Article Prospect Experience Design Making Sense of the Data by Christopher Butler on June 19, 2012 We designers need to be proactively involved in measurement. Knowing how to gather and interpret interactive data will better position us strategically, not to mention prevent inheriting unhelpfully data-glutted reports and being held accountable to someone else's vague interpretation of them. But, it's more important that the data ground our vision in reality than be used to build credibility with clients. We want our clients to trust our judgement, but our measurement process should lead them to the same conclusions we've made if they were to do it themselves... Read Now About
Article Prospect Experience Design The Use of Mood Boards in the Web Design Process by Mark O’Brien on June 12, 2012 A useful strategy for communicating website plans with your in-house team or client is to separate the discussions about information design from those about visual design. This is helpful for both seasoned professionals and web neophytes. Read Now About
Article Prospect Experience Design The Basic Principles of Effective Web Design by Mark O’Brien on June 7, 2012 Because Newfangled has done so much work with agencies over the past fifteen years, I have learned a lot about the print to web transition. While I have written about this topic and given many lectures on it around the country, I do not intend to rehash all of the print to web design rules here. There are a few basic points I will cover in the context of this book, however. Read Now About
Article Prospect Experience Design Evolution of the Newfangled Logo by Justin Kerr on June 6, 2012 When I arrived at Newfangled in 2000, the company was known as Newfangled Graphics Co. and the hand-painted wooden sign by the door featured a 19th century Industrial Revolution-style logo. In this post, I take a look back at how Newfangled's logo and brand has evolved over the years. Read Now About
Article Prospect Experience Design How to Prototype a Website by Mark O’Brien on June 5, 2012 After building a site that did not meet client expectations one too many times from 1995-2000, we had an important but seemingly futile epiphany. We realized that we could solve most of our communication problems if only we could build the site twice. We could build the site the first time, let the client interact with it, gather all their feedback, and then build it a second time to their exact specifications. Surely that would be a foolproof process! The only hangup was that no client would be willing to pay twice as much and wait twice as long for their site. Read Now About
Article Prospect Experience Design Playing with Data by Christopher Butler on May 14, 2012 Most professional information designers I know see themselves as stewards of tradition. Traced from early practitioners like Snow and Minard and on through contemporaries like Pentagram and Tufte, it is one purely focused upon the effective display of information and resistance to the allure of aesthetics. But in design culture, aesthetics play an important role, one that is particularly relevant today as new tools enable millions of amateurs to visualize just about anything. Rather than seeing this as a good thing — a potential innovation explosion of Cambrian proportions — many professionals instead perceive their tradition as under attack... Read Now About
Article Prospect Experience Design Content Styling Tips: Text Links by Justin Kerr on May 11, 2012 Without text links the internet would be nothing more than the world's largest digital card catalog Read Now About
Article Prospect Experience Design Human Progress Landscape by Christopher Butler on May 10, 2012 Today I gave a talk sponsored by the Carolina Adobe User Group at the University of North Carolina on technosprawl. I called it Human Progress Landscape. Extensive recap after the jump... Read Now About
Article Prospect Experience Design Why Scope Creep is Your Fault (and What You Can Do to Prevent It) by Christopher Butler on April 23, 2012 Scope creep. It's every designer and developer's enemy. But have you ever stopped to think about why scope creep happens? This month, Chris Butler makes the case that we—not our clients—are ultimately responsible for overloading our designs with unnecessary features and blowing the budget in the process. But he won't leave you hanging. He outlines a simple, three-step process you can use to prevent scope creep for good... Read Now About
Article Prospect Experience Design On Writing, for Creative People by Christopher Butler on April 10, 2012 Today I had the pleasure of speaking to the Raleigh AIGA about writing. I began by anticipating an argument over whether designers should write: Frustrated designer: "But, I'm not a writer. I make things!" Me: "I feel you, but you gotta do both now." Honestly, I don't actually hear this argument much. But, I'm surprised I don't... Read Now About
