So you probably heard that Slickplan, our web app for sitemapping, was selected as a finalist in this year’s AppItOut competition.

The contest was held at Future Insights Live, a massive 5-day conference for web developers held in Las Vegas.

The contest pitted three web apps against each other in a head-to-head competition before a live audience. Lights, cameras, presentations, clapping, cheering … for a few minutes, on a Tuesday afternoon, Ian and I felt like we were on American Idol.

We even got grilled by the judges, Simon Cowell–style, and had to defend our app’s design and functionality.

It was a crazy and amazing experience. Not only did we have the honor of being voted into the competition by real users, we had the privilege of introducing Slickplan to a ton of our colleagues in a huge public forum.

We also got to meet lots of Slickplan users, many of whom thanked us for creating the app and told us how much they enjoy using it every day.

And after the competition, we got to enjoy the conference itself. We got to meet and learn from amazing industry leaders like Bulat Shakirzyanov from Twilio and Devrim Yasar from Koding. And superstar entrepreneurs like Jason Calacanis from Mahalo.

Oh — what’s that you say? Did we win the competition? No, we didn’t.

That honor went to Tracky, a social collaboration app.

But the recognition from our peers — the great feedback from our users — and the chance to learn so much in such a short time — made us feel like big winners nonetheless.

So thanks to all the fans who voted Slickplan into this year’s AppItOut competition, and gave us such a wonderful opportunity. We’re sending big love right back atcha.

Usability is a highly sophisticated field. And it’s constantly changing. To navigate that complexity, I keep six core principles of UI design in mind. They help me stay focused on what’s important.

You can apply these guidelines to any UI project you’ve got. Whether you’re designing web applications or washing machines, the principles stay the same.

Here they are.

Consider the people actually using your product. When I’m working on an interface, I imagine not just the general demographic I’m designing for, but the specific people. Instead of imagining “seniors,” for example, I imagine my dad or mom. How would they interact with the screen? What would frustrate them? Or make them smile?

Copywriters tell me that they work the same way. They imagine in great detail the person for whom they’re writing — even inventing details about their clothes, family, and hobbies. It helps them see their target audience clearly, and they write with more focus because of it.

Make it simple. It’s easy to get caught up in the coolness of your design. Or to shove elements in that users “might need.” Every so often, step back and remove every element that you possibly can from your interface. Be ruthless – don’t think anything is too clever or important to strip away.

Then, take a hard look at what’s left. Did you really need those extra elements? Or is the UI cleaner—and more user-friendly—without them?

Draw attention to what’s important. This guideline sounds basic—but it means everything. Think carefully about the number one action you want your users to perform. Then make that action the most prominent.

For Chipotle, that means putting “Create New Order” right at the top of the screen. For Dragon Dictation, it means placing a single red “record” button smack dab in the center of the interface—with nothing else around it.

Create barriers. On the opposite side, think about what actions you don’t want users to take—and put some barriers around them. For example, Amazon doesn’t mind if you read the “About” information on their web app. But it’s safely buried under a generic “More” navigation button.

Why? Because that information’s just not that important. It’s not central to the app’s core function: helping users quickly find and buy merchandise.

Get feedback. As a matter of fact, get lots of feedback. Share the UI with family, friends, focus groups. People who are familiar with web apps, and people who know nothing about them. Industry experts and kids just out of college. The more information you get on how real people interact with your UI, the more you can perfect it.

Just remember: collect all the data you want, but ultimately, you have to decide what’s the best design.

Consider someone performing a task a hundred thousand times. Think about the people who will use your application frequently. What are they going to get sick of? What’s going to slow them down?

For example, I hate the fact that you have to tap “Play” then “Submit” every turn on Words With Friends. That’s two taps for every single action a user performs! Multiply that by five games, two turns a day, for weeks on end. That’s hundreds of extra clicks.

Yeah, it’s just a game. But it still gets annoying. And you don’t want annoyed users for your web app.

Usability is a hugely sophisticated field, lots to learn, changing … never hurts to remember the basics.

I’ve lived in the Dayton, Ohio area my whole life. So I find it very exciting to be working for Atomic, who works with some of the local businesses I’ve always heard about. We also work with out-of-state companies—so there’s a lot of variety.

Here are some facts about me:

• I’ve been married to my best friend, Ray, for 6 years
• I’m a mother of two girls who never fail to amaze me with their humor —and frustrate me with their antics.
• I’m obsessed with board games. I have regular game nights with my circle of friends. My current favorites are Pandemic, Shadows Over Camelot, Defenders of the Realm, and Truth Be Told.
• I go to trivia night once a week at various sports bars.
• I’m slightly ambidextrous: I write, draw, bat, golf, and eat with my left hand. But I bowl, use scissors, use a computer mouse, and play guitar with my right hand.  
• I love books and could spend hours in a bookstore or library.
• As you might guess, I’m not really into sports, but if I had to choose a sport to play, it would be either roller derby or hockey (I love skating).

Being the new Project Manager at Atomic has brought some perks—and also some challenges. One of the upsides is working alongside Ryann Pierce again (we had the pleasure of designing together at a past job). She’s been like my personal guide to managing projects at Atomic.

Another thing I’m really enjoying is being able to watch a site grow from an idea in a client’s mind to an actual functioning site.

As a project manager, I’m there learning about clients’ companies at kick-off meetings, conveying design direction to our awesome designers, and then discussing site functionality with our amazing web developers. It’s so fascinating to me to see how each project grows and changes along the way.

The general vibe of the office is something I love as well. It’s nice to be part of a team that’s laid-back — yet knows how to meet deadlines. Personally, I don’t see any reason why a workplace has to be stuffy and uptight to accomplish anything.

Atomic knows how to have a good time, still make kick-ass websites, and meet deadlines. ‘Nuff said!

One of the challenges I’ve experienced in this role was learning the general steps to building a website. My first week on the job had my head spinning! My background is in print design, so a lot of what I now deal with on a-day-to day basis was new to me.

I didn’t know how to build a site map or wireframe a website — and those are very important steps in the process! They deal with how information is organized, as well as how a user would interact with the site. They’re now regular items on my to-do list. Let’s just say I took a LOT of notes my first few weeks.

And I’m thankful for these challenges. I’d always wanted to learn more about web design, but never really had the chance, being a busy mother of two little girls.

I’m so grateful that Atomic has given me the chance to work alongside such talented people and learn more about the field of web design. I’ve learned so much already, and I’m sure with each new project, there will be something new to learn.

Can’t wait to work with you!

Atomic built a website for the Ohio Aerospace Hub. At that time, I provided staff support for the Hub’s governing body.

Working with the gang at Atomic was a pleasure, and the final website was awesome. It was exciting to know that there was a cutting-edge, full-service web development company right here in Dayton.

After working with Ryan and Ian on a couple more projects, something became clear to me. I didn’t just want to work with Atomic. I wanted to be part of it.

And Atomic’s growth in the digital marketing industry made this possible. I’m now working with the team as a business developer, and I’m up to my ears in user experience lingo, programming language jibber-jabber, and all kinds of optimization hootenanny.

In all seriousness, the level of expertise at Atomic is truly impressive, and I feel honored to work with such talented — and fun-loving — developers, designers, and project managers. My experience in economic development and public administration is lending itself well to business development.

My role here is simple: to identify companies’ needs and match them with a solution that solves their problem and helps their business grow. And Atomic Interactive has high-quality web solutions in spades.

It would be my pleasure to work with your business to find which solutions work for you. Wanna grab a coffee?

Atomic Interactive, the digital marketing agency headquartered in Dayton, Ohio, created the design, development and marketing strategy for Slickplan.com. Slickplan was created to fill a hole in the web design process that Atomic encountered every time they picked up a new project. Like most design agencies (and freelance designers), Atomic begins the web design process by creating a sitemap that displays the page titles and navigation of the finished product. A growing frustration within the Atomic team due to an alarming absence of quality sitemap creation software led to a proactive decision – “We’ll make our own!”

Fast forward two years and two versions of Slickplan – the web application has become a trusted design industry resource for over 35,000 users who love the simplicity of the creation process and the beauty and functionality of the finished sitemap. This past weekend, the Atomic Interactive team was overjoyed to learn that Slickplan was chosen as one of three finalist for Best New Web/Mobile Application in the App It Out contest hosted by
Carsonified. The achievement grants Atomic and two other winners the opportunity to present their software at the prestigious Future InSights Live conference at the MGM Hotel in Las Vegas at the end of April.

At the conference, 4 members of the Atomic team will have 10 minutes to showcase the finest points of Slickplan in front of a huge gathering of web designers, developers and digital agencies, as well as a panel of judges that will be voting to send one lucky app development company to a conference in London. Future InSights Live is conference that hosts cutting edge trends and personalities in the web design community, and this year such well-known industry personalities and web entrepreneurs as Dan Cederholm, Josh Clark, Steve Fisher, Paul Boag and Molly Holzschlag will be featured as speakers.

Ryan McCoy, one of Atomic’s co-owners and a member of the presentation team, is particularly excited. “This is a great honor to attend the Future InSights Live conference to present our software to all of our peers within the interactive community,” Ryan said. “We created Slickplan because of a need we had as an interactive agency, and to get a chance to share our creation with a gathering of all these potential users is really a dream come true.”

Slickplan’s creators are well aware of the fact that this opportunity presented itself thanks in part to the contributions of Slickplan’s users. Ian Lawson, Atomic’s other co-owner, explains, “The improvements made to Slickplan are based on our own day-to-day use and feedback from 35,000 very active users. Together, we’ve made something great.”

Visit our media kit for more information or contact us by email or phone, 937 232 1155.

Come with me, friend, to a day in the life of a developer.

You’re working on a new website. You’re in the testing phase. Colleagues and clients are starting to interact with the site and give you feedback.

On Monday, your client emails several change requests. On Tuesday, your designer posts a list of tweaks in Google Docs. On Wednesday, your traffic manager tells you about a few requests the client gave her over the phone. And on Thursday, your client sends an update to the email he sent on Monday.

It’s Friday, and you’re ready to start your fixes. Where in the world do you begin?

Enter Mantis Bug Tracker.

Mantis is an open-source tool written in PHP. It’s designed to help developers describe, assign, and resolve bugs. We use Mantis to avoid the situation I described above: multiple change requests, spread across different media, in no order, and with no accountability.
Instead, Mantis gives us:

• A central web-based repository for all bugs, fixes, and updates
• Dropdowns that let us organize fixes by category and severity
• A color-coded status system that lets us mark fixes as new, assigned, resolved, or closed
• A “closing the loop” feature that notifies the person who reported a bug when it’s resolved
• A messaging system that captures all conversations related to a particular fix.

 
Organizing our quality control process in this way has had a big impact on development. Communication is smoother. Accountability and productivity are higher. And frustration is a lot lower.

In short, using Mantis has enabled a faster, more thorough, and more organized process of getting a web site or application ready to launch.

For a developer, that’s a lifesaver.

You wouldn’t expect mobile developers to spend a lot of time using pen and paper. Shouldn’t we be on the cutting edge, using lasers and cyborgs to speed up our design?

We are on the cutting edge. But sometimes that just means we’re using scissors.

That’s because paper-based prototyping is an important part of our design process. Paper-based prototyping is just what it sounds like: designing mockups of mobile apps using paper and pencil. Designing this way has real advantages over designing on the computer, with the perennial favorites “time and money” at the top of the list.

How can designing on paper possibly be state-of-the-art? Let me explain.

• It’s fast and easy. With mobile interfaces becoming more sophisticated, there’s often no time to build refined prototypes of every permutation of every screen in your interface. Working on paper allows you to create mockups in a matter of seconds.
• It’s cheap. No complex UI modeling software is required; no labor hours are spent coding or working in Photoshop. All you need are paper, pencils, and ideas.
• It’s focused. Working on paper keeps everyone – developers, designers, and clients – focused on functionality, not looks. When you’re working on Post-Its, it’s impossible to get distracted by your app’s “look and feel.”
• It encourages collaboration. Try gathering 10 people around a laptop to brainstorm. Hmm. Now gather 10 people around a table, show them your drawings, given them some paper and sticky notes … and watch the ideas start flying.
• It stimulates creativity. If you were designing a logo, you wouldn’t start in Photoshop. You’d probably start by sketching, evolving various ideas naturally before you commit them to pixels. Prototyping on paper opens creative doors in the same way.
• It encourages robust usability testing. Sometimes, a UI isn’t tested thoroughly because it’s just painful to design over and over. When you work on paper, you’re not hung up on time invested in creating tons of PSD documents. Revision is fast and painless.
• It gives insight into usability. Watching people interact with your drawings is totally different than emailing them a PSD file and getting back their notes. You can actually watch their minds work – see how your design fits or blocks their expectations.
• It’s nonthreatening. Using paper is great with clients. It takes development out of the realm of geeks and into their hands. They can add, delete, or reorder screens, for example, just by moving pieces of paper around.
• It’s fun. There’s something tactile and satisfying about working with paper. It appeals to nearly everyone. And if you really want to bring out the kid in your coworkers, arm them with scissors and glue-sticks. In this case, a childlike approach to work is a good thing.

 
Paper prototyping can’t identify every UI issue. And sometimes you have to get into the development phase to really see how your interface is going to fly.

But in many situations, working on paper is a great way to enable low-cost, highly creative design.

If you’ve ever worked in Photoshop, you know it’s a complex application. Its depth of features and functionality make it extremely powerful. But they also make it tough to master.

That being said, I thought I was getting to know Photoshop pretty well. As it turns out, I knew less than I thought. Just in the past few weeks, I’ve learned a ton of new tricks that are helping me work faster and make my Photoshop work about 10 times easier.

Here are just two cool, super-simple tips.

1. Use a Smart Object to embed a PSD in a PSD. I never really got what Smart Objects were or how to use them. But now that I know, I’m loving them. Smart Objects are like little containers you can use to hold an image or a vector graphic safely within a Photoshop file. If I want to edit that image, I just double-click on the Smart Object and transform it right there in a new window. Previously, I had to go back to the source file, edit the image, and then re-embed it in the PSD. Clunky.

This method has the added bonus of minimizing the number of layers you have to have in your working file. That keeps things cleaner and less confusing.

2. Use Shape Layers and the Direct Selection Tool. If you’ve ever struggled with controlling the “shape of a shape,” this is the tip for you. Instead of using the Transform Tool to manipulate shapes, try using Direct Selection.

First, make sure that you draw the shape as a Shape Layer. Or if you’re using the Pen tool, make sure it’s set as Shape Layer instead of Paths.

Then, you can use the Direct Selection tool to select individual anchor points and handles to fine-tune the shape however you want. Using this method gives significantly better control than using the Transform tool. It’s been a huge help with things like keeping rounded corners from getting distorted and keeping shapes proportional.

The bottom line? Don’t assume you know everything about the programs you use … even those you use every day. Pay attention to how other people use them. Be an avid reader of blogs and forums that discuss your app … and contribute to them as well. And don’t be too proud to take a tutorial or attend a seminar.

If you find it takes you a long time to do any task, that’s probably a clue that there’s an easier way to do it. Challenge yourself to find out. You’ll be one step closer to being a true Photoshop master.

Most of the websites we create include blogs. We consider them a critical component of most websites and most successful SEO strategies.

However, blogging usually represents foreign territory for our clients. They’re unsure why it’s important or what they should write about. And if they’re not IT people, the whole process can seem intimidating.

For those just venturing into business blogging, here’s a basic explanation of why it’s is so darn important — and some quick tips on what to write about.

Why blog at all?

First off, there are too many websites for search engines to monitor in real time. Therefore, how often they crawl a given website depends in large part on how often new content is added.

For example, Google might crawl your website after an absence of three weeks. If new content has been added since then, Google will be more likely to return after only two weeks. And if there’s always new content, that’s a sure sign to Google that someone cares about this website. They’ll start crawling even more frequently.

Conversely, if Google never finds any new content on your site, their spiders might not return for a month or even longer. That means your site is going to do poorly in search results.

So adding new content to your site is a critical way of promoting your search rankings. And what’s the easiest place on a website to add new content? Your blog.

What in the world should I write about?

Once our clients get the importance of new content, they’re willing to start blogging. The next stumbling block? Figuring out what to write about.

Here are some fail-safe suggests.

• Client problems and the solutions you provided
• New developments within the company — new employees, a new office
• Developments within the industry — Is there a new product available? What technology is pushing your industry to change?
• Fun topics — company parties, company pets, a particularly interesting project
• Writing specifically for keyword phrases. For example, a client of ours specializes in exterior home improvements and is interested in acquiring roofing leads. He and I created an article on energy-efficient roofing solutions, frequently linking from the article to his roofing page.

How do I do it?

I’m not going to belabor this point. Suffice it to say that once I sit down with a new blogger and show them the incredibly easy GUI that modern blogging platforms provide, they’re sold. They can see the parallels between Word and WordPress, and see how easy it is to make the leap.

A final suggestion

So this is the basic information I give to our clients about getting started with blogging. One final suggestion: In terms of content, don’t limit yourself —remember that nearly any content is helpful.

After all, Google learned what you’re selling the first time it crawled your site. It also probably knows 500 other websites selling the same thing. Start blogging and differentiate yourself by out-content-ing your competitors.

Application development is a hot field. The explosion in mobile devices has turned a monolithic process dominated by a few big players into something everyone seems to be doing.

And you could do it too, right?

Maybe. Or maybe not.

Even if you’re a crackerjack website developer, your skills – and tolerance for frustration – won’t necessarily translate into app development. There are a few things that make this process distinctive, and not a good fit for everyone.

• Complexity. Even a simple app has multiple components, and each one has to interact with the other smoothly and successfully. That makes the development process taxing. You need to be able to keep a lot of information running in your brain simultaneously, and be able to see how changes in a small part of your app might have a big affect on other areas. It’s kind of like playing a game of chess nonstop for weeks on end. You can never really relax while it’s going on, lest you forget something critical.
• Coding time. Think of a seemingly simple application – Slickplan, for example. Guess how many screens you’d have to code for that site. Now multiply that by 10. If you’re interested in app development, you need to be ready for a massive amount of work, even for very streamlined sites. The number of PSDs I have to build for a single app always surprises me, even though I should know better by now.
• Awareness. You also can’t get caught up in your own development process and block out the rest of the world. Chances are, the success of your app will depend heavily on how well it reflects current usability standards and the way that other, even dissimilar apps are being designed. So you can’t ever stick your head in the sand. You have to know how your users expect their screen to behave. And what they expect today is likely very different from what they expected six months ago.
• A never-ending story. You may be used to designing websites and purging them from your brain the day they go live. It doesn’t work that way with apps. Instead, expect a never-ending process of debugging and incremental improvement. And don’t be surprised when your users come back at you with an insane number of ideas and suggestions – everything from basic stuff you can’t believe you missed, to sophisticated ideas that knock your socks off.

You can get frustrated with that, or you can sit back and realize how amazing it is that your users care enough to click that little “feedback” button and tell you what they think. If you think you can do the latter – and do it with a smile on your face – you just might be ready for the world of application development.