Here are some images of the old site. Please click on them for a full screen graphic.

We used these technologies and design techniques on the new BigTuna Interactive website:

CSS Sprites

We really went nuts with CSS sprites on the redesign. Sprites are images with various usability states. These states could be either current, active or hover. Sprites are a great way to increase page speed and reduce server calls. In the past, you had to use javascript to accomplish the effects of sprites. However, you can develop them using strictly CSS today. The first sprite that you will see is our navigation.


The navigation of our old site had a drop down menu. However, after researching our analytics, we saw that the drop down navigation was not used and that we would be better off by simplifying the navigation.

The footer is also blinged out with two different sprites:

CSS sprites also increase usability by showing the visitor that they are on a clickable object.

jQuery

jQuery is a clean, unobtrusive javascript library that allows you to add flash-like interactions to your site. We are a huge fan of jQuery. jQuery allows you to pack meaningful content on a page; yet, you can still keep the layout integrity. This is great for search engine optimization. You will see jQuery interactions on the following pages:

1. Home page
2. Online Marketing Services page
3. Search Engine Optimization
4. Web Design
5. Social Media Optimization
6. PPC Management
7. Email Management

The contact form on the right sidebar, the hover states for the images in our portfolio, and the fancybox image galleries are also triggered by jQuery.

Icons and custom graphics

Icons are consistent throughout the entire site. They serve as descriptive indicators of what the visitor will be clicking on. You name the page, you’ll see some icons!

We also gave each services page a custom designed header graphic. This graphic was created in Photoshop and Illustrator.

Improved Portfolio section

The portfolio section for Interactive Agencies can be one of the trickiest page to lay out. We gave each of our products a thumbnail image, and an icon to show what services we performed. You have the option to check out all our our portfolio items directly on that page, through a fancybox modal overlay image gallery, or you can click directly to that page for more information.

Contact forms

We decided to put the contact form, fixed right to the visitors browser. Once clicked on, this contact form expands to include all of our pertinent contact information. On our old site, the contact form was in the footer and was hard to find. This is an absolute no-no for web design!

All of the site forms are connected to various databases, which allow us to manage the flow of information more efficiently.

Search Engine Optimization

I often tell our clients that there are two things that you need to be successful at seo:

1. Links
2. Pages

This redesign allowed us to add another 30 pages to the site and create an information hierarchy that is scalable.

Please let us know what you think of the new site. Like all good websites, your job is never finished. You should be consistently conducting usability studies, checking your analytics and optimizing the site for conversions. We plan on practicing what we preach for our clients with this site!

There were several plugin sessions at WordCamp San Francisco. Naill Kennedy, Joseph Scott and Michael “mitcho” Erlewine gave two different presentations during the morning esssion.

Naill Kennedy gave a high level overview of writing plugins for WordPress. Naill’s main points were:

Why would you write a plugin for WordPress? First of all, it can serve your own needs. Google and Salesforce.com just developed new plugins that integrated with WordPress. This allows you to improve customer engagement outside of your original site.

A second reason to write a plugin is to increase traffic back to your site. In the plugin admin center, you are given a link back to your site. While this link is not indexed by the search engines, it is a great way to drive traffic back to your site. You do get a link from the WordPress plugin directory.

WordPress Plugins can also increase your user experience. Plugins allow you to add or subtract items to a page, or add filters to a page. An example of this is on WordPress com, whenever you write WordPress with a lowercase “w” or “p”, it automatically capitolizes the letters.

Shortcodes have been integrated into WordPress for the past couple of versions. For Youtube, instead of typing in the full embed code, you would simply write a short snippet. Or, in WordPress version 2.9, you can actually just write the link, and WordPress will embed the video directly for you. This is done through the oEmbed plugin.

Joseph Scott spoke about WordPress Plugin security. His main points were:

• Don’t trust external data
• Make sure data is properly escaped.
• Don’t allow injections in HTML
• Don’t forget about the search form: as a test, enter script type=”text/javascript”>alert(‘hi’) end script and see what happens.
• Use core WP functions whenever possible
• Add caching for expensive processes
• Make use and add your own actions/filters
• Minimize DB row or options and use a unique name

Joseph also gave some don’t:

• Include wp-config.php / wp-load.php / wp-blog-header.php
• Ignore WP core options

Michael “mitcho” Erlewine was the last plugin speaker at WordCamp SF. He really emphasized borrowing, adapting and using hooks for your WordPress plgins.

We have developed plugins for our WordPress clients and intend on writing some public plugins in the near future.

Facebook social plugins are becoming a core component of social media campaigns. Facebook’s api is very robuts; however, their documentation needs some work.

If you click on the attached thumbnail, you will see that the API that Facebook is documenting is actually the API of the Lactose Free FanPage, not BigTuna Interactive’s. Make sure that you document your API number!

Another good tip is to make sure that you are using the JavaScript SDK. This will make sure that it does not conflict with any other javascript that may be running on the page.

BigTuna Interactive recently underwent a branding update. We updated our logo, collateral and this website. Above are some of the creative choices that we had to choose from.

Donna Forex

DonnaForex.com is a leading Forex advisory site. DonnaForex sought after us to develop a blog and fully developed membership site. The site is search engine friendly and has a cutting edge user interface and design.

Services:

As the leading provider to free online music, X1FM.com has a video heavy site. They choose BigTuna Interactive to set up corporate SEO policies and consultation. Visit online radio station X1FM.com

Our involvement

Iomega is a world wide leader in data storage. They have a large inventory of product videos. We designed a YouTube Brand Channel for with their online videosg. Visit Iomegas YouTube Page.

Our involvement

Pro bono project. It’s all about the Kids throws a fundraising event at the Playboy Mansion. We created a micro site to gain awareness and to sell tickets. Visit Partying for a Purpose mansion Party.

Our involvement

Ruben Felix is a professional baseball coach who has worked with the Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Indians and Team USA. We recently made him a site to highlight his coaching career.

Our Involvement