Our news, views and handy resources
Our news, views and handy resources
Ideas on content, experience, design and website planning. Start with a specific question and find a direction worth exploring.
Plan and confirm
Record suitability, sources and the next owner. Implementation follows the agreed project scope.
Related practical notes
Practical notes
Shared goals in a design project
Sales may want more enquiries, designers may want a distinctive brand, and developers may prioritise reliable maintenance. These are compatible aims, but they can compete for space when nobody agrees what a visitor should accomplish. Start by describing what the customer needs to understand and do after reading the page.
Practical notes
Design systems and page consistency
A design system is more than a set of colours and buttons. It helps information do a consistent job: a page title names the subject, section headings organise it, body copy explains it, and buttons identify the next action. Visitors still have to guess if those roles change between pages, even when every page uses the same palette.
Practical notes
Evaluate AI around a business problem
We need AI is not yet an actionable requirement. Identify the slow step, its input and the result you need. Turning approved product material into a page draft is a different task from inventing product benefits, with different review needs.
Related practical notes
Practical notes
How to brief a digital agency
State the business, audience, pages, available material and decision-maker. Clarify budget and timing conditions and identify specific reference sections.
Practical notes
How to budget for a large website
Separate layouts, migration, integration, testing and maintenance. Add discovery for unknown requirements instead of promising a fixed scope without adequate inputs.
Practical notes
How to lay the right foundation for your digital asset
Establish models, routes, permissions and release recovery before adding personalisation or automation. Late foundational problems create broader rework.
Related practical notes
Practical notes
How to create a digital strategy roadmap
Separate current problems, near-term improvements and later experiments, with owners and evidence. Keep the rationale for roadmap changes traceable.
Practical notes
Adapting visual trends to a brand
Choose typography, colour or composition that suits the content and test readability. Maintain relationships between sections instead of piling up fashionable elements.
Practical notes
Demystifying UX and industry terminology
Explain journeys, wireframes and prototypes through problems, structure and interaction testing. Use one shared page example so the team does not work from conflicting definitions.
Practical notes
The 7 secret ingredients for digital project success
Agree goals, audience, scope, inputs, ownership, budget and acceptance before starting. Write each as a checkable statement instead of relying on verbal agreement.
Shape the project
Practical notes
Building a martech stack
Map acquisition, content, email, analytics and customer records, including existing tools. Before adding a system, check export, synchronisation and maintenance ownership.
Practical notes
How to choose the right CMS
Use an article, product and approval as sample tasks. Have real editors author, preview and restore content and record assistance and maintenance costs.
Practical notes
Choosing a DXP: Kentico Xperience or Optimizely
Prototype the same content model, approval task and integration list on each platform. Separate licensing, implementation and operational costs rather than comparing feature-list length.
Practical notes
Headless v Traditional CMS - which one is right for you?
Compare the same multi-page editing task, including preview, reuse and publishing. Include additional frontend maintenance in the decision.
Planning headless CMS content
Download this editable planning headless cms content to record current work, open questions and owners. OXOAK examples can be adapted to the project.
Practical notes
Choosing between Kentico Xperience and Kontent.ai
Compare authoring, preview, approval and release with the same update. Include frontend implementation and integration ownership in the evaluation.