Brick by Brick

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The technology people use to browse websites has changed dramatically the last few years.  Smartphones and tablets have become ubiquitous.  Desktop monitors are getting bigger.  Connectivity is getting better.  Browsers are getting more sophisticated and powerful.

The approach to building website has evolved along with the technology people use to brose the Internet.  In the last few years Flash has gone from ubiquitous to scarce.  And HTM5 has gone from an experimental technology to a fairly common way to build websites.

The rise of HTM5 and the fall of Flash have had a particularly dramatic impact on Interactive pieces.

I remember seeing this Arcade Fire HTML5 interactive film back in 2010, and being blown away by the possibilities it presented. While it is still pretty great, pieces like this have become more and more common over the last few years.  Following are five HTML5 interactive pieces I’ve come across in the last few months that push the boundaries of what is possible in browser. (more…)

It used to be that when you launched a new website you would have two to three years before the design started to feel dated.  Given how quickly things are moving now, a design can start feeling stale after as little as six months.  The battle against dated design is constant.  While its design was only sixteen months old, we had gotten really sick of the design of our blog, Brick by Brick.   We needed a change.  So today we are pleased to launch a new version we think is a huge step forward (see a before and after here).  Following is a breakdown of the primary improvements we made.

Readability

I’m stating the obvious here, but your blog should really be about your content.  The design should get out of the way and let the posts be the star.

Our primary focus in redesigning our blog was to better showcase the content itself  by increasing readability.  To achieve this we:

• Switched our primary font to Georgia.   We chose Georgia because it works well with the font used in our logo (Avenir), is a pleasure to read, and isn’t used on every site on the web like Arial. I think it adds a bit of elegance to the blog.
• Jumped on the big type bandwagon and upped the sizes of our fonts throughout.
• Switched from full justification of text to the justify left, ragged right style.  Full justification is more elegant and looks better on first glance, which is why it is still the dominant approach in book publishing.  Left justified, ragged right is easier to read online and has a bit more of an informal look, which we thought appropriate for our blog.
• Changed to a one column layout.  Our previous blog had a sidebar with a list of recent posts and a subscribe box.  We found that very few people were clicking on any of that stuff, and going to one column gives us room for larger images to accompany our posts.

Illustrations

We have a talented team of designers that we frankly don’t utilize as much as we should on our blog.  To rectify this we decided to have our design team develop quick illustrations to accompany most of our posts.  They did the illustration for this post, as well as for this one and this one.  I love them.  I think they really add something to our blog.

Responsiveness

Our new blog is completely responsive, so that the layout adjusts along with screen size.  This means it looks great on a desktop, tablet, or mobile phone.  Nearly all the sites we are building now are responsive to some degree, so it made sense that our own blog would be.  We think this is how sites will be designed moving forward.

Let us know what you think.

With the rise of social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest the way content is discovered has changed dramatically the last few years. If you want to be successful, your content strategies have to evolve along with the discovery mechanisms.

From a content creation standpoint, one of the things that has changed the most the last few years is the the headline.

When I first started writing blog posts ten years ago I treated the article headline as an afterthought.  I’d spend hours on a blog post and then approximately thirty seconds on the headline.   As I got a bit more savvy I started writing keyword-rich headlines with search engines in mind.

As Facebook and Twitter have taken off, my focus has evolved further.  Facebook and Twitter users are barraged with hundreds of posts/links a day and make the decision on whether to click or not in just a few seconds.  To succeed in this competitive environment you have to make your headline click-worthy.  A headline has to grab readers attention and compel them to click.  A click-worthy headline is a way of pushing the snowball down the hill.

One media company that gets the importance of headlines is Upworthy.  Upworthy requires writers to draft 25 headlines for every single article.  They then test the headlines to see which ones generate the highest click rates and use that as the permanent article headline.  All the effort pays off.  Upworthy has found that “an item’s traffic can differ by as much as 500 percent simply because of the headline.”

Here are some examples of click-worthy headlines I found on Upworthy today:

• Possibly The Most Devastating Response I’ve Ever Seen In An Immigration Debate
• This Is What It Looks Like When A City Fights For Its Schools
• Two Barking Dogs, A Mother Of Three, And One Outrageous Deportation That You Can Stop
• SWOON: Watch This Star Calmly Blow Apart Any Argument That We Can’t Solve Poverty In One Generation

The thing about these examples is that the content isn’t necessarily click-worthy in and of itself.  These aren’t listicles or articles about cute animals or Ryan Gosling.  These are pieces about immigration, the plight of our schools and poverty.  Great headlines are what make you want to click, not necessarily the subject matter itself.

As I work to improve my own headline writing, I’ve found these two simple tips to be helpful

1. I consciously think about what all the headlines I write will look like when I post them to Facebook and Twitter.  I still consider search engines, but my headlines are now written primarily for social networks.  As a result, my headlines have gotten a bit more casual and tongue and cheek.
2. I make myself write ten headlines for every article and take my time in choosing which one to use.  I haven’t gotten to the point of doing testing like Upworthy does, but by taking the time to brainstorm my options I’ve found the quality of my headlines has improved and I’m seeing more clicks (and shares).  I’m no longer just using the first headline I come up with or writing exclusively for Google’s bots.

I’m still not a great headline writer, as evidenced by the headline to this article.  But by giving more thought to the headlines I’m getting a bit better every time out.

I grew up in San Antonio and like everyone from there I’m a big fan of the San Antonio Spurs. Since drafting Tim Duncan in 1997, the Spurs have gone on an unprecedented run, winning four NBA titles and more than 50 regular games each season for the last thirteen years.  Led by their cranky coach, Gregg Popovich, the Spurs are celebrated for their unselfishness and commitment to team.

The following quote from Dutch American reformer Jacob Riis hangs in the Spurs dressing room and serves the team’s unofficial motto:

“When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.”

In the context of basketball, the quote is an obvious call for players to put maximum effort into everything they do.  Winning an NBA title is the culmination of years spent taking jumpers in the gym when no one else is watching.  To be great you have to pound the rock.

The quote is also an accurate description of what it takes to build and maintain a great digital program.

There are tons of organizations that want a great, successful online campaign but don’t want to put in the work.  The truth is there really aren’t short cuts.  The truth is that building websites and running digital campaigns is hard work that requires a significant commitment.  A successful web program isn’t the result of one transcendent idea so much as it is hundreds of small ideas implemented well.

To be great you have to write compelling content every week, and preferably every day.

To be great you have to optimize your email messaging and design.

To be great you have to make sure your website works in all browsers (even IE) on all devices (desktop, tablet and smartphone).

To be great you have to experiment.

To be great you have to test and then test some more.

To be great you have to pound the rock.