Substance and Style

    Category: Uncategorized

    • Six Easy Ways to Make Your Website More Accessible

      The standards for web accessibility can be a little overwhelming, but it’s important to keep them in mind when designing a website. The ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) technically does apply to websites because websites are public spaces. Government entities should be especially conscious of this, as they are held to a higher standard than…

    • 5 Ways to Speed Up Your WordPress Site

      We’re living in an age of unprecedented impatience. The last thing you want your website to be is slow. If you’re visiting your own site frequently, it probably seems very fast to you, but it’s important to check from other computers and devices that have never visited your site before. The more times you visit…

    • Nine Tips for Persuasive Web Writing

      Know your purpose. What do you want your audience to think or do after reading the piece? Keep this purpose in mind while you write and edit. Make sure it comes through in the text, and edit out extraneous detail. Respect your audience. Know who they are and how to reach them. Don’t waste their…

    • Three Easy (And Free) Ways To Boost Your Search Ranking

      Most business aspire to rank high in search results, which is not surprising. A person who is actively searching for products or services is easy to convert to a paying customer. If your site ranks high enough to catch their attention, and your business can fulfill their need, you can make a sale pretty quickly…

    • Five Non-Design Things To Tell Designers About Your Business

      Sometimes you hire a designer to create something specific. You already have in your mind what it will look like, but you lack the technical expertise to make it. There’s nothing wrong with that, and, in fact, designers love it. It’s less work for them, and it’s almost never less money. However, the best designers…

    • Animating Information Design, Part III: Animate Just About Anything in Keynote or Powerpoint

      Keynote and Powerpoint both offer a lot of options for basic animation. Choose from pre-made effects, or create your own by controlling the appearance of objects over time. Both programs operate on a principle of keyframe animation (a scaled down version of what you find in programs like After Effects). Basically, this means that you…

    • Animating Information Design, Part II: Animating Chart Elements in Keynote and Powerpoint

      Last week, we talked about built in animations for charts and infographics in Keynote and Powerpoint, including Keynote’s powerful Magic Chart feature. This week, we delve into how to animate the separate elements of charts for greater control and more interesting effects. While too many chart types exist for me to cover every one in…

    • Animating Information Design, Part I: Built In Chart Animations in Keynote and Powerpoint

      Last week, we talked about Information Design. I had intended to cover Animating Information Design in one post, but I need more space to do the subject justice. Therefore, this week we will cover built in chart animations in Keynote and Powerpoint, next week we will discuss animating individual elements of charts, and the week…

    • Basics of Information Design

      Whether you own your own business, run a nonprofit, or work in marketing, you will need to present data to someone at some point. Your customers, investors, staff, and donors have an attention span that grows shorter every day. It is vital that you be able to convey information efficiently and memorably.  Information Design is…

    • There will be no post this week due to a death in the family.