In a recent offline conversation, I dropped a comment: That’s my common social object with so-and-so. Me in an informal conversation I realized how much this old blog post from the beginnings of blogging has influenced me. My observation: If I find a common social object, it helps me re-connect. If I find a common […]
Category: tech
Useful Schema generator for FAQs
I heard about this useful Schema generator for FAQ pages
Static site generators
On Hugo: I’ve worked my way thru this Udemy course, which explains the principles: https://www.udemy.com/build-static-sites-in-seconds-with-hugo/ It’s fun; an alternative to server roundtrips; lots of cool themes to get you started: https://github.com/CodeFreezr/hugo-theme-awards-2018
Agile mindset
For my reading list: Via Linkedin I found Definition of ready and No role for designers in Scrum
Slides: SEO for small business websites
Here are my slides from my recent Women in Digital talk in Basel. I made them “resource-full” with lots of background links. The session was interactive from the start. Lots of questions throughout. Wow. I think the topic hit a nerve. Notes: SEO for small business websites How do you get found in an increasingly […]
#uxcampch 2017 – Some notes
I attended last Saturday’s #uxcampch in Zürich. First talk was on designing screens for HbbTV. 10 Foot UI. Samuel Raymann talked about his project at SRG and designing for TV sets. I liked this project report about design challenges. Good talk by @samraymann on HbbTv design challenges — Panchenga (@nchenga) May 20, 2017 Next, I […]
It always takes longer than you expect
For future reference: (…) the one who is best qualified to make a time estimate (the engineer) isn’t the one who needs it most Source: The Software Engineer’s Essential Time Estimation Guide
Collaborating
For future reference: Creating Collaboration in a Room Full of Opinions
Learning to use Hugo to build websites
I’m learning how to use Hugo to build websites. I signed up for a Udemy course by Dan Hersham. I followed the tip to use Homebrew. And 2 to 3 commands later I had generated a skeleton of a site. Hugo is well-documented and it looks like an exciting alternative to explore. It supports TOML, […]
Barcamp Bodensee 2016
Last Saturday I attended Barcamp Bodensee in Konstanz. Here are some brief notes and thoughts on sessions that I attended: Ask a digital teen Barcamp attendees asked a 15 year old what apps and web services he uses. Youtube, Gaming, TeamSpeak, Discord app, some Whatsapp, Google Calendar. No TV. No Facebook. His school doesn’t allow […]
Useful check list for your new WordPress site
I found this list of useful tips on launching a WordPress site: Don’t Launch a WordPress Site Before You Go Through This Checklist https://t.co/1jYcZV1yVH too late, already launched — Panchenga (@nchenga) March 27, 2016 Things to watch out for are: fast hosting search-engine optimized theme WordPress is working on a new codebase: The new WordPress.com […]
Reasons to blog
I saw this article today on the benefits of blogging: “So why should you blog?” https://t.co/sxbWSvtWPI — âœ___CollectThisTweet (@nchenga) November 1, 2015 Blogs refine your thoughts Blogs reward the creator Blogs amplify your humanity Blogs connect us to our tribes Blogs give introverts a voice Blogs reward the “new age” publishers Blogs embrace the experimenters Blogs […]
Referral traffic from social media has dropped
I saw this Bufferapp article on declining social media traffic. We’ve lost nearly half our social referral traffic in the last year I say. No wonder. Everybody is online, creating tonnes of content. Most people are too busy to read, let alone follow so many data streams. Many web pages don’t get any traffic at […]
WordPress-y clean-up
I just deleted over 20 WordPress themes that had accumulated in my wp-content folder. Feeling de-cluttered. I’ve kept Syntax and Underline. I’ve also been unlinking tonnes of broken links. Next, I need to figure out why comments are not getting thru. BTW, there’s a WordPress conf in Zurigo on 19 September. I’ve been using WordPress […]
Recommended article: “The Web We Have to Save”
Via T3N, I found this article on the changing web. Not sure if we can stop this development, but at least we can raise awareness, and point hyperlinks back to content that we like and cherish.
What will an SEO audit be like in 10 years?
A couple of months ago, I went thru an SEO audit. I wanted to write a blog post to reflect on what I learned. This is my feeble attempt to collect my thoughts and jot down some notes. Where available, I’ve tried to list my source links. What is an SEO audit? In an audit, […]
Notes and photos from #UXcampch
Some notes and photos from Saturday’s UX camp in Zürich: Adrian Sameli took us thru the process of building infographics. His tip on tools to use: Excel and Adobe Illustrator. He tried one or two infographic tools but didn’t like them much. In the discussion we looked at d3js.org. Next, I attended a session on […]
Secure Email
I’ve signed up for Protonmail.ch: Security https://t.co/ashHNTGLfU at @ProtonMail — âœ___CollectThisTweet (@nchenga) January 25, 2015 And I noticed another company called Tutanota: next secure email app @Tutanota_de https://t.co/HVa7Foggis //cc @mllea — âœ___CollectThisTweet (@nchenga) January 29, 2015 I think this is a great development. Instead of trying to get people to use PGP… maybe this will […]
Card sorting
For future reference. I just quickly wanted to post a useful background link on card sorting that I found today on Smashing Magazine. Improving Your Information Architecture With Card Sorting: A Beginner’s Guide
UX and Scrum
For future reference: UX Oxford: Roman Pichler on “UX and Scrum: How do UX and Scrum fit together?” from Oxford Computer Consultants on Vimeo. Via UX and Scrum. It’s good to see some discussion of this topic. It’s a challenging topic. Especially if you have a distributed team with team members in different geographic areas […]
HTML5 link re-surfaces
It’s fun when a fave re-surfaces an old tweet of yours about an HTML5 template. "HTML5 template" http://t.co/9PBAnooJUH — âœ___CollectThisTweet (@nchenga) July 27, 2013 HTML5 projects: I’m currently working on building a small website based on a template by HTML5 Up. Progress is somewhat slow. Before I tried Aerial. And Parallelism. HTML5Bones looks useful.
#POSSE: A clickable demo of my simple #indieweb blog
Here’s a simple example how you can publish your content on your own site and syndicate elsewhere (POSSE): I posted a boring flower snapshot into my self-hosted WordPress (WP) blog. WP posted the entry to Twitter using WP plugins Hum and Publicize One of my Twitter followers replied to my tweet. Using Webmention, the tweet […]
Content first
Last Saturday I attended UX camp Switzerland. A very good event to learn about user experience, human-centered design, usability testing, MVP and prototyping tools. Talks I listened to: Stefanie Klekamp presented lots of background info on the Think Aloud usability testing method. Which I found useful. She explained the theories behind the method and also […]
Quote of the day #SEO
Social media isn’t reaching people like it used to. via The New Emphasis On Link Building: What's Behind It And How To React. Back to link building? Probably. Read this advice: The best way to have your website rank higher is to make it better for your users. Being better requires that your website is […]
Responsive web design and low and expensive bandwidth
Some time ago, the Malawi daily newspaper, The Nation, released a new web design. More recently Nyasa Times updated their web design. In both cases, it’s an improvement. And from my current home base here in Switzerland, both sites load promptly. From family in Malawi I hear that the loading times for both sites have […]