Why Macaw Web Design Tool for Programmers is Different

Web developers are always looking for new tools to make it easier to complete the project at hand on time for the customer.  The creators of the web design Mccaw is stating that this tool can streamline Web production into on single app.




Calling itself “the code-savvy Web design tool,” Macaw creators Tom Giannattasio and Adam Christ say the software is designed to push HTML as the “standard deliverable at every stage of the process – from conception to deployment.”

The tool was created as an experiment about a year ago to “solve the gap between design tools and the browser.” The two did so by creating an application which enables a fluid design process but also helps developers get the exact code they need. With Macaw, Giannattasio and Christ say the software can speed the production process for both Web designers and developers, easing collaborations.

In the sneak peek video, Giannattasio and Christ walk users through creating a simple blog page with Macaw. Users can design a blog page much like one would ordinarily create in Photoshop or Illustrator. During the process, users can make various design decisions, such as keeping the background image fixed or leaving a logo absolute positioned. Users can also define how things should function using the tool panel on the app.


Once the site is laid out exactly as envisioned, all the user has to do is assign names to each element, much like developers give ID’s and classes to HTML codes. Finally, the finish product can be exported the site as HTML and CSS files. Macaw does all the work of creating a clean HTML markup, consolidating CSS codes, and organization elements in a way that’s readable and identifiable.



The Macaw creators say the tool is intended to help find the balance between simplicity and speed when it comes to Web development. Macaw features a fluid canvas – an added bonus for responsive Web design – that allows for better use of typography options and increased user interactivity.

The features don’t stop there. “We have some intuitive features that have never been seen before in a design tool,” the duo teases. “We’re hopeful people will say to themselves ‘Why hasn’t anyone done it this way before?’”
http://thenextweb.com/dd/2013/10/12/macaw-web-design-tool-programmers-hits-kickstarter/

Project6 Recognized for Three Award Winning Website Designs in the WebAwards Competition

 The three awards given to Project6 Design were for Education, High-Tech, and Sports Responsive Website Design .                                   

The following article by PRWEB gives the details of the competition.



San Francisco Bay Area website design and development firm Project6 Design is proud to announce three honors from the Web Marketing Association’s 17th international WebAward competition. The redesign of the complex Leisure Sports, Inc. website garnered Project6 Design the Standard of Excellence award in the contest’s Sports category, and the Musicians Institute and Nok Nok Labs earned Outstanding Website awards.

Websites are judged on seven criteria, including design, innovation, content, technology, interactivity, copy writing and ease of use and receive a numeric score. Each WebAward entry is judged against other entries in its industry category and then against an overall standard of excellence. With 12 years of design and development expertise, Project6 Design has a proven record as one of the best web design companies in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Leisure Sports, an active lifestyle business, designs, develops, owns and manages distinctive, high-end fitness resorts and hotels that offer world-class service, contemporary facilities, and innovative sports and fitness programs. Project6 Design refined the Leisure Sports sites’ outdated navigation and branding, developed multiple content editor roles, updated an outdated and complex custom fitness scheduling tool, added internal promotions, and more. The result is a single Drupal-driven website that serves all seven location websites and allows easy access to multiple editors to quickly make changes.


Nok Nok Labs is a B2B security startup in Palo Alto that was looking to come out of stealth mode. Targeting a conference as their grand unveiling, they had just a few months to create their website and establish their presence. Project6 Design created a simple information architecture to enable site visitors to learn about their revolutionary vision quickly. GoTo Webinar, Jobvite, YouTube Video Channel, and the Marketo CRM were integrated into the website as part of Nok Nok Labs' drive to attract top talent and captures leads.

Musicians Institute provides an innovative education that prepares graduates for professional, creative careers in the contemporary music industry, but they were saddled with an outdated, unintuitive website that was not at all user-friendly on desktop, and didn't work on mobile devices. Project6 Design reviewed site analytics, created detailed user personas, and developed an information architecture that appealed to each of the target audiences, resulting in a new website design is clean, refreshing and easy to read—after years of struggling with white text on a black background. The Musicians Institute marketing department is now empowered with a responsive, sharable, search-optimized, easy-to-maintain design that allows their brand to shine.

All three websites were designed and built using the latest award-winning Responsive Web Design (RWD)methodologies—so images are scaled and navigation is intuitive on all devices, from large desktop monitors to the smallest phones. All are built with the Drupal content management system (CMS). Drupal is an open source content management platform powering millions of websites and applications. It’s built, used, and supported by an active and diverse community of people around the world. It is used by some of the biggest sites on the Web, like The Economist, Examiner.com and The White House. Drupal is a cutting-edge platform that supports the latest technologies that the Web has to offer. The Drupal project's principles encourage modularity, standards, collaboration, ease-of-use, and more.

About the WebAwards
The Web Marketing Association was founded in 1997 to help define the standard of excellence for online marketing. Its internationally known award programs, such as WebAward Competition for Website Development, Internet Advertising Competition and the MobileWebAwards, recognize the people and organizations responsible for developing the most effective online marketing programs on the Internet today.

About Project6 Design, Inc.
Project6 Design is an award-winning San Francisco Bay Area web design firm working with high-tech, retail, education, and nonprofit organizations. Our strategic process helps elevate their brand, engage their target audience, and drive business results. Our services include branding, print collateral design, and web design and development. Clients include eBay, Gap, Stanford, CA Technologies, Old Navy, The Siebel Foundation, UCSF, and many others. For more information, call (510) 540-8005, email: info(at)project6(dot)com or visit our website athttp://www.project6.com.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/9/prweb11120453.htm

A New Website Plan Must Include a Foundation of Processes and Reviews for a Great Outcome

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When building a website there must be a an orderly plan to follow to completion of the project. This plan involves more that just the web designer/developer. The following activities have been recommended to use to insure a great website.


Keyword research. Identifying strategically important keywords is crucial not only for search engine optimization, but also for developing the thematic structure of site content.

Sitemap. A sitemap identifies each page of the new site and where it appears in the site’s navigational structure.

Wireframe. A wireframe is like an interactive construction blueprint that allows users to see what the site will roughly look like and how the navigation works. It allows a firm to tweak design and content placement before actual design and content development begin.

Content. Once site pages have been locked down in the sitemap and word counts locked down in the wireframe, writers can get to work.

Design. Designers can proceed as well at this stage.

Development. When content and design are complete, the new site can be programmed and made functional.

Pre-launch testing. Make sure everything works before going public.
Launch. A variety of tasks go into moving the new site from test mode to live mode.

Post-launch troubleshooting. Something always goes wrong, but there is nothing to worry about if you have a system in place to make corrections.

Define the Review and Approval Process

A firm must obviously approve the keyword research, sitemap, wireframe, etc., before the project can move to the next phase. But what is the procedure for internally reviewing these creative outputs, and who exactly is responsible for giving approval?

An effective review and approval process involves enough people to provide balance and thoroughness, but not so many as to create endless discussion and division. Review teams may vary somewhat depending on the item under discussion, but continuity and consistency are enhanced when team members stay connected in some degree to all project phases.

Most important of all, a firm must empower a specific individual to make final review and approval decisions. If this is not done, one of two things will happen:
Decisions won’t get made and the project will never get done.
Poor, rushed, or inconsistent decisions will be made, ruining the quality of the site.

Create a Project Schedule

To meet a launch date, work schedules must be organized carefully. Left to their own devices, writers and designers can tweak ideas forever; on the other hand, if deadlines are too tight, quality suffers.

A good schedule provides adequate time for production, review, and revisions. Common sense, evaluating talent, and understanding the corporate culture are the most important factors in scheduling. For instance, it’s reasonable to assume that a design won’t be approved without at least one round of revisions. And, if the firm tends to be very particular about branding and image, allowing for two or three rounds of revisions makes sense.

If the project has one writer handling 100 pages, one week will hardly be enough time for content. In this situation, the firm can decide in advance whether to hire additional writers or extend the timeline – a much better option than scrambling as an impossible deadline approaches.

Designate a Process Owner

A successful site project has a specific person responsible for keeping the process on track. This individual, the project manager, makes sure deadlines are tracking to be met, that changes to the schedule are made and communicated to all team members, and that unexpected problems are handled in an organized and efficient manner.

Whoever handles this role needs an understanding of the technical aspects of web development and extraordinarily strong communication skills. This is not a job for an efficient executive secretary or a brilliant technician with minimal people skills. A lot of firms that do everything else right get into serious trouble by putting the wrong person in this position.

Document the Process

Even when project management has been assigned to the ideal candidate, the process must exist in documented form, not only in the head of that individual. Why? First, if anything happens to the project manager, the entire project will be thrown into disarray; second, without a documented process, team members and company leadership will have a hard time visualizing the entire process and understanding where they fit in it; third, without a “scorecard,” assessing the performance of the project manager and making appropriate revisions to the process for the next time around become difficult.

Firms always get caught up in the fun aspects of a new website: cool designs, snappy content, amazing animation, and the like. But invariably, firms with high-performance sites have people on staff who love to plan and live to organize. If those skill sets are in short supply, stock up before building your next company site.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/allbusiness/2013/09/11/a-bad-building-process-will-kill-your-new-website/

No More Confusion as to Which Portable Applications are the Best to Use in Website and Design

Why are portable applications so awesome?  Portable applications can be stored in pen drives and hard drives so you do not have to carry around your laptop. You may have wondered which applications to use in order to be beneficial in website development and design.

These are the top portable applications that have been suggested should  be a great help to developers.



KompoZer Portable:

KompoZer Portable is one of the excellent portable applications that isHTML editor. This application rivals the functionality of Dreamweaver. As compare to NotePad, it is a great application that allows you to enjoy advanced features and easy code editing functionalities that are not possible through other apps.

Riot:

RIOT is also the best portable application that can be used to compare the original with the optimized image in very less time. The application has easy to use interface that allow users to use this application without any kind of difficulty and it instantly see the resulting file size. For advanced users, this image optimizer is fast and easy-to-use that is simple yet powerful.

GIMP Portable:

GIMP is a free portable application that is a great alternative to Photoshop. Many users find it quite difficult when they used it to Photoshop, but it is extremely powerful, if they use it as a portable application. It is as powerful as Photoshop as there is not better alternative than GIMP.

Inkscape Portable:

Inkscape Portable is an open source scalable vector graphics editor that allows you to perform your drawing while on the go. This application is standards-compliant and its portable version is the most powerful that allows you to make your different parts of developing website easy. It supports with different SVG features that include markers, clones, alpha blending, etc.

Icofx:

The best and professional icon as well as cursor editor, IcoFX is an award winning application that is a perfect solution for icon creation, editing and extraction. This application is designed to work with Windows XP, Macintosh icons supporting transparency and Windows Vista. It allows you to generate windows icons up to 256×256 for Windows Vista/7 and Macintosh icons up to 1024×1024 for Macintosh OSX 10.7 Lion.

MobaPhoto:

MobaPhoto is a free and open source image manager that is one such application that does not require any kind of installation. Stuffed with numerous features, this application is very useful in terms of its quality, performance and features. Being a very useful application, you can use it to manage and track tons of pictures.

Fotografix:

Supports with layer, scripts and filters, Fotografix comes with small footprint and it is only 760kb after extract. Packed with numerous features such as Eye dropper, Clone, Magic Wand and more, this application is an alternative for you when you just want to do some easy image editing and do not want to open various applications like GIMP.

http://www.whatech.com/members-news/web-design/16101-7-best-portable-applications-for-web-developers-and-designers

Great Tips on Producing a Mobile -Friendly Website

Businesses need to realize that a mobile friendly website is a must to promote their products or services. The trend to mobile devices for consumer usage is high. Web developers need to be ready to update existing website to be mobile friendly. Mobdev has some very helpful tips for developers in this process.



1) Make sure mobile users are automatically redirected to the mobile version of your website.

2) Choose the foremost information to include: direct means of communication (e.g. phone numbers, click-to-call function, online booking); main information about services; locations on a map. Longer bios and other texts of secondary importance should be left solely for a desktop website. Include only the things your visitors are most likely to look for.

3) Remember that the user must access the needed pages as quickly as possible, with minimum actions. That's why the fewer pages stand between the user and the action he/she wants to accomplish, the better. To navigate through the website, the buttons should have enough space to prevent users from tapping the wrong button, or trying to hit a minuscule button to make it work.

4) While reducing the number of pages, avoid placing too much information per page. This will inevitably make navigation aggravating, which is by no means acceptable. Make sure that the design allows users to tap and swipe around your website easily. You should also avoid excessive number of images, avoid popups and Flash.

5) Avoid too much text input for users. Typing too much is not a very convenient option on a smartphone.

6) Essentially include the branding elements of your desktop site (e.g. logo, design style or colors) into the mobile website. It may seem a natural decision, but one must think how to do it in the best way to make the mobile site as recognizable as the desktop one.

7) Keep in sight a link to the desktop website. Many visitors may want to proceed there for the information that is left out in the mobile version.

8) Check how your website works on a number of mobile devices: smartphones and tablets running various platforms. Screen size is a crucial issue in any branch of mobile development.

http://www.pr.com/press-release/479670