Web/Tech

You May Be Guilty Of Using Dark Pattern Tactics But Not Even Know It

Published on Tue, Sep 25, 18 at 2:00 am CDT | Updated on Mon, Sep 24, 18 at 5:25 pm CDT by Drew McManus

Dark Patterns are features of interface design crafted to trick your users into doing things they might not want to do, but which benefit your organization. There are 12 types of Dark Patterns and some are as straightforward as making it next to impossible to cancel a user account or making the unsubscribe link on emails difficult to find (or even link to pages that don’t actually contain unsubscribe functionality). I …

A Good Way To Leverage A Microsite

Published on Tue, Sep 11, 18 at 2:00 am CDT | Updated on Mon, Sep 10, 18 at 4:56 pm CDT by Drew McManus

The LA Philharmonic recently launched a dedicated microsite for their Centennial Campaign (an endowment capitalization campaign) and it’s a good example for how to go about designing a purpose built microsite. Each page is comparatively short and contains big, obvious conversion targets (making an online donation). It’s a very nice mobile first design that clearly resists the urge to stuff a desktop heavy content approach into mobile layouts. If there’s one …

Cross Device Tracking Is Coming Your Way

Published on Wed, Aug 29, 18 at 2:00 am CDT | Updated on Tue, Aug 28, 18 at 6:29 pm CDT by Drew McManus

Let’s say a patron sees one of your organization’s Facebook ads on their Smartphone on the way to work but doesn’t buy a ticket (because #driving). Later that same day while visiting from their office desktop (company resources for personal use #gasp), they see the same ad but this time around, they purchase a ticket. Would you assign different values to each device type the patron used to connect with the …

#TBT Is There Such A Thing As Too Much Funding? (spoiler: yes)

Published on Thu, Jul 19, 18 at 2:00 am CDT | Updated on Thu, Jul 19, 18 at 6:20 am CDT by Drew McManus

Joe Patti published a thought provoking piece at Butts In The Seats which examines the development of technology to support the arts, a topic near and dear to my own arts admin heart. The inspiration for his post came from the Knight Prototype Fund awards announcement, a program I was keeping an eye on. Although the Knight Foundation has a good track record in supporting technology-based programs, they wouldn’t exactly rise …

If Your Organization Uses Google Maps, Routes, or Places, You May Need To Begin Paying For The Service

Published on Wed, Jul 11, 18 at 9:07 am CDT | Updated on Wed, Jul 11, 18 at 9:09 am CDT by Drew McManus

Good news and bad news: on July 17, 2018 Google’s new pricing structure kicks in for the use of Maps, Routes, and Places. Good news is it will go a long way toward ironing out a haphazard collection of existing APIs. Bad news is you’ll be required to create an account and a billing profile in order to use them. While most users will fall within the pricing plan’s free use parameters, …

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