Commonly Neglected Web (Mis)Practices
Brandon Godwin
Feb22nd
Topics: Industry Trends, Web Strategy
No Comments »

Incumbent upon a professional is surveying the landscape of his profession — noting best of’s, worst of’s, and everything in between.

The Web Strategy team at Worthwhile, we look at hundreds of websites each week, only we’re not only creating/developing websites or just surfing the Web for fun. We view the Web from a critical perspective, since, as mentioned above, that’s what we do!

Observations aren’t absolute. Neither are they to be fully considered as science. Nevertheless, observations from experts regarding their field are helpful.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Future of the Internet: Apps or Chrome?
Christopher Nicholas
Feb17th
Topics: Industry Trends
2 Comments »

I had a rough childhood. I grew up in an era where you listened to cassette tapes in the car and waited 5 minutes for them to change sides (if you were lucky enough to have an automatic flipper). I also lived through the days of VHS rentals: “Please be sure and rewind.” Probably the most trying years were back when we had CRT monitors, TV’s the size of a recliner, and no HD Discovery channel!

I’ve come a long way. Now instead of a clunky Walkman I can pick me up a nifty iPod touch. Instead of a clunky bag phone I can sport my new Droid! Better yet I can surf the web via Google Chrome instead of IE6. Life is good.

Read the rest of this entry »

Promotion That Doesn’t Work
Leighton Taylor
Feb1st
Topics: Customer Service, Industry Trends
No Comments »

Lately I’ve noticed countless examples of advertising and branding that completely fail to entice me as a potential customer. The main problem: the company is focused on itself rather than the customer. I see this problem often with small mom-and-pop businesses (probably because they don’t spend much on marketing) and also in large corporations (they really have no excuse).

Read the rest of this entry »

Don’t Sacrifice Usability on the Altar of Metrics
Chris Rackley
Jan27th
Topics: Industry Trends, SEM, Web Strategy
No Comments »

Screaming manThere’s a disturbing trend going on in web marketing right now. And like straw that breaks camels’ backs, I’ve had enough.

Metrics are awesome. I like metrics. You like metrics. Some people really like metrics. But to what extent? And perhaps more importantly, at what cost?

Alarmingly (and I am not overstating my case), more and more marketers are sacrificing user experience for the sake of niche tracking. My dear friends, this should never be! Your site’s usability should always be the foremost consideration. Always.   

Read the rest of this entry »

The Cross Browser Conundrum
Kirsten Dietz
Jan19th
Topics: Industry Trends, Web Design
1 Comment »

In my opinion, one of the most frustrating things about web design is cross-browser compatibility. What are we as web designers up against? A 60% usage share of Internet Explorer, the bane of the web designer’s existence. Microsoft in this browser has blatantly disregarded CSS standards and tried to reinvent the wheel by rendering CSS how they thought it should be rendered. This leads to time-consuming workarounds, hacks, and browser-specific stylesheets to get the site to appear half-decent. Thankfully, trends show that IE’s share is slowly but steadily dropping as the years roll on, and their latest version, 8, is pretty good at keeping to the standards.

Read the rest of this entry »