Archive for 2010
Does exactly what it says on the tin; just the posts that relate to the above...
Surprise joins the Mixd development team!
Earlier this month, we welcomed Surprise to the team; a female Border terrier pup with a penchant for front-end web design. Primarily working alongside Boon utilising HTML, CSS and jQuery, Surprise has also been put in charge of the office exercise regime and ensuring regular meals and comfort breaks are taken.
Hi, I’m Surprise!
Hello! I’m Surprise and I’m the lastest member of the Mixd development team. Here’s a little bit about me…
I studied New Media at boarding kennels which fuelled my passion for all things digital. After all my studying was complete, I dabbled in a spot of digging holes, chewing things and walking, before embedding myself in the world of digital media. This involved the creation of my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/surpriseshackleton where I discuss a little bit of everything (mainly things that look, sound or taste delicious).
Joining Mixd is a dream come true – I’m über excited about being able to work within a great digital agency every single day and am enjoying being part of the growing Mixd team. I can’t wait to get my teeth stuck in to some juicy campaigns and help out wherever possible around the office. I am looking forward to broadening my horizons, continuing to learn more about the industry and meeting lots of interesting people.
However, if I could change one thing, it would be working with the IE6 browser. To be perfectly honest, it’s a bit of a bitch.
My induction
During my first few days here at Mixd, I was given the standard induction by Bob. Bob’s quite hairy and I think he may actually be a dog too. I’ll keep you posted. I learnt about fire alarms, the post room and how to make a brew. Mind you, if they think I’ll be making a brew they’ve got another thing coming. I’m strictly a water and milk kind of girl.
Please be my friend!
I have made some great friends here in Harrogate – Bob lets me bite his beard when no one is looking (but don’t tell his girlfriend) and Boon sleeps nearly as much as I do – but I love company and do get lonely sometimes, so always want more! Become my friend on Facebook and I promise to share my Bonios with you.
Foursquare; a skeptic’s view
It’s official, Foursquare has gone mainstream
During a late summer trip to sunny Devon I experienced a number of firsts. Surfing, sampling the local cider and reading my girlfriend’s celebrity magazines. I can assure you I only read them to relieve the boredom of lounging! However, amongst the ‘what’s hot and what’s not’ articles was a feature on a relatively new piece of social networking jazz – Foursquare.
What is Foursquare?
Foursquare claims to be a website and app for mobile devices with geo-location functionality that allows individuals to publicly announce their location, make leisure / shopping recommendations and be crowned Mayor of their most visited places. Users are awarded points and sometimes ‘badges’, adding a competitive element that appears reminiscent of the highly addictive Pokémon badge collecting game (ahem — for those young enough to remember). Phil, Bob and Matt can’t even go into Harrogate on their lunch without checking in at a multitude of places, all trying to oust each other from their respective mayorships; I believe Bob is currently Mayor of Boots, Phil is Mayor of Marks and Spencers and Matt… Mayor of the local chippy!
So in what ways can businesses benefit from this service?
One way appears to be to offer discount incentives for customers who frequently ‘Check in’ at your venues, irrespective of whether you are Starbucks or a local shop. Foursquare’s ‘Tips’ function also seems a great aid when you’re stuck in a new town and need to find the nearest watering hole with a ‘happy hour’ on, or at least a decent clientele.
I can see how Foursquare, and its rival Gowalla, could be perceived as just a convergence of existing local review sites (such as Qype)… but with geo-location abilities. However, Foursquare’s game based nature makes it the winner if its increasing user base and widening of demographics is to go by; i.e. no longer just used by trendy urban hipsters and techies. Surely this means it’s going to provide a fertile channel for consumers and businesses to tap into.
Back to life. Back to reality…
Some people, much like myself, think it takes the adventure and excitement out of life, but as a certified caffeine addict I’d feel like a right chump for paying full price for my caffè lattes if I didn’t have to. I suppose I best jump on board. Here’s to hoping I don’t find myself in a bar full of techies and trendy urban hipsters with media haircuts!
Important news regarding Mixd contact information
One second please caller…
Just a quick note to let you know that we are having an updated telephone system installed here at Mixd towers today.
Your communications are important to us and we want to ensure we have a system that keeps up with the expanding Mixd team and makes it as easy as possible for you to contact us. As Hoskins said “It’s good to talk”.
Contact numbers will remain the same; however, from time to time today, the phone lines may be down. If they are and your enquiry is urgent, please get in touch with Phil or myself by email or mobile:
Phil: p.shackleton@mixd.co.uk; 07799 113420
Me: b.tait@mixd.co.uk; 07967 303252
Apologies for any inconvenience… we look forward to hearing from you.
Have a good week!
How do you switch off from your work?
I have been involved with design and the creative industries for a little over twelve years now and one thing that hasn’t changed in this time is the expectation that people in our industry are available to do work day or night!
Like so many designers and web developers out there I have worked through the night to meet a 9am deadline or presentation, been sat in the office at the weekend just because “the design wasn’t quite right” and found myself thinking about how I can solve a frustrating IE6 CSS issue whilst throwing back another Jägermeister with friends late on a Friday evening! Yes, we’ve all been there haven’t we! It’s just part of our beloved industry!
So what has changed?
I found myself asking this very question whilst replying to a client request at 3am one Saturday morning (using my iPhone of course!) and it hit me. Technology has totally revolutionised the way we work but more importantly when we work. We see it day in day out at Mixd that more and more creative types are choosing to work in a freelance capacity where they have complete control over their working hours. In fact, many web developers are known for choosing to work late nights and not start until late morning… or even afternoon.
The problem is how do we switch off?
With today’s Android phones, Blackberries and iPhones we’re surrounded by our work all the time. I have to admit that the first thing I do when I get home is check my email! That’s closely followed by Twitter… Facebook… Foursquare! The list goes on! Even at a weekend my phone is never far away and, like many, I find it increasingly harder to switch off.
Have you tried switching off?
So whilst chatting about how we ‘switch off’ outside of work, Matt suggested the bizarre and novel concept of switching my phone off when I leave work and not switching it back on again until I arrive back in the office the following morning. Can you imagine? And so the challenge was made…
It’s going to be like being back in the early 90′s! Do you remember arranging to meet friends in a specific pub at a certain time? If you were late you missed them! For those old enough to remember, we haven’t always had mobile phones!
So there we have it, for a period of two weeks I have agreed to switch off my iPhone at weekends and weekday evenings. Will it be the end of my digital world… we’ll have to wait and see!
Mind you, I’ve recently become the proud owner of an iPad. Now this was never mentioned and could surely pull me out of a hole if withdrawal symptoms get too bad…
Ruby on Rails development
At Mixd, we’re not just a creative digital agency!
Our vast experience of back-end systems and complex environments means that we have the technical expertise to turn your bespoke requirements into reality.
Here at Mixd, our technology of choice for application development is Ruby on Rails (aka Rails); our development team have been using Rails since the early days in 2005 and are experts in their field.
So what exactly is Ruby on Rails?
Rails is an open source framework for creating database driven web applications; it enables agile* development by favouring convention over configuration.
With Rails being open source, this means it is being enhanced and extended every day to keep up with the latest web trends and demands. It is actively supported by a vibrant community of conferences, developer tools, specialist hosts and developers across the entire globe.
In addition, Ruby on Rails is used by many high-traffic websites such as Yellow Pages, Twitter and MTV to name but a few!
* “Agile methods generally promote a disciplined project management process that encourages frequent inspection and adaptation, a leadership philosophy that encourages teamwork, self-organization and accountability, a set of engineering best practices intended to allow for rapid delivery of high-quality software, and a business approach that aligns development with customer needs and company goals.” Wikipedia
Why we like it?
In short… Ruby on Rails has completely transformed the way we think about building web applications and allows us to deliver projects on shorter deadlines without compromising the quality of our work. Furthermore, Rails makes it easy for us to use the latest web technologies to create best fit solutions.
What we use it for?
We use Ruby on Rails for what it’s really good at. Building bespoke web applications and websites. Recently, we’ve developed a number of bespoke online applications using Rails, allowing us to concentrate on writing quality code that makes the application tick and spend less time re-inventing the wheel:
- Secure social network, similar to Facebook, for the Clinical Leaders Network of the NHS that handles a multitude of complicated processes to give users what they want, with minimal involvement from the administrators.
- Booking engine and business management tool for holiday company Invitation to Tuscany (ITT) to minimise staffing levels and maximise the customer’s online experience; bringing together APIs, availability & bookings, eCommerce and customer data. Furthermore, the system deals with property owners, agents and ITT staff to differing degrees to streamline the ITT business model.
- Customer Relationship Management and booking system for Ski and Summer Morzine. Amongst many challenges, one of the features we developed was a user-friendly web-based graphical user interface (GUI) for the call centre team.
Rails is incredibly flexible and is suitable for us to use on the majority of the projects we undertake. This has allowed us to become specialists in Ruby on Rails development and, as far as we are aware, the one digital agency in Harrogate offering the technology at this level.
Mixd’s Senior Developer, Dave (the international master of rave) Graham gave me his thoughts:
Where do you see Rails going in the future?
“I see it being more widely adopted especially with Rails 3. I feel it’s certainly more accepted in industry with an increasing amount of noise being made about this. The new versions are much faster and more stable. I think more businesses will start using the product as its a rapid language to develop in. More and more developers are moving over to it as popularity increases across the world.”
Do you think Rails can be used for more than just application development?
“Yes! Over the past two years, scripts have been introduced which will allow Rails to be used for general scripting for automating tasks. I also think it will become more popular for web site development as a growing number of hosting providers are now offering specialised Rails hosting.”
Is Rails here to stay?
“Absolutely! I’d recommend Rails to students because it encourages best practice from the ground up. It’s easy to learn and enables you to develop complex applications much quicker. I feel they’d be more employable!”
Google Analytics
Okay folks. Let me tell you why Google Analytics should be used by you!
In general, Google products are good. Google Search, GMail, Google Chrome, Google Wave… okay, scratch Google Wave… Google Maps, Google Earth (my Mum now uses this, which says something!), Google Webmasters and its latest offering Google Goggles (more on this in a later post). Not only do they effectively do the job they are meant to, they are generally free to the masses owing to Google’s business model. Analytics is no exception.
A potted history of Google Analytics
In 2005, as part of their plans for World domination, Google acquired Urchin Software Corps and set about developing the lead product, Urchin on Demand, that used to sell for thousands of $$$ (cha-ching)… and knocking it out for free; gratis; diddly squat. This free Google product was launched in November 2005 and within a week, new users were suspended, as demand had completely out-stripped expectation. The problem of meeting demand was not fully rectified for almost a year and within this time, new user sign-ups were by invitation only, based on server availability. Since August 2006, the free service has been made readily available to all… with no tie in to Google advertising.
Who should use Google Analytics?
Well… answer ‘yes’ to the following questions and it’s probably right for you:
- Do you have a website?
- Would you like to see where your users come from?
- …and what they are doing on your site?
- Do you have fewer than 5 million page views per month?
Game on. If you answered ‘no’ to any of the above, either you don’t care about improving your website or, you own Facebook.
Google Analytics features
Google Analytics has a whole host of really powerful features, returning meaningful stats on your website. Top-end, easy to understand data is shown in a ‘dashboard’ style that the majority of folk can use to their advantage. However, the beauty lies beneath, where highly detailed data, broken down to the nth degree, can be extracted and used to really make your online presence work harder for you. Easily available data at dashboard level includes:
- Visits, page views and average time on site;
- Where your visitors came to your site from;
- Geographical location of visitors; and
- Popular pages.
As you dig deeper, Google Analytics can tell you:
- What browsers your visitors are using;
- Which keywords your visitors used in their search engine;
- The percentage of users that left your site on a certain page;
- Information on goals that you define; and
- What your 100th visitor of the day had for lunch*.
Amongst many other valuable statistics.
Pretty powerful stuff. I’m sure you will agree.
*this is a blatant untruth.
In summary…
- It’s free.
- It’s easy to use.
- It gives you more power to your online elbow.
- It’s so much better than those free ‘stats’ you get from your hosting provider.
- Use it. We do; on every project we undertake.
External website links. New window or not?
Right. A big bug bear of mine!
It has been a growing and annoying trend that links to external sites from one website to another open in a new browser window and it has been something that we advise our clients against… time and time again. Some common misconceptions are listed below with several facts, based on actual user testing, to expose them as false.
“I’ll keep users if external links open in a new window…”
Many organisations still believe that opening a new browser window for external links will help keep users on their site. The hard facts show that it doesn’t! If a user is even the slightest bit interested in what you have to offer they will take note – if they’re not, then you need to work harder at improving content and your online offering in order to achieve your desired conversion. The strategy of opening links in a new window will not increase your site conversions and it certainly won’t help you sell more!
“It makes it easier for users to return to my site…”
The concept of opening links in a new window is also self-defeating since it disables the browser’s ‘back’ button which is the normal way users return to previous sites! So, basing the argument on the thought that it will be easier for users to return to your site is very wrong. In recent user tests carried out by Mixd, we found that many users often don’t even notice that a new window has opened, especially if they are using a small monitor where the windows are maximised to fill up the screen. So a user who tries to return to the originating site will be confused by the back button not functioning. The end result is that they are likely to get frustrated, panic click and ultimately go elsewhere.
“I need to control my users…”
Many organisations work on the presumptuous rationale that the user cannot or will not decide on their own where they want to surf to, whether they want to return to the original site, or whether they want to pull up additional web browser windows to surf more than one site simultaneously. With the advent of ‘tabs’ in many of today’s browsers, the choice to open in a new browser window is even more outdated. Let the users do this if they want (they can easily right click ‘open in new tab’). You should not force it on them.
The facts
There are several key reasons why we believe you should not force new windows:
- Unless you warn them, web users are likely to expect the new page to load in the current window. Unexpected surprises are not good online and only confuse users. Confuse users and they are gone.
- It breaks the back button functionality. This is the second most used navigation function (source: useit.com), so breaking it is a big no!
- Users don’t want it! Opening a new browser window can be disorientating and confusing. If they wanted to open the link in a new window they would do so themselves!
- Using new browser windows can make an already cluttered taskbar, even busier and difficult to use. We’ve all spent ages hunting through the taskbar, looking for the window we want. Don’t make this even harder by increasing the number of windows to look through.
- Many users have security protection to stop ‘pop-up’ windows. And on some mobile devices new windows do not work at all. In essence, it could prevent the link from working all together for these users!
- The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) has guidelines against opening links in new windows. Checkpoint 10.1 reads: Until user agents allow users to turn off spawned windows, do not cause pop-ups or other windows to appear and do not change the current window without informing the user.
Testing, testing 1, 2, 3
As part of our ongoing testing, we asked a number of test users if they were likely to return to a conversion page (let’s say an eCommerce website such as Amazon) if the page linked them off to another site – they all answered yes. Interestingly, most users said they would return to their initial search; i.e. from Google or in this case the Amazon home page. It proves the point: if your user is interested in what you have to offer they will come back! If they aren’t, they won’t!
With every rule there is an exception
If it is an absolute must (which we understand can happen sometimes) then you need to consider how the link is displayed. Again the W3C has guidelines on how best to deal with this situation by including a line of supporting text to inform the user that clicking the link will open a new browser window. View the W3C checkpoint 10.1 example.
What’s the solution?
There’s an adage that says ‘to assume makes an ass of u and me’. We should have a flashing image on the homepage; Doris (the MD’s wife) thinks the enquiry button should be puce; Trevor from accounts thinks the postage charges should be hidden. All guess work.
The only real way to establish what your site users want is to undertake relevant, user-focused testing. Here at Mixd, we don’t create sites for our portfolio; we don’t create sites for our clients. We create sites for our clients’ users. User testing comes in all shapes and sizes; what to do and how to do it can be tailored to meet all budgets. However, the quickest way to a site that will fail is to think you know it all already. You don’t. Online, the user is in control. Delight them and they are yours. Confuse or annoy them and they are gone… straight into the hands of your competitors.
Mixd monkey business
The Mixd team spent an afternoon going back to our evolutionary roots at Go Ape’s Dalby Forest operation. Hanging around in trees, beating our chests, singing ‘The Funky Gibbon’ and scratching our… noses.
As part of the Mixd mantra ‘play well together, work hard together’ we like to get out and about in this beautiful County of Yorkshire from time to time and do things that excite us, challenge us, and even scare us… mentioning no names, Bob! Some call it team building; we call it good fun. The Mixd outing to Dalby Forest was no exception. From challenging rope bridges, through Tarzan swings, to 140 feet high zip lines, the Go Ape experience didn’t disappoint. If you’ve done it, you’ll know what we’re saying. If you haven’t, it’s hard to explain… the video will give you so much more than words can!
Members of the Mixd team were full of enthusiasm:
“Brilliant, fun day – enjoyed the tarzan swings and zip lines!” Dave
“No messing around. This is serious business.” Matt
“A great way to spend an afternoon – an exciting challenge and amazing surroundings.” Mike
“Who do you think you are… Harry Houdini! Still makes me laugh now!” Phil to Bob
“Me Tarzan. You Jane.” Bob to (a running scared) Phil
Now I would ride 100 miles!
I just wanted to say a huge thanks for all the support and the money raised from the British Heart Foundation’s South Downs Way Randonnée that I took part in a few weeks ago. I think I’ve just about recovered now!
100 miles in 11 hours
I’m pleased to say I completed all 100 miles in a total time of 11 hours and 23 minutes; nearly an hour quicker than last year! Getting up a 4am to start this ridiculously long bike ride is not great – trust me! Not only that but I had decided to cook porridge on a small camping stove in the hotel room. The first problem therefore was to avoid setting off the fire alarms so early in the morning… which I just about managed.
The 100 mile (161km) route runs from Winchester to Eastbourne covering the entire length of the South Downs with a staggering 3,550 metres of climbing! It’s a tough route and a great test of endurance but also a thoroughly enjoyable event for a great cause.
I am very happy how the day panned out (and especially bewildered at being the 5th entrant to cross the finish line!) and very grateful to everyone for everything! If you’ve not yet shown your support you can still sponsor me online.