Industry News

From Mark Boulton’s great post I’m not a Craftsman:

I’m more often than not in a place where my own job, as a designer, is not to make something I love, but to make something appropriate. Something that does the job well. Something that responds to a hypothesis and serves a need. Not necessarily something loved and beautiful. And that’s ok.

In many cases, especially when it comes to client work, pragmatism beats idealism in design.    

Today I've got a guest article about how to optimize your content for today's Google.

Google announced their next spam target are those who are implementing manipulative browser history techniques to trick the user to thinking they are on Google's search results, when in reality...

In December, we reported that Google was asking searchers to help improve Google. Well, those micro surveys to ask searchers which search results they prefer have not gone away.
Kevin Anchi posted on Google+ more screen ...

Just like anyone, I get crappy SEO pitches. My advice to anyone who gets these out of the blue is to ignore them. A good firm isn’t clogging your inbox with supposedly awesome sounding offers. But as a guide to crap you can especially ignore, here’s the latest from my inbox. The Pitch

Gloria C. Williams got in touch with me on June 25th, to say: Hi, my name is Gloria C. Williams and I am an Online Strategist.

I’ve been tracking the success of www.calafia.com while doing some research on...

John Ciancutti explains how Netflix uses data to make product decisions in How We Determine Product Success:

It can be frustrating to be in a product development environment where force of personality or hierarchy determines product outcomes. At Netflix the focus on customer value makes a teachable moment of those times one guesses wrong. My product intuition is vastly better today for the benefit of my mistakes.

It’s a great read on the importance of listening like you’re wrong when...

Over the last 4 years I’ve conducted more than 250 A/B tests focusing on copywriting, and how copy impacts conversions. The main lesson I’ve learned from all this research is that your copy has direct and measurable impact on conversion.

For this article, I’ve picked out 8 very simple case studies for you where minor copy changes resulted in significant conversion lifts. Check them out and get inspiration for low-hanging fruits in your own conversion funnel. 1.) 6.64% increase in downloads...

Clayton Cubitt starts his fascinating article on how photography is changing with a definition of what French photographer (and the father of modern photojournalism) Henri Cartier-Bresson called “The Decisive Moment”:

Cartier-Bresson believed that the photographer is like a hunter, going forth into the wild, armed with quick reflexes and a finely-honed eye, in search of that one moment that most distills the time before him. In this instant the photographer reacts, snatching truth from...