1. Responsive Layouts: Responsive design is a way of designing and coding websites with a fluid layout, so that images, navigation and other elements of the site adapt to the screen on which the site's being viewed to provide an optimal viewing experience. Here are some examples.
    
2. Fixed Headers: This trend has been around for a while but now we’re seeing this in full force. As visitors scroll down the page the header follows the user allowing constant access to the navigation bar without the need to scroll back up to the top of the page. Have a look at http://www.fullstopinteractive.com/.
    
3. Vertical Scrolling: One of the most natural things to do on a web page is to scroll. Especially with the impact of scroll wheels and vastly improved trackpads and now touchscreens on smartphones and tablets, scrolling is set to be a bigger and bigger part of how we navigate websites. Many web designers and developers are embracing the scroll. Here is an example of a site using the vertical scroll to interesting effect, http://www.dangersoffracking.com/.
    
4. Parallax Scrolling: Parallax scrolling is set to become much more common as designers and developers look for more interesting ways to engage users. The basic idea of parallax is having different elements scroll along different site lines (vertical, horizontal or diagonal). This gives users an increased sense of depth in the design. Here are some examples. My favourites are http://www.bagigia.com/ and http://www.nike.com/jumpman23/aj2012/.
    
5. Big Buttons: With more and more people using mobile to browse the internet and ‘touch and tap’ becoming common place designers need to come up with ways to make navigating a site on a small screen easier. Big buttons are one of the solutions. Big buttons not only look good on mobile sites, but they make tapping and therefore navigating a lot easier. This trend does have a flaw as big buttons require more graphics which could slow down the website.
    
6. Large/Oversized Photo Backgrounds: This is an excellent way to capture your visitors' attention and it looks great when done properly. When blended into your layout, this design technique can give your website a real wow factor. Have a look at http://mendo.nl and http://www.nh-hotels.com/winter-holidays/.
    
7. Minimalist Approach to Landing Pages: A landing page on a website should showcase your product or service. New trends are following the idea of minimalism: keep everything simple and focus on your core product. A cluttered page will lead to confusion and detract from your key message.
    
8. Single Page Web Design: This is exactly what is says on the tin. All the content on just one page. Here's an example http://www.techcityuk.com/#!/home.
    
9. Designed Typography: These days designers have a lot of fonts available to select from. However, selecting typography is no small decision and choosing the right typography design is very important. In fact, typography should be an integral part of any website’s design. Designers will no longer replace text with pretty images, but will try to enhance a website’s aesthetics through typography. Here are a couple of examples http://www.ipolecat.com/, http://ndesign-studio.com/.

To find out more about how we can give your site a new look for 2013 just get in touch. We'd love to talk to you.

Every website has different needs and thus requires a different set of functionality. However, if the core of the CMS contained all these functionalities the system would become confusing and overloaded with unnecessary features. Unlike some other CMSs which can often lead to frustration, EE has been developed to be as straightforward as possible for both the developer and the client. Therefore, the core of EE is very simple to use. If the website requires some additional functionality, the developer simply installs one of the add-ons.

There are several different types of add-ons available for EE: Modules, Accessories, Extensions, Fieldtypes and Plugins. Some of them are free and some others you have to pay for. The Devot:ee website is a good place to look and most of the time you’ll find something to suit your needs.

Now I would like to talk about five EE add-ons in a bit more detail. I have used all of them on several websites for Treat Digital. They are all pretty easy to use and were developed to make life easier for both developers and clients.

Expresso

A WISIWYG editor is one of the crucial things within a CMS. EE’s embedded editor is pretty basic. Therefore we have decided to go with an editor that gives our client the most flexibility.  Expresso is a fieldtype add-on for channel entries and it is particularly useful for editing the main content of the page.

The tool bar panel of Expresso is very similar to the one found in Microsoft Word. Expresso allows you to style text, for example, to make text bold or italic. You can easily create internal or external hyperlinks. Adding images, file documents (e.g. PDF files) or tables is also very simple with the Expresso editor. One of the functions I personally use the most is the ‘paste from Word’ - this doesn’t necessarily have to be from Word. This function allows you to copy text from one place and insert it into the editor while maintaining the formatting.

Expresso editor will also allow you to position an image within the text. You can change the alignment and vertical/horizontal spacing.

Playa

Playa is a powerful tool for creating related content. I love Playa. For instance, let’s say you have a channel with barristers’ entries, a different channel with news, and another channel with practice areas. Then you write a news article that relates to a barrister and to a specific practice area. All you need to do within the entry of the news article is to drag the name of the barrister and the practice area from the left to the right. Yep – it is that simple! Now the news is related to the barrister and the practice area.  Furthermore, within the related content area on both the practice area page and the barrister’s profile page you will see the news item. Isn’t this super cool?

You can also use more than one channel within the playa field and select more than one entry.

Transcribe

One of Treat Digital’s strengths lies in multi-lingual websites and multinational sites. Therefore we need a sufficient plugin that not only translates the website into another language but also makes this process straightforward.

We have used Transcribe on several projects and found it very reliable, particularly, the latest version (1.5). Transcribe works on several levels:

• Translates the URLs – which is very important for SEO
• Translates variables (for instance the copyright message in the footer)
• And most importantly it translates the entire channel entries

Transcribe is very simple for the clients to use. They can simply go to an entry – click on the language version and write content in another language.

SEO Lite

SEO Lite is a great add-on which helps to improve the Search Engine Optimalization (SEO) on your website. SEO Lite is a free version.  If you are looking for a SEO add-on with better functionality I would recommend using NSM Better Meta.

Freeform

Freeform (free version) or Freeform Pro (paid version) allows you to create forms in a very simple manner. With Freeform Pro you can use an intuitive and enjoyable drag and drop interface to create forms. This add-on also allows you to create a notification template which can be sent to the user or the admin (client). Thanks to the Freeform add-on the monitoring of the submitted forms becomes super easy.

Phones:

The biggest news in Smartphone technology came from Samsung and Sony. Samsung showed off a Smartphone with a flexible display. Instead of glass, the flexible phone features super-thin plastic that means it is bendable and unbreakable. The device, demonstrated at the keynote, ran Windows Phone 8 rather than Android. Samsung said that this technology will allow manufacturers to create a whole new range of devices with "bended, foldable and moulded screens".

Sony announced on Monday the Xperia Z, its new flagship Smartphone. Powered by Android, the phone has a quad-core Snapdragon S4 processor, 1080p display, and a 13-megapixel built-in camera.

Tablets and laptops:

Microsoft unveiled the Surface Pro, which is excellent and to be honest makes Surface RT look like a mistake. Similar to the Surface RT, Surface Pro takes advantage of a built-in kickstand and Touch Cover / Type Cover combo to provide a tablet / notebook hybrid of sorts.

Panasonic announced the 4K Tablet and as Pete Pachal, Mashable Tech Editor says, “For people who do serious photo and graphics work, there's really nothing better”.

Intel Fourth Generation Core Reference Laptop is light, adaptable and so low-power you can get 13 hours of battery life.

Asus has used CES 2013 to demo the Transformer AiO, an 18.4in desktop all-in-one with a detachable screen that doubles as an Android tablet.

The difference between the Transformer and the larger, battery-powered Sony VAIO Tap 20 is that when the Transformer is removed from its base station it switches from running Windows 8 from its Core i3 processor and Nvidia GT 730M GPU to a more traditional tablet running Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) from an Nvidia Tegra 3 processor.

The PaperTab, a high-resolution plastic display PC prototype, was unveiled on Monday at the CES. A new concept device developed by Intel, Queen's University from Canada and the British firm Plastic Logic. The team behind the PaperTab said their goal was to emulate the feel of paper with a robust, lightweight product that could bend and be dropped on a desk.

Google presented the Google Glass in blue colour. The company's venture into wearable computing was officially unveiled over half a year ago at the Google I/O conference.

Currently, Babak Parviz, head of the project at Google, says that Glass has a touch pad for user control, but the company is still developing voice commands and head gestures for more intuitive control of the device. Google hopes to be able to get a full day of battery life out of Glass, but again, this is still in development and not nearly complete. As is the ability to accept phone calls with Glass, says Parviz. The company hopes to have a consumer version available by 2014.

What does this mean for mobile web?

Well with all these new, exciting, lightweight and portable devices due to come on to the market, the trend for surfing the web on the go via handheld devices is set to increase. This means as web designers and developers we’re going to have to cater for these devices more than ever and companies need to be aware of this when approaching a web project. Users expect websites to display well and be easy to use on portable devices. Because of this, methods like responsive design will become standard practice before long. Responsive design allows a site to adapt to the screen size it’s being viewed on.

As touch screen gains momentum, particularly in laptops and desktop computers, developers are going to have to consider new and interesting ways for users to engage with and navigate through sites as the mouse becomes a thing of the past.

All in all it’s pretty exciting, and we’re looking forward to challenges all this new technology throws at us.

Participants are required to eat six of the devilishly hot chicken wings in under 10 minutes. They must be eaten off the bone and you can't leave the table or drink anything during the challenge. Once the wings have been eaten the clock is reset and a 5 minute burn-time commences, again no drink or leaving the table is allowed during this time.

The key ingredient in these wings is the record breaking Naga Viper Chilli. To give you an idea of its heat, a jalapeno measures between 2500-5000 on the Scoville Heat Scale, but the Naga Viper measures a whopping 1,382,118 making it between 276 and 552 times hotter!

We're going to be doing lots more challenges in the coming months so keep an eye on our website where there will be a poll so you can vote on what you want to see us do next...Challenge Treat!

Many users want to see a full website experience on mobile devices and not a stripped down version.  A recently published report showed that 57% of users say they won’t recommend a business with a poorly designed mobile site and 40% have turned to a competitor’s site after a bad mobile experience. According to our very own survey (which will be published very soon!), 76% of people are likely to leave a site quicker if it isn’t optimised for tablet or mobile. These stats prove how important it is to have a site that looks good and works well across multiple devices.

Responsively designed websites handle lots of content effortlessly, keeping the site intuitive and the content easily accessible on the device of your choice. It does this by rearranging the layout of the content depending on the screen size of the device, but without cutting down on the information that is available to the user. Every responsive design has a flexible or fluid foundation that allows an adaptive layout according to browser width. The image below is a good example of how responsive design works and how a site morphs to fit the screen.

Responsive design is a cost-effective choice since there is only one site to maintain and many SEO experts feel that websites built with responsive design are more search engine friendly.

When creating a responsive website planning ahead is a key. Take the most important content and calls to action first and ensure users can easily access this information. The ultimate aim is to provide a slick user experience and encourage engagement through mobile devices; users should be able to find all the key information through their mobile devices as easily as through their laptops.

Good responsive design should have a clean, spacious layout, easy accessibility and should be a joy to look at and navigate on any device.

Contact us at hello@treatdigital.com or 020 7256 7651 to find out more about making your site responsive.

The Treat Digital team had a great time at the awards ceremony and Michael Hawksley, Treat's CEO, presented two of the prizes: "Best Intranet" won by Clarks and "Best Digital Employee Communications" won by Accenture.
Congratulations to both of them and to all the winners - especially The Group and The Workroom, who won the evening's top prizes.

The Digital Impact Awards brings together leading digital agencies as well as in-house teams and recognises their achievements across 32 categories.
Many leading organisations where competing for the awards, including Tesco, BBC, Skype, Nokia, Centrica, WPP, Microsoft, Alstom, O2, Cisco, Barclays, Nissan, bmi, Coca-Cola ... and many more.

The Digital Impact Awards, organised by Communicate Magazine, is the largest and best-respected awards ceremony in digital communications.

The Treat Digital team look forward to being back next year!

And if you've ever wondered how the man who curates the bit of the Internet that we all dip into on a daily basis sees the future, Amit Singhal gave us an insight at an open Q&A session yesterday at the new Google Campus, just up the road from Treat Digital’s office in London.

The scope of the future of search is way bigger that anyone can squeeze into a short blog, but what Amit Singhal sees, and Google is aiming for, is effectively the realisation of the legendary Star Trek computer. A computerised assistant that can provide any information you need wherever you are, all through conversation.

There's a long way to go in terms of the level of Artificial Intelligence - and ubiquitous Internet connectivity - needed to make this happen, but we're on our way. We understand a lot more about the nuances of human language and the context of the information we need, but search is still relatively crude. The novelist and visionary Arthur C Clarke described searching for information on the Internet as a bit like trying to get a glass of water from the Niagara Falls - and there's still a sense that search engines are generally only able to point you in the right direction of what you need. But there's no doubt that the speed and accuracy at which search results can be returned is increasing, and mobile search is definitely getting more interesting. 'Google Now' is an example of anticipating what information you might need depending on where you are, what time of the day it is and so on. If you could carry round a device that was able to tell you whether your train was on time as you walked to the station, that has to be useful.

As always, it will boil down to the convenience of having information you need, when you need it and where you need it. There's still a big gap between the complexity of the human character and the ability to model it in adequately computer code, but it's reassuring to know there are some very big brains trying to make sense of it all on our behalf. There's a dollar or two in it for their bosses as well, of course...

We’ll save you the humble and gushing thank you speech, but we would like to announce that we have won the silver prize for best professional services website at this year’s W3 Awards.

The award winning work in question is the website we designed and built for YSC, a global firm of business psychologists that helps organisations release the power of their people. We were asked to completely redesign and build YSC’s web operations, including taking an advisory role in the development of the firm’s long-term web strategy. We evidently did a pretty good job. Have a look at the full project case study here.

The W3 Awards honours creative excellence on the web, and recognises the creative and marketing professionals behind award winning sites, videos and marketing programs. The W3 is sanctioned and judged by the International Academy of the Visual Arts, an invitation-only body consisting of top-tier professionals from a "Who's Who" of acclaimed media, interactive, advertising and marketing firms. In determining winners, entries are judged based on a standard of excellence as determined by the IAVA, according to the category entered. We are delighted that our work has made it through the rigorous judging process to be ranked amongst the best.

Needless to say it’s time for Champagne all round. Well done team!

To have a chat about how we can help your business with an award winning website please get in touch.

I was reminded of the sheer magnitude of East Asian numbers at two London events recently: a seminar at the Royal Society shared by speakers from China, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea, and a presentation by a delegation from Wuxi City (Jiangsu) in China at County Hall. I’m glad to say that the private sector and the UK government were well-represented at both, underlining the importance of the region to the UK.

As an aside, although we’ve delivered website projects that feature Chinese language content, it’s been nearly 15 years since I set foot on Chinese soil. This was just weeks after Hong Kong had been handed over to China in 1997 and the relationship between the UK and China was entering a new chapter. At the time there was significant uncertainty about our future relationship with the island and the Mainland, with many residents expressing concern that business would never be the same again.

Cut to 2012 and I am struck both by how much has changed in the region, yet also by how much has not changed. The balance of economic power has certainly shifted, yet the flow of business through UK has never been stronger. The numbers are as mind-boggling as ever, whether you are talking size of market, levels of investment or other metrics, yet sectors such as our own (digital/internet) that barely existed in the 90s have grown out of proportion.

Rt.Hon Hugo Swire MP, Minister of State, Foreign & Commonwealth Office

The appetite – and opportunity – for business is without doubt undiminished and although there are certainly sectors where the UK struggles to compete, I was heartened to learn that the creative talents of UK plc are widely recognised – and desired. The delegation from Jiangsu was here to promote the creative, cultural, media and digital parks in Wuxi City; initiatives that have received levels of investment that we can only dream of in the UK. The delegation clearly has great ambitions on the world stage, and crucially has the government backing to make it happen.

The unambiguous message of both events was that there is almost an unlimited amount of business happening in East Asia and the UK is seen as a serious business partner to share in it. There are of course barriers to entry, but there are a host of well-established international channels available to support the endeavours of those that want to market directly.

Wang Guozhong, Director of Wuxi Cultural Industry Development Organization

We at Treat, for one, are very interested in the potential East Asia holds for cross-border online projects, whether they be multi-lingual websites, multi-currency eCommerce platforms or integrated online marketing campaigns – or a combination of all three. Irrespective of the direction of trade, quality of communication online and offline is paramount and the cost-benefit of investment is easy to demonstrate.

So just as it is a bit of an old chestnut to remark on the sun rising in the morning, it may also not be that newsworthy to talk about the opportunities that East Asia holds. However, in the last week I’ve been reminded of the potential lies not so far from home for those that are prepared to exploit it.