After the design, Tim coded each site. The main corporate site, leavittpartners.com, is built using WordPress and features three Custom Post Types: the slideshow on the homepage, the homepage content and the Team page.

The main Team page is broken up into staff levels but each worker is entered into the system the same way. A checkbox is used to differentiate their level. Also, another checkbox is used to flag if the worker is part of one of the several different sub-teams in the Leavitt Partners corporation. The individual team page highlights the workers accomplishments and also calls in their author RSS feed from the blog as well as any news highlights.

The blog is a straight forward WordPress install that functions like a typical blog. The newsroom, powered by NewsCactus, is a custom theme built around the NewsCactus framework.

We are very pleased with the result and hope these three sites will help Leavitt Partners continue to grow.

Leavitt Partners Homepage

Leavitt Partners Team Page

Leavitt Partners Team Single Page

Leavitt Partners Newsroom

Leavitt Partners Blog

Chad, 22 Tools for Testing Your Websites Usability

Luke, Analytiks iPhone App
A little while ago I stumbled upon this little app for my iPhone. For those of us that don’t sign in to our Google Analytics often but know we should this app will be very valuable. Analytiks shows me just the important information I’d like to know about my websites on my phone. I can check it quick and get back to whatever else is going on that day. The interface is quite nice. I would ditch the rusted sign look myself but other than that it is fantastic. It is 99 cents in the app store.

Benjam, impress.js
It’s not much in the way of content, but the way that content is displayed. It’s simple… yet eye catching and very intriguing. Makes me very excited about where the web is heading.

Luke, Tuesday Total Textures

Tim, Magento Project Guidelines for Designers
Magento is a beast and we all know it, however, TutsPlus comes through again with a great walk through of the basic Magento views. I have been guilty of overlooking the seldom used views, but this guide will walk you through all of them to be sure your design elements are consistent throughout the site. The part I like most about the article though is the FREE PDF download that I highly recommend sending to a client as soon as you can to help educate them about the ins and outs of Magento.

Benjam, New to PHP 5.4: Traits
PHP 5.4 is right around the corner, and one of the new features added to this version are class traits.  I won’t go into too much detail, you can read the blog post for that, but it makes reusable OO code even more reusable by allowing multiple unrelated classes to pull in the same traits from a master trait object.  Like built-in mixins.

The site is built using a custom WordPress theme with 3 Custom Post Types. The client can easily update the About, Plans & Pricing and Home page. The Custom Post Types allow the client to update their FAQs easily, manage their Testimonials and Expertise sections.

A visitor can easily get their Trademark in the works on the Start Application page that collects the information needed to get quick access to a Trademark.

Mark, Your Landing Page Sucks!
When we do our planning here at Code Greene we always wait until the end to do the homepage with our clients. The homepage of any website in my opinion is often the very most important page of the site. The homepage acts sort of like the grand unification of the website. I see the purpose of the homepage is to be a place that user’s initial reaction is “oh this is a good site” and secondly its used to point them to the most important parts of the site. In some cases a site can be really flat and the homepage  or landing page may do almost all the work of the site, in those cases it has to be perfect. Recently I saw an article on landing pages and thought it further delved into some good examples. Check it out and rethink your homepage or landing page if it sucks.

What all this has meant to us at Code Greene is that finally more and more of our customers are asking us to design and build for these devices in addition to regular browsers. It has been our philosophy to not venture down dark and lonely roads, so we will often sit back a little to see where new technologies are headed before diving into a pool with potentially only one foot of water in it. Admittedly there have been times we’ve missed waves, but there are other times we’ve ended up saving ourselves a lot of wasted energy. We are at the point that cross device compatibility is now a well lit path we are going to travel on.

There are three different paths that can be taken to develop for these different technologies which are:

1. M.versions approach
2. App development
3. Adaptive/responsive design

It is sometimes hard to decide which path is best so I will explore each and tell you what we will most likely do the most of and why.

M.versions stands for Mobile Versions.  It is basically an approach where the server asks the device what are you? If it comes back saying I am a mobile device, it will then call up a mobile version of the site, which will be smaller and is usually a cut back version. The downside to the m.versions in our opinion is the potential for double work. Coding a regular version and an m.version(s) will inevitably will lead to more coding.

The App approach is probably the most difficult (at least if you are doing an iPhone app), the process to register with Apple and review your app with them is tedious, time consuming, and you could be rejected. Nevertheless, apps have a place and we see people making fortunes through apps. Nonetheless, because our focus is typically on more of a results driven basis, we don’t see a lot of business app requests. The other thing to consider, which to me seems like common sense, but sometimes isn’t seen by the customers, is if you build an app version of your website, at the very least a customer will need to find that app and download it. If you were selling online for instance, where most decisions are being made impulsively, there is high risk that in those two steps you could lose a sale. To support this, I recently read a review of the Magento Mobile version where it was reported that 66% of people surveyed would rather have a browser version than go to all the trouble to download an app.

Lastly, adaptive/responsive, though not a new idea, has re-birthed itself better. For a long time it has been possible to code a site to scale to different browser widths. Now it is just easier. The old process was significantly more labor intensive, requiring several little calculations.  In contrast, the new process works using percentages, eliminating the tedious work, making this a viable and good option. In our opinion, the adaptive technology couldn’t have come at a better time. However, there is a sort of a catch.  If a person has already coded their website, the entire site would have to be recoded to accommodate the adaptive/responsive functions. So, to put it simply, this is something that should be decided upfront and planned, designed, and coded that way from the start. Otherwise, you might be best off with options one or two as an add-on to a current site.

In summary, we feel increasingly more convinced that the growth on the new devices cannot be ignored, and we are primarily recommending the adaptive/responsive approach when making a choice between the three options. If you are interested in learning more or want us to plan out your next project, let us know.  We’d be interested in helping you accommodate your customers who may be seeking your products or services through other devices beyond the traditional browser.

Which version of a mobile website have you tried? Sound off in the comments below.

Mark, Art and The Web Texture
I thought this was a nice article and analysis of Textures by Nick Petite. Though to many people texture may seem like a subtle thing we feel it is an important part of a website for creating the right mood. The thing that Nick points out is how much more dynamic a website can seem once a more interesting texture is added. In web design, I personally really like the layered texture strategies because it helps to neutralize an otherwise potentially overbearing texture, Nick covers the gambit of options and provides some examples, check it out.

Brian, JavaScript Powers Linux In A Browser
I get asked all the time ‘Why Linux?’ and ‘How lightweight it is?’. My usual reply references how Ive seen a Linux web server run off a 2GB thumb drive, but this article trumps even that. With all the overhead the operating systems of today require, people usually assume a servers absolute minimum is even higher. Running Linux in a client-side script like this just blows my mind!

Luke – “Find the Twin Sumo” or “No, Your Client is Not an Idiot”
This is an article I need to read often to remind myself to calm down when going back and forth with clients about design. The North Temple clan put a great analogy on the process of working with a client to create a great design. I think the strategy that they propose is something that many designers know and understand, however knowing what you should do when working with a client and putting that knowledge to practice can sometimes be difficult. Give their article a read and apply what they propose next time you are designing for a client.

Chad – Steve Jobs, Superman
With the passing of Steve Jobs lately it seems that the every article is about him. I have learned more about him and his style. He was truly an amazing man. I like this article for multiple reasons. With all the articles out there this one is powerful and short. It also highlights other people not just Steve. But at the end of the article you realize just how powerful of a man he was.

What have you been reading lately?

Luke started Dr. Stoker down the right path by giving him a clean, business design. I finished off the job with a custom WordPress theme that allows Dr. Stoker and staff to easily enter in new content and keep the site fresh, just like their patients breath!

Dr. Stokers practice is off and running with great success.

Check out the site and let us know what you think!