Brainfire

Improve call to action links by not using “click here”

Mat Harden — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:49:51 +0000

HTML allows us to make any part of a sentence a link. But using “click here” as a call to action restricts it’s impact and meaning. A few simple changes to a sentence can improve usability, SEO and traffic, which can only help to increase revenue.

Several advantages when avoiding the use of “click here”.

Descriptive link text will increase SEO
Explains what the link will provide the user
Meaningful in any context, e.g. if the content is printed
Links can be longer than one or two words which will be easier to see and activate
Not everyone will click (some may hit ‘Enter’, ‘Tap’ or use shortcut keys)
Doesn’t stall the user by making them think “what happens if I do click?”

Here’s how a recent news article could have been improved using this approach.

Using “click here”…

Click here to read more about our latest safety advances, or here to book a test drive in the Insight.

Using meaningful link text…

Discover more about our latest safety advances, or book a test drive in the Insight.

Don’t just take it from me, the W3C recommend not using “click here”.

Brainfire now with WordPress

Mat Harden — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 23:06:10 +0000

I’ve made the decision to use WordPress as a CMS for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s free. Secondly it’s so much easier to use that Movable Type, which I was using previously. In addition to that, there’s just so many plug-ins available and there’s an iPhone app too. It’s everything blog software should be. As a temporary measure, I’m going to use a nice free WordPress theme called Oulipo until I get round to creating my own.

Also, I have moved a lot of posts that I no longer feel are Brainfire related to my personal site as I aim to keep this site on the subject of professional Web development and help articles.

Valid XHTML output using Google Mini Appliance transformation engine

Mat Harden — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 09:55:00 +0000

I’ve been trying to output valid XHTML code from the Google Mini Search Appliance. The XML transformation was applying xmlns attributes to various, seemingly random elements which causes the output XHTML to fail validation.

As Kamiel Martinet pointed out, in any normal XSLT application you can overcome this by simply adding the xmlns to the stylesheet node.

However, this causes the Google Mini front end transformation to fail, resulting in the transformation to fail with the following message.

Internal error processing stylesheet.

This leaves me with the choice but to render invalid XHTML from the Google Mini transformation engine. One alternative solution is to use another transformation engine, but that is not an option for this current project.
When and if I find a solution to this, I will post it here.

Website design and web development

Mat Harden — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 09:30:13 +0000

Brainfire is a freelance web design and web development company based in Berkhamsted, Herfordshire, near Hemel Hempstead. Run by Mat Harden, a passionate and experienced web designer, Brainfire specialise in standards compliant accessible websites. Services include web development, website help and updates, web standard and semantic coding of existing designs, HTML email marketing, bespoke website application development, PHP development, ASP development and web consultation.
For all enquiries, email info@brainfire.co.uk.

Garden glove specialists

Mat Harden — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 16:47:46 +0000

My friends, the Garden Glove Specialists have recently added an on-line payment facility to their website to allow card payments for their Second Skin & Ultra gardening gloves.
They sell three types of gloves:
Ultra Glove - these latex rubber gardening gloves provide thorn resistance and are great for pruning roses and pulling brambles.
Second Skin - their most popular glove, nitrile rubber thorn resistant gardening gloves, which are flexible great for potting, tying up plants and any jobs where you want to feel what you’re doing. And they’re thorn resistant!
Easy Fit - the latest gardening gloves are very light weight and great for every day use. ~~will be available to buy soon~~ available to buy now!
Each gardening glove has a cotton back and elasticated cuff keep all dirt and bugs out! Everyone who uses them thinks they’re fantastic!

I am not Brainfire Group

Mat Harden — Thu, 31 May 2007 21:47:45 +0000

Occasionally I get requests from misguided companies (and lawyers) asking me to sell or hand-over domain names they believe have been registered by Brainfire. I’m am not a cyber-squatter. I do not register domain names in the hope that large corporations will pay huge sums to recover. Unfortunately for me a company called Brainfire Group does. Brainfire Limited and Brainfire Group are two entirely separate entities.

All I know about Brainfire Group is the following:

They register domain names to the their address in Calgary, Canada
They are involved in a number of domain name disputes with Nominet
They have been involved in one of the few legal cases that have used Wikipedia as a court source

If you want to discover who has registered a domain name, use a WHOIS lookup such as the Geektools Whois tool.

Living Designs

Mat Harden — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 13:59:08 +0000

Friday saw the release of the new Living Designs website. It’s a gorgeous looking site (sadly not my design) with simple navigation, which as always, turned out to be quite complicated to create. Each section has a different link colour, instantly multiplying style sheet code. I love the second level navigation. The page you are currently on is marked by a simple break in the bar on the left. I think this is a great effect.
This was the first time I used the jQuery library, which came in very handy for the unobtrusive JavaScript pop-ups.
Currently Living Designs appears eighth of page 2 in Google’s global search. Hopefully this will move up over the next week.

Label Summit South China

Mat Harden — Wed, 17 May 2006 23:21:16 +0000

My final creation, South China Label Summit for Tarsus Group was launched today. The design brief was a little tough. The branding for the show wont be done until a few months before the show. This meant I had to do something generic to allow for future branding, whilst still keeping a sense of, well… branding (a contradiction, I know). All I had to go on was the logo and the fact they liked Smart Label Summit Europe which I created earlier in the year.
I’m quite happy with it though. I think it’s pretty much bug free and it easy on the eyes. I used Strict XHTML and there’s only two minor errors on the home page. I’m particularly proud of the menu, the date/venue details and the conference tab links because they use some snazzy CSS techniques. Works on all web standard Internet devices!

Start Living

Mat Harden — Mon, 01 May 2006 22:41:43 +0000

I start a new job tomorrow, working for Living Designs in Shoreditch. I’m very excited about it. I worked at Tarsus for nearly six years, creating sites such as Smart Labels Summit Europe, news and blog systems for Venues, and built their shiny Intranet. I’ve met a lot of interesting and fun people there, but my time had come to move on.
I’m very much looking forward to this opportunity and all the new challenges. I’ll have a good platform to implement my skills and ideas as well as learn lots from the people there. Hopefully I’ll be updating my portfolio very soon.

Worst website menu ever?

Mat Harden — Sat, 15 Apr 2006 23:09:10 +0000

I’ve been browsing round the world of the web tonight and I came across the site of record label 4AD. I thought, “ok, great, I’d like to read about the Cocteau Twins please”. So I found myself clicking this stupid wheel type thing until I found a bit on it that says ‘help’. This isn’t general website or accessibility help, but how to use the diabolical navigation method they had lumbered their poor unsuspecting users.
Click on tiny arrow near the letters, select a letter, drag the artist name into the light area, click the… no hold on, I don’t give a damn anymore I’ve lost interest. Why make it so hard for potential customers to find your products? Correct me if I’m incorrect, but if you need to provide help on how to use a website menu, then it’s probably not the best menu, now is it?
It’s a very well put together piece of Flash. Once you’ve ‘learnt’ how to use it, it’s not so bad and I guess it could be nice to browse an artist by year, but really, come on, it’s too complicated.
Anyone else seen a bad menu lately?