It may not be back to school time for you, or even your children, but fall is definitely that time of year that kicks you back into high gear. Think about your summer days spent on the coast, cocktail parties and barbecues nearly every night—June through August you know you’re booked with festivities, getaways, family reunions, and the list continues.
Come September, you don’t have to worry about packing the beach bag or preparing a side dish for a summer soiree, you can focus on getting your life back together.
The word organizing can seem daunting, almost as though it’s a chore you were forced to do when you were twelve years old, but in all reality it’s a necessity. And with the help of some tech gadgets, that gruesome task of putting order to your life will seem much easier, faster and ultimately more enjoyable.
Grocery Gadget Goodness
Making a list of a few simple food items may not seem overwhelming, but when you have to shop for an abundant amount of produce, cleaning goods, weekly meals, school lunches (yes, it really is that time of year again), etc., your brain can start to spin—especially if your list isn’t categorized by departments—you... Read more
Tagged 'Oneupweb' 
Naming Conventions Confidential: Cute Folder Names Wreak Havoc
Yes, it can be humorous to come across a corporate folder that’s labeled “Pumpkin” or “Watcha_Want”, but let’s be honest, it’s a pain in the @$$.
I’m not here to vent about lazy labelers, but rather to stress the importance of naming conventions, because they do have an impact on your company. Files which are difficult to find greatly affect productivity, work flow and even the company’s bottom line.
As humans we need order—in the workplace especially. Organization not only means a clean physical desktop, but also a tailored virtual space—one in which is shared by multiple users. Get ready to efficiently manage your electronic records.
It’s all in the name!
Granted a file is not a newborn baby, but you better choose a name that fits. The more specific the better—just by simply including the date can help with titling folders. But be aware of the importance of making sure everyone companywide is consistent with how they date documents. For instance: YYYY_MM_DD, MM_DD_YYYY and MMDDYYYY all read differently. So stress to employees how vital it is to have a coherent way of displaying dates in file names. Another wise idea when titling a document is to optimize for quick searches—display keywords within... Read more
Balanced Design Impacts the Wellbeing of Your Site
Balance, proportion, harmony; does your site have visitors saying “Namaste”? Creating a peace amongst your white space, graphics and text connects your site and brings it back to its wholeness—composing an overall Zen.
Not all industries have equal purposes, thus the correspondence between graphics, text and white space varies for websites depending on their objectives. For instance e-commerce sites are presented with the challenge of incorporating a large amount of textual content paired with graphics to appropriately describe products. Although e-commerce sites aim to display a large amount of information, a well balanced e-commerce site should consist of 40% white space, 30% text and 30% graphics.
Let’s compare the e-commerce sites of the leading outdoor clothing companies, Patagonia and The North Face. Although they both sell yoga apparel, which company provides the best balanced design on their storefronts?
White Space
White space/negative space is a rather positive design element. It’s the area around text and graphics that provides users clarity as it helps organize pathways on a site. E-commerce sites that sacrifice white space can result in a cluttered appearance.
Print design allows for more freedom with the use of white space, where as web design is more sensitive to the application of white space.... Read more
3 Ways to Prepare Your SEO Team for Website Design Changes
Changing up your website design can certainly be fun and refreshing, but beware of the many daunting consequences a new look can cause, especially with search engines.
To avoid risking your search engine positioning, be sure to follow these three helpful redesign tips:
Site Structure
Layout your site before you begin the development process. Plan with sitemaps, wireframes and mockups to build an appropriate site for both you and your visitors. Even though the layout changes you are proposing may make perfect sense to you, they may not make sense to your customers, or the search engines. Let’s say you want to de-clutter your site, going for a more minimalistic look is great, but it may cut off navigational paths by reducing or removing relevant content. Don’t diminish the content that feeds Google, Bing and Yahoo relevant information about your site. During a revamp, don’t inadvertently make your site less known to the search engines; make sure you leave appropriate content and important links on your web property.
Timing
A new look for your website takes time; not only for your designers, but also for your development crew and IT team. Every department needs the time necessary to digest, implement and test the changes... Read more
