The World Health Organization estimates that about 15 per cent of the world’s population lives with some form of disability. Furthermore, nearly everyone will be temporarily or permanently impaired at some point in their life and those surviving to old age will experience increasing difficulties in functioning. Though often ignored, disability is part of the human condition. Accessibility is increasingly a concern when planning a building, yet many websites are designed without accessibility in mind. Accessible design helps make online…
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Around the Office: TEDxToronto, Khan Academy, a massive IE crash, and more
Around the Office is a weekly group blog that shows what the OnlineFriendly.biz team and Kobayashi Online have found interesting, funny, poignant, or otherwise notable over the past week. Wayne’s been doing some night school at Khan Academy, a website that has 2,400 odd educational videos on topics ranging from Black Holes to US social security, the French Revolution to linear algebra. Wayne’s been watching some of the finance lectures, but he’s interested in pursuing more topics. Given enough time, he might be able to…
Kobayashi Online wins WMA WebAward for Word11.com
The Web Marketing Association announced the winners of its coveted WebAwards on Thursday with Kobayashi Online being recognized for Outstanding Achievement in Web Development for Word11.com, the website for Toronto’s first 24-hour blogging festival. The WMA also awarded OPTIMUS | SBR and Grace Marketing the Consulting Standard of Excellence for the OPTIMUS | SBR Corporate Website, which Kobayashi Online helped develop. The WebAwards have been around since 1997, and are judged by a team of independent Internet professionals representing various relevant…
Around the Office: Rating Places, Winning WMA Awards, “White is the New Green”
Around the Office is a weekly group blog that shows what the OnlineFriendly.biz team and Kobayashi Online have found interesting, funny, poignant, or otherwise notable over the past week. This was a busy award week with the Web Marketing Association awarding its WebAwards for excellence in website development. Kobayashi Online won a coveted WebAward for designing Word11.com, the website for Toronto’s first 24-hour blogging festival. We’d also like to congratulate our friends at OPTIMUS | SBR and Grace Marketing which…
Around the Office: Augmented reality, Web radio and background music
Around the Office is a weekly group blog that shows what the OnlineFriendly.biz team and Kobayashi Online have found interesting, funny, poignant, or otherwise notable over the past week. Daveed has been enjoying the TuneIn radio app for iOS, which is free with ads or only 99 cents without. Other Internet radio appliance are cool, but they can cost hundreds of dollars, and still can’t do most of what TuneIn can. It’s the best radio software he’s seen yet. 360…
Around the Office: hand-drawn websites, the value of failure, more
Around the Office is a weekly group blog that shows what the OnlineFriendly.biz team and Kobayashi Online have found interesting, funny, poignant, or otherwise notable over the past week. Kobayashi Online has been strengthening its profiles on the social networks this week. Our Facebook page now has the “vanity” URL: facebook.com/KobayashiOnline. And a handful of new LinkedIn testimonials have come in. “The [Kobayashi Online] team is always quick to implement and offers additional recommendations after taking the time to understand what…
Is my website mobile friendly? Three questions to ask your Web developer
Your website finally looks perfect in your Web browser — it’s the jewel of your desktop. But what about people coming to your website through mobile phones? It’s more important than ever, in fact, to have a website that’s mobile friendly. According to research from Morgan Stanley, global shipments of smartphones and tablets have surpassed those of desktop PCs and notebooks by the last quarter of 2010, and this gap will increase over the next few years. The report goes…
Around the Office: dictionary adds “tweet”, Word11 approaches, more
Around the Office is a weekly group blog that shows what the OnlineFriendly.biz team and Kobayashi Online have found interesting, funny, poignant, or otherwise notable over the past week. The Kobayashi team has been busily working away on making this weekend’s 24-hour blogging festival, Word11, a welcoming and engaging event. They helped create a Word11 “Twibbon”, which is an overlaid image on your Twitter avatar that shows your support for an event or cause. They also designed the colouful Word11…
Design Focus: The National Film Board
“Design Focus” is a regular Online Friendly feature that examines well-designed sites to show how Web designers have overcome some of the challenges of their profession. This week’s featured site: The National Film Board The National Film Board of Canada is one of the country’s most respected institutions – this significantly raises the expectations for its website. In this post, the website experts at Kobayashi Online explain some of the challenges this site has overcome to live up to the organization’s reputation.…
Around the Office: making a social logo, UX design is everywhere, more
Around the Office is a weekly group blog that shows what the OnlineFriendly.biz team and Kobayashi Online have found interesting, funny, poignant, or otherwise notable over the past week. If you want to know some of the many issues Eva considers when designing a logo, check out this recent post about how designing logos with social media marketing in mind. According to “12 Ways Your Logo Impacts Social Media Marketing”, designers need to make sure the logo translates well to…