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Map of the Dead updates available!

You've been waiting long enough! Here are Map of the Dead's new features and upgrades – and what to expect in the next version below!

New features:

• Improved scanner range control

All previous users get the full $3 value scanner upgrade for free, increasing your scavenging range. New users can purchase 3 scanner upgrades from $.99 to $2.99

• Unit activity feed, see what others are doing, post messages

Now you can finally keep tabs on your unit and post messages – or warnings

• Search friends from your address book, invite Facebook friends

Connecting with friends and inviting them to play has never been easier

• New upgrades

Reset Timers: Don't want to wait to fight and scavenge again, or retrieve your lost backpack - for $.99 you don't have to.

Repair Kit: Take out the crack in the screen and eliminate the screen static

Backpack: Need more room? Add 10, 20 or 30 more slots to your bag - from $.99 to $2.99.

Fixes and improvements: 

• Ability to sell all items instantly in requisitions

• Equipped items no longer take up backpack slots

• Hide equipped items on the sell screen in requisitions

• Stability improvements and other bugfixes

John Scribe

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Fixing Bootstrap dropdown bug for version prior 2.2.2

I was working on responsive theme for our client and found out that if you are using Bootstrap prior version 2.2.2 then dropdown links don't work on iOS/Android devices.

Ruby gem was on Bootstrap version 2.1.7 as of writing. So we had to add a fix in our code manually.

To fix dropdown links bug on iOS/Android devices just add this piece of code to applications JS file:

$(function() {
  $(document).on('touchstart.dropdown.data-api',
	'.dropdown-menu',
	function (e) {e.stopPropagation() })
});

This was fixed in version 2.2.2. Check it out on github.

Just funny how core bug can waste an hour of your time. But hey.. it's free!

Timur Information Architect

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Introducing Peckish: a healthy snack subscription service

For those hit with a snack craving in the middle of the workday (but want to avoid sugary, trans fat, artificial options) Peckish offers a healthy solution—delivered straight to your desk. Founder Shelia Guo came to Doejo to build this subscription-based snack delivery service from its branding and identity to its packaging and functionality, which launched just last month.

For about $15 a package—or only $9.99 for a limited time—users can pick out their flavor profiles: The Nutrition Box, The Energy Booster Box, The Protein Box, the Sweet Tooth Box or a Surprise Me Box of random assortments. In these weekly or one-time-order packages you'll be treated to hearty portions of nuts, berries, granola, freeze-dried fruits, veggies and more.

And you won't find any sodium benzoate (whatever that is), preservatives or artificialities here. The Strawberry Sunrise mix for example lists its ingredients as simply: "Strawberries, organic pitted dates, rolled oats, soy oil, sugar, water, salt." Sounds pretty good to me.

Read more about the making of Peckish in our case studies.

John Scribe

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Exploring Internet privacy issues with The Webby Award’s Webby Talks World Tour

The Webby Talks World Tour is currently traveling to more than 100 ad agencies, tech companies and media companies around the globe to share the latest trends in all things digital. Designed to provoke and inspire, the talks highlight the ever-changing landscape of what is happening online.

The Webby Talks Tour is put on by The Webby Awards, the leading international award for digital excellence. On Monday Jeff Zemetis, a Senior Producer at Webby, stopped by the Doejo offices for a talk entitled “Cookies and Controversy” where he discussed privacy issues on the Internet.

Here is how the Webby team predicts privacy issues will affect the future of the Internet:

Potential problems from shared information

Privacy has become a huge issue on the Internet and cookies (small pieces of information written to the hard drive of a user when he or she visits a site) are to blame. They remember data, make recommendations and trace locations through IP addresses. These cookies use voluntarily shared information in unexpected ways, creating potential problems for the consumer. 

When you take trivial personal data and combine it with data from a large group businesses learn personal information that you may not want to share. To highlight this point, Zemetis shared the frightening story of how Target figured out a teen girl was pregnant before her father did based on her purchase history.

How user funnels influence user experience

This is not just happening with in store purchases. Today user data is found even before the homepage loads. Zemetis mentioned BlueKai, a data exchange that boosts the quality of targeted online advertising. Sites like BlueKai help to put users into funnels: now when a user loads sites they'll find a unique homepage based on their presumed interests. This personalization is offering radically different experiences for each user, putting premeditated content in front of our eyes.

Zemetis said this kind of data is frequently used in political campaigns to determine when to hit voters with mailers and how hard to hit them. This data is also helpful when trying to cater content and messaging to specific users. Using this data in conjunction with social connections provides businesses with access to your real name, helping them build a robust user profile.

Be aware of customer sensitivity towards their personal data

According to Zemetis, the most successful companies will be the ones that analyze data without freaking out the consumer. Businesses should always be aware of the customer’s sensitivity towards their personal data. Although this type of data is very prevalent, it is important that businesses do not hit the users over the head with it. This type of data should be used to stretch your consumer’s expectations though communication, not scare them away.

Interested in being a part of The Webby Awards? Submit your idea here. The last day for early entry submissions is October 26th.

Doejoer

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Doejo designers critique Chicago news site design

With so many talented designers working at Doejo, we tend to geek out on great web design and get a little critical of not-so-great design. So, this week we thought we'd put our critical eyes on five local news sites, blogs and broadcast stations keeping our best design practices in mind, much of which was implemented on our WordPress VIP work with Local TV's news sites this summer.

We asked information architect Justin, UX designer Jeff, web designer Marko and WordPress VIP expert Rinat to critique the design and usability of five news site's homepages (steering clear of judging company branding objectives and actual content).

Check out their criticisms and praises below, you may be surprised at some of the easy fixes many of these sites could make. And of course, we'd be happy to make it for them.

ABC Local 7 – The number one viewed broadcast station in Chicago

Jeff: The center column looks a little dated. There are too many options in the navigation—you want to guide people where they want to go, not overwhelm them. The weather's on there twice and it has contradictory temps, it's redundant. Also, any text smaller than 14 points is too difficult to read online. The page is too long and I'm sure you'll find that not too many users are scrolling to the end of the page.

Justin: There's no hierarchy. The headlines need to be bigger. Everything's the same size but the ads; your eyes go to the ads first because it's the biggest thing you see, which really shouldn't trump the content. It would be better with a hub and spoke model. They should show fewer categories then provide subcategories within them. There's too much of their navigation "below the fold."

Marko: There's no hierarchy for the feature story or weight to it. What is the feature story? If this was in print you would know right away, but not online? The news headlines are too tiny; the ads look more like news stories than the news stories. I don't know where to put my eyes first and I really just want to leave this site. It's too claustrophobic.

Rinat: I don't like the navigation; I'm lost on the page. You have to scroll down far to see all of the subcategories. They need to get rid of the subcategories and focus on a few categories and give them top-level navigation. The featured story carousel scroll is also slow-responsive.

TimeOut Chicago – a weekly magazine about Chicago culture and events

Jeff: There's too much going on in the carousel and you can't click the image to get to the stories. The headlines are too tiny and it's hard to find the latest content because it's broken up into miscellaneous categories.  The ads are also clearly shoehorned in, it's all too crowded. The sidebar is also longer than the content area and the search bar is too hard to find in between the ads.

Justin: At first glance it looks like your parent's browser where they have too many tool bars on top because they don't know how to get rid of them. They have font size issues, there's a lot of wasted space that could be used to make the fonts bigger. The ads could be better distributed too, it looks like everyone wanted to be "above the fold." Towards the bottom of the page it looks like their grid falls apart and the best navigation is the footer all the way at the bottom. I also can't find their social media accounts easily.

Marko: There's too many ads, repetitive ads. They have ads that that look like the navigation, which is confusing, and they take up too much real estate. 

Rinat: The font sizes are too small. And the scroll carousal is tiny. It needs to be simplified, especially the categories for effective content consumption. They should just have feature stories not categorized feature stories. It's claustrophobic below in the subcategories. The margins are too tight; a three-column layout would look better.

Chicago Tribune – the largest daily newspaper in the Midwest

Jeff: It's a bit long in the scrolling and I'm not sure right away what the center column is, is it breaking news? I do really like the radar image at the top left for the weather, that's smart.

Justin: It's a good font size and good use of a grid.

Marko: I can tell what the feature story is, the ads look like ads, and they are controlling what you see. It's a much better layout than the others. You can tell what is the navigation and there are not too many stories competitively.

Rinat: They have their categories and latest stories clearly placed. It's a good quick scan and easy to consume content.

Chicagoist – one of the most popular culture blogs in Chicago

Jeff: There's a lot going on but there's hierarchy at least. I like the grid layouts myself. They also have layout switches, which is interesting, they have a "blog" view for stories and a "popular" view for what's trending. And it is more of a blog site, which shows—there's no immediate "breaking news" urgency here. The only real problem is there are no stand alone category sections. There's "Arts and Culture" and "Entertainment" stories but no page for them to exist alone.

Justin: The search placement is good. There's also a decent amount of space between ads. It could use a footer though, all the "staff" and "contact" info is oddly in the left column.

Marko: It looks like an article is sponsored by American Express in the middle [below one of the ads]. There can be better use of visual separations between categories. The subcategories below aren’t separated enough, it needs to be more deliberate. I have mixed feelings about this layout but over all it's not bad.

Rinat: It's not bad, the positioning of the ads are awkward, it looks like an error in alignment.

Chicago Sun-Times – Local daily publication, oldest paper in city

Jeff: The navigation is odd—the distance between categories to subcategories is far. They should stand out from the side bars more. But other than that, not a bad design.

Justin: It's chunked really well. Slabs of "News" and "Entertainment" subcategories are more deliberate than most news sites, which is good. The type could be bigger, the body content too. The hierarchy for subcategories could be improved; they're all the same size. They should have a 50/30/20 ratio.

Marko: It's OK, it's second to the Tribune in design. I can see the stories, I know what the feature story is and the subcategories are readable. 

Rinat: The navigation is easy to use and the subcategories have subcategories like in "Sports" there's a "Bears," "Sox," and "Hawks" section.

John Scribe

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