Curiosita Labs

Thoughts on programming, web development and design.

Circuit Board

Author: djbrensinger Page 33 of 50

CMS Showdown at Web414 Meetup

By

On May 31, 2013

In Design, Programming, Web Development

Milwaukee Web414 Meetup had a CMS showdown. 6 CMSes were chosen to show why web developers should consider using them over their current CMS favorite. The CMSes represented were: MODx, WordPress, Sitecore, Drupal, Joomla and Concrete 5.

Why MODx?

MODx is fast, clean and well organized. It is easy for your clients to use. For developers, you have complete freedom to design and develop your sites. You can build a website or application fast with a minimal amount of code. When you need help, MODx has a great developer community and staff that you can rely on.

Why WordPress?

WordPress is easy to use. About 17% of websites use WordPress. You can easily teach your clients how to use WordPress. It has plug-ins and themes that allow you to extend and modify WordPress to fit your client’s needs. WordPress has a large and dedicated developer and user community that can help you when you have a problem.

Why Sitecore?

Sitecore is designed for mid-market and enterprise businesses. It is built on ASP.Net which is created and maintained by Microsoft; the others are based on PHP. Sitecore uses open source code, but is a closed source product. Larger companies like having a company that builds this type of CMS that way they know who to talk to when they have issues or requests.

Why Drupal?

Drupal has a flexible user interface which makes it easy to customize. It has an API that is customizable. With Drupal, you can specify permissions at the field level. You can use this to control who can edit a certain field. Roles are integrated everywhere. Drupal has a strong and talented developer community.

Why Joomla?

Joomla is 100% community driven. About 3% of websites are built on Joomla. It has about 6000 extensions, supports multiple languages and responsive design. Bootstrap is a part of Joomla. You can use tools like jQuery, MooTools and LESS with Joomla. Joomla also has a robust developer community.

Why Concrete 5?

Concrete 5 is easy to use. It has robust roles and permissions. You can connect to different back-ends easily. Concrete 5 is SEO-friendly and has desktop and mobile themes that you can use.

Which one?

The panel of presenters agreed that every project and client is different. They each have different needs. You need to choose the right tool for your project and customers.

Watch the showdown to learn more.

Marco Polo, Zen Garden and Responsive Design

By

On May 27, 2013

In CSS, Design, Web Development

Books with GlassesWhat do Marco Polo, Zen Garden and Responsive Design have in common? Not much. The following are a collection of articles for inspiring you to share your story and responsive designs.  Plus learn a few techniques for adopting mobile first design philosophy.

Learn from Marco Polo

Marco Polo is remembered as an explorer. Why? He wrote about his travels as a merchant. Writing is one method to share and to teach others what you know. Web designers and developers who write and teach can build an audience. If you want to be successful, start sharing.

Zen Garden

Happy 10th Anniversary to Zen Garden. Zen Garden was a great idea on how to showcase what is possible with CSS. It was fun to look at the new designs for inspiration and to see who was brave enough to share their ideas. They’ve reopened Zen Garden and want people to share their Responsive Designs.

Mobile Design Reasons and Techniques

  • More mobile devices are sold than babies are born everyday. People use their mobile devices at home, at work and on the go. Having a site that just works no matter the device is becoming more and and more important. If you need to convince your clients, here are 3 Reasons for adopting a Mobile First Design Philosophy.
  • Content has always been important. Most design techniques start with the look of a website and then add the content in later. Kayla Night explains how to focus on the content and design a site to complement it. Photos, graphics and fonts should help your audience read and use your website not overwhelm them.
  • How do you focus on designing a website that achieves your goals? By using whiteboards, visions and banned words, before you jump into wire framing or prototyping. Banning words like nice, most and clean help you to focus on the specific problem you want to solve. It prevents you from focusing on issues that don’t really matter. Will Dayble’s process can help you to focus your client on designing for the right problem.

Pretty Does Not Equal Design

By

On May 13, 2013

In Design, Miscellaneous

Art PencilsNotes from the Milwaukee WordPress Meetup “Stop Making Things Pretty and Start Designing”.

Design is more than themes, graphics, fonts or the look and feel of a website. The most beautiful sites aren’t the most successful. People come to your website to solve a problem, get a task done or to learn something new.

Things don’t need to be attractive to solve a problem. Michelle Schulp

Websites like Google and Craigslist have very simple designs. Most people wouldn’t call them beautiful. These sites focus on helping you get a task done instead of looking pretty.

Design is a technique that you can use to solve problems. It can help you to build a website or an app that your visitors will want to use.

Start Designing

Design is fundamental. It helps you to focus your attention on the details and see how everything fits into the final product.

Be deliberate! Everything on a website or web application should have a purpose. The most important question to ask when designing is Why. When you ask why, you can get to the reason for a font, color or photo on a website. You can then determine whether or not it really helps your visitors or just makes the site pretty. Design adds value.

Design is a process. Your job is to help your client and yourself remember that the design is not for you; it is for your customers. To help you do this, use tools like a mood board, style tiles and style guides. They help you to focus on choosing the colors, patterns, fonts and logos before you create a prototype. Gray screen prototypes can help to focus on how the site works before adding colors and fonts.

Related Article

Mobile First Responsive Design

By

On April 29, 2013

In Programming, Web Development

Last week, I attended the dotNetConf Virtual Community Conference. This two day conference had speaker talking about ASP.Net, Open Source and more. One of the talks was on Mobile First Responsive Design. Shawn Wildermuth talked about the differences between standard Responsive Design and Mobile First. He showed you how to design your site from mobile to desktop.

Build a Better Website

By

On April 23, 2013

In Design, Miscellaneous, Web Development

Computer CodingYou’ve built your website. The site gets enough traffic, but you want it to do better. What things can you do to build a better website? Speed, images, navigation and forms can help or hinder how your audience works with your website.

Does your site load fast?

Check your site for speed issues. A slow loading website with make people leave your site if it takes too long. Two of the simplest checks are image sizes and the location of JavaScript in your web page.

Images with large file sizes take longer to download than smaller sized files. You can use PhotoShop or another photo editor to shrink down the size. If that doesn’t work, consider using Smush.it to remove unnecessary bytes from image files.

JavaScript’s location in your web page has an impact on the speed of the site. You need to determine if a specific script need to be in the head tag or placed before the end body tag. When a web page loads, it stops loading the page when it sees a JavaScript. It processes the JavaScript before continuing to load the rest of the page. If you have several JavaScripts, it has to process each one. To improve speed, you need to move the scripts that don’t impact the page immediately to the bottom of your page.

Do you have images that work?

Too many, not enough or even the wrong type of images can turn off visitors. You want the images that you use to help your visitors to decide to stay on your site and to do something. Whether that is sharing your article, buying a product or signing up for your newsletter. To help use images to make your site more usable, 1st Web Designer has some tips on how to use images effectively.

Can your visitors find what they want?

Your navigation menu is an important tool to help your users find what they are looking for. If your visitors have to use two or three clicks to find anything, you need to reconsider how you have organized your site. To create effective navigation, you need to use words that your visitors will understand. Standards like About Us, Home, Contact Us, Products and Services help people to navigate your site. You may want to add features like a sitemap or additional navigation at the bottom of each page. Your design can help visitors too. By being consistent with colors, word choices and images, these design choices can help your visitors interact with your site.

Are your forms easy to use?

Forms that look like a tax form is going to make your visitors leave. You want to build forms that are easy to use, guide the visitor and quick to fill out. If you need ideas on how to build a better form, get inspiration from these 5 Web Form Designs.

By looking at speed, navigation, images and more, you can improve the overall experience for your visitors.

Page 33 of 50

Previous

Next

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén