What to Look for in a Web Designer

By John Locke May 14, 2013 in Mobile, Visual Design, Web Design

What to Look for in a Web Designer

Shopping for a new website can be a very confusing and intimidating experience. Sometimes it is hard to judge if you are getting your money’s worth or not. For small businesses or non-profit organizations, there isn’t a lot of room for error, so selecting a web designer should be a thoughtful decision process. Hiring the right web professional for your project should be like hiring a good mechanic; they have a deep understanding of the technical process, but the best ones are honest about what your needs are. In the coming weeks, I’d like to share some of my thoughts on how the design process works, and some of the things your web developer should be thinking about before building your website.

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Yahoo’s Perplexing Remote Workers Decision

By John Locke Feb 23, 2013 in Company Culture

CEO Marissa Mayer Ends Remote Workers at Yahoo!

A few days ago, Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer made a sweeping HR decision that will affect hundreds of employees. Remote workers were told earlier this week that they would no longer would be able to work from home, and would have to relocate to the nearest Yahoo! office or quit. Though a few industry pundits defend this bold move, I believe that it will prove to be a costly miscalculation.

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UX Lessons from the Analog World

By John Locke Jan 9, 2013 in ux

UX (User Experience)

At one point in my life, I didn’t create HTML or CSS, I used to make baked goods. More specifically, I ran bakery departments for a well known grocery chain. Some of the most important business lessons that I would ever learn, I absorbed through interacting with customers, and observing what made them loyal users. You might think that the digital and analog worlds are very different, but you might be surprised by the UX lessons that you can learn from the bricks and mortar world.

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Unsolicited Designs of Popular Sites

By John Locke Jan 5, 2013 in Visual Design

Unsolicited Redesigns

Recently, an unsolicited visual redesign of Facebook by Fred Nerby reignited fervent discussion in the design community. Some of the feedback was positive, a lot of it was negative. Today, I’m going to look at why designers continue to create these redesigns, and the positive and negative implications of doing so.

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Working With Design Clients: A New Philosophy

By John Locke Nov 12, 2012 in Clients

Time for a New Web Design Client Philosophy

Successfully working with clients is an essential skill for designers who wish to make a comfortable living, yet many of us treat client relations as a secondary concern. Even worse, some agencies are missing the opportunity to make their design clients partners in the creative process. Let’s look at some of the reasons that this phenomenon occurs, and how the design community can help make this situation better for everyone involved.

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