Robynne Lofton’s Transition From Higher Ed to Digital Agency
It has been a beautiful period of transitions. My time in admissions was driven by the deep desire to open wide the doors to spaces that so few had access to. Over 26 years that passion grew into leadership, serving students, managing teams, offices, and divisions. A passion to serve became grounded in purpose as […]
Why and How to Add Heat Mapping to Your Analytics Toolkit
Summarizing and reporting data about your website can be difficult to do in an engaging way. Data tables and complex visualizations from Google Analytics show larger trends, but don’t always communicate what users are doing on the page-level: Heatmaps can help you answer these questions. Many tools are low cost and easy to use, and […]
10 Automated Tests to Keep Your Website Healthy — and Help Your Devs Sleep at Night
At NewCity, we apply a number of different automated tests to our client sites. Below are ten of the most useful ones we’ve found.
UI Design Systems
All websites, regardless of size, are made up of common elements. Some pieces are small (think buttons or headers) and some pieces are big (image galleries or news feeds). A design system organizes these common elements into reusable patterns that can be combined to make any page or interface you need.
Project Strategy Blueprint
A strategy blueprint is a one page summary of your project strategy. We primarily use them across our project team as a short-had reminder of the needs and goals of the project. If you plan to use it to share the project strategy with other stakeholders, you may need more explanation. We usually include these […]
Writing for the Web and Your Brand
No matter what form your web writing guidelines take, they should provide clear examples for both writing for the web and supporting key brand messages. Not all content editors have experience with both of these writing styles and need clear and practice guidance to be successful. Web writing guides should: You might be thinking, “My […]
Website Content Work Planning Template
One of the most important tools for managing the creation, revision, or migration of content for a website is the content work plan. There are commercial tools available, but we most often rely on a spreadsheet with columns for plan details. To develop a content work plan we recommend these steps: Below is an example […]
Page Tables for Website Content Creation
Page Tables help web content editors plan content–both text and media–that will work well for each page of a website. A page table breaks the page down into its components, explaining what should go into each part of a content type or layout in simple terms, with examples. They’re most helpful for repeatable content types […]
Is your hypertext too hyper?
If your page is full of links that people find confusing or distracting, and if the only design solution is to make those links harder to see, what you have is a content problem.
What International Students Can Teach Us About the Virtual Campus Visit
It’s decision season for students starting college this year. Normally, campuses would be teeming with flocks of high school seniors and parents following peppy student tour guides. I was one of those guides, a sophomore learning to walk backwards without tripping and swapping my left for my right, as I pointed out interesting features of […]
