While product findability is a key factor of success in e-commerce, it is predominantly enabled by simple search alone. And while simple search usually doesn’t fulfill complex needs among users, website developers and owners still regard advanced search as just another boring to-do item during development. Owners won’t go so far as to leave it out, because every e-commerce website has some kind of advanced search functionality, but they probably do not believe it brings in much revenue.
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Ask the Expert is a weekly series here on Design Informer. For this week’s theme, we will be talking about typography. Brian Hoff is this week’s expert.
Brian is a graphic designer from the always-sunny Philadelphia. He collaborates mostly on corporate identity and branding, but is also experienced in building all kinds of quality, strategic design, both in print and on the web.
In addition to his design services, he also writes for the popular graphic design and creative business blog, The Design Cubicle. The blog not only teaches, inspires and helps other designers, but also focuses on client education and design awareness, while showcasing his work, creative processes, and personal practices.
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I was pretty excited when I came up with the idea of examining and showcasing some of the most famous beer and alcohol-related websites from a number of countries around the world. After all, who doesn’t like the odd drink now and again? (Well, besides me — I can’t stand alcohol in any form.) Surely this would make for an interesting article that would elicit quite a few comments. Well, if that’s the result, it wouldn’t be for the reasons I suspected when beginning to research this piece.
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Assuming that you have a choice available with no outside factors involved - choosing whether to work from home or a rented space/studio is a decision every freelancer should spend time thinking about. Importantly, it’s a question that one should probably ask themselves at regular intervals of their freelancing life… There is no right or wrong answer; it is ultimately a personal decision for the lone freelancer.
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I love the use of different colors in design. Designs that use vibrant colors really attract my attention. I’ve definitely done my part in showcasing colorfuldesigns.
Today, we will be focusing on black and white. In the world of design, black and white definitely have their place. Using black and white can definitely add a touch of class as well as a classical element to a design. Just take for instance, black and white movies. Because of the lack of color, these movies automatically generate a classic feel.
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CSS3 is the partially implemented sequel to the CSS2 spec we all know and love. It’s already popping up in new browsers such as Firefox 3.5, Safari 4 and Chrome. In this article, the first of the articles that explore practical (and even far-fetched) implementation of CSS3, we start by applying CSS3 to something we all have to create: buttons.
Calls to action are critical for any website, and a compelling, attention-grabbing, clickable button goes a long way toward driving that engagement. In the past, really awesome buttons needed extra markup, sliding doors or other trickery. We’ll show you here how to create nice button styles without any hacks or cheats.
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Everyone has been going on about how we should use CSS3 more and all of the possibilities and flexibility that come with it, but that we should still consider IE6 and other troubling browsers.
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The ever burgeoning web design community has received numerous plaudits for its incessant dedication towards collaborative information sharing. Tutorials, CSS website showcases and open source web development projects are some of the many treats available to the knowledge-seeking design enthusiast. Social media networks too have been thoroughly utilised in promoting the vast amount of material available for designers, amongst other like-minded visual arts aficionados. But what is there in store for the ‘reader’? – The normal thumb-twiddling average Joe who has a keen appreciation of visual aesthetics but is first and foremost a reader.
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Seeing as we are all human (well, presumably whoever is reading this post anyway), we should recognize that mistakes happen. They even have that saying, “To err is human…,” which goes to show that it is not only commonplace for us to err once or twice: it is expected. But a method is behind this madness, because making mistakes is one of the major ways we learn. This is no different for freelancers.
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How would you like to design a beautiful, colorful, stimulating website that is captivating, memorable, and allows you to let your creative juices flow without the need to worry too much about usability and best practices? In today’s web design market, it’s rare that such a project would present itself — unless you were asked to design a website for children.
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