Posts by David Poteet

[ May 4, 2012 ]

Rebekah Godshall to Present at Eduweb 2012 on Managing Responsive Design

One of the hottest topics in web development today is the idea of "responsive design" – building a site to respond appropriately to any screen size from desktop to tablet to smart phone. It's revolutionizing our approach to development – almost every site we're building today is responsive.

Lots of people are talking about how to implement responsive design from a technical standpoint, but how do you plan and manage a project with this approach?

Rebekah Godshall, NewCity's Director of Project Management, will be presenting at Eduweb 2012 on managing a responsive design process.Read some of Rebekah's tips for tackling a responsive redesign.

[ March 16, 2012 ]

3 Ways to Hobble Your Higher Ed Brand

Colleges and universities typically make one of these 3 mistakes with their brand. It takes courage from the top to overcome them.

1. They "nerf" it.

2. They stop short.

3. They say everything, thereby saying nothing.

[ January 17, 2012 ]

Translating Higher Ed-Speak from US to UK

NewCity does a lot of work in higher education. We've done a few projects in the UK in addition to our customer base in the US. One of the most fun aspects of that work is learning to translate between Higher Ed lingo in the US and the UK.

It wouldn't be so hard if it wasn't for the fact that we use a lot of the same words to mean different things! George Bernard Shaw's maxim "England and America are two countries separated by a common language," holds true in higher ed.

Melissa Beaver and I just returned from doing some on-site audience research with the University of Portsmouth, and these are fresh in my mind so I thought I'd share. Please point out any mistakes and let us know what you'd add to the list.

[ January 19, 2011 ]

Top 5 Reasons Why I Love Designing for Mobile

This past year I've spent a LOT of time exploring, concepting, wireframing and directing the creation of experiences for mobile devices. Some of that has led to our spinout company, Nomad Mobile Guides. The emergence of mobile apps is the most exciting time I've lived through since the birth of the web in the early 90's.

Here's why I love designing for mobile:

1. It forces you to focus - working with small screens and touch (vs. mouse) interfaces makes you strip away the extras that…

[ November 17, 2009 ]

How branding can change the core experience of a college

Ted Long, president of Elizabethtown College, and Tim Westerbeck, principal of Lipman Hearne, presented a case study on the rebranding of Elizabethtown College at the AMA Symposium for Higher Education this week. President Long's leadership, Lipman Hearne's insight, and the College's courage led them to a transformation that has impacted not only how Elizabethtown thinks and talks about itself, but the experience they deliver. I was excited to see this example of experience design in action.

[ October 27, 2009 ]

Travel: Attracting Gen-Xers with kids (like me)

One of the themes at the VA1 Tourism Conference last month was the fact that Gen-Xers with young children are rapidly overtaking baby boomers as the biggest demographic in vacation travel. Speakers had much to share about what these parents (like me) are looking for in a great vacation.

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I think the most important thing that I didn't realize starting our work with NewCity was that we were gaining a partner. NewCity's approach is total collaboration to produce the best quality work. It was very important for us to be included in every step of the work - to make sure the process was also a learning experience for our team. Boy, we've learned a lot! And we thank you!

- Monika Brady, Web Services Manager, Northwestern Health Sciences University