Matrix Group International

Month: March 2013

  • Using Icon Fonts in Web Design

    Recently I was reading Paul Boag’s “Breaking free of the print design mentality” blog post where he asks the question, “How can you create a compelling design that works just as well across all of these canvas sizes? To many this sounds impossible.”

    One way I try to create designs that will work anywhere is to use icon fonts. You are probably already familiar with regular icon fonts on every machine, like Wingdings or Webdings, but icon fonts can do so much more on the web.

    Some of the icons in Wingdings, an icon font on most machinesSome of the icons in Wingdings, an icon font on most machines

    Because they are fonts and essentially vector information, these icons scale perfectly at any resolution—making them worry free when it comes to designs seen on retina displays. Designers don’t have to worry about 2x pixel sizes or spend extra time making separate images for different displays.

    Another advantage of using icon fonts is that you don’t have to make new images if you want to quickly change the color—it is all done in CSS. For a client site that allows the user to change the color of text, they are also able to change an icon’s color with no hassle.

    A List Apart discusses even more advantages to symbol fonts, from ligatures to increased accessibility. Roger mentions Stately in a previous Snack O’Clock post—an icon font of states you can use for an interactive map.

    The best part about icon fonts is that it is simple to make your own! I use Icomoon, which lets me upload an SVG and make a font of the glyphs I want to use.

    Some icons from Icomoon

    Here at Matrix, we have launched several sites using icon fonts: NECA‘s responsive site uses icons in the page headers, so they are perfect at every size. The American Counseling Association’s main site and conference site both use icon fonts for social media images and small icons. FMI2014‘s colorful site uses icon fonts not just for social media, but as an overall part of the branding in the headers.

    While icon fonts are becoming more popular because of design trends like “flat design“, this is just the beginning of uses for scalable images on the web.

    What are your favorite responsive design techniques and tools?

  • Evernote

    Evernote

    I love this note taking and organization app. It syncs between my laptop, iPhone, and iPad and I can access it from anywhere. I can even share my notes with friends or staff!

  • How To Get Your Brand Pages Ready for the New Facebook News Feed

    Facebook logoEarlier this month, Facebook announced that users’ home page will soon be transformed into a revamped newsfeed. If you’re the administrator for a brand page, here are some things you should know about the new News Feed.

    Facebook Will Let Users Choose the Feeds They Want To See. Today, Facebook tries to guess what posts, images and links will most interest you. It’s called EdgeRank and it’s based on a complex algorithm that’s based on four factors: whether you’ve interacted with a friend or brand before (including frequency), other people’s reactions to a post (i.e., if lots of your friends are commenting on a post, chances are you’ll see that post in your feed), your interactions with posts of that type in the past (i.e., if you seem to like photos, you’ll see more photos), and whether or not a post has received complaints. With the new News Feed, Facebook will let you choose the feeds you want to see: Friends, Photos, Music, Following, Games, etc. So is EdgeRank dead? At least a few Facebook experts think so.

    Images and Video Will Rule. The Facebook News Feed will be all about photos and videos. Newsfeed will be bursting with large images and videos, including videos from third party sites. As I’ve noted above, Facebook will let users view just photos from friends and pages they like. So what happens if your organization tends to post Facebook updates with no images? Your updates will probably be largely ignored. Bottom line: think big, bold images because they will dominate the News Feed.

    Third Party Content Regains Status. If you’ve got great content on a blog, community site, YouTube, Pinterest or Instagram, for example, Facebook will let you feature those links and posts prominently, especially if they have nice images.

    How to get ready for Newsfeed?

    • Read more about the new Facebook News Feed
    • Join the waiting list so you’ll be one of the first to get Newsfeed. Go here and scroll to the bottom of the page.
    • Have a photo strategy for your website and your Facebook posts.

    Are you ready for the new News Feed? It’s coming and you want to be sure that your followers continue to WANT to read your posts and allow your posts to be featured in their feeds.

     

     

  • 5k Fridays

    5k Fridays

    Crystal City’s 5k Fridays are a great way to kick off the weekend. Matrix staff love running these races together every spring.

  • American Counseling Association Website Redesign

    American Counseling Association Website Redesign

    The American Counseling Association (ACA) is a not-for-profit, professional and educational organization that is dedicated to the growth and enhancement of the counseling profession. Founded in 1952, ACA is the world’s largest association exclusively representing professional counselors in various practice settings.

    ACA needed to redesign its website to support the demanding needs of counselors who serve in various practice settings worldwide. Members told ACA they wanted:

    • A more robust search to find things quickly
    • An easier way to complete tasks, e.g., renewing memberships, registering for courses and conferences, etc.
    • Easily accessible resources to help counselors with their daily work and career advancement
    • A website that explains who counselors are, how they help clients, and why they fill an important need in our communities

    To help ACA reach their goals, Matrix Group:

    • Created dynamic topic pages in the Knowledge Center. 
    • Achieved single sign-on (SSO) between the Sitefinity CMS, the iMIS association management software, Wiley Publishing and Higher Logic’s community platform.
    • Made the website mobile-friendly through responsive design
    • Created a tutorial that introduces visitors to the site and teaches them how to use the site to get the most out of their membership.

    Visit the ACA website.

  • National Electrical Contractors Association Website Redesign

    National Electrical Contractors Association Website Redesign

    The National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA)  is the voice of the $130 billion electrical construction industry that brings power, light, and communication technology to buildings and communities across the United States.

    NECA’s previous website had served its members successfully for more than four years, but the way electrical contractors do business is now changing and NECA wanted to ensure that they were providing members with information and resources they needed to grow.

    NECA joined forces with its longtime web partner, Matrix Group, to create a more robust, functional website that met the needs of its membership base. The new site:

    The new site:

    • Features a new “Contractor Resources” section.
    • Is now mobile-friendly. W
    • Is a user-centered design, using imagery that captures the diversity of the industry and what NECA members do.
    • Is implemented in the Sitefinity content management system.

    Check out the newly redesigned website at www.necanet.org.

  • Food Allergy Research & Education Website Redesign

    Food Allergy Research & Education Website Redesign

    Food Allergy Research & Education, Inc (FARE), is a nonprofit organization based in McLean, VA, that works on behalf of the 15 million Americans with food allergies, and was formed in 2012 as the result of a merger between the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network and the Food Allergy Initiative. FARE aims to ensure the safety and inclusion of individuals with food allergies and to pursue a cure.

    FARE wanted to unify its brand, its mission, and its message under FARE, and to increase engagement with their members and the public.

    Here’s what we did:

    • Interviewed FARE leadership and members, including researchers, educators, parents and individuals living with food allergies, to ensure we had the most up-to-date, pertinent information to share.
    • With FARE, researched the websites of FAAN and FAI to determine how to most efficiently merge the site’s taxonomy and functionality.
    • Created new branding for FARE, uniting the themes of food, health care, and education.
    • Crafted a clean, user-friendly design for the new website, organizing the vast amount of information in an intuitive way, simplifying the experience for all visitors.

    Visit the redesigned site at www.foodallergy.org.

  • American Counseling Association Website Redesign

    American Counseling Association Website Redesign

    The American Counseling Association (ACA) is a not-for-profit, professional and educational organization that is dedicated to the growth and enhancement of the counseling profession.

    As the world’s largest association exclusively representing professional counselors, ACA needed to redesign its website to support the demanding needs of counselors who serve in various practice settings worldwide.

    Matrix Group worked with ACA to completely revamp its website. Based on extensive interviews with counselors, ACA leadership and staff (part of our user-centered design process), Matrix Group updated the navigation, created a new design that reflected the association’s brand, implemented the website into a content management system and integrated it with ACA’s technology partners.

    The new ACA site:

    • Features dynamic topic pages in the Knowledge Center. 
    • Achieved single sign-on (SSO) between the Sitefinity CMS, the iMIS association management software, Wiley Publishing and Higher Logic‘s community platform.
    • Features a new MyACA section that gives counselors a snapshot of their profiles and makes recommendations for things to do and purchase.
    • Is now mobile-friendly. Counseling.org is responsive to users’ devices, whether it’s a smartphone, tablet or desktop computer.
    • Features a tutorial that introduces visitors to the site and teaches them how to use the site to get the most out of their membership.

    Check out the new ACA website at www.counseling.org

  • IRS2GO

    IRS2GO

    Tax season is here! This app plugs you in to the IRS on the go so you can access your existing tax records, as well as check the status of your 2012 return after it’s filed.

  • Why Rebranding Is Really Hard and Takes a Really Long Time

    Why Rebranding Is Really Hard and Takes a Really Long Time

    new-brandA couple of days ago, a Matrix Group client, a major trade association was quoted in a a major news story. The news organization quoted a statistic that the association promotes through its website, about the benefits of working with its members. The trouble was this: the name of the organization was wrong in the news story. You see, the organization had rebranded with a new name five years ago, but the news story still used the old name. This, despite a major effort to educate the industry, the press, trade publications, yada, yada. Ugh.

    For many years, I chaired a benefit auction for a local non-profit. The benefit was successful and well-known but one year, we were close to panic when ticket sales were much lower than anticipated. We quickly organized a phone campaign and found out something startling: many longtime benefit attendees did not recognize the name of the organization on the envelope. You see, the organization had rebranded with a new name three years earlier and we figured it was time to use the new name (on its own, without the “formerly” name) on the return address. Guess we were wrong.

    These stories point to the difficulties and challenges associated with rebranding campaigns, especially campaigns that involve a name change. Most organizations do a fine job communicating the changes via their websites, letters, postcards, emails, email signatures, voice on hold messages, advertisements in trade publications, and on and on. Trouble is, people aren’t necessarily paying attention. The letter, ad or postcard doesn’t register until your customer, partners and prospects decide they want to interact with your organization, on their terms, on their timeline.

    So what are the lessons here?

    • Know that rebranding is a long-term effort, it’s going to require constant and intense communications, and some people are still going to miss the message.
    • Use every communications vehicle possible to communicate the changes: website, email, letter, postcard, magazine article, magazine ad, banner ads, voice on hold message, email signature, video, news stories, etc.
    • Renew the old domain name and point it to the new site for as long as you can bear.
    • Make sure there are plenty of references to the old name on your website so that search engines will associate your new name with the old one.
    • Keep reminding your audiences of the reasons for the rebranding and reinforce the new name and images.

    How about you? Has your organization rebranded? What communications challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?