Thoughts and Articles from Blend Interactive

Most web projects start by thinking in pages. But the sites that are easiest to manage — and best understood by search engines — are built around components. Here's why that distinction matters.

Content and IA  |  Design and Front-End  |  Strategy

Design systems take time to build. The speed, efficiency, and consistency they bring only begin to shine once you’ve developed a solid foundation of reusable components. But as your organization evolves, so do your needs.

Design and Front-End  |  Strategy

Before committing to a redesign, most teams need to answer the same hard questions: Who is the site really for? What does success look like? What should happen first?

Content and IA  |  Design and Front-End  |  Discovery and Scoping

How a design audit evaluates your website's visual design, brand consistency, and UI patterns — and helps you decide between a refresh, a redesign, or targeted fixes.

Design and Front-End  |  Digital Optimization

Hosting an event for your association is one thing, but promoting it online to the right audience is a different conversation. 

Associations  |  Design and Front-End  |  Development  |  Strategy

AI is too often a solution in need of a problem, the hallmark of a technology still looking for early adopters and financial support. Instead, it's time to start looking at AI as a tool among many, one piece of a larger answer.

AI  |  Content and IA  |  Design and Front-End  |  Strategy

Corey and Deane discuss the people and rules that help run a website after launch. Then, David Hobbs, author of Website Product Management: Keeping Focused During Change, joins to talk about transferring a site from a project to a product — what that means to keep the site going after launch, where it most often fails, and how to streamline requests and set reasonable expectations for the future of the site.

Design and Front-End  |  Development  |  Project Management  |  Strategy

Corey and Deane talk about how front-end development has evolved past the early days. Then, Ethan Marcotte, author of Responsive Web Design and Partner at Autogram, joins to discuss front-end development and how the world has impacted how front-end design is treated and approached. We also joke about whether Deane actually “invented” responsive web design. (He didn’t.)

Accessibility  |  Design and Front-End  |  Development  |  Strategy

Corey asks Deane a brutally honest question: as non-developers, why should we care about hosting at all? Then, Elias Lundmark, product manager for cloud hosting at Optimizely, joins us to talk about website hosting in common terms — cloud versus on-premises, the reality (and politics) of “five 9s,” and the things you need to understand before choosing a hosting provider or vendor offering.

Design and Front-End  |  Development

Corey and Deane talk about a Donald Rumsfeld quote, and about the concept of “unknown unknowns.” Then, Cathy McKnight, Chief Problem Solver and lead analyst for The Content Advisory, joins us to talk about selecting a content management system — the process for choosing a system, how a CMS selection analyst can help keep vendors honest, and what to do if you’re selecting on your own.

Design and Front-End  |  Development