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For the final episode of 2016, Bright Umbrella assistant Erin Lewis joins us for one last Year in Review. We look back at all we learned in business, technology and life this past year. As we reflect on recurring and changing goals, we also address what we hope for 2017 with conviction and solidarity. And finally, the year’s Rapidfire Questions analyzed! Do pancakes triumph over waffles? Tune in to find out! We’re on hiatus until the new year (tune back in January 19, 2017), and we wish you all the happiest of holidays! < Download MP3 >      < Listen on ctrlclickcast.com > Show Notes: Performance Optimization: A Tale of 2 EE Sites Flexbox with Zoe Gillenwater Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss Preserve restaurant Caravaggio Sesame Street Fever Hiromi Uehara, jazz pianist Leave us a review on iTunes Review our show on Stitcher Sponsored By

It’s simple: Ecommerce development is complicated. There are a lot of moving parts, from understanding business rules and tribal knowledge to designing for user experience and building internal systems that work. We tackle all of these points with Noah Bersohn and Peter Compernolle, with a focus on shipping and fulfillment. Noah and Peter share two client case studies, each with unique shipping and fulfillment needs. They detail their approach, which starts with a strong focus on discovery and proceeds quickly to prototyping for validation before diving into full-scale development. They also discuss the ecommerce frameworks and CMSs they use (and prefer), and how to strategically decide when to move from out-of-the-box to plugins or custom dev. < Download MP3 >      < Listen on ctrlclickcast.com > Show Notes: CTRL+CLICK ecommerce archive Craft Craft Commerce Shopify Spree Commerce Field Notes case study The Eastman Egg Company case study Connecting to 3rd-Party APIs Data-Driven Design Discovery Only ShipStation Craft ShipStation Plugin Leave us a review on iTunes Review our show on Stitcher Sponsored By

Do you have a marketing plan? If you’re a tiny freelancer or agency, the answer may be no — and can be contributing to your business’s feast and famine cycle! Marketing Mentor Ilise Benun helps peel back the realities of marketing to help your creative business. We discuss the three main marketing techniques to use, specific tips and examples from real-world clients (including Bright Umbrella!), and the mind shift required to be better at marketing your services to get the clients and projects you want. < Download MP3 >      < Listen on ctrlclickcast.com > Show Notes: Non Breaking Space Show: Thriving a Business Stop Asking for the Budget Marketing Mentor Case Studies Quick Tips from Marketing Mentor Designers Guide to Marketing & Pricing Get the Work You Want Marketing Plan The Pick a Niche Kit Command the Fees You Deserve MarketingMentorPodcast.com Free 30-minute mentoring session Marketing Mix Blog Get Better Clients Bootcamp Anthony Davids Leave us a review on iTunes Review our show on Stitcher Sponsored By

Ever needed to build a login-protected “member portal”? Or support subscriptions for digital downloads? Then you’ve secured site site content. But have you covered all the bases? Rachel Andrew joins the show to explain the what, why and how of secure sites. We each share real-world client examples, particularly in context with content management systems. Rachel specifically details how Perch CMS supports secure content, including using a paywall with Perch Shop. She also explains the core server requirements for secure content and details how HTTPS may soon be the default for all sites. She wraps up with an intro to HTTP/2 and how HTTPS goes hand-in hand with this new performance-focused protocol. < Download MP3 >      < Listen on ctrlclickcast.com > Show Notes: Perch CMS HTTPS TLS (Transport Layer Security) What is an SSL certificate? HTTPS Everywhere with Ngnix, Varnish and Apache Moving towards a more secure web Chromium: Deprecating Powerful Features on Insecure Origins Devot-ee: Link Vault Perch Podcast: Episode 54 Paranoid Security Mode Selling Content Behind a Paywall Using Perch Perch Members Perch Shop CartThrob Expresso Store Devot-ee: User Devote-ee: Force SSL Getting Ready for HTTP/2 Rebuilding the Perch UI - not your usual redesign OnmiFocus Leave us a review on iTunes Review our show on Stitcher Sponsored By

How do you rehaul a 21-year-old brand? Eric Gillin explains how he helped relaunch Epicurious’ site through a phased, practical approach. We focus on the most important features of the site and which tools helped narrow these assumptions down. We talk about the difficulty of launching new features on a site with exponential visitor growth, developer impact, user experience, and parsing criticism. We also chat about their upcoming mobile app, how it differs from the site, as well as the future of food and digital. < Download MP3 >      < Listen on ctrlclickcast.com > Show Notes: Condé Nast's Epicurious Gets a Tech-Savvy Makeover Welcome to the New Epicurious Search Experience TheStreet.com WebReaper Vulcan Framework AMP from Google Node.js Instant Articles Mobify Adobe Analytics (previously Omniture) Optimizely React Native How Digital Killed the Recipe Beer Can Cabbage Recipe Momofuku Ssäm Bar David Chang's Bo Ssäm recipe Kurt Vonnegut Technopathy The Beastie Boys Leave us a review on iTunes Review our show on Stitcher Sponsored By

Is copy the same as content? Can copy influence design? Professional copywriter Stephanie Morillo joins the show to explain copywriting and how it impacts user experience. She shares examples of copy on the web — such as headings, form labels, alerts and notifications — and details how copy helps you connect with your audience and support your brand. Stephanie talks about where copywriting fits into the project process, as well as the importance of collaboration with stakeholders. She also shares great resources to help improve your copywriting and be consistent with copy, not just on your website but in all of your messaging. < Download MP3 >      < Listen on ctrlclickcast.com > Show Notes: #WOCinTech Chat WOC in Tech photos Copyblogger Chicago Manual of Style Merriam-Webster Dictionary AP Stylebook MailChimp Content Style Guide 18F Content Guide Making a case for letter casing The Copywriter's Handbook Leave us a review on iTunes Review our show on Stitcher Sponsored By

Ever dive into a project and realize the scope is completely off? How about realizing the client is the wrong fit? Paid discovery projects help minimize these issues. J Cornelius of Nine Labs explains how being more focused and intentional with a small discovery project benefits both you and your client’s business. We chat the various ways discovery projects can be executed, what they include, why they’re important, and how it sets the tone for the rest of the project. < Download MP3 >      < Listen on ctrlclickcast.com > Show Notes: Nine Labs' Risk/Knowledge Curve Diagram Sample Empathy Map (PDF) from Standford Design School Personas from Usability.gov Wikipedia: Value proposition TOOL Umair Haque Ahmad Jamal Bones Restaurant Leave us a review on iTunes Review our show on Stitcher Sponsored By

Performance matters. Tune in to hear real-world examples on how Lea and Emily tackle their client site speed issues! From fixing emergencies to thoughtful rebuilds, we discuss the specific ways we manage client expectations, budgets and resources while isolating bottlenecks. We reveal real solutions to fixing slow EE sites from different angles, including front-end, and discuss why it’s important to fix, test, and review in the first place! < Download MP3 >      < Listen on ctrlclickcast.com > Show Notes: Pingdom Diagnosing Performance Using New Relic EE: Debugging & Output WebPageTest.org YSlow Pingdom GT Metrix Google PageSpeed Insights Build Automation Using Gulp with Dan Tello Amazon S3 Cloudfront CloudFlare Low Variables Stash CE Cache Mustash EE Layouts Kirby Statamic The QA Process with Lewis Francis 8oz Burger & Co. Leave us a review on iTunes Review our show on Stitcher Sponsored By

Quality Assurance isn’t just testing. QA is a process that spans the lifecyle of a project. Lewis Francis, Director of Quality Assurance at Threespot, joins the show with a primer on QA for websites and apps. He talks about the difference between quality assurance and quality control, and explains where QA should fit into the project cycle. Lewis details how budget can dictate the scope of QA, but also the elements that are important for any QA process. And he shares a bunch of great tools and resources, from automated full-site validation to front-end testing to issue tracking. < Download MP3 >      < Listen on ctrlclickcast.com > Show Notes: Quality control Quality assurance Section508.gov Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) SortSite Contrast Ratio Xenu Link Sleuth Content Analysis Tool BrowserStack GitHub Issues Trac LICEcap Snapz Pro X Leave us a review on iTunes Review our show on Stitcher Sponsored By

UX expert Matthew Oliphant stops by the show to help define what data-driven design even means! We discuss testing assumptions before a project begins, as well as how UX research affects process and the project lifecycle. From critical business decisions to design and development, we chat about different ways to test a website or app, real-world scenarios of testing, and how to make sense of it all to fulfill client and user goals. < Download MP3 >      < Listen on ctrlclickcast.com > Show Notes: usertesting.com usability.gov Optimizely Salt & Straw Human Performance Engineering User and Task Analysis for Interface Design Staging (cooking) Boys Over Flowers Expatriate Tapeheads (line at 1:18) Leave us a review on iTunes Review our show on Stitcher Sponsored By

Landing pages are bound to come up for almost any type of client. How can we designers and developers help clients reach their conversion goals, while making it easy for them to create these landing pages? Special guest Shawn Maida returns to the show to discuss how his company uses landing pages themselves, as well as how they build landing pages for clients. We run the gamut of different types of landing pages, as well as different client goals. We discuss solutions we’ve built in ExpressionEngine, Craft and Statamic, as well as alternative options when a CMS doesn’t make sense. And we talk about the importance of testing and measuring success. < Download MP3 >      < Listen on ctrlclickcast.com > Show Notes: Are Your Landing Page Easy to Change? 5 Landing Page A/B Tests and Their Surprising Results Umbel Dynamic Yield Optimizely Content Elements for ExpressionEngine Statamic Replicator Craft Matrix CE Cache for ExpressionEngine Stash for ExpressionEngine Mouseflow Leave us a review on iTunes Review our show on Stitcher Sponsored By

Tired of websites looking the same? So are we! Hosts Lea and Emily discuss how signature design style benefits designers and their clients. We weigh in on the pros and cons, how to find a signature design style and apply it, as well as how other phases of a project cycle is affected by a design style. Lea also shares some resources to help designers create their own signature design style. < Download MP3 >      < Listen on ctrlclickcast.com > Show Notes: Designers! You Should have a Signature Style! Can You Justify Design? Art of Self-Branding Bauhaus Art Nouveau Helvetica Design is History Art History Basics Gothic Architecture Post modernism Design 101: International Style 7 Steps to Developing Originality in Your Design and Illustration Work 10 Tips on Developing Your Own Style NHS: Developing a Design Style How to Develop Your Style According to DVF, Rachel Zoe, and More The Cajun Crawfish Geraldine's Counter Leave us a review on iTunes Review our show on Stitcher Sponsored By

When we go online, the stresses and triggers of our offline lives go with us. So the apps, sites and technology we use online need to account for those stressors. Special guest Beth Dean returns to the show, this time to talk about emotional intelligence in design. She shares her own lessons learned working at Facebook, trying to anticipate and avoid the friction that can occur when the design process doesn’t consider the human factor. Beth also offers tips for how to be more emotionally intelligent in both design and development, including embracing diversity in the workplace, identifying stress scenarios early in the process, and emphasizing the user throughout. < Download MP3 >      < Listen on ctrlclickcast.com > Show Notes: Lesbians Who Tech Facebook real-name policy controversy Facebook authentic identity Kaiser Permanente’s Innovation on the Front Lines Facebook On This Day Facebook Year in Review Humanizing Business with Whitney Hess Improving Diversity in Tech with Ashe Dryden & Faruk Ateş Emotional Intelligence in Design MyTransHealth Design for Real Life Practical Empathy: For Collaboration and Creativity in Your Work Leave us a review on iTunes Review our show on Stitcher Sponsored By

Websites are no longer silos. There is an increasing need to connect various services together through their APIs. Solspace founder and developer Mitchell Kimbrough returns to the show to explain how he approaches requests for 3rd-party API integration. He shares what a good API looks like, emphasizes a discovery-first approach, goes through technical tips like his “crud” script to help test assumptions and troubleshoot, but most importantly, shares scenarios on how to navigate the human element when juggling management of different APIs through various gatekeepers. < Download MP3 >      < Listen on ctrlclickcast.com > Show Notes: APIs Solspace API Integrations EE Add-on Development Craft Plugin Development Salesforce APIs HubSpot API Overview NetSuite Developers Overview MemberSuite Developer Resources SDKs (Software development kit) Stripe API Facebook Developers REST API SOAP API cURL call Leave us a review on iTunes Review our show on Stitcher Sponsored By

SVGs aren’t just another image format. They are code. They are infinitely scalable. And they can be manipulated with CSS and JS to create both subtle and dramatic interface experiences. Designer and front-end dev Brenda Storer joins the show to give us a primer on scalable vector graphics, from how they are different from the familiar PNG, JPG and GIF, to browser support, to the underlying code elements and attributes. Brenda offers recommendations for optimizing SVGs and making them more accessible. She also details real world use cases (an alternative to icon fonts) and shares her favorite resources for learning and inspiration. < Download MP3 >      < Listen on ctrlclickcast.com > Show Notes: Girl Develop It Giant Robots The Bike Shed ShopTalk #151 Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 Can I use… A Complete Guide to SVG Fallbacks Emacs Entypo Font Awesome Icon System with SVG Sprites SVGO SVGOMG Iconic thoughtbot Hack Day project D3.js SMIL Sarah Drasner CodePen Chris Gannon CodePen CSSconf EU 2014 | Sara Soueidan: Styling and Animating Scalable Vector Graphics with CSS Pocket Guide to Writing SVG Snap.svg GreenSock Leave us a review on iTunes Review our show on Stitcher Sponsored By

Where does progressive enhancement fit in the web today? Developer Aaron Gustafson, author of Adaptive Web Design, returns to the show to update us on how progressive enhancement fits for today’s mobile web design & development workflow. Not only do we go through the technical specifics of progressive enhancement, we chat about how design and user experience work hand-in-hand alongside the business benefits inherent when building an inclusive site or app. < Download MP3 >      < Listen on ctrlclickcast.com > Show Notes: Adaptive Web Design Aaron Gustafson The Web Isn’t Uniform Designing with Progressive Enhancement 15 Years of Dao Progressive Enhancement: Zed’s Dead, Baby Zed's dead, baby Inside FastBoot: The Road to Server-Side Rendering Isomorphic JavaScript Siri Cortana Alexa The Full StackOverflow Developer by Christian Heilmann Build Conference Pew: Chapter 1: A Portrait of Smartphone Ownership Offline First IOT HTML5 Rocks: Service Worker Introduction Pattern Lab Resources Interface Experience Maps Deque Sluggo’s North Vegetarian Cafe Lil Simz Leave us a review on iTunes Review our show on Stitcher Sponsored By

An add-on with a single code base that supports five different CMSs? That’s the unicorn of platform-agnostic add-on dev, and it is just as illusive. Special guest Eric Lamb shares how he developed an efficient, smart approach to porting his popular ExpressionEngine add-on, Backup Pro, to four other content management systems (with more planned). The key? Abstraction. He also details the nuances of working with different communities and submitting add-ons to different marketplaces, as well as the challenges of support and how he keeps it manageable. < Download MP3 >      < Listen on ctrlclickcast.com > Show Notes: Backup Pro devot:ee BUILD'ing Backup Pro BUILD'ing Backup Pro for ExpressionEngine 3 ExpressionEngine Craft WordPress concrete5 PrestaShop Unit testingSeleniumMink Fat Fish Cantina Grill Trivium Leave us a review on iTunes Review our show on Stitcher Sponsored By

There are a lot of moving parts to running a business — how do you get through it all in an efficient manner? Emily and Lea go through the tools, resources, and services Bright Umbrella utilizes to run a business more smoothly. We chat about past and current experiences with task management and business development, invoices and time tracking, and everything in between — all to show you how to help you save time (and money!) for your business! < Download MP3 >      < Listen on ctrlclickcast.com > Show Notes: Basecamp Bullet Journal Dropbox Bidsketch PandaDoc Capsule CRM Google Chat Skype Join.me UberConference FreeConferenceCall.com Inc. Hootsuite Google Calendar Schedule Once Calendly Acuity Scheduling Freshbooks Shoeboxed FreeAgent Google Docs Beanstalk GitHub Browserstack Jennifer James 101 Leave us a review on iTunes Review our show on Stitcher Sponsored By

A good workflow means fewer hiccups in a project build. An automated workflow means fewer hiccups and faster production! Front-end developer Dan Tello joins the show to share how he and his team at Viget use build tools and task runners to automate their front-end (and CMS!) development. Dan details his process learning Grunt, then making the switch to Gulp and why he prefers it. He shares his Gulp Starter repo and details the various tools he uses for the different assets he builds. We also discuss some of the challenges of workflow automation and tips for keeping those challenges manageable. < Download MP3 >      < Listen on ctrlclickcast.com > Show Notes: LiveReload IcoMoon Rails Sprockets Compass Grunt RequireJS And just like that Grunt and RequireJS are out, it’s all about Gulp and Browserify now Gulp Browserify Node.js NPM Babel webpack Node-sass imagemin gulp-svgstore Browsersync Gulp Starter Gulp + Browserify: The Everything Post npm-shrinkwrap Why we should stop using Grunt & Gulp CodeKit Syncing remote Craft sites to your development machine Swig ImageOptim ImageAlpha Gulp: Getting Started How to Use NPM as a Build Tool EE Automation with Matt Fordham Sass Workflows: Setup & Automaton with Ben Frain Version Control with Adam Wiggall & Ian Pitts Create Your Own Starter Files Leave us a review on iTunes Review our show on Stitcher Sponsored By

Choosing and applying colors on the web can get complicated quickly, especially when considering user experience and accessibility. Don’t rely on assumptions, urges designer and illustrator Geri Coady! She shares tips on how to make informed design choices that improve a site’s interactivity for all users. We talk about color’s impact on a site, compare color applications to other industries, and share tools on how to test color decisions that enhances a web experience. < Download MP3 >      < Listen on ctrlclickcast.com > Show Notes: A Pocket Guide to Color Accessibility Subtractive color Additive color What is the difference between CMYK and RGB? Color Profiles Pantone Color of the Year What is Wayfinding? Colour Blind Awareness All about Color Blindness On Mystery Meat Navigation Color Contrast for Better Readability Three common accessibility pitfalls for developers: colour contrast Accessibility 101 with Greg Tarnoff Contrast Ratio: Easily calculate color contrast ratios Google Equates “Design” With Endless Testing. They're Wrong Sass functions Color Oracle Spectrum Leave us a review on iTunes Review our show on Stitcher Sponsored By

ExpressionEngine for large-scale sites? Yes, says EE expert Travis Smith, and he’s got the statistics to back it up! Travis returns to the show as we revisit one of our EE Podcast episodes on large EE sites to discuss what has changed and what’s stayed the same. Travis details his updated statistics about the largest EE sites on the web today, and discusses the factors that make a site “large.” He also shares tips for efficient development, good infrastructure and mitigating the challenges large sites introduce. < Download MP3 >      < Listen on ctrlclickcast.com > Show Notes: The 20 Largest ExpressionEngine Sites ExpressionEngine 3 Is Here Template Layouts in ExpressionEngine 2.8 Wrapping Templates in Layouts Embedding Templates within Other Templates Stash Grid Structure Amazon Web Services (AWS) Nexcess Leave us a review on iTunes Review our show on Stitcher Sponsored By

Curious about flexbox? Web designer, developer and author Zoe Gillenwater says the flexible box model ranks high among what seasoned web developers should learn now. We discuss what the hype is about, how it differs from other layout methods, and where it’s best used. We also talk about the changing landscape of layout methods overall, and Zoe shares simple and complex use cases for flexbox. < Download MP3 >      < Listen on ctrlclickcast.com > Show Notes: CSS Flexible Box Module CSS Grid Layout Module Modernizr @supports rule flex-wrap Autoprefixer The Guardian's website CodePen Mozilla Developer Network (MDN) flexbugs Flexbox Froggy Sublime Text skyscanner Flexbox Cheat Sheet Flexbox in 5 Flexbox layout isn't slow Don't Use Flexbox for Page Layout CodePen: Pure CSS off-canvas menu with flexox CodePen: Tournament Grid CodePen: Flexbox Video Control Haesje Claes Stone Temple Pilots Red Hot Chili Peppers Leave us a review on iTunes Review our show on Stitcher Sponsored By

Are you pricing your services correctly? Do you know what it costs to just maintain your business? Are you making a profit? Do you know how to correctly estimate? How do you talk to clients and prospects about budgets and costs? If you work for yourself and you aren’t asking yourselves these questions, then you may be hurting the future of your business. Special guest Brad Weaver joins the show to offer practical pricing tips and strategies that can help your business today—as in right now! We talk about shop rates vs. billing rates and how to calculate both. Brad shares suggestions for accurate estimating, as well as different pricing options that make sense for different types of project. And we also discuss ways to talk to clients and prospects about money and value. < Download MP3 >      < Listen on ctrlclickcast.com > Show Notes: Creative Truth What to Charge The Designer’s Guide to Marketing and Pricing: How to Wing Clients and What to Charge Them The Wealthy Freelancer Creative Inc: The Ultimate Guide to Running a Successful Freelance Business Design is a Job Double Your Freelancing Pricing Design ConvergeSE AIGA HOW Design Live conference Paul Jarvis nuSchool General Assembly Atlanta Future Insights Live Skillshare Slack Hankook Taqueria Chvrches Josh Ritter Leave us a review on iTunes Review our show on Stitcher Sponsored By

The fast-paced nature of the web industry can cause confusion as to how to prioritize what to learn, especially if a framework or technique is obsolete in a year. Our first guest of 2016, front-end developer Susan Robertson, urges us to take a step back before immediately diving into something new. We discuss why we think there’s such a panic to learn new things, how to avoid this panic, and also share tips on how evaluate what is actually worth investing time to learn. < Download MP3 >      < Listen on ctrlclickcast.com > Show Notes: Editorially Fictive Kin Ember Angular Ethan Marcotte Sass SMACSS React Jeremy Keith Tim Kadlec Rachel Andrew CSS Grid Spec A Guide to Flexbox How Developers Stop Learning: Rise of the Expert Beginner CSS Tricks Stephen Hay Building to Learn Cibo restaurant Mark Rothko Miles Davis Donate to CTRL+CLICK Leave us a review on iTunes Review our show on Stitcher Sponsored By

For our 2015 season finale, we look back on the past year and share some of our lessons learned with our Bright Umbrella intern Erin! From tech to business to life, we share the important lessons we learned this year, along with our goals for next. We also take a look back at our 2015 guests’ answers to our Rapidfire 10 Questions, and then turn the questions on ourselves! We’re on a hiatus until the new year (tune back in January 14, 2016), and wish you all the happiest of holidays! < Download MP3 >      < Listen on ctrlclickcast.com > Show Notes: Wrapping Templates in Layouts Element (Container) Queries Inc Delicious Create Your Own Starter Files Slack How to Price Your Work WBENC Girl Develop It The Relative Joy of Entrepreneurship Seriously, Don't Use Icon Fonts Leave us a review on iTunes Review our show on Stitcher Sponsored By