Goodbye 2011 – wtf just happened?

So it’s 2012 and at the start of the year, you have a think about the previous year and what happened to you… for me, 2011 was a pretty intense year…

It all started on a high.

With my big sister visiting from the US with her husband for Christmas, a baby on the way, a good outlook for work and a new BBQ, things couldn’t be better, really…

Then the floods came.

Our home got flooded in the January 2011 Brisbane Floods. We evacuated on the Tuesday night at around midnight Read On…

Yay! More awards…

Dreamworld Funplanner gets another award!

It’s been a great result for a project that was particularly difficult to get out into the wild… congratulations to all involved.

We got a Best in Class at the 2011 IMAs!

Add that to the Best in Show at the W3 awards earlier in the year, and we have the start of a nice little collection of awards for the project…

And here it is: Dreamworld Funplanner

And on our (Cru Digital’s website): http://crudigital.com.au/#/cru-digital/work/dreamworld-fun-planner

 

Some of the other award winning websites I have been involved in:

2011
W3 Awards:
Best In Show: Dreamworld Fun Planner

Communicator Awards:
Gold: Suzuki Kizashi Microsite, Sono Restaurant

Read On…

Yeah, but is it really needed?

So I work for a digital advertising agency, and the advertising industry does a really good job of patting itself on the back by giving out awards… now don’t get me wrong, I love to get awards for websites that I have been involved in, but sometimes we are blinded by those awards and may not always focus on the real prize – customer satisfaction. A website is only as good as the outcomes it provides to the client – if an award winning website provides little-to-no return on investment for a client (which includes brand awareness – which is notoriously difficult to quantify), then what is the point of it?

Making design (and development) decisions just for the sake of making it look better makes little sense to me if those decisions don’t help the client’s business requirements  – I mean of course if we hit our deadlines and budgets, then let’s add the bells and whistles…. just sayin’

Great article about designing for mobile apps

After having done some work developing mobile apps over the past year,I have had to deal with all manner of issues over different screens, resolutions & supported functionalities. The biggest issues faced when developing the apps was the design – unfortunately we were not really prepared for the design requirements for mobile applications – wish we had this article before designing the apps… c’est la vie.

http://www.computerarts.co.uk/features/50-tips-designing-brilliant-ios-apps

As a developer…

Working with software all day, I come across all manner of poor (and great) software packages. Some are robust, some are fast and lightweight, some are the complete opposite. Here is a great article on what it means to program a robust piece of software (from who else but the Linux information project): http://www.linfo.org/robust.html. Producing software that is fast, lightweight, easy to user and has few (or no) bugs in it is what we (developers) are all trying to do, and this definition of robust, really reminds me of where we want to get to. Read On…

Ummm…

So I never thought I would have a blog… interesting how things change. Really I don’t have time to get a website up but it’s been too long in the coming so I thought I would put a blog up to get my musings out there, as well as a little showcase of some of my work – both professionally and personally. So here we are. Post one complete. Out.

About Me

My name is Matt Daniels and I live with my beautiful partner Amanda and my baby boy Oliver in Brisbane Australia.

I am an interactive developer specialising in Flash Development. As for most web developers I have little to no inclination to continue working on a computer when I get home, so I have setup a wordpress blog to put some of my work, musings and various other bits and bobs out there to keep on record...

I produce music with some of my friends - both electronic and acoustic genres...

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