up doing every mor ...

As a creative type project management ranks on the "fun scale" somewhere between falling o ...

If you missed out on South by South West this year (like me) and are looking for a good co ...

Since I have started teaching design I have had to find ways to articulate concepts that I ...

Most companies are to the point where they have already gone through several iterations of ...

What are Microformats? Simple data formats designed for humans first and machines second. ...

Recently, Andy Rutledge of Unit Interactive and Design View wrote a compelling article que ...

Despite the fact that so many tasks are being turned from "paper" based (messaging, bankin ...

A few weeks ago I presented at LA2M, a networking lunch in Ann Arbor that covers new and u ...

If you work with websites you should be thinking about conversion and how to maximize the ...

I have always found that the design approval process can be extremely easy or extremely ha ...

They say that you should never work for friends or family (or maybe I just say that?), but ...

Those of you in the area who are interested in all things web related should consider join ...

As of late I have found that creating and using mood boards to be an essential step in bot ...

Last night I had an interesting conversation with colleague Laura Fisher of Mitten Artwork ...

For those of you who are interested in web accessibility or twitter, have a listen to the ...

I find that staying educated and current is one of the more challenging and exciting parts ...

If your kick off meetings go anything like a majority of mine do, at some point or another ...

Here in Ann Arbor we have a weekly lunch group which discusses new media and digital marke ...

After reading a few books on usability I had an "ah ha" moment. We spend so much time tryi ...

I was the lucky winner of a giveaway over on Monday by Noon awhile back, my prize of the n ...

The common approach to building a website is in my opinion, backwards. Meaning that we all ...

Despite Art Direction having been discussed as early 2004, it is now gaining more attentio ...

A friend of mine has been doing research into the current state of print media and the slo ...

Dennis Lembree and I review the Recovery.gov website on the latest WebAxe podcast. If you ...

Web design has reached a point of maturity where we should no longer simply be a collectio ...

Most web designers are at a natural disadvantage when it comes to ensuring that things are ...

While I have a minor in business, most of the lessons that I have learned about how to run ...

Looking into the next few months I am seeing an influx of ongoing, relationship based work ...

I have been working for a short while on a side project that I have already found very use ...

Any designer who has produced work for anyone other than themselves knows how tricky the d ...

When running your own business, especially a small one (meaning it is myself and two helpe ...

You may have herd of the term "Occam's Razor" before, but most likely it was not in relati ...

We are fortunate to be a part of the web design as it has begun to reach a level of maturi ...

I have never been the type that has been overly pushy about my opinion. In a lot of ways t ...

I recently did a presentation called "It doesn't matter if you like it..." in which I talk ...

On my blog design related blog I have recently posted an article about making Wordpress cl ...

Having just spent a week in various countries through out Europe I found myself studying t ...

Ever since I heard about the study of typography I was fascinated by it. Upon the word "ty ...

I often fall into the trap where I limit the scope of my design capabilities by what techn ...

I came across an interesting tool called Typeface.js today. It appears to be a worth while ...

I am often frustrated with how little attention is put into the messaging on most websites ...

If you are looking for a deal on a MacBook Pro, check out the listing of the late model 15 ...

Typography has come a long way on the web, but we are still stuck with a fairly limited am ...

In my last post I talked about the importance of spatial awareness and some basic details ...

Have you ever come across a design that is so simple, so clean, yet so beautiful that it m ...

I just want to rant real quickly. There are many cases where an online/web application is ...

I had the pleasure of attending a uxnet meeting tonight organized by local information arc ...

"Optimizing Landing Pages" is an on going series that will total 20 posts. The series is w ...

"Optimizing Landing Pages" is an on going series that will total 20 posts. The series is w ...

I feel that I live a pretty fortunate life, that is to say I am able to work full time on ...

I recently posted about how to improve your creative process, and one of the core elements ...

Adjectives? Wait am I confused? Should I be talking about copy writing? No no, I assure yo ...

While it might be strange to hear, I was pleasantly surprised last weekend when I had seve ...

Now normally I am not a huge fan about blog complaints about companies, I would rather wri ...

There are two things I struggle with the most in my job, staring at a blank photoshop canv ...

Hate to say it but it hits pretty close to home. Anyone else? I have found that the more a ...

"Optimizing Landing Pages" is an on going series that will total 20 posts. The series is w ...

"Optimizing Landing Pages" is an on going series that will total 20 posts. The series is w ...

Just a quick question for readers of this blog, if you have a moment I would love to hear ...

Believe it or not, despite the short lifespan of the industry; the web design community is ...

There are a lot of freelancers and budding web design companies out there who are more or ...

Well I didn't get to blog about day two by itself, so I figure I will just combine my thou ...

Startup weekend is a new "type" of event that has been popping up here or there. The conce ...

One of the fortunes I have had in my career is the starting and participation of the Detro ...

Remember our good old friend the animated gif? There was a time when the ability to animat ...

I have noticed a trend over the last few months (maybe longer) in relation to a lot of web ...

As designers, web developers, or marketers we spend a lot of time developing different for ...

Lately I have been very interested in how far we can take Typography only using CSS. Sure ...

I had the great fortune of having the Yahoo SearchMonkey team speak at last nights Refresh ...

CSS has brought us many capabilities in terms of typography and the web, but we always see ...

There has been a new trend in standards based design over the last year. The effect seems ...

I don't claim to be the utmost expert in typography, as much as I love the subject. Beauti ...

If you are like me, you use a mac because well... they are (trendy/creative/easy/fun/cheap ...

For a long time I pushed wordpress as a great alternative to some of the common OS solutio ...

The biggest motivator for the redesign was to really clean up the site. When I first made ...

Credibility on the web is a funny thing, as the medium itself can be so anonymous. Yet whe ...

Earlier before I have written an article about current best CSS hacks which you can see he ...

Having just read the great book "Call To Action" and now working with local online menu pl ...

YouTube Private Video YouTube Private Video2Apparently e-trade is easy. So easy, th ...

Screaming animals, Saab automobiles, and Richard Simmons? Bridgestone has had a cr ...

Can the smell of delicious peanuts make you more attractive? Planters would like y ...

This commercial was entertaining, and brought a few chuckles. Bud light has long been know ...

Can't say I quite understand how Doritos and "message from your heart" really connect? Dor ...

Diet Pepsi Max cleverly associates falling asleep at inconvenient times (and sometim ...

The Audi R8 commercial mimicking the Godfather did a good job of presenting the at ...

I am sitting in snowy Park City, Utah with a cocktail and my family watching the start of ...

It seems that only very large companies have bothered with microsites. It might be due to ...

PayPerClick and Search are the big rage now days when it comes to internet marketing and p ...

Sometimes you need a keyword push for a very specific period of time, the holiday seasons ...

CSS really opens the doors to a lot of powerful and rich opportunities. It is funny how su ...

Author, blogger, and web designer Kevin Potts sent me a copy of his new book Web Design an ...

When I was a young designer I concentrated too much on wowing the client, user, etc... ...

Those who follow the delicious popular list probably noticed an article labeled The 10 mos ...

In the past few years of owning a business I have learned that no matter what you do, you ...

Every website has at least one goal, if not a handful. However people often fail to plan t ...

It seems people are still up in arms over CSS Frameworks, and specifically blue print css. ...

A large part of any web design company is going to be presenting and going back and forth ...

There has been a lot of talk lately about whether one should redesigning or evolve a ...

Yesterday I talked briefly about making sure you have a wide enough template when designin ...

A few weeks ago I was at a photo shoot and the photographer said something profound that d ...

Stumbled across Fawnt.com, looks like a dig resource for fonts - possibly free fonts? If y ...

Like it or not all websites try and sell something. It might be a product, a service, ...

I know I am not alone in the realm of trying to warp wordpress into some sort of worthwhil ...

I had the privilege to talk to and hear Joseph Jaffe give an excellent presentation last n ...

During ArbCamp I lead a discussion about search engine optimization, in which I recorded f ...

Seo presentation went well, will post podcast and notes here and on arbcamp - stay tuned ...

So far so good. Podcasting session was a bit too technical for the audience, helpful for t ...

I attended an interesting discussion last night by Ed Vielmetti of Pure Visibility in wh ...

The "new marketing" or "Internet Marketing" buzz seems to hum a little louder with eac ...

I just finished reading a book called "The Four Hour Work Week" which details how anyone c ...

One of the major aspects of any marketing campaign is to manage perceived value. Perceived ...

Any frequent reader of my blog has likely figured out that when it comes to grammar, punct ...

While working on my company site redesign, and a new project CSS Uber Clean Gallery I came ...

After listening to a SXSW podcast about the 4 hour work week, I decided that I should re ...

I recently signed up for PayPerPost in an effort to see where the service played in the in ...

Some may have read over my two posts on the possibility of using times new roman on the we ...

I stumbled across this site that uses times new roman effectively. He could have stuck wit ...

CSS, javascript, and flash has brought the web design community a long way in what we are ...

For those who attended the Seth Godin event, you know how well the Connect Ann Arbor event ...

The importance of setting up a baseline and grid to properly align your elements is finall ...

This is one of the key elements to a successful web campaign, yet so few people actu ...

Blue Flavor has an interesting blog post on designing with out a grid. Very good read, and ...

My company, 3.7 Designs had the fortune of getting a few mentions and the logo published i ...

Ann Arbor — The "Mini New York". To say that Ann Arbor puts a great deal of emphasis on ...

While not as cool as Derek's one on one talk with the master, I did end up getting some ni ...

Sure enough, not all marketing is done directly through your website. There are many o ...

Its no pick nick running a company, and after you get to a particular size you just have t ...

In my last few podcasts I have been discussing the importance of marketing to specific nic ...

In our last podcast I discussed why it is important to market to a specific group. Tod ...

I will admit it, I hate the project management aspect of my job. While I love talking to c ...

Taking Back: Times New Roman Yes all designers HATE times new roman, but let's face it †...

Your target marketing is one of the essential elements to marketing your website. Too ma ...

It doesn't take a long time of being self employed or freelancing to figure out that you c ...

IntroductionEvery site is selling or marketing something. Even this blog, I am trying ...

Local to Ann Arbor or the Michigan Area? I have an exciting event that you really owe your ...

I often see voids between us "standard-ities" and the rest of the "web creative world." We ...

The use of horizontal navigation on web sites has been around for ages, and with the extre ...

Watching my feedburner stats, it looks like I have loads of new subscribers compared to ev ...

I just came back from talking to a group of students over at WCC about running a web desig ...

Running a small design firm it is easy to get spread thin trying to appease as many facets ...

I have been tagged by Brett Terpstra of Circle Six Design. Which means I get to rant about ...

As web designer and developers, we have a deeper responsibility to aid companies in writin ...

Firefox 1.5+ has a pretty cool feature that will split a div into columns via Mozilla spec ...

There are tons of web design trends that are being used, including badges, bursts, reflect ...

I found this on delicious popular section, very inspiring and well done video about th ...

Interested in social networking or how you can take advantage of it?Adage has a Whitep ...

If you are in need of great office space in Ann Arbor, the following space is availabl ...

The Web Guerrilla himself, Greg Boser had some interesting things to say about Mr. Dave Pa ...

With the release of the iPhone, the mobile web is expected to take off. Even though the ...

How common is this scenarioClient wants website, they contact firms for pricing, pick ...

It looks like Pfizer is closing down their Ann Arbor Office. This is a frightening wake up ...

ListsStyling Nested Lists Multi Column Lists Spruced Up Site Maps Taming Lists B ...

😛 😐 🙁 🙂 :O 😛 😐 🙂 🙁 😛 😐

sometimes you have to look at behavior to fully understand, so I make this test!Yu ...

The buzz about the future of the mobile web is almost defining. Even though the mobile tsu ...

I came across an interesting situation today, where the background of transparent backgrou ...

Search Engine optimization and Marketing is a very new industry compared to most forms of ...

If Brent Musberger, Herb Streit, and Bob Davies comment one more time about the "bloggers" ...

2006 For FunFinally broke down and bought a nice German car. Went skiing in Park City ...

99% of all advertising sales pitches occurring at this very moment are ranting about the n ...

Ensuring that your HTML code is semantic is extremely important. Between HTML's ongoing sh ...

I am still working out all the bugs (and there are quite a few), but I think functionally ...

Earlier last week, Phaziz was submitted through my CSS Gallery, and I am glad it was. T ...

As many people probably have noticed by now, Microsoft has redesigned their homepage. It i ...

Being swamped on projects for work, I have been unable to post anything really cool lately ...

While many cities have a Chamber of Commerce to help insulate and improve the local busine ...

My Camera was stolen out of my office. No forced entry, nothing else was taken... just a q ...

While I keep most of my posting related to the web or business, what happened to me this l ...

CSS Code based on SixApart Writen by Ross Johnson of 3.7 Designs (also an example page) ...

One of the "special" effect abilities of CSS is the ability to have an element be "fixed" ...

Sometimes you have a blunder that is so stupid, that you hate to admit it to anyone... but ...

For those just starting (or even pretty well versed) in CSS and Web Standards, knowing whe ...

Yes, my previous two designs were up collectively for less than a few days. I think I have ...

While I am not positive, I have a good feeling that completely redesigning a site with in ...

90% of those reading thus don't need to be convinced as to why Web Standards are important ...

Most people by now have browsed through the Reboot Galleries (CSS Reboot and Standards Reb ...

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone stopping by who is viewing my site from either CSS ...

Most of us are not part of a large firm, we are freelancers are small companies. Many of u ...

Most web developers/designers are extremely familiar with the WordPress blogging platform. ...

One of the large benefits of using XHTML/CSS over table based or inline page styling is th ...

Dennis Lembree and I had the pleasure of interviewing Paul Boag of Boagworld.com early thi ...

By now we all know Digg.com's massive potential for traffic to a given site if it makes it ...

I see a lot of discussion concerning the use of AdSense on blogs, most complain that it is ...

Sitting at work, with my cup of coffee to my right and my blog open on my laptop instead o ...

Google local lists three companies BEFORE the number one organic list. That kind of search ...

Following a post on Mezzoblue, a question I submitted to Boagworld, I have stumbled across ...

It has been a while since I posted, so I felt I should throw what has been on my mind late ...

I had the pleasure of joining Dennis on the Accesible Web Design Podcast - "Web Axe" again ...

Initial Disclaimer - yes I am vane. I was doing a search for my name, to see where I apear ...

I have read lots of bloggers eagerly awaiting the next round of submissions to the 9rules ...

A post by ptvGuy about the Illusion of Accelerated dial, and some conversation from last n ...

I doubt I will be the last one to complain about parking in Ann Arbor - but it really is a ...

Yup, I scrapped my previous design for a super clean "whitespace" design. I still have a l ...

Design is a tricky thing - while most people don't realize it, it is very subjective. Ever ...

Google moved in down the street from my office, so I figured I would go shoot some picture ...

I previous did a post testing seo value for subdomains, where I tried to see if blogger Ri ...

While the descriptions and basic uses for CSS typography controls have been beaten to deat ...

I am constantly in situations where I am trying to explain what I do, and it rarely comes ...

I talk a lot about my home town of Ann Arbor Michigan. Those who have not visited or lived ...

A few weeks ago I came across a post on dig discussing how the blogger gained high ranking ...

I just wanted to make a quick post about the latest going on with my design/company career ...

There is a lot of debate about SEO these days - not only the way it should be performed, b ...

I often frequent digg and read the latest blogs - and while I can't claim that I am 100% o ...

I see it more and more, a bad habbit that is rearing it's ugly head on the web again... on ...

While many web designers and developers are eagerly waiting a "much improved" Internet exp ...

Pual Boag often mentions that sites shouldn't always simply be redone or redesigned. He st ...

While RSS feeds are no secret in terms of their traffic power, and many SEO consultants wi ...

Pre:edit - based on this post, I have started a css gallery focusing on display new ideas ...

Like most web designers/developers, I see the importance of having a site that is visibly ...

My blog design has been featured on CSS Gallery - Css-Website.com! You can take a look at ...

I have been seeing a lot of Web 3.0 and beyond predictions on digg lately, and frankly the ...

Right off the bat I would like to mention that I am not a huge fan of flash, especially fo ...

While I touched on this briefly in my Web Buzz Words of 2006 post, I am constantly bombard ...

Even though it is supposed to be easy, I had to strugle slightly to get the sIFR3 release ...

Scientists theorize that every time one reads "Web 2.0" it kills aproximately six brain ce ...

While some might claim that with the increase in typography control in css, and the number ...

That's correct, I consider myself a Rock Star... wanna-be. I often equate making a living ...

Ahh.... nothing like being able to use javascript and DOM to beat IE 6 into submission. N ...

According to ArborUpdate, Internet Giant Google is moving into my home town of Ann Arbor. ...

While reading over a thread on Sitepoint that discussed favorite web designers, I came acr ...

All websites are designed towards your visitors, but how many sites are actually designed ...

Lately I have been thinking a lot about how web design, and web pages are viewed by people ...

Many companies start their web project with contacting a web or graphic designer. This is ...

I received a call yesterday from clients of mine (technology consulting, not web design) a ...

The average employee corresponds to other companies via e-mail over ten times a day Ten t ...

When it comes to Search Engine Optimization, you need to start NOW! Through working with ...