Paul Randall » websites

Make the most out of the pages QR codes link to

Paul — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 19:09:54 +0000

So, I have spoken before about QR codes, and their place in the world currently; but I do use them myself — mainly as a curiosity as to where they lead (IMO each QR code should have a URL attached, but that topic is for another day).

Follow the journey I took when interacting with this QR code from a Co-op leaflet

QR code in a Co-op leaflet

Then I saw this on my phone:

The Co-op website on my phone

Now, given that they created the QR code, they knew that people would be looking at it, most probably, on a mobile device. So why not optimise it? All the link did was take me to their website. It didn’t entice me in, they didn’t focus their message, and I lost interest.

Here is what I would have done

Mockup of a Co-op mobile website layout

It is a quick example of how much more inviting it is to a mobile viewer.

Take note where you take people to with a QR code

If you do fancy using a QR code, next time, think about if you can create a page specifically for that purpose. You might find it has more impact than a regular page.

What Twitter used to look like

Paul — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 18:26:56 +0000

So, I saw an article recently that posted a screenshot of what Twitter (or Twttr as it used to be known) used to look like.

Screenshot of Twitter when it first launched

I joined the site on the 27th February 2007 (it launched in March 2006), which seems a scary long time ago in the web, and so I was hunting around for a review of the site when it first launched. This post from Techcrunch is pretty interesting to read — here are a few quotes from the article:

I imagine most users are not going to want to have all of their Twttr messages published on a public website.

If this was a new startup, a one or two person shop, I’d give it a thumbs up for innovation and good execution on a simple but viral idea.

Now, it has over 200 million registered accounts, with over 1 billion tweets posted every week, and whilst it first promoted itself as an SMS-based update of course the rise of the smartphone has meant that much more could be achieved on the go, but its focus from the very start has remained of realtime status updates, wherever you are.

Site Redesign

Paul — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 22:36:54 +0000

Not wanting to dignify this hack-of-a-theme as a redesign, it it, of sorts.

With a predicted increase in traffic soon-ish the objective to make the content a little more legible (than black-on-red) and to actually display some of my work, which for the meantime means hooking in a Dribbble gallery thing.

But as my sole presence on the way, it by no means reflected myself as a designer (and sometimes developer).

Work has begun on the new site, which you’ll probably see on dribbble in the near future.

Twitter kills productivity

Paul — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 20:38:29 +0000

Note: I was sent a link to crowwwsnest.com by Able Parris. The site displays the top 10 URLs dynamically from ad/design/tech tweeters every 15 minutes. This could be the answer to those wanting to keep usage to a minimum, yet not miss out on the good stuff!

Could somebody just make an app to summarise every day what everyone I follow is talking about on Twitter?
Twitter is a passive consumption activity. If someone could condense all the best bits, and remove cat/food pictures, I’d be interested!
As brilliant as it is. Twitter kills productivity. No question. I think I’m going to try a week cold turkey during business hours.
Saying that, we should rename smoke breaks ‘social breaks’. That way we could hop onto Twitter and Facebook every so often during the day.

A couple of recent tweets that got me thinking about how we use Twitter (and Facebook).

Now I am a massive Twitter fan. My account was created over 4 years ago, and I have tweeted nearly 4000 times. I love using, but I do realise that it kills productivity. The issue is that Twitter is so real-time that you end up missing out on the good conversations when you catch up with it later on in the day. The interaction you get and the accessibility with members of the web community is something you just can’t get with email or IM. Everyone is so open and approachable on Twitter. That’s why I love it.

Having said that, sometimes the signal to noise ratio can be pretty high. With Instagram pics of cats, food, old signs and everything you care to name of it can be hard to find the nuggets in the masses of tweets. In the evening I tend to skim read about 200-300 tweets and favourite a fair few to read in more depth in the morning.

I follow some pretty prolific tweeters and I really have no idea how they manage to get any work done! But I guess they say everything in moderation, so I might try a ‘social break’ and pop on it a couple of times a day for 5 minutes.

I’ve never really asked this before, but I’m interested to find out other peoples Twitter habits, and how they manage their usage.

The Merits of WordPress

Paul — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 18:32:11 +0000

After talking recently about the pros and cons of building your own CMS with a colleague, and especially the time that goes into building one. Is it really worth it?

Now I must state that as primarily a designer, the developer role doesn’t come as easy to me. The main reason I use WordPress on this blog is that is was so quick and easy to set up.

However with speed being a major factor with mobile web, Google rankings and the complexity of WordPress, I’m pretty sure that a billy-basic CMS would load a lot quicker. But do people really care?

Reality probably means that I’ll stick with WordPress, upgrade to v3 and be able to write blog posts like I am now on my iPhone.

So, have you ever written your own CMS, or wanted to, or do you think that off-the-shelf systems are more than capable?

The Constant Redesigner

Paul — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 13:42:50 +0000

This site has, it seems always remained in a state of flux. In it’s current ‘version 3′ guise I have never been 100% happy with it.

The many redesigns are usually due to me getting bored with the site. My skills and design knowledge have improved and a personal brand redesign along the way have changed the look also.

Part of the problem comes with a lack of purpose for the site. Although a designer I don’t have much of a portfolio on the website – mainly because I am currently in full-time employment and do not show any work I do during office hours. The site also isn’t a promotional tool either so it only exists to be a place to blog and host experiments.

So I again rethink the purpose of the site, and after recent analysis reports being constructed by @RobHawkes I have been rethinking what I want to do with the site:

Publish experiments
Indepth research
Front-end focused
Collate social profile (last.fm, twitter, dribbble, delicious)
Frequent blogging

This will no doubt come with a new website design, and i’m also thinking about moving from WordPress to a custom CMS. Along with all the hacking i’ve heard about recently to WordPress blogs I have always had a keen interest in optimisation and speed.

Watch this space.

HigherSites Launch New Site

Paul — Fri, 28 May 2010 20:32:50 +0000

This is just a quick post to promote the new HigherSites website. http://www.highersites.co.uk We’re a web design company in Somerset, and although I have only recently joined the team in April, I have thoroughly enjoyed it so far – working … Continue reading →

Site Refresh

Paul — Sun, 16 May 2010 12:02:29 +0000

So, things look a little different here!

After a long period of inactivity, due to a new job, and other things the site has sat a little dorment. I thought it was time for a change, and after many, many revisions I decided to finally design something. So, after a few hours of work this weekend – here it is.

I’m hoping to tidy a few things up over the next week, and I will follow that up with a more indepth blog on the designs that didn’t make it.

If you do notice something weird, feel free to post a comment. It hasn’t been browser tested, but bear in mind that things may look a little funky for the next few days.

Dribbble Invite Giveaway

Paul — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 13:29:41 +0000

Thanks to all submissions, but the two winners have now been chosen (See comments)

I have some very exclusive Dribbble invites – 2 to be exact.

If you haven’t heard of it before, Dribbble is a site which allows you to upload 400x300px previews of your design work. I have been hugely impressed with it so far, and invites are very elusive.

If you would like the opportunity of winning a Dribbble invite, please leave a comment (with an email address and website/twitter account) below, and later on I will choose the lucky two and contact them directly.

URL ABC

Paul — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:04:45 +0000

A better-late-than-never post on a game played by Tim Van Damme, Elliot Jay Stocks and Sam Brown (i’m sure there are plenty more people playing the game!).

Simply go to your browser, type in the letters A-Z and blog the results. So here are mine:

But rather than just knock them up in a UL like some, and being that kind of person I had to make an ordered list and use capitalised letters. The CSS to do that is:

.alphabet-list{list-style:upper-alpha}

So play along and leave your results as a comment!