Ian Thomas, Interactive Designer

Time for some new adventures (part 2)

Ian — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 22:21:56 +0000

Perhaps “New Adventures” is the wrong phrase as I’m now well into my third month of this particular endeavour, but sticking with the theme I’m pleased to announce that I am now Head of Digital for Finn! It’s a bit of a departure from working for a web design agency (for those that don’t know, [...]

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Time for some New Adventures (part 1)

Ian — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 12:14:12 +0000

Yesterday saw the second New Adventures in Web Design, organised by Simon Collison (Colly) and Greg Wood. In his editorial piece in the conference newspaper, Colly said he’d vowed “never again” after last year’s conference, but that he was talked into doing it all over again by Greg over a few jars of ale. Thanks [...]

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A Focus On The Web Design Process

Ian — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:06:16 +0000

If you are anything like me you often find yourself pondering the best way to get something done. That something could be how to grow the nicest lawn, ride the perfect line down a rocky trail, pour the perfect pint or write the most semantically sound HTML and CSS. Ok, so maybe they are just [...]

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Make an animated search form using only CSS

Ian — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 20:30:41 +0000

Inspired by a shot on Dribbble from Morgan Allan Knutson where he showcased an animated search form using only CSS I thought I would try to re-create the effect for myself. Using a bit of CSS3 magic, the effect is actually quite easy to re-create! HTML The HTML behind this effect is very lightweight: <form [...]

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Tracking Social Engagement with Google Analytics

Ian — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 18:13:54 +0000

Google Analytics has recently introduced Social Interaction Tracking, a way to record and measure user interactions with social media buttons. While it has been possible to track social interactions using Events, there is now a dedicated section that makes analysing Social actions even easier. This post shows you how to set up social media tracking [...]

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How to quickly offer a preview of your work using Dropbox

Ian Thomas — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 16:00:00 +0000

Have you ever needed to give a colleague or client a web-based preview of your current project? Have you found the trudge of setting up some hosting, uploading the files and keeping them up-to-date to be a pain? I have, and recently I found myself in a position where I had no hosting available so [...]

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Get people to like your Facebook page using gated content

Ian Thomas — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 14:45:00 +0000

One of the challenges that faces owners of Facebook Pages is the need to get visitors coming back. It can cost a lot of time, energy and money to get users returning to your page but thankfully Facebook has a feature that can make it easier to stay in touch, the like button. Getting a [...]

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Goodbye Static FBML, Hello iFrame – An Overview of Custom Tabs for Facebook Pages

Ian Thomas — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 15:05:00 +0000

Facebook has recently upgraded Pages with a raft of new features that are aimed at helping Page owners communicate more effectively. Amongst the new features are better ways to keep up with activity on a Page, new ways for Pages to share content, new ways for users to filter a Page’s content by relevancy and [...]

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Facebook Announces More Ways to Publish to Users Who Click Like Buttons

Ian Thomas — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 11:51:00 +0000

Millions of websites and social games have implemented Facebook’s Like button social plugin, yet relatively few are taking advantage of the capability to publish news feed stories to users that click those buttons. In an effort to increase awareness of this option, Facebook posted to the Developers Blog explaining three ways admins can publish to [...]

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Design Utilities – Wireframing Template

Ian Thomas — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 14:42:00 +0000

A key step in my design process is getting ideas down on paper. It doesn’t really matter where this happens, either in my lovely notebook or on sheets of A4, the key is to rapidly get ideas sketched out using good old pencil and paper. One recent addition to my wireframing toolkit was a Fujitsu [...]

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