Patrick Shaw’s Weblog

I’m off for an extended vacation. Truth be told - I’ll miss (but not too much!) doing my best to provide solid information to nonprofits needing help with technology. I’ll be back at my desk in early October - and while I’m away, I’m sure I’ll have had plenty of time for broad thinking - some of which might find its way into a post when I return!

Luck with your technology needs and technology provision!

The folks at Techsoup have done it again - another very short, very concise article about design. You should read it - it will take two minutes and will make your website project better. Don’t be afraid to send it to your web designer, too!

Here’s a key takeaway:

“An interesting property of great design is that it is taken for granted. It works so well that we forget that creative effort was involved to bring it about.”

You can read the rest of the article - and you should!

A tip of the hat to Christian Watson for mentioning this book in his blog - although I haven’t read this book yet - the reviews look great, and the content is timley.

Here at NPower Seattle - we really understand the tension that many nonprofits experience as they plan for a visual design, for an information arhitecture that works, and an often limited budget for implementing a new website - and many of those budgets don’t include help with creating an effective communications strategy and then implmenting it.

I’ve written before about writing for the web - and I’m glad to know that you can get some do it yourself help from Ginny Redish and her new book, Letting Go of Words.