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Last week, Brian and I sat with our peers in rapt attention at the Seattle occurrence of An Event Apart, the inspiring one-track web conference started by Jeffrey Zeldman and Eric Meyer in 2005. Known as “the design conference for people who make websites,” AEA is a particularly acclaimed web conference for good reason. Zeldman and Meyer, visionaries famous for helping shape the web as we know it, gather a dozen of the web’s most influential creators and gifted presenters to share their thoughts, inquiries, and discoveries with the several hundred fortunate attendees.
Since you were too busy vacuuming and/or getting your tires rotated to attend, I’ve summarized the best parts. Enjoy!
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Hey! My name is Corinne and I’m excited to introduce myself as Planet Argon’s first intern! I’m currently a student studying art, graphic and web design at Portland State University. I was lucky enough to land an intern position here at Planet Argon.
A large part of my education has been from studying resources on the web. And by “studying” I mean for four or five months I locked myself in my apartment and tried to learn as much as I could about web design and development.
So, as you can imagine, after a while this got pretty lonely. The amount of information out there was daunting. I decided to put my new skills to use and launched a portfolio site in hopes I’d be able to land an internship where I could learn around professionals.
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We’re pleased to announce the first scheduled date for our Modern Web Development Workshop, which will take place on Monday, May 6th, 2013 in Portland, Oregon.
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7 Feb 2013
Use Google Analytics and Spreadsheets to chart Page Load Time, Bounce and Exit Rates
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We recently spoke with one of our clients about improving their site performance; specifically, we chatted about the relationship between page load time and user satisfaction. I found a number of articles relating page load speed to bounce rate, but there’s no study as convincing as an analysis of a client’s own statistics. With the help of Annie, our very own analytics expert, I was able to fumble my way through the creation of a helpful chart plotting load time versus exit and bounce rates using Google Analytics and Google Spreadsheets.
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Last week several argonauts made our way to Couchbase Dev Day PDX, where members of the Couchbase development team Jasdeep, Tugduall and John provided us with a walkthrough of the new features of Couchbase Server 2.0, along with tips and use cases for squeezing performance from data-centric apps. They gave us a rundown of their quickly evolving NoSql technologies and, since then, we've been mulling over how best to leverage Couchbase here at Planet Argon.
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Every year, Planet Argon releases a retrospective compiling the past year’s events; this includes business accomplishments like app launches, and personal milestones like marriage and travels. A couple months ago, I, Jack Bouba, was tasked with getting the ball rolling for the 2012 Year in Review. I felt this was right up my alley because (1) I love being in charge and (2) I’ve been rolling balls since childhood.
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As 2012 was winding down and the holiday season was winding up, I took time to work on some of our internal projects.
While updating some applications to Rails 3, I noticed that our gem, Flash Message Conductor, was not still Rails 3 ready.
Instead of replacing all of the syntactic sugar that Flash Message Conductor gives us to the Rails defaults in our applications, I decided to update the gem to use Rails 3.
I'm pleased to announce that Flash Message Conductor 2.0 is now available for download and it's compatible with all versions of Rails 3 (3.0, 3.1, and 3.2).
Still using Rails 2? Don't worry, you can still using version 1.x of the gem in your projects.
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When Robby asked me to migrate our app, heybrainstormr.com, over to AppFog, I was surprised. I am a Frontend Developer here at Planet Argon and am not used to doing things that include the words migrating, database or runtimes. He assured me that if I needed help, a developer would be within shouting distance to assist. Confident in the fact that backup was available, I headed into the fog.
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We started working with McMenamins earlier this year. McMenamins is a unique client in that most of its locations are of historic significance. They buy old, historic buildings and keep all of their unique history intact while converting parts of them to a theater or restaurant or bar or all three. They have more than 50 locations all over the Pacific Northwest. They needed a mobile site that would showcase what all their locations had to offer in terms of food, drink, movies, events, etc. For example, if you were looking for a location with a movie theater, a soaking pool and bike racks that is within 5 miles of your current location, you are in luck. Their new location search page will let you define your criteria to find that information. Whether or not you can actually sit in a soaking pool while watching a movie after locking up your bike isn’t guaranteed.
Fast forward to the present where we have launched McMenamins new mobile site that was designed by R/West, a local design shop, and implemented by your good friends at Planet Argon. It has been a fun and challenging journey for sure.
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“What are the most annoying things you encounter when filling out a web form?” was a recent tweet posted by our Chief Evangelist and it got me thinking. Web forms are the one interaction you are most likely forced to deal with more regularly than you’d like; to sign up for that online service, join that social community, or just because completing the goal online is easier than offline. Usually it’s easier to buy that airline ticket online, instead of picking up the phone and calling that surely booking agent. Buying a ticket to that show should be more convenient than standing in a line at the box office. And yet, sometimes the online process can actually make it more complicated, frustrating, or maybe even impossible. Why is that? In many cases, it all comes down to frustrations with the web forms. Prompted by the tweet, we set out to uncover not only the most annoying things you encounter in web forms, but how they can be remedied.
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I’ve used Google Analytics, like most of you, I’m sure. But to be honest, I’ve always been slightly overwhelmed with it, too. I know there are a lot of analytics options out there, like Chartbeat for real-time, user-friendly information, and Crazyegg for interesting visuals like heatmaps for click-through rates and scrolling patterns. But, despite some hardships, Google Analytics has always felt like that trusty old friend…that one that talks too much. You know the type. The friend that gives just a little too much detail to a story to successfully get the point across (and you’re lucky if you don’t get sidetracked into some sort of tangent).
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I started my career way back in the year 1996, fresh out of college with a Bachelor’s Degree in graphic design. I had spent the past four or so years learning the tools of the trade. Some of these tools were a bit older than others. Computers were starting to come on the scene in desktop publishing in a big way. So, interspersed in my curriculum were classes that represented the old and the new. In one class I might have been hand-lettering the alphabet with brushes and paint while in the other I might have been laying out a magazine-style article with copy and images on a Mac. It was quite the transitional period. However, no matter the technique I was using, be it old or new, the basis for everything was design. I was going to school for graphic design so I fancied myself a designer. It just so happened that design work was now accomplished with a keyboard and a mouse.
Photo by John Altdorfer
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Your website, just like your car, is often due for a bit of maintenance. Fortunately, tuning up your website is less intimidating than that familiar experience of standing next to your vehicle, nodding your head dumbly while handing your mechanic (who, by the way, is much more ruggedly handsome than you) a wad of cash. And that is even less daunting than attempting to work on the car yourself- you’ve tried that before, and you still have nightmares and stained pants.
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11 Oct 2012
Tsilli Pines says "The best solutions come from people who are motivated by their passions"
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It’s Day 3 of Design Week Portland, and I’ve managed to successfully interrupt one of the organizers of the event, Tsilli Pines, at an extremely busy time. Tsilli was gracious enough to answer all 9 of my questions – I told her it’d only be 2 or 3 – about design, Portland, and zombies, via email.
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Just a few weeks ago, we celebrated our 2012 summer picnic at lovely Irving Park. Now, as the mercury drops and the giraffe-fur coats come out of their cardboard boxes with puffs of toxic mothball dust, we ease into our creaking rocking chairs, reflections of the waning summer dancing in our minds like so many whistling embers leaping from the nearby hearth. “Why didn’t I go to the river more often, goddammit?” we contemplate; or, “I squandered this whole summer sitting at my desk, eating cookies, listening to the sound of my muscles atrophying, and now it’s dark when I wake up and where did I put my raincoat?” Oh, tut-tut, you silly goose! It’s only October- the weather’s still gorgeous and the leaves in your backyard make such a delightful crunching sound.
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In December, we made it easier to use Brainstormr anywhere, creating a responsive design for your brain clouds on-the-go. This summer, we got a little creative, and a few weeks ago, we snuck out an update that puts a little more pizazz into your brainstorms with Brainstormr Themes!
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Today I had the opportunity to attend (listen to?) one of Adaptive Path’s virtual seminars covering experience maps led by Chris Risdon.
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I know what you might be thinking. This is a post about which Portland mayoral candidate I think might/should win this November. It’s not. I am by no means a political consultant. I don’t follow polls. And furthermore, I never like to talk politics (with strangers at least).
But what I do like to talk about is user experience design. And inspired by this recent article on the mobile differences between our two presidential candidates, I decided to take it local and conduct a quick usability audit on the sites of Portland’s mayoral candidates, Charlie Hales and Jefferson Smith.
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- There are no physical constraints in software.
- The problem however, is that instead of creating application constraints, we constrain ourselves to features.
Both outline the reasoning and motivation for how we estimate at Planet Argon, and why.
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In 2009 we asked the community how they hosted their Rails applications. Over 1,200 people chimed in with their answers. Once the data was compiled, we released the results to the community so that everyone could see where we were and where we were going.
In 2012, we set out to find what had changed over the last three years.
This time around 1,306 people took time out of their days to let us know how they were hosting their apps.
As before, we’re releasing the results back to the community along with this handy infographic that we’ve put together.
Let’s take a look at the data.
Rails Community – Still Growing
It looks like Ruby on Rails is still attracting new people, with over 25% of the respondents saying that they’ve joined the community in the last two years.
Ruby and Rails Versions – Old and New
This year, we asked two new questions. We wanted to know what versions of Ruby and Ruby on Rails people have deployed out there.
The data is interesting. 45% of people reported that they had at least one application out there still running on the venerable Rails 2.3.x version. In addition to that, 85% of people have deployed an application running on Rails 3.2.
On the Ruby side, a similar trend emerges, over 50% of people said that they were using Ruby 1.8.7 (either REE or MRI), but people overwhelming said that they also had applications running on Ruby 1.9.3.
I think that this shows that the community is pragmatic, supporting applications that are older, but unafraid of adopting the latest and greatest when the opportunity presents itself.
A Few Surprises
There were a few surprises this year.
In 2009, 80% of people said that they were using MySQL and 63% said that they preferred using said database server. This year, PostgreSQL eats up a large chunk of MySQL’s market share. 40% of people said that they were using Postgres in production and 60% of people said that they wanted to use it in production.
Although the majority of developers are keeping track of exceptions there is a significant number of developers that aren’t; nearly 30% of all developers.
Of those developers that are tracking exceptions, the most popular method is by using the Airbrake app (formerly known as Hoptoad). Airbrake zoomed past ExceptionNotifier gobbling up 50% of the vote. ExceptionNotifier used to reign in this space with 53% of the vote in the last survey.
This is the first year that we’ve asked about the use of Continuous Integration and we were surprised to see the number of people that aren’t using one so high. 64% of people said that they aren’t using a CI server.
Of the people that are using a CI server, Jenkins is by far the most popular with nearly 66% of the vote with Travis CI coming in a distant second with 27%.
One more surprise showed up in the results from this year. Apache and Nginx did a bit of role reversal.
In 2009, 69% of people said that they were using Apache, while Nginx took a backseat with just 24% of the vote. In 2012, things are quite different as Nginx is now the leader with 61% of the vote and Apache drops to 35%.
Predictable Trends
In addition to the surprises this year, there were some predictable trends. In 2009, over 60% of the people chose Git as their source control software, but there were still 36% of people out there using Subversion.
In 2012, people resoundingly chose Git. That number jumped to 94% and Subversion withered away to a mere 4%.
Another unsurprising trend is the battle of the Rails servers.
In 2009, 38% of people were using Mongrel. In 2012, someone let the dogs out but they didn’t come back. Mongrel’s share dropped down to a measly 3%. Most of this market share went over to the relatively new upstart Unicorn, while Passenger picked up a few percentage points to its lead.
Wrap-up
It’s definitely been interesting seeing the trends in between the two surveys and I think it’s going to be interesting to see what happens in another few years.
Where do you see trends going in another 3 years?
Infographic
Yes, we’ve put together an infographic for your consumption!
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