How does a website remember you? (How cookies work)
One minute overview seriesFrom user accounts to shopping carts, websites use cookies to keep track of visitors in order to properly display content. We’ve all heard of cookies but what exactly are they? Good question.
A cookie is a small amount of data stored on a user’s computer and sent back with various requests. In short, it’s typically a user ID. Once a website understands who you are, it can deliver information relevant to you specifically—shopping carts, user dashboards, targeted ads, and much more.
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What is Structured Data? (Or Schema.org, metadata, and Open Graph)
A closer lookThe last time you played a song in your car and the title showed up on the radio screen, you saw metadata in action—information that is hidden behind the scenes to provide additional detail about a file or system. Websites have metadata to provide information about the company, content type, publishing date, and more.
Structured Data, commonly ‘Schema.org’ is a collaboration between Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Yandex to provide a consistent format for websites. Using this clear format allows search engines to correctly categorize websites and interpret content.
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Your printed documents have fingerprints - Machine Identification Code (MIC)
Security and PrivacyIn the 80's Xerox designed a way to hide information in plain sight as a way to combat counterfeiting. An ingenious, simple, and hidden code of small yellow dots called Printer Steganography were added to each printed document to include the date and time of printing and the serial number of the printer.
This yellow dot matrix is virtually imperceptible to the human eye, but can be easily captured and decoded with a scanner or camera. Since then, new variations have been used, including using various shades of grey within the printed matter to include data. Whatever you print with, there’s a very good chance there is some form of MIC being included on your printouts. Is it ingenious tracking? Absolutely. Is it a good thing? You decide.
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Google Trends - The Universally Helpful Tool
A closer lookDo you know what your audience is doing? Spotting attention, knowing where people are focused, being in touch with current trends is important and yet so easily overlooked and misinterpreted. Without some general knowledge of where interest falls, we are flying blind and simply hoping for the best. Most online businesses use the traffic stats of their own website to gain insight into what people want and where they lose interest, but in the best case of a large company this is working within the bubble of a small data set, and when launching a new company or product this simply isn’t an option.
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Why it is a good idea to plan and build (web) software in stages
A closer lookIt is natural to approach a new project with the finish line in your sights, and in our experience that always leads to wasted money and time. We always recommend a modular build strategy where features are split into different development phases. Why? Let’s take a look at the top 4 modular strategy advantages.
Unforeseen options. During the design process it is inevitable that there will be changes in features, specifications, and even sometimes products themselves—it is difficult to anticipate every possible outcome and useful to be able to change gears without undoing hours of project management and product scope.
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