Project management is an art and soft science that has had hundreds—if not thousands—of years to emerge. The process—whether it be for huge industrial construction projects, humanitarian endeavors, or even the day-to-day management and workflow of a fast-food restaurant—of managing a given task from fruition through to completion has been undertaken hundreds of millions of times.  Read more

A company is either going to have a section of their website dedicated to investors or they’re not, and that decision largely depends on whether they are publicly traded. For American companies, laws exist that demand certain types of filings with the SEC be made public on a company’s website, so this section may be mandatory. For others, the simple desire to communicate avidly with stakeholders (or future stakeholders if the company is ramping up to go public) drives the need for this section. Because this material usually appears on sites for larger corporations, drawing best practices and common design solutions is difficult because the sample pool is smaller. For instance, even the naming of the section varies, although the word “investor” is the primary term used to flag down interested parties. Some variations found across the Web are as follows:   Read more

Building accessible websites is a habit. It’s a mindset that should be adopted from the first day of planning to the last hour of quality assurance. An architect plans the wheelchair ramps from the first building blueprints; a developer should always reference a mental checklist of accessibility considerations from the first wireframes and comps in Photoshop. The rest of this chapter explores two key aspects of accessibility. First, it covers the legal requirements for corporations and web developers. This varies from country to country and occasionally changes, but we’ll do our best to navigate those thorny paths. Second, it covers what you can do—today—to apply unobtrusive accessibility tactics to your site without disrupting the design or architecture. Even the smallest improvements in the markup can have tremendous benefits to a significant number of users, and we’ll cover the critical basics before establishing a roadmap for future learning.   Read more

Traditionally, corporate websites have been offensive, built to sell. But offense is not enough. In sports, there are three facets to every successful team: offense, defense, and coaching. The most effective websites have a similar three-pronged approach: marketing to new customers (offense), supporting existing customers (defense), and providing general corporate information that supports the other two (coaching). Let’s examine these three key tiers more closely.   Read more