From 362eeb24cabc0b2e455b29848e07a4151b3c9cb5 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Roman Edirisinghe Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2024 10:43:55 -0500 Subject: [PATCH] feat: Set up continuous integration - remove unused blog.json file --- .github/workflows/ci.yml | 73 +++++----- src/_data/blog.json | 302 --------------------------------------- 2 files changed, 38 insertions(+), 337 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 src/_data/blog.json diff --git a/.github/workflows/ci.yml b/.github/workflows/ci.yml index 3a235e80..e46ff5d0 100644 --- a/.github/workflows/ci.yml +++ b/.github/workflows/ci.yml @@ -3,55 +3,58 @@ name: Changed Data Files - Develop on: push: branches: - - develop + - dev/test/api paths: - '.github/workflows/**' - 'src/_data/**.js' - 'src/_data/**.yml' - 'src/pages/api/**.njk' - 'src/_includes/modules/api-config.njk' + - 'src/_includes/modules/components/**' jobs: - create_pr: + automatic-pr: runs-on: ubuntu-latest - name: Create PR + name: Automatic PR + env: + TEMP_BRANCH: auto/dev/test/api + BASE_BRANCH: origin/develop + DEST_BRANCH: api/dev + CI_COMMIT_AUTHOR: 'github-actions[bot]' + CI_COMMIT_EMAIL: 41898282+github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com + GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }} steps: - - name: sparse checkout api/dev branch - uses: actions/checkout@v4 + - name: checkout specific files + id: checkout-files + uses: actions/checkout@v4.2.2 with: fetch-depth: 0 - ref: api/dev - sparse-checkout: | - .github/workflows/** - src/_data/**.js - src/_data/**.yml - src/pages/api/**.njk - /src/_includes/modules/api-config.njk - sparse-checkout-cone-mode: false - - name: create temp branch - uses: carlsberg/temporary-branch-action@1.1.3 - id: temp-branch + ref: ${{ env.DEST_BRANCH }} + - name: Get current time + uses: josStorer/get-current-time@v2 + id: current-time with: - base: api/dev - - name: checkout specific files in develop branch - run: | - git checkout ${{ steps.temp-branch.outputs.branch }} - git checkout develop -- .github/workflows/** src/_data/**.js src/_data/**.yml src/pages/api/**.njk /src/_includes/modules/api-config.njk - - name: set datestamp - id: datestamp - run: | - echo "datestamp=$(git log -1 --format=%cd --date=format:%Y-%m-%dh%H%M%S)" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT - - name: set PR message + format: YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS + timezone: America/New_York + - name: set commit/pr message id: message run: | - title="[Auto PR]: ${{ steps.datestamp.outputs.datestamp }} Update API - Dev" - body="This PR was auto-generated on ${{ steps.datestamp.outputs.datestamp }} \ - by [create-pull-request](https://github.com/peter-evans/create-pull-request)." + title="✅ CI: automatically update ${{ env.DEST_BRANCH }} from ${{ env.BASE_BRANCH }} 🙌📟🎉" + body="🚀 Automated PR created via Github action by ${{ env.CI_COMMIT_AUTHOR }} :octocat: on ${{ steps.current-time.outputs.readableTime }} 📅⏳" echo "title=$title" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT echo "body=$body" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT - - name: Create Pull Request - uses: peter-evans/create-pull-request@v7 - with: - branch: auto/api/dev - title: ${{ steps.message.outputs.title }} - body: ${{ steps.message.outputs.body }} + - name: create branch from destination branch and checkout files from base branch + id: new-branch + run: | + git config --global user.email "${{ env.CI_COMMIT_EMAIL }}" + git config --global user.name "${{ env.CI_COMMIT_AUTHOR }}" + git fetch origin + git push -d origin $TEMP_BRANCH &>/dev/null || true + git branch -d $TEMP_BRANCH &>/dev/null || true + git checkout -b $TEMP_BRANCH + git checkout $BASE_BRANCH -- .github/workflows src/_data src/pages/api src/_includes/modules/api-config.njk src/_includes/modules/components + git add -A + git commit -m "${{ steps.message.outputs.title }}" + git push --set-upstream origin $TEMP_BRANCH + - name: create pull request + run: gh pr create -B $DEST_BRANCH -H $TEMP_BRANCH --title "${{ steps.message.outputs.title }}" --body "${{ steps.message.outputs.body }}" --draft --label "automation" --reviewer "rediris" diff --git a/src/_data/blog.json b/src/_data/blog.json deleted file mode 100644 index 99d3dfce..00000000 --- a/src/_data/blog.json +++ /dev/null @@ -1,302 +0,0 @@ -[ - { - "creator": "Milo Goodman", - "title": "AI Mockup Magic: Prototyping Landing Pages with LLMs", - "link": "https://medium.com/gymnasium/ai-mockup-magic-prototyping-landing-pages-with-llms-3765bef6a84c?source=rss----daab3174aa95---4", - "pubDate": "Mon, 23 Oct 2023 16:33:35 GMT", - "content:encoded": "
\"A
Prompt 1: Prototyping Landing Pages (left), Prompt 2: AI Mockup Magic (right). Images generated by Bing/DALL·E; background extended in Photoshop; color correction and layout in Sketch.

In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has established itself as one of the hottest topics in tech and beyond. In particular, large language models (or LLMs) such as ChatGPT and Midjourney have taken the main stage thanks to their ability to understand and generate human language and images. As a professional, you may be wondering: How do LLM tools work? Can I use them in my workflow? Are there strategies I can use to improve my results?

Luckily, the minds behind Aquent Gymnasium recently answered these very questions on a livestream, and it’s available on YouTube to watch (and rewatch). If you’re short on time, read on for a fact-packed summary of the discussion.

So, what are LLMs?

In a nutshell, large language models are advanced programs that use artificial intelligence to process and produce human-like language, images, and more. While software is typically programmed with specific, step-by-step instructions, LLMs draw upon a neural network that was trained with a massive dataset that draws on sources like books, code repositories, and the entirety of the web. Through this dataset, the model learns and eventually understands the patterns and relationships between words.

Even if you’ve never heard of LLMs before today, you’re almost certainly familiar with the way they’re used. Take the autocomplete feature on smartphones, for example. Most of us have had the experience of watching our device predict our next words in real time, but have you ever wondered how it knows what we want to say?

LLMs are trained on text data, which helps it to learn the patterns and relationships between words. This training allows the tool to predict the most likely word or sequence of words when given a prompt. The model takes the prompt, processes it, and outputs a probability distribution of all possible words. This process repeats as the user continues to type, and the model updates its predictions based on new content and context.

For instance, imagine you’re texting a friend about food and want to express your love for French fries. Typing out the partial phrase “I love French…” will result in the model calculating the likelihood of your next word through the context of the conversation. It will deduce that there is a higher chance of the next word being “fries” and a lower probability of an unrelated or nonsense word like “movie” or “the.”

ChatGPT and Midjourney

Two particular AI platforms, ChatGPT and Midjourney, have taken off thanks to their capacity for taking simple prompts and turning them into unique content. Midjourney can take natural language and convert it into original images, whether you need an illustration for your book or a storyboard to visualize your marketing strategy. ChatGPT, on the other hand, gained notoriety for its uncanny ability to generate natural language. This particular model has been fine-tuned for a seemingly endless number of language production tasks, including summarization, translation, text completion, and even question-answering.

The way they work is as complicated as you’re likely imagining. The GPT in ChatGPT stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer, meaning that it creates new content, has been trained for a particular job, and understands context and relationships. The model uses specialized algorithms to find patterns within data sequences, which are then ranked by human trainers to reinforce the best responses and filter out the filler.

Midjourney operates similarly, with language and diffusion models helping it to understand the meaning of the prompts and produce a distinctive picture. When a prompt is submitted, Midjourney begins with a field of static-esque visual noise that is gradually removed through diffusion. The end result is an image representing the concepts described in the original prompt.

Notably, ChatGPT has a free version that can be used regardless of what you choose to use it for — whether it’s coding, writing, or even designing a video game. While Midjourney requires a paid subscription, it offers affordable tiers at varying prices. Given their accessibility, convenience, and proficiency, a plethora of professionals are now wondering how these tools can be used on the job — and how to optimize their results.

The power of a prompt

Imagine you’re starting a new job as a UX designer, and you’ve been tasked to create two different landing page prototypes for an e-bike product. You’re instructed to create one mock-up geared towards college-aged students and the other focused on attracting an older generation of customers.

Your instinct may be to run to Google to comb through content and search for stock photos, or to use placeholder “lorem ipsum” copy in your landing page prototype. However, you could use AI, specifically ChatGPT and Midjourney, to get a more efficient start on this project. While they shouldn’t be used to generate your entire final product, they serve as a great kick-off point.

So, where do you begin? With precise prompts that include what you want the AI to produce and any other relevant details. In this example, your first prompt might ask for a paragraph of copy for an e-bike that is targeted at college students and focuses on the value, earth-friendliness, and practicality of the product. You could also ask the AI to generate a list of marketing considerations for your chosen target groups, audience-specific images, or a call-to-action.

The most important thing to know when crafting your prompts is that the more context you include, the better your results will be. Other best practices include specifying tone or voice (e.g. humorous and friendly or serious and professional), limits on the length of the output content, and individual terms to exclude.

It may also be necessary to refine, rephrase, or elaborate on your prompt if your result isn’t as desired. ChatGPT in particular has a useful “Regenerate” button, which requests an alternate output based on your initial prompt. This allows the model to better understand what you need as it goes, shortening its learning curve.

While detailed prompts can produce interesting results, keep in mind that LLMs will fabricate information if given the opportunity. Remember to review and fact-check all your results, especially if they’re intended for use in a professional setting.

Learn more about AI and LLMs

To get the full lowdown on LLMs and how they can be used at work, watch the livestream here. Be sure to subscribe to Aquent Gymnasium on YouTube for more content like this.

\"\"

AI Mockup Magic: Prototyping Landing Pages with LLMs was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

", - "content:encodedSnippet": "Prompt 1: Prototyping Landing Pages (left), Prompt 2: AI Mockup Magic (right). Images generated by Bing/DALL·E; background extended in Photoshop; color correction and layout in Sketch.\nIn recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has established itself as one of the hottest topics in tech and beyond. In particular, large language models (or LLMs) such as ChatGPT and Midjourney have taken the main stage thanks to their ability to understand and generate human language and images. As a professional, you may be wondering: How do LLM tools work? Can I use them in my workflow? Are there strategies I can use to improve my results?\nLuckily, the minds behind Aquent Gymnasium recently answered these very questions on a livestream, and it’s available on YouTube to watch (and rewatch). If you’re short on time, read on for a fact-packed summary of the discussion.\nSo, what are LLMs?\nIn a nutshell, large language models are advanced programs that use artificial intelligence to process and produce human-like language, images, and more. While software is typically programmed with specific, step-by-step instructions, LLMs draw upon a neural network that was trained with a massive dataset that draws on sources like books, code repositories, and the entirety of the web. Through this dataset, the model learns and eventually understands the patterns and relationships between words.\nEven if you’ve never heard of LLMs before today, you’re almost certainly familiar with the way they’re used. Take the autocomplete feature on smartphones, for example. Most of us have had the experience of watching our device predict our next words in real time, but have you ever wondered how it knows what we want to say?\nLLMs are trained on text data, which helps it to learn the patterns and relationships between words. This training allows the tool to predict the most likely word or sequence of words when given a prompt. The model takes the prompt, processes it, and outputs a probability distribution of all possible words. This process repeats as the user continues to type, and the model updates its predictions based on new content and context.\nFor instance, imagine you’re texting a friend about food and want to express your love for French fries. Typing out the partial phrase “I love French…” will result in the model calculating the likelihood of your next word through the context of the conversation. It will deduce that there is a higher chance of the next word being “fries” and a lower probability of an unrelated or nonsense word like “movie” or “the.”\nChatGPT and Midjourney\nTwo particular AI platforms, ChatGPT and Midjourney, have taken off thanks to their capacity for taking simple prompts and turning them into unique content. Midjourney can take natural language and convert it into original images, whether you need an illustration for your book or a storyboard to visualize your marketing strategy. ChatGPT, on the other hand, gained notoriety for its uncanny ability to generate natural language. This particular model has been fine-tuned for a seemingly endless number of language production tasks, including summarization, translation, text completion, and even question-answering.\nThe way they work is as complicated as you’re likely imagining. The GPT in ChatGPT stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer, meaning that it creates new content, has been trained for a particular job, and understands context and relationships. The model uses specialized algorithms to find patterns within data sequences, which are then ranked by human trainers to reinforce the best responses and filter out the filler.\nMidjourney operates similarly, with language and diffusion models helping it to understand the meaning of the prompts and produce a distinctive picture. When a prompt is submitted, Midjourney begins with a field of static-esque visual noise that is gradually removed through diffusion. The end result is an image representing the concepts described in the original prompt.\nNotably, ChatGPT has a free version that can be used regardless of what you choose to use it for — whether it’s coding, writing, or even designing a video game. While Midjourney requires a paid subscription, it offers affordable tiers at varying prices. Given their accessibility, convenience, and proficiency, a plethora of professionals are now wondering how these tools can be used on the job — and how to optimize their results.\nThe power of a prompt\nImagine you’re starting a new job as a UX designer, and you’ve been tasked to create two different landing page prototypes for an e-bike product. You’re instructed to create one mock-up geared towards college-aged students and the other focused on attracting an older generation of customers.\nYour instinct may be to run to Google to comb through content and search for stock photos, or to use placeholder “lorem ipsum” copy in your landing page prototype. However, you could use AI, specifically ChatGPT and Midjourney, to get a more efficient start on this project. While they shouldn’t be used to generate your entire final product, they serve as a great kick-off point.\nSo, where do you begin? With precise prompts that include what you want the AI to produce and any other relevant details. In this example, your first prompt might ask for a paragraph of copy for an e-bike that is targeted at college students and focuses on the value, earth-friendliness, and practicality of the product. You could also ask the AI to generate a list of marketing considerations for your chosen target groups, audience-specific images, or a call-to-action.\nThe most important thing to know when crafting your prompts is that the more context you include, the better your results will be. Other best practices include specifying tone or voice (e.g. humorous and friendly or serious and professional), limits on the length of the output content, and individual terms to exclude.\nIt may also be necessary to refine, rephrase, or elaborate on your prompt if your result isn’t as desired. ChatGPT in particular has a useful “Regenerate” button, which requests an alternate output based on your initial prompt. This allows the model to better understand what you need as it goes, shortening its learning curve.\nWhile detailed prompts can produce interesting results, keep in mind that LLMs will fabricate information if given the opportunity. Remember to review and fact-check all your results, especially if they’re intended for use in a professional setting.\nLearn more about AI and LLMs\nTo get the full lowdown on LLMs and how they can be used at work, watch the livestream here. Be sure to subscribe to Aquent Gymnasium on YouTube for more content like this.\n\nAI Mockup Magic: Prototyping Landing Pages with LLMs was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.", - "dc:creator": "Milo Goodman", - "guid": "https://medium.com/p/3765bef6a84c", - "categories": [ - "ai", - "llm", - "landing-pages", - "prototyping", - "artificial-intelligence" - ], - "isoDate": "2023-10-23T16:33:35.000Z" - }, - { - "creator": "Milo Goodman", - "title": "BTW: Developers Need Portfolios Too", - "link": "https://medium.com/gymnasium/btw-developers-need-portfolios-too-a7f00f70a307?source=rss----daab3174aa95---4", - "pubDate": "Tue, 06 Jun 2023 16:20:38 GMT", - "content:encoded": "
\"#README:

No matter your role or field, it goes without saying that you should always have a résumé on hand. For developers, however, there’s another way to share and showcase your work: a portfolio.

Wait, I need a portfolio?

For job-seekers in the software development industry, an online portfolio is just as important as a cover letter or résumé. Think of a portfolio as the first step in the interview process, representing you and your personal brand. Even if you’re not actively looking for a new role, showing off your skills through a public portfolio comes with a host of benefits. In addition to attracting prospective employers and dream clients, a portfolio helps you exhibit your best work and stand out in an ever-growing sea of experienced developers. Illustrating your accomplishments and highlighting your premier projects will both increase your credibility and help you rise to the top in what has become a highly competitive industry.

So, where do I start?

It can be overwhelming to build a portfolio from scratch, but a best practice is to ask yourself the following: “What kind of work am I trying to get?” and “Who is the most important audience for my portfolio?” This might require research and even a bit of soul-searching, but it’s crucial to understand your end goal and who will be helping you get there.

Once you’ve answered these questions, an About page is a great place to begin and establish a strong first impression. Research suggests that visitors form an opinion about a website in less than one second — and your About page may be the first thing readers click when they visit your portfolio. While there’s no right or wrong way to write this self-summary, the key is to focus on what’s most important to you. Are you an advocate for accessibility? Are you a champion for design systems? Is tweaking web performance your obsession? Are PWAs your passion? Is the JamStack your jam, or are you a PHP nerd? Explain how you got started and why you love it. If you find it difficult to determine exactly what’s important to you, consider your past accomplishments and future goals for inspiration.

To help readers put a face to your name, it’s recommended that you include a profile photo. A headshot can increase credibility, make your portfolio more memorable, and foster a sense of virtual connection between you and your visitors. In the same vein, incorporating your personality and having fun with your introduction can make it more relatable and engaging. Using an authentic voice, adding in a bit of humor, or dappling your words with a relevant Emoji or two will grab readers’ attention and paint a full picture of who you are as a person.

Although your About page should serve as a succinct introduction, it can also be helpful to highlight your professional experience with short testimonials or quotes from former employers or colleagues. Whether you reach out to them directly for a quote or pull from your LinkedIn Recommendations, an endorsement or praise from a satisfied customer or co-worker assures your reader that you’re both trustworthy and capable.

Lastly, your About page needs to make it easy for readers to contact you with any questions, comments, or proposals. That’s the whole point of a portfolio, right? There are many options for conveying this information, including a contact form or a list of personal websites and profiles. However, readers may find it easier if you simply outline one preferred method of contact. It can be a phone number, an email address, or even a WhatsApp username, as long as it’s clear and your potential client can reach you with ease and confidence.

What else should I include?

In addition to an About section, your portfolio needs a headline or tagline: a summary of who you are, what you do, and what sets you apart. Stay away from clichés and try to make it a conversation-starter for maximum impact. For example, if you’re a UX designer and pride yourself on creating engaging and scalable products, you might include those two adjectives in your tagline to generate interest and curiosity.

Perhaps most importantly, your Featured Projects section will showcase recent or notable work that demonstrates your skill set and what you’re capable of doing. In addition to work you’ve created for clients and employers, include any personal projects or experiments you’ve conducted on your own. Have you ever attempted to optimize a friend’s photo gallery for faster loading times? Maybe you once created a mock-up for a new app you dreamed up. Add it in to show off your innovation and creative thinking skills.

While it may be an afterthought for some, it’s important to remember to ensure cohesion of the overall layout, including your logo, typography, color palette, and any imagery you choose to include. A good rule of thumb is to treat the user experience of your portfolio as if it were for a client — added embellishments like custom cursors and gratuitous pop-up windows can work against you by distracting from the content you’re featuring. Aim to keep your design simple and familiar rather than complex and cluttered. This means utilizing whitespace, leaning into minimalism, and keeping menus and buttons in standard areas.

Where should I host my portfolio?

Many developers choose to link to their GitHub profile in lieu of a traditional portfolio, but there’s a better way to attract attention. To really set yourself apart from the crowd, use a self-hosted and self-designed website. In addition to appearing polished and professional, this website will serve as a featured project in itself.

If you prefer to use GitHub to share your work, be sure to create a profile-level README to display your tagline, About page content, and any repositories you want to highlight. This section will be placed above pinned repositories once it’s created, so it will be the first thing readers see when they visit your page. The GitHub profile-level README feature also allows more content than the GitHub profile bio and supports markdown for full creative control.

Want to dig deeper into this topic? Gymnasium’s got you covered with these Take 5 video tutorials:

\"\"

BTW: Developers Need Portfolios Too was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

", - "content:encodedSnippet": "No matter your role or field, it goes without saying that you should always have a résumé on hand. For developers, however, there’s another way to share and showcase your work: a portfolio.\nWait, I need a portfolio?\nFor job-seekers in the software development industry, an online portfolio is just as important as a cover letter or résumé. Think of a portfolio as the first step in the interview process, representing you and your personal brand. Even if you’re not actively looking for a new role, showing off your skills through a public portfolio comes with a host of benefits. In addition to attracting prospective employers and dream clients, a portfolio helps you exhibit your best work and stand out in an ever-growing sea of experienced developers. Illustrating your accomplishments and highlighting your premier projects will both increase your credibility and help you rise to the top in what has become a highly competitive industry.\nSo, where do I start?\nIt can be overwhelming to build a portfolio from scratch, but a best practice is to ask yourself the following: “What kind of work am I trying to get?” and “Who is the most important audience for my portfolio?” This might require research and even a bit of soul-searching, but it’s crucial to understand your end goal and who will be helping you get there.\nOnce you’ve answered these questions, an About page is a great place to begin and establish a strong first impression. Research suggests that visitors form an opinion about a website in less than one second — and your About page may be the first thing readers click when they visit your portfolio. While there’s no right or wrong way to write this self-summary, the key is to focus on what’s most important to you. Are you an advocate for accessibility? Are you a champion for design systems? Is tweaking web performance your obsession? Are PWAs your passion? Is the JamStack your jam, or are you a PHP nerd? Explain how you got started and why you love it. If you find it difficult to determine exactly what’s important to you, consider your past accomplishments and future goals for inspiration.\nTo help readers put a face to your name, it’s recommended that you include a profile photo. A headshot can increase credibility, make your portfolio more memorable, and foster a sense of virtual connection between you and your visitors. In the same vein, incorporating your personality and having fun with your introduction can make it more relatable and engaging. Using an authentic voice, adding in a bit of humor, or dappling your words with a relevant Emoji or two will grab readers’ attention and paint a full picture of who you are as a person.\nAlthough your About page should serve as a succinct introduction, it can also be helpful to highlight your professional experience with short testimonials or quotes from former employers or colleagues. Whether you reach out to them directly for a quote or pull from your LinkedIn Recommendations, an endorsement or praise from a satisfied customer or co-worker assures your reader that you’re both trustworthy and capable.\nLastly, your About page needs to make it easy for readers to contact you with any questions, comments, or proposals. That’s the whole point of a portfolio, right? There are many options for conveying this information, including a contact form or a list of personal websites and profiles. However, readers may find it easier if you simply outline one preferred method of contact. It can be a phone number, an email address, or even a WhatsApp username, as long as it’s clear and your potential client can reach you with ease and confidence.\nWhat else should I include?\nIn addition to an About section, your portfolio needs a headline or tagline: a summary of who you are, what you do, and what sets you apart. Stay away from clichés and try to make it a conversation-starter for maximum impact. For example, if you’re a UX designer and pride yourself on creating engaging and scalable products, you might include those two adjectives in your tagline to generate interest and curiosity.\nPerhaps most importantly, your Featured Projects section will showcase recent or notable work that demonstrates your skill set and what you’re capable of doing. In addition to work you’ve created for clients and employers, include any personal projects or experiments you’ve conducted on your own. Have you ever attempted to optimize a friend’s photo gallery for faster loading times? Maybe you once created a mock-up for a new app you dreamed up. Add it in to show off your innovation and creative thinking skills.\nWhile it may be an afterthought for some, it’s important to remember to ensure cohesion of the overall layout, including your logo, typography, color palette, and any imagery you choose to include. A good rule of thumb is to treat the user experience of your portfolio as if it were for a client — added embellishments like custom cursors and gratuitous pop-up windows can work against you by distracting from the content you’re featuring. Aim to keep your design simple and familiar rather than complex and cluttered. This means utilizing whitespace, leaning into minimalism, and keeping menus and buttons in standard areas.\nWhere should I host my portfolio?\nMany developers choose to link to their GitHub profile in lieu of a traditional portfolio, but there’s a better way to attract attention. To really set yourself apart from the crowd, use a self-hosted and self-designed website. In addition to appearing polished and professional, this website will serve as a featured project in itself.\nIf you prefer to use GitHub to share your work, be sure to create a profile-level README to display your tagline, About page content, and any repositories you want to highlight. This section will be placed above pinned repositories once it’s created, so it will be the first thing readers see when they visit your page. The GitHub profile-level README feature also allows more content than the GitHub profile bio and supports markdown for full creative control.\nWant to dig deeper into this topic? Gymnasium’s got you covered with these Take 5 video tutorials:\n\nTaking Your Portfolio Case Studies to the Next Level\nCrafting a Concise About Page\nMaking a Great First Impression With Your Portfolio\nStorytelling for Designers\nDesigning Accessible and Responsive Websites\n\nBTW: Developers Need Portfolios Too was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.", - "dc:creator": "Milo Goodman", - "guid": "https://medium.com/p/a7f00f70a307", - "categories": [ - "software-development", - "jobs", - "github", - "developer", - "portfolio" - ], - "isoDate": "2023-06-06T16:20:38.000Z" - }, - { - "creator": "Jeremy Osborn", - "title": "Improving Your Portfolio is Easier Than You Think", - "link": "https://medium.com/gymnasium/improving-your-portfolio-is-easier-than-you-think-b1430bbe1007?source=rss----daab3174aa95---4", - "pubDate": "Fri, 14 Apr 2023 19:33:04 GMT", - "content:encoded": "
\"A

If you’re involved in the creation of digital products, you’re aware of the importance of having a portfolio to showcase your work. Whether you’re actively looking for a new job or considering a career change, it’s one of the first things you’ll be asked to share. Having said that, I’m willing to bet that if you ask 9 out of 10 professionals if they’re happy with the state of their portfolio, the answer will be “No.”

Chances are high that any given portfolio has one or more of these problems:

This is not a new problem. But as the Director of Learning for Aquent Gymnasium, part of my job is to pay attention to trends in the web industry, and I had a hunch that the role of portfolios had changed in recent years. To put this theory to the test, my colleague Justin Gagne (Design Lead) and I developed a pilot portfolio workshop for a small group of designers and developers.

Going into the workshop, we had a few assumptions about what we would encounter. Some of those assumptions were accurate, but there were a few surprises as well. So I’d like to share those surprises — or as I like to call them “insights” — with you, in the hopes that they will save you some time and effort when you begin to update your own portfolio.

Why is it so hard to work on your own portfolio?

Before sharing my insights, it’s worth defining our goals for the workshop. We knew that despite understanding the importance of a portfolio, many people felt overwhelmed or blocked from working on them and weren’t quite sure why. To provide structure and help, we had to understand what the specific challenges were.

Make no mistake, the challenges are real. In fact there’s an old proverb (bordering on cliché) that I’ve heard many web professionals reference over the years which is “The shoemaker’s children go barefoot.” This is generally used as an explanation for why one’s portfolio website has been so neglected. After all, if one is busy working on other people’s projects, that leaves little time and energy to work on your own.

There’s some validity to this, it definitely is easier to postpone your own project than it is to postpone one for a client or your regular job. After all, those pay the bills and one needs to be pragmatic.

But there are a few other reasons why working on your portfolio is difficult:

When you add all of these challenges up, not to mention the fact that you have no project manager looking over your shoulder, it’s not surprising that portfolios get neglected. There’s also the question of motivation. If you’re happy and comfortable in your current gig, why burn extra calories on nights and weekends to do something that feels difficult? The problem is when circumstances change, if you suddenly need an up-to-date portfolio and you’re doing it under financial stress or time pressures, you’re now making a hard job even harder.

Content truly is king

Our original plan for this workshop was quite ambitious and included sessions on using mood boards and Figma prototypes to head in the direction of visual design. However, we ended up reducing the scope and in the end, it evolved into more of a writing and content strategy workshop. As veterans of the web industry, the old phrase “Content is king” came to mind. This means different things to different people, but for us it represents our belief that people spend a disproportionate amount of time on the visuals, the tech stack, and other aspects of their portfolios, and not enough on the core words and message they want to convey.

The path to good content started with a few deceptively simple questions we asked our attendees:

Make no mistake, these are hard questions to answer! Which is exactly why we asked them. By directing their focus to these difficult questions and giving them some tools to answer them, we helped attendees avoid the common trap mentioned earlier: namely the tendency to get distracted when faced with “the hard stuff.”

DIY Tip: You don’t have to be part of a workshop to work this way. Open up a document and begin by answering these three questions:

Next, consider keeping all your work in writing as long as possible before moving on to the design phase. Keep it simple and start with an About Page. If you want some context and structure, consider checking out our 5-minute tutorial on the topic.

Accountability really works

Accountability was the foundation of our workshop. When someone is working on their own with no oversight, self-imposed deadlines are incredibly difficult to follow. So, creating a formal structure that asks people to show up at a set time each day as part of a group was key. All workshop attendees knew what they were getting into. We didn’t call this a “bootcamp,” but it had a similar vibe — don’t sign up unless you’re willing to commit and put in the work.

To avoid a traditional “authoritarian” model where the teacher is the center of focus, we split people into breakout groups to give them a chance to inspire, help, and commiserate with each other. Additionally, because this was a remote workshop conducted by conference call, we also created a forum on our classroom site with daily assignments that required people to give feedback to get feedback.

DIY Tip: You can use this technique on your own by bringing in a collaborator early into your portfolio writing process. The only qualification for this person is to be someone you trust, and the simplest exercise is to read your content out loud to them (or vice-versa). You’d be surprised how effective this technique is. In fact, I’ve found that hearing my words out loud will instinctively prompt me to make useful revisions even before I receive “official” feedback from my collaborator.

Your portfolio is less important than you think

This insight might seem counter-intuitive, so bear with me. The role of the portfolio has changed substantially over the years; for example, the days of lugging a physical case of printouts to an interview are long gone. The role of the online portfolio has also changed over the last 10 years and specifically since 2020 when remote interviews and work suddenly became commonplace due to the pandemic. Here’s the big takeaway: the way people find your portfolio has changed.

Today, chances are it’s not a search engine that brought someone to your portfolio site. Instead, intermediaries such as LinkedIn, Behance, Instagram, or GitHub are gateways to your lovingly crafted portfolio website. In many ways this changes the context and expectations your visitors have of you before even reading a single word on your site.

It’s also safe to say that people aren’t spending a whole lot of time looking at your content. According to a recent eye-tracking study, recruiters typically spend an average of 7.4 seconds looking at résumés. While résumés and portfolios are different, I suspect the conclusion is the same: the main audience for your portfolio is skimming your content quickly, not studying it in depth.

Rather than be discouraged by this, my stance is that anyone looking to make an impact with a portfolio can use this to their advantage. Take a step back and focus on the core aspects of what a portfolio is good at:

Here’s the final insight: more than ever you need to focus on the sort of work you’d like to do in the future, define it with clarity, and then promote it loud and clear across all platforms. Yes, this includes the portfolio, but also your LinkedIn profile, your resumé, and any other social media you deem appropriate. This is hard work, no doubt, but it will pay off in the long run.

DIY Tip: You can perform a quick content audit of your own professional profile in a few minutes. Open up all your existing material at once: this might include a LinkedIn profile, resumé, portfolio, etc. Now do a quick compare and contrast: is everything aligned across all the platforms? For example, is your recent work up-to-date? Do you have a clear personal statement specifying the work you would like to do and is this message consistent? If you want to delve deeper into this topic, check out this 5-minute tutorial.

Final takeaways

There’s an old saying in advertising: “If you don’t define your brand, other people will.” Typically, this refers to companies, but it applies to people and their portfolios as well. If you don’t define what you stand for and what makes you unique, your visitors will simply do it for you based on their own assumptions.

Our attendees told us that the most valuable aspect of the workshop for them was being given the chance to put time into writing and reflecting on their message and the actual value they had brought to past projects. The second most valuable takeaway was that the group setting gave them a much needed outside perspective. Sharing your work and inviting peer feedback might feel vulnerable… because it is! But if you want your portfolio to be the best it can be, it’s worth stepping out of your comfort zone.

Mind you, everything I described in this article are things you can do yourself, no workshop required. All it requires is a little time, commitment, and a document editor. Remember, standing out in the crowd these days is less about eye-catching visuals or skills and more about being crystal clear on what you’re good at and what work you want to do in the future. So what are you waiting for? Start improving your portfolio!

Want to be the first to know about future Gymnasium workshops? Get on the list.

\"\"

Improving Your Portfolio is Easier Than You Think was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

", - "content:encodedSnippet": "If you’re involved in the creation of digital products, you’re aware of the importance of having a portfolio to showcase your work. Whether you’re actively looking for a new job or considering a career change, it’s one of the first things you’ll be asked to share. Having said that, I’m willing to bet that if you ask 9 out of 10 professionals if they’re happy with the state of their portfolio, the answer will be “No.”\nChances are high that any given portfolio has one or more of these problems:\n\nRecent job and/or project history is missing or lacking in details.\nThe design of the website is dated.\nThe work shown doesn’t accurately represent the type of work you want to do in the future.\n\nThis is not a new problem. But as the Director of Learning for Aquent Gymnasium, part of my job is to pay attention to trends in the web industry, and I had a hunch that the role of portfolios had changed in recent years. To put this theory to the test, my colleague Justin Gagne (Design Lead) and I developed a pilot portfolio workshop for a small group of designers and developers.\nGoing into the workshop, we had a few assumptions about what we would encounter. Some of those assumptions were accurate, but there were a few surprises as well. So I’d like to share those surprises — or as I like to call them “insights” — with you, in the hopes that they will save you some time and effort when you begin to update your own portfolio.\nWhy is it so hard to work on your own portfolio?\nBefore sharing my insights, it’s worth defining our goals for the workshop. We knew that despite understanding the importance of a portfolio, many people felt overwhelmed or blocked from working on them and weren’t quite sure why. To provide structure and help, we had to understand what the specific challenges were.\nMake no mistake, the challenges are real. In fact there’s an old proverb (bordering on cliché) that I’ve heard many web professionals reference over the years which is “The shoemaker’s children go barefoot.” This is generally used as an explanation for why one’s portfolio website has been so neglected. After all, if one is busy working on other people’s projects, that leaves little time and energy to work on your own.\nThere’s some validity to this, it definitely is easier to postpone your own project than it is to postpone one for a client or your regular job. After all, those pay the bills and one needs to be pragmatic.\nBut there are a few other reasons why working on your portfolio is difficult:\n\nOne of the most challenging aspects is deciding what to include. Web professionals typically work on many projects in any given year, but not all of them may be relevant or appropriate to showcase in a portfolio, sometimes there are even legal reasons: for example many companies have NDAs (nondisclosure agreements) which prohibit the sharing of visuals or projects done while under contract or while employed.\nPeople also have trouble deciding which projects best represent their skills and abilities, and this often leads to avoidance or focussing on the wrong things, such as taking a week to look for “the perfect” typeface or color scheme for their site.\nAnother challenge is figuring out how to organize and present one’s projects while finding the right balance between showcasing the work and providing context and explanation.\n\nWhen you add all of these challenges up, not to mention the fact that you have no project manager looking over your shoulder, it’s not surprising that portfolios get neglected. There’s also the question of motivation. If you’re happy and comfortable in your current gig, why burn extra calories on nights and weekends to do something that feels difficult? The problem is when circumstances change, if you suddenly need an up-to-date portfolio and you’re doing it under financial stress or time pressures, you’re now making a hard job even harder.\nContent truly is king\nOur original plan for this workshop was quite ambitious and included sessions on using mood boards and Figma prototypes to head in the direction of visual design. However, we ended up reducing the scope and in the end, it evolved into more of a writing and content strategy workshop. As veterans of the web industry, the old phrase “Content is king” came to mind. This means different things to different people, but for us it represents our belief that people spend a disproportionate amount of time on the visuals, the tech stack, and other aspects of their portfolios, and not enough on the core words and message they want to convey.\nThe path to good content started with a few deceptively simple questions we asked our attendees:\n\nWhat sort of work do you want to get in the future?\nHow would you describe your “personal brand” in a sentence or two?\nWhat past projects are you most proud of, and how could you turn them into case studies?\n\nMake no mistake, these are hard questions to answer! Which is exactly why we asked them. By directing their focus to these difficult questions and giving them some tools to answer them, we helped attendees avoid the common trap mentioned earlier: namely the tendency to get distracted when faced with “the hard stuff.”\nDIY Tip: You don’t have to be part of a workshop to work this way. Open up a document and begin by answering these three questions:\n\nWhat sort of work do you want to get in the future?\nHow would you describe your “personal brand” in a sentence or two?\nWhat past projects are you most proud of, and how could you turn them into case studies?\n\nNext, consider keeping all your work in writing as long as possible before moving on to the design phase. Keep it simple and start with an About Page. If you want some context and structure, consider checking out our 5-minute tutorial on the topic.\nAccountability really works\nAccountability was the foundation of our workshop. When someone is working on their own with no oversight, self-imposed deadlines are incredibly difficult to follow. So, creating a formal structure that asks people to show up at a set time each day as part of a group was key. All workshop attendees knew what they were getting into. We didn’t call this a “bootcamp,” but it had a similar vibe — don’t sign up unless you’re willing to commit and put in the work.\nTo avoid a traditional “authoritarian” model where the teacher is the center of focus, we split people into breakout groups to give them a chance to inspire, help, and commiserate with each other. Additionally, because this was a remote workshop conducted by conference call, we also created a forum on our classroom site with daily assignments that required people to give feedback to get feedback.\nDIY Tip: You can use this technique on your own by bringing in a collaborator early into your portfolio writing process. The only qualification for this person is to be someone you trust, and the simplest exercise is to read your content out loud to them (or vice-versa). You’d be surprised how effective this technique is. In fact, I’ve found that hearing my words out loud will instinctively prompt me to make useful revisions even before I receive “official” feedback from my collaborator.\nYour portfolio is less important than you think\nThis insight might seem counter-intuitive, so bear with me. The role of the portfolio has changed substantially over the years; for example, the days of lugging a physical case of printouts to an interview are long gone. The role of the online portfolio has also changed over the last 10 years and specifically since 2020 when remote interviews and work suddenly became commonplace due to the pandemic. Here’s the big takeaway: the way people find your portfolio has changed.\nToday, chances are it’s not a search engine that brought someone to your portfolio site. Instead, intermediaries such as LinkedIn, Behance, Instagram, or GitHub are gateways to your lovingly crafted portfolio website. In many ways this changes the context and expectations your visitors have of you before even reading a single word on your site.\nIt’s also safe to say that people aren’t spending a whole lot of time looking at your content. According to a recent eye-tracking study, recruiters typically spend an average of 7.4 seconds looking at résumés. While résumés and portfolios are different, I suspect the conclusion is the same: the main audience for your portfolio is skimming your content quickly, not studying it in depth.\nRather than be discouraged by this, my stance is that anyone looking to make an impact with a portfolio can use this to their advantage. Take a step back and focus on the core aspects of what a portfolio is good at:\n\nIt remains a great tool to communicate your ideas and approach to creative projects. No matter what your role, explaining your process and thinking is always going to be important.\nMeeting someone in person or by phone or video is still the gold standard, but a portfolio continues to be an excellent way to establish your credibility and trustworthiness. Specifically, it allows you to emphasize your strengths such as your track record of producing high-quality work, or your ability to complete projects on time and on budget.\n\nHere’s the final insight: more than ever you need to focus on the sort of work you’d like to do in the future, define it with clarity, and then promote it loud and clear across all platforms. Yes, this includes the portfolio, but also your LinkedIn profile, your resumé, and any other social media you deem appropriate. This is hard work, no doubt, but it will pay off in the long run.\nDIY Tip: You can perform a quick content audit of your own professional profile in a few minutes. Open up all your existing material at once: this might include a LinkedIn profile, resumé, portfolio, etc. Now do a quick compare and contrast: is everything aligned across all the platforms? For example, is your recent work up-to-date? Do you have a clear personal statement specifying the work you would like to do and is this message consistent? If you want to delve deeper into this topic, check out this 5-minute tutorial.\nFinal takeaways\nThere’s an old saying in advertising: “If you don’t define your brand, other people will.” Typically, this refers to companies, but it applies to people and their portfolios as well. If you don’t define what you stand for and what makes you unique, your visitors will simply do it for you based on their own assumptions.\nOur attendees told us that the most valuable aspect of the workshop for them was being given the chance to put time into writing and reflecting on their message and the actual value they had brought to past projects. The second most valuable takeaway was that the group setting gave them a much needed outside perspective. Sharing your work and inviting peer feedback might feel vulnerable… because it is! But if you want your portfolio to be the best it can be, it’s worth stepping out of your comfort zone.\nMind you, everything I described in this article are things you can do yourself, no workshop required. All it requires is a little time, commitment, and a document editor. Remember, standing out in the crowd these days is less about eye-catching visuals or skills and more about being crystal clear on what you’re good at and what work you want to do in the future. So what are you waiting for? Start improving your portfolio!\nWant to be the first to know about future Gymnasium workshops? Get on the list.\n\nImproving Your Portfolio is Easier Than You Think was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.", - "dc:creator": "Jeremy Osborn", - "guid": "https://medium.com/p/b1430bbe1007", - "categories": [ - "portfolio", - "design", - "development", - "storytelling", - "branding" - ], - "isoDate": "2023-04-14T19:33:04.000Z" - }, - { - "creator": "Milo Goodman", - "title": "Advocating for Accessibility with Aaron Gustafson", - "link": "https://medium.com/gymnasium/advocating-for-accessibility-with-aaron-gustafson-54079c132152?source=rss----daab3174aa95---4", - "pubDate": "Wed, 28 Sep 2022 13:48:02 GMT", - "content:encoded": "
\"Aaron
Aaron Gustafson discusses advocating for accessibility with Aquent Gymnasium. (Illustration based on Microsoft’s Inclusive Design visual language.)

In today’s world of technology, there’s no denying the need for accessibility in all its forms. So how can we get there? To help answer this question, we spoke with Aaron Gustafson, instructor of Gymnasium’s free Modern Web Design course and Principal Strategist on Microsoft’s Accessibility Innovation Team.

In addition to leading the AI for Accessibility grant program, which works to improve independence for those with disabilities by funding the development of new assistive technologies, Gustafson works to identify and invest in technological advancements that improve access for everyone across the board.

But before we dive into the process of improving user experiences for all, it’s crucial to define and understand the scope of accessibility.

💭 What is Accessibility?

In the realm of digital technology, the term “accessibility” is used to describe the extent to which the devices, systems, and tools we use to work and communicate are usable for all. More specifically, the W3C states in the latest edition of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines that all web content should be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust for every user.

“When I first learned about accessibility, I only thought of it as making the web usable to people with screen readers… but I’ve come to understand how broad accessibility truly is,” Gustafson said. “To me, accessibility is doing everything we can to remove the barriers that prohibit people from being able to meaningfully participate and thrive in the world.”

According to CDC data, 15% of the world’s population has a disability, and of those affected by disability in the U.S., 5% are blind or visually impaired while 6% are deaf or hearing impaired. It’s important to recognize that these numbers are likely much higher in reality, as many who live with a disability don’t self-identify as such.

Designers and developers take these differing experiences and capabilities into account when creating accessibility-focused features, which can be as simple as the ability to zoom in on a portion of text or as complex as text-to-speech software that dictates the content of images and videos. No matter the objective, their overarching goal is to ensure universal access regardless of user abilities.

⚡ Current Challenges and Solutions

In addition to the W3C guidelines, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires websites, mobile apps, and other types of software and digital content to be accessible for all. Despite the mandate, some of the world’s most renowned tech companies continue to underestimate the need for accessibility. For example, Twitter recently launched a Voice Tweets feature without captions. The problem doesn’t end with the big names, either: 96.8% of all home pages have at least one accessibility error. As a starting point, brands and businesses need to become more aware of accessibility needs within their customer base.

“Ultimately, the issue is awareness,” Gustafson explained. “The vast majority of web folks don’t understand the importance of accessibility because even the most basic level of testing isn’t even on their radar.”

So how can we raise consciousness and make accessibility a core tenant of development and design?

“Better education in business schools, computer science and design programs, and developer bootcamps would go a long way,” Gustafson said. “Societal awareness is another big factor. This is why it’s so important to see people with disabilities accurately represented in media, like television and movies… I think most people, once aware of the barriers they’re erecting, will want to change the ways they do business, design, program, and generally conduct their lives to ensure more people are included.”

👩🏽‍💻 Making Tech More Accessible

Although there are many ways to work towards accessibility in tech, one popular strategy among larger companies is the use of Accessibility Overlays. This software is designed to automatically detect and fix accessibility problems at a mass scale using artificial intelligence. While the idea of an instant solution is appealing, its effectiveness pales in comparison to in-depth individualized fixes.

“It’s akin to a home renovation in which you see that there’s a big hole in the wall and, rather than properly replace and mud in a fresh piece of drywall, you just wallpaper over it,” said Gustafson. “Adding an overlay does not solve your website’s fundamental accessibility problems. Those problems are a result of the non-inclusive business, design, and development processes. We should be thinking about how to build inclusive products from the jump.”

Rather than taking the easy way out, Gustafson recommends that companies invest in new tools and training for their teams on how to diagnose and remediate specific accessibility issues. There are a number of valuable free resources available, including browser plugin Accessibility Insights, which is able to diagnose problems such as color contrast and missing labels that can be detected programmatically. Whether you start small or go big, this investment in your team will make them “aware of the ways they erect barriers to accessibility so they naturally avoid making those mistakes.”

“Accessibility work is important and has a tremendous impact on our society. Designing and building accessible experiences ensures our products and services can reach more people, which also impacts a company’s bottom line,” said Gustafson. “Whether you want to look at it from the altruistic perspective of working to empower your fellow human beings or you want to focus on the success of your business, accessibility is something you should be investing in.”

Inspired to take the next step towards ensuring accessibility for all? Gymnasium’s Accessibility Content Collection is chock-full of courses, tutorials, webinars, and articles to get you up to speed on web standards, best practices, and guidelines. To learn more about the world of accessibility and web design from Aaron Gustafson, register for his free Gymnasium course, Modern Web Design.

\"\"

Advocating for Accessibility with Aaron Gustafson was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

", - "content:encodedSnippet": "Aaron Gustafson discusses advocating for accessibility with Aquent Gymnasium. (Illustration based on Microsoft’s Inclusive Design visual language.)\nIn today’s world of technology, there’s no denying the need for accessibility in all its forms. So how can we get there? To help answer this question, we spoke with Aaron Gustafson, instructor of Gymnasium’s free Modern Web Design course and Principal Strategist on Microsoft’s Accessibility Innovation Team.\nIn addition to leading the AI for Accessibility grant program, which works to improve independence for those with disabilities by funding the development of new assistive technologies, Gustafson works to identify and invest in technological advancements that improve access for everyone across the board.\nBut before we dive into the process of improving user experiences for all, it’s crucial to define and understand the scope of accessibility.\n💭 What is Accessibility?\nIn the realm of digital technology, the term “accessibility” is used to describe the extent to which the devices, systems, and tools we use to work and communicate are usable for all. More specifically, the W3C states in the latest edition of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines that all web content should be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust for every user.\n“When I first learned about accessibility, I only thought of it as making the web usable to people with screen readers… but I’ve come to understand how broad accessibility truly is,” Gustafson said. “To me, accessibility is doing everything we can to remove the barriers that prohibit people from being able to meaningfully participate and thrive in the world.”\nAccording to CDC data, 15% of the world’s population has a disability, and of those affected by disability in the U.S., 5% are blind or visually impaired while 6% are deaf or hearing impaired. It’s important to recognize that these numbers are likely much higher in reality, as many who live with a disability don’t self-identify as such.\nDesigners and developers take these differing experiences and capabilities into account when creating accessibility-focused features, which can be as simple as the ability to zoom in on a portion of text or as complex as text-to-speech software that dictates the content of images and videos. No matter the objective, their overarching goal is to ensure universal access regardless of user abilities.\n⚡ Current Challenges and Solutions\nIn addition to the W3C guidelines, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires websites, mobile apps, and other types of software and digital content to be accessible for all. Despite the mandate, some of the world’s most renowned tech companies continue to underestimate the need for accessibility. For example, Twitter recently launched a Voice Tweets feature without captions. The problem doesn’t end with the big names, either: 96.8% of all home pages have at least one accessibility error. As a starting point, brands and businesses need to become more aware of accessibility needs within their customer base.\n“Ultimately, the issue is awareness,” Gustafson explained. “The vast majority of web folks don’t understand the importance of accessibility because even the most basic level of testing isn’t even on their radar.”\nSo how can we raise consciousness and make accessibility a core tenant of development and design?\n“Better education in business schools, computer science and design programs, and developer bootcamps would go a long way,” Gustafson said. “Societal awareness is another big factor. This is why it’s so important to see people with disabilities accurately represented in media, like television and movies… I think most people, once aware of the barriers they’re erecting, will want to change the ways they do business, design, program, and generally conduct their lives to ensure more people are included.”\n👩🏽‍💻 Making Tech More Accessible\nAlthough there are many ways to work towards accessibility in tech, one popular strategy among larger companies is the use of Accessibility Overlays. This software is designed to automatically detect and fix accessibility problems at a mass scale using artificial intelligence. While the idea of an instant solution is appealing, its effectiveness pales in comparison to in-depth individualized fixes.\n“It’s akin to a home renovation in which you see that there’s a big hole in the wall and, rather than properly replace and mud in a fresh piece of drywall, you just wallpaper over it,” said Gustafson. “Adding an overlay does not solve your website’s fundamental accessibility problems. Those problems are a result of the non-inclusive business, design, and development processes. We should be thinking about how to build inclusive products from the jump.”\nRather than taking the easy way out, Gustafson recommends that companies invest in new tools and training for their teams on how to diagnose and remediate specific accessibility issues. There are a number of valuable free resources available, including browser plugin Accessibility Insights, which is able to diagnose problems such as color contrast and missing labels that can be detected programmatically. Whether you start small or go big, this investment in your team will make them “aware of the ways they erect barriers to accessibility so they naturally avoid making those mistakes.”\n“Accessibility work is important and has a tremendous impact on our society. Designing and building accessible experiences ensures our products and services can reach more people, which also impacts a company’s bottom line,” said Gustafson. “Whether you want to look at it from the altruistic perspective of working to empower your fellow human beings or you want to focus on the success of your business, accessibility is something you should be investing in.”\nInspired to take the next step towards ensuring accessibility for all? Gymnasium’s Accessibility Content Collection is chock-full of courses, tutorials, webinars, and articles to get you up to speed on web standards, best practices, and guidelines. To learn more about the world of accessibility and web design from Aaron Gustafson, register for his free Gymnasium course, Modern Web Design.\n\nAdvocating for Accessibility with Aaron Gustafson was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.", - "dc:creator": "Milo Goodman", - "guid": "https://medium.com/p/54079c132152", - "categories": [ - "design", - "technology", - "accessible-design", - "inclusive-design", - "accessibility" - ], - "isoDate": "2022-09-28T13:48:02.000Z" - }, - { - "creator": "Milo Goodman", - "title": "Meet the Metaverse: A Virtual World of Potential", - "link": "https://medium.com/gymnasium/meet-the-metaverse-a-virtual-world-of-potential-4bd2391cc837?source=rss----daab3174aa95---4", - "pubDate": "Fri, 08 Jul 2022 17:59:53 GMT", - "content:encoded": "
\"Three
Three people from the Gymnasium team meet in the metaverse at a virtual conference room using Spatial.

If you’re still not sure what the metaverse is, you’re not alone. Only half of people around the world are familiar with the concept, and even fewer can define it. Despite this, it’s evolved from a trending topic to a permanent fixture in the modern digital world, with major brands such as Facebook, now Meta, and Microsoft already exploring opportunities to introduce this new arena to their audiences. But what exactly is it — and what does it take to become a part of this growing virtual universe?

🔮 Defining the digital future

In essence, the metaverse is a shared virtual space powered by the Internet and enhanced through extended reality (XR) technologies like virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). It has the potential to facilitate meaningful, multidimensional user interactions and experiences by integrating the physical and digital worlds. Whether you want to talk to new friends from across the world, browse real or virtual products, or even build your own house from the ground up, it can all be done in the metaverse.

It may be a recent trending topic, but the metaverse isn’t actually a contemporary concept. Unsurprisingly, its origins are rooted in science fiction, namely the 1984 novel Neuromancer by William Gibson and the 1992 book Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. Gibson’s work introduces the concept of an interactive cyberspace known as “the matrix,” while Stephenson actually describes a virtual world called “the metaverse” (yes, he coined the term three decades ago). In Stephenson’s metaverse, users could pick an animated avatar to represent them, attend simulated events like live concerts, and even buy digital property. Sound familiar? Thirty years later, this idea of a 3D online universe has morphed from a geeky fantasy to a tangible, albeit virtual, reality.

Before the metaverse took form as a virtual world, there was also Second Life’s debut in 2003. Similar to the modern day metaverse, it was created as a venue for escapism and leisure. Users logged in to create intricate “second lives,” with some even marrying other players and raising families within the online platform. As Second Life grew, its experience evolved from fun fantasy into something more true to life with the introduction of property ownership rights, an in-world currency, and the ability to buy and sell goods.

Much like its unintentional prototypes, the modern-day metaverse is essentially a 3D version of the web — but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Metaverse proponents see the space as somewhere you’ll be able to develop and live your digital life parallel to the physical world, especially when it comes to developing and fostering relationships. Through the power of VR and AR, casual interactions and conversations can become highly immersive and reminiscent of real life.

Beyond the commercial hype of virtual fashion and shopping experiences, the technologies behind the blurred lines of the metaverse have the potential to redefine online interactions as much closer to the experience of doing so in person. In the words of Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta (formerly known as Facebook), the metaverse’s defining quality is “its feeling of presence, like you are right there with another person or in another place.”

So, how exactly does the metaverse cultivate the feeling that social media corporations have been trying to capture for over a decade? The difference lies in the various XR technologies that make the metaverse possible, specifically the combination of VR and AR.

🐝 Breaking down the buzzwords

The metaverse is designed to change the way that we consume content, transforming it from flat 2D to a fully immersive and dynamic 3D environment. This experiential metamorphosis wouldn’t be possible without XR, VR, and AR — three powerful technologies and hot topics that are often confused for one another. While they’re similar in effect, it’s important to understand the differences between what they can do, especially in the context of the metaverse.

XR encompasses both VR and AR, and it also includes MR (mixed reality) which combines real and virtual elements to create an entirely new world. VR’s value lies in its ability to produce a computer-generated, 3D space that users can interact with and explore. It’s come a long way from the clunky arcade helmets of the ’90s and early aughts, with sleek, sophisticated systems from brands such as Oculus and Google becoming accessible to the mainstream. These headsets provide 360-degree views and include motion-tracking sensors to blend physical and virtual reality. This technology and its sensory synchronicity allows the user to feel as though they’re part of the virtual environment, giving the metaverse the sense of presence that Zuckerberg touts.

For a different kind of interactive experience, AR takes elements of the real world and creates a new dimension by adding sound, images, or other stimuli — think Pokémon GO and branded Snapchat filters. In the metaverse, this might involve utilizing GPS data to personalize your surroundings or superimposing components of your actual environment into the landscape of a video game.

It’s important to underscore that to achieve a true XR, VR, or AR experience, users must be able to naturally interact with the virtual content. This level of immersion is what places the practice in a different category than everyday 3D movies and simulations, making way for the metaverse and its corresponding technologies to become the new digital frontier.

😎 Get immersed in the metaverse

To explore this new virtual world, all you really need is an Internet connection. While VR glasses can allow for a more three-dimensional encounter, there are multiple metaverses currently accessible online and offering a wide variety of free opportunities for all, regardless of your equipment or experience.

If you’re looking for fun in the metaverse, you should start with Nowhere. Chatting face-to-face with friends, interacting with performers at live shows, and even partying in a packed nightclub are possible in the space that brands itself as the “metaverse for entertainment.” Spatial, a social and cultural meeting space in the metaverse, also hosts a wide array of events including lectures, private gatherings, concerts, and user-curated art galleries with purchasable paintings. Spatial currently offers more than 350,000 virtual spaces to explore, all of which can be accessed via smartphone, computer, VR, and AR.

For community-based events and meetings, Gather is the answer. It takes the concept of Zoom to the metaverse, adding features like interactive whiteboards and games to make video chatting a more intuitive and dynamic experience.

Want to start creating immersive experiences of your own? First, you need to learn the basics. Check out Gymnasium’s free courses UX Fundamentals and 3D Modeling for Virtual Reality Creation to get started.

Relevant resources from Gymnasium

Dive deeper into the metaverse

\"\"

Meet the Metaverse: A Virtual World of Potential was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

", - "content:encodedSnippet": "Three people from the Gymnasium team meet in the metaverse at a virtual conference room using Spatial.\nIf you’re still not sure what the metaverse is, you’re not alone. Only half of people around the world are familiar with the concept, and even fewer can define it. Despite this, it’s evolved from a trending topic to a permanent fixture in the modern digital world, with major brands such as Facebook, now Meta, and Microsoft already exploring opportunities to introduce this new arena to their audiences. But what exactly is it — and what does it take to become a part of this growing virtual universe?\n🔮 Defining the digital future\nIn essence, the metaverse is a shared virtual space powered by the Internet and enhanced through extended reality (XR) technologies like virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). It has the potential to facilitate meaningful, multidimensional user interactions and experiences by integrating the physical and digital worlds. Whether you want to talk to new friends from across the world, browse real or virtual products, or even build your own house from the ground up, it can all be done in the metaverse.\nIt may be a recent trending topic, but the metaverse isn’t actually a contemporary concept. Unsurprisingly, its origins are rooted in science fiction, namely the 1984 novel Neuromancer by William Gibson and the 1992 book Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. Gibson’s work introduces the concept of an interactive cyberspace known as “the matrix,” while Stephenson actually describes a virtual world called “the metaverse” (yes, he coined the term three decades ago). In Stephenson’s metaverse, users could pick an animated avatar to represent them, attend simulated events like live concerts, and even buy digital property. Sound familiar? Thirty years later, this idea of a 3D online universe has morphed from a geeky fantasy to a tangible, albeit virtual, reality.\nBefore the metaverse took form as a virtual world, there was also Second Life’s debut in 2003. Similar to the modern day metaverse, it was created as a venue for escapism and leisure. Users logged in to create intricate “second lives,” with some even marrying other players and raising families within the online platform. As Second Life grew, its experience evolved from fun fantasy into something more true to life with the introduction of property ownership rights, an in-world currency, and the ability to buy and sell goods.\nMuch like its unintentional prototypes, the modern-day metaverse is essentially a 3D version of the web — but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Metaverse proponents see the space as somewhere you’ll be able to develop and live your digital life parallel to the physical world, especially when it comes to developing and fostering relationships. Through the power of VR and AR, casual interactions and conversations can become highly immersive and reminiscent of real life.\nBeyond the commercial hype of virtual fashion and shopping experiences, the technologies behind the blurred lines of the metaverse have the potential to redefine online interactions as much closer to the experience of doing so in person. In the words of Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta (formerly known as Facebook), the metaverse’s defining quality is “its feeling of presence, like you are right there with another person or in another place.”\nSo, how exactly does the metaverse cultivate the feeling that social media corporations have been trying to capture for over a decade? The difference lies in the various XR technologies that make the metaverse possible, specifically the combination of VR and AR.\n🐝 Breaking down the buzzwords\nThe metaverse is designed to change the way that we consume content, transforming it from flat 2D to a fully immersive and dynamic 3D environment. This experiential metamorphosis wouldn’t be possible without XR, VR, and AR — three powerful technologies and hot topics that are often confused for one another. While they’re similar in effect, it’s important to understand the differences between what they can do, especially in the context of the metaverse.\nXR encompasses both VR and AR, and it also includes MR (mixed reality) which combines real and virtual elements to create an entirely new world. VR’s value lies in its ability to produce a computer-generated, 3D space that users can interact with and explore. It’s come a long way from the clunky arcade helmets of the ’90s and early aughts, with sleek, sophisticated systems from brands such as Oculus and Google becoming accessible to the mainstream. These headsets provide 360-degree views and include motion-tracking sensors to blend physical and virtual reality. This technology and its sensory synchronicity allows the user to feel as though they’re part of the virtual environment, giving the metaverse the sense of presence that Zuckerberg touts.\nFor a different kind of interactive experience, AR takes elements of the real world and creates a new dimension by adding sound, images, or other stimuli — think Pokémon GO and branded Snapchat filters. In the metaverse, this might involve utilizing GPS data to personalize your surroundings or superimposing components of your actual environment into the landscape of a video game.\nIt’s important to underscore that to achieve a true XR, VR, or AR experience, users must be able to naturally interact with the virtual content. This level of immersion is what places the practice in a different category than everyday 3D movies and simulations, making way for the metaverse and its corresponding technologies to become the new digital frontier.\n😎 Get immersed in the metaverse\nTo explore this new virtual world, all you really need is an Internet connection. While VR glasses can allow for a more three-dimensional encounter, there are multiple metaverses currently accessible online and offering a wide variety of free opportunities for all, regardless of your equipment or experience.\nIf you’re looking for fun in the metaverse, you should start with Nowhere. Chatting face-to-face with friends, interacting with performers at live shows, and even partying in a packed nightclub are possible in the space that brands itself as the “metaverse for entertainment.” Spatial, a social and cultural meeting space in the metaverse, also hosts a wide array of events including lectures, private gatherings, concerts, and user-curated art galleries with purchasable paintings. Spatial currently offers more than 350,000 virtual spaces to explore, all of which can be accessed via smartphone, computer, VR, and AR.\nFor community-based events and meetings, Gather is the answer. It takes the concept of Zoom to the metaverse, adding features like interactive whiteboards and games to make video chatting a more intuitive and dynamic experience.\nWant to start creating immersive experiences of your own? First, you need to learn the basics. Check out Gymnasium’s free courses UX Fundamentals and 3D Modeling for Virtual Reality Creation to get started.\nRelevant resources from Gymnasium\n\nUsing Motion and Web Animation Responsibly\nCreating Accessible Web Animations\nCreating Accessible Audio and Video Content\n\nDive deeper into the metaverse\n\nWhy Every Brand Needs a Web3 & Metaverse Strategy\nWhat It Will Take for Augmented Reality to Become Our Reality\nValue Creation in the Metaverse\nMetaverse Technology: Unpacking the Hype\nDemystifying the Metaverse\nHow Brands Can Enter the Metaverse\nMarketers Explore Metaverse Worlds\nIt’s Time for Businesses to Embrace the Immersive Metaverse\nA Brand Guide to the Metaverse\n\nMeet the Metaverse: A Virtual World of Potential was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.", - "dc:creator": "Milo Goodman", - "guid": "https://medium.com/p/4bd2391cc837", - "categories": [ - "metaverse", - "ar", - "vr", - "augmented-reality", - "virtual-reality" - ], - "isoDate": "2022-07-08T17:59:53.000Z" - }, - { - "creator": "Milo Goodman", - "title": "Product Managers: Design Systems Are Your Business Too", - "link": "https://medium.com/gymnasium/product-managers-design-systems-are-your-business-too-8cc40767906f?source=rss----daab3174aa95---4", - "pubDate": "Mon, 11 Oct 2021 16:35:44 GMT", - "content:encoded": "
\"\"

Design systems have been a hot topic in the design and development community for years — and for good reason. Not only can design systems reduce silos and improve collaboration and communication between teams, but these living libraries can help these teams to create a consistent look and feel across a multichannel user experience.

With that being said, design systems aren’t just for designers. While designers and developers are instrumental in building and maintaining a design system, the inclusion and input of other voices to create a shared language is essential — product managers included.

Product managers are central to the success of design systems.

Product managers wear many hats and operate at the intersection of several teams. This is why, in the words of Gymnasium instructor Ethan Marcotte, product managers are in a unique position to bring order to a broader design system.

Even if your position doesn’t require you to work directly with a design system, it’s crucial for you to take the steps toward understanding its role in your organization, its impact on your teams, and its requirements for success.

“I think we all have a responsibility to support the creation and maintenance of a sustainable design system,” said Lola Sizemore, a product manager at Aquent. “Product managers need to work closely with UX designers and have a clear understanding and weigh in on the decisions behind design standards, especially when they impact the success of the user experience.”

Design systems make everyone’s job easier — including yours.

There’s no question that a thriving design system requires collaboration between employees across different departments and disciplines, especially product managers. On the flip side, a well-maintained design system can also help to make a product manager’s job easier.

Because design systems serve to streamline the product creation and adoption process, they increase efficiency and confidence in the product itself. Sizemore has experienced this firsthand at Aquent.

“Strong design systems really let product managers and their teams focus on building the best overall experience at a higher level without getting delayed or stuck on a design element,” she said. “Built-out design systems allow us to move forward with confidence in the user interface and its accessibility.”

Take the next step toward understanding design systems.

Whether you’re brand new to design systems or looking to expand your expertise, Gymnasium’s Design Systems for Product Managers course will equip you with the skills to understand and optimize your team’s design system. Enroll today for free to add a new skill to your set and ensure you and your team are on the track to success.

\"\"

Product Managers: Design Systems Are Your Business Too was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

", - "content:encodedSnippet": "Design systems have been a hot topic in the design and development community for years — and for good reason. Not only can design systems reduce silos and improve collaboration and communication between teams, but these living libraries can help these teams to create a consistent look and feel across a multichannel user experience.\nWith that being said, design systems aren’t just for designers. While designers and developers are instrumental in building and maintaining a design system, the inclusion and input of other voices to create a shared language is essential — product managers included.\nProduct managers are central to the success of design systems.\nProduct managers wear many hats and operate at the intersection of several teams. This is why, in the words of Gymnasium instructor Ethan Marcotte, product managers are in a unique position to bring order to a broader design system.\nEven if your position doesn’t require you to work directly with a design system, it’s crucial for you to take the steps toward understanding its role in your organization, its impact on your teams, and its requirements for success.\n“I think we all have a responsibility to support the creation and maintenance of a sustainable design system,” said Lola Sizemore, a product manager at Aquent. “Product managers need to work closely with UX designers and have a clear understanding and weigh in on the decisions behind design standards, especially when they impact the success of the user experience.”\nDesign systems make everyone’s job easier — including yours.\nThere’s no question that a thriving design system requires collaboration between employees across different departments and disciplines, especially product managers. On the flip side, a well-maintained design system can also help to make a product manager’s job easier.\nBecause design systems serve to streamline the product creation and adoption process, they increase efficiency and confidence in the product itself. Sizemore has experienced this firsthand at Aquent.\n“Strong design systems really let product managers and their teams focus on building the best overall experience at a higher level without getting delayed or stuck on a design element,” she said. “Built-out design systems allow us to move forward with confidence in the user interface and its accessibility.”\nTake the next step toward understanding design systems.\nWhether you’re brand new to design systems or looking to expand your expertise, Gymnasium’s Design Systems for Product Managers course will equip you with the skills to understand and optimize your team’s design system. Enroll today for free to add a new skill to your set and ensure you and your team are on the track to success.\n\nProduct Managers: Design Systems Are Your Business Too was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.", - "dc:creator": "Milo Goodman", - "guid": "https://medium.com/p/8cc40767906f", - "categories": [ - "programming", - "design-systems", - "product-management", - "web-development", - "design" - ], - "isoDate": "2021-10-11T16:35:44.000Z" - }, - { - "creator": "Milo Goodman", - "title": "Develop Your Design System with Four Free Courses", - "link": "https://medium.com/gymnasium/develop-your-design-system-with-four-free-courses-474a4bf20c81?source=rss----daab3174aa95---4", - "pubDate": "Fri, 30 Jul 2021 17:08:26 GMT", - "content:encoded": "
\"\"

In the words of Gymnasium instructor Brad Frost, design systems are “the official story of how an organization designs and builds products.” They serve as living libraries of essential coding and design elements, from standards and guidelines to patterns, with the aim of simplifying and streamlining the ever-complex product creation and adoption process.

By outlining a consistent, overarching design system, those involved in the design and development find themselves producing higher quality work with less time and effort wasted. As an added bonus, this type of structured documentation on the backend can result in a more consistent and cohesive user experience on the front end.

Design systems play an undeniably crucial role in bringing order to the chaos of code and design, but building and maintaining a thriving one can be daunting. Not sure where to begin? Gymnasium recently launched four free courses, taught by the one and only Ethan Marcotte, that tackle the topic from a variety of perspectives.

🎨 Are you a web or UX designer?

The growing ubiquity of design systems has had a major impact on designers and the way that they work alongside their teams, and a comprehensive understanding of these systems is more important than ever. In the Design Systems for Designers course, you’ll learn to build a design system from the ground up. With a focus on design, you’ll tackle the differences between pattern libraries and design systems, learn to extend the use of familiar tools like Figma, Sketch, and Adobe Creative Cloud, and discover next steps to elevate and advance your design system work.

⚙️ Do you code or consider yourself a developer?

Developers can play an integral part in both maintaining and shaping design systems, especially when it comes to the creation and organization of pattern libraries and other reusable components. With Design Systems for Developers, you’ll go beyond the basics to learn the “how” and “why” of design systems, review and practice methods for creating and integrating patterns into a production environment, and define the shape and structure of your own design system.

📈 Are you a product manager or owner?

Even if you don’t work directly with design systems, it’s helpful to understand their purpose, how your team works with them, and how you can help to create a successful one. Design Systems for Product Managers provides a high-level overview of design systems and pattern libraries, including common assumptions and problems, how to define your system’s purpose and principles, and ways to improve design system adoption and relevance.

🤓 Not in the above groups, but want to learn more about design systems?

You don’t have to be a designer or developer to take a deep dive into the world of design systems. Design Systems for Everyone outlines the fundamentals of design systems, from the concept’s definition and history to best practices for creating your own.

Design systems are here to stay, so think ahead now and thank yourself later. Whether you’re a designer or developer, a product manager or owner, or simply someone who wants to expand their skill set, Gymnasium and Ethan Marcotte have a free course tailored just for you.

\"\"

Develop Your Design System with Four Free Courses was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

", - "content:encodedSnippet": "In the words of Gymnasium instructor Brad Frost, design systems are “the official story of how an organization designs and builds products.” They serve as living libraries of essential coding and design elements, from standards and guidelines to patterns, with the aim of simplifying and streamlining the ever-complex product creation and adoption process.\nBy outlining a consistent, overarching design system, those involved in the design and development find themselves producing higher quality work with less time and effort wasted. As an added bonus, this type of structured documentation on the backend can result in a more consistent and cohesive user experience on the front end.\nDesign systems play an undeniably crucial role in bringing order to the chaos of code and design, but building and maintaining a thriving one can be daunting. Not sure where to begin? Gymnasium recently launched four free courses, taught by the one and only Ethan Marcotte, that tackle the topic from a variety of perspectives.\n🎨 Are you a web or UX designer?\nThe growing ubiquity of design systems has had a major impact on designers and the way that they work alongside their teams, and a comprehensive understanding of these systems is more important than ever. In the Design Systems for Designers course, you’ll learn to build a design system from the ground up. With a focus on design, you’ll tackle the differences between pattern libraries and design systems, learn to extend the use of familiar tools like Figma, Sketch, and Adobe Creative Cloud, and discover next steps to elevate and advance your design system work.\n⚙️ Do you code or consider yourself a developer?\nDevelopers can play an integral part in both maintaining and shaping design systems, especially when it comes to the creation and organization of pattern libraries and other reusable components. With Design Systems for Developers, you’ll go beyond the basics to learn the “how” and “why” of design systems, review and practice methods for creating and integrating patterns into a production environment, and define the shape and structure of your own design system.\n📈 Are you a product manager or owner?\nEven if you don’t work directly with design systems, it’s helpful to understand their purpose, how your team works with them, and how you can help to create a successful one. Design Systems for Product Managers provides a high-level overview of design systems and pattern libraries, including common assumptions and problems, how to define your system’s purpose and principles, and ways to improve design system adoption and relevance.\n🤓 Not in the above groups, but want to learn more about design systems?\nYou don’t have to be a designer or developer to take a deep dive into the world of design systems. Design Systems for Everyone outlines the fundamentals of design systems, from the concept’s definition and history to best practices for creating your own.\nDesign systems are here to stay, so think ahead now and thank yourself later. Whether you’re a designer or developer, a product manager or owner, or simply someone who wants to expand their skill set, Gymnasium and Ethan Marcotte have a free course tailored just for you.\n\nDevelop Your Design System with Four Free Courses was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.", - "dc:creator": "Milo Goodman", - "guid": "https://medium.com/p/474a4bf20c81", - "categories": [ - "design", - "design-systems", - "product-management", - "web-development", - "programming" - ], - "isoDate": "2021-07-30T17:08:26.000Z" - }, - { - "creator": "Milo Goodman", - "title": "Showing Up for Web Standards and Accessibility Year-Round", - "link": "https://medium.com/gymnasium/showing-up-for-web-standards-and-accessibility-year-round-ac60e604dca?source=rss----daab3174aa95---4", - "pubDate": "Mon, 22 Feb 2021 14:52:17 GMT", - "content:encoded": "
\"\"

You’ve likely heard of Blue Beanie Day, the annual worldwide celebration of web standards and accessibility on November 30th, but have you ever thought that one day just isn’t long enough?

In December, Gymnasium extended Blue Beanie Day into Blue Beanie Month, serving up an assortment of accessibility-focused content each day throughout social media. Gymnasium’s free courses and tutorials empower designers and developers alike to build accessible and inclusive experiences.

Take the first step and learn the fundamentals.

Gymnasium shared a two-part tutorial featuring Michael Vano of DEV6 and Jeremy Osborn, Gymnasium’s Academic Director, who demonstrate techniques for checking and fixing common website accessibility issues. The live coding lesson walks you through the multi-step process of improving your website through accessibility testing, all in under an hour.

Want to go beyond the basics of accessibility in design and development?

One course to check out is Modern Web Design, taught by web standards and accessibility advocate Aaron Gustafson, which serves as an introduction to front-end development with a focus on responsive design.

For a more detailed look at what goes into creating an accessible user experience, Designing Accessible and Responsive Websites with Ethan Marcotte outlines a series of front-end techniques to improve the accessibility of your website including designing better focus states, creating flexible typography, building viewport-aware layouts, and making accessible drop caps.

Short on time but still want to ensure your user experience is accessible?

Gymnasium’s Take 5 tutorials cover the essentials of key accessibility-related topics in just five minutes. Each short video shares helpful tips and tricks, such as how to properly implement color contrast, write effective alt text for your images, responsibly use motion and web animation, and improve form usability for everyone.

No matter how you approach the crucial endeavor of making your work accessible to all, Gymnasium’s collection of resources can help — every day of the year. Don your blue beanie and learn more at thegymnasium.com.

If you like this, you might want to check out these resources:

Another Blue Beanie Day by Jeffrey Zeldman

Understanding Progressive Enhancement by Aaron Gustafson

Ethan Marcotte on web design, accessibility and why it matters to journalists, digital storytellers by Miranda Mulligan

I Can See Clearly Now: Color and Accessibility in Design by Milo Goodman

\"\"

Showing Up for Web Standards and Accessibility Year-Round was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

", - "content:encodedSnippet": "You’ve likely heard of Blue Beanie Day, the annual worldwide celebration of web standards and accessibility on November 30th, but have you ever thought that one day just isn’t long enough?\nIn December, Gymnasium extended Blue Beanie Day into Blue Beanie Month, serving up an assortment of accessibility-focused content each day throughout social media. Gymnasium’s free courses and tutorials empower designers and developers alike to build accessible and inclusive experiences.\nTake the first step and learn the fundamentals.\nGymnasium shared a two-part tutorial featuring Michael Vano of DEV6 and Jeremy Osborn, Gymnasium’s Academic Director, who demonstrate techniques for checking and fixing common website accessibility issues. The live coding lesson walks you through the multi-step process of improving your website through accessibility testing, all in under an hour.\nWant to go beyond the basics of accessibility in design and development?\nOne course to check out is Modern Web Design, taught by web standards and accessibility advocate Aaron Gustafson, which serves as an introduction to front-end development with a focus on responsive design.\nFor a more detailed look at what goes into creating an accessible user experience, Designing Accessible and Responsive Websites with Ethan Marcotte outlines a series of front-end techniques to improve the accessibility of your website including designing better focus states, creating flexible typography, building viewport-aware layouts, and making accessible drop caps.\nShort on time but still want to ensure your user experience is accessible?\nGymnasium’s Take 5 tutorials cover the essentials of key accessibility-related topics in just five minutes. Each short video shares helpful tips and tricks, such as how to properly implement color contrast, write effective alt text for your images, responsibly use motion and web animation, and improve form usability for everyone.\nNo matter how you approach the crucial endeavor of making your work accessible to all, Gymnasium’s collection of resources can help — every day of the year. Don your blue beanie and learn more at thegymnasium.com.\nIf you like this, you might want to check out these resources:\nAnother Blue Beanie Day by Jeffrey Zeldman\nUnderstanding Progressive Enhancement by Aaron Gustafson\nEthan Marcotte on web design, accessibility and why it matters to journalists, digital storytellers by Miranda Mulligan\nI Can See Clearly Now: Color and Accessibility in Design by Milo Goodman\n\nShowing Up for Web Standards and Accessibility Year-Round was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.", - "dc:creator": "Milo Goodman", - "guid": "https://medium.com/p/ac60e604dca", - "categories": [ - "web-development", - "accessibility", - "web-design", - "inclusive-design", - "ux-design" - ], - "isoDate": "2021-02-22T14:52:17.000Z" - }, - { - "creator": "Milo Goodman", - "title": "Aquent Gymnasium Wins ASA Elevate Award — Again!", - "link": "https://medium.com/gymnasium/aquent-gymnasium-wins-asa-elevate-award-again-d97fe0841a57?source=rss----daab3174aa95---4", - "pubDate": "Mon, 30 Nov 2020 20:49:45 GMT", - "content:encoded": "

Aquent Gymnasium Wins ASA Elevate Award — Again!

\"\"

The American Staffing Association has honored Aquent Gymnasium with a 2020 Elevate Award. This is Gymnasium’s second win for its forward-thinking work-based learning programs.

With the support of Aquent, one of the world’s leading creative staffing agencies, Gymnasium provides practical training that’s accessible to everyone and bridges the gap between education and opportunity.

Gymnasium’s free, streamable courses cover topics such as web design and development, user experience, accessibility, career skills, prototyping, and content creation. These courses, informed by client and industry data, are developed by experts in the web community to equip students with in-demand skills.

Course projects make an excellent addition to any portfolio. Full Courses include 3 to 6 hours of video, quizzes, assignments, a final exam, and a shareable certificate when successfully completed. Gym Shorts include about 1 hour of video, a final exam, and a shareable badge when completed.

These records and credentials are integrated with Aquent’s talent management system to assist and benefit recruiters in their search. This has helped Aquent to provide skilled talent for placements and quality training to upskill clients’ own teams. To date, hundreds of newly-certified talent have been placed in roles.

Since receiving its first Elevate Award in 2018, Gymnasium has gained 41,526 new students and issued a total of 1,753 badges and 5,300 certificates. It also debuted a new content format known as Take 5 tutorials — free videos that teach practical skills in 5 minutes. Since launching in October 2019, Take 5 tutorials have been viewed over 28,210 times (amounting to 1,143+ hours of streaming.)

Over 1,000 new students join Gymnasium every month. Since launching in 2013, it has reached over 130,000 students from 188 countries. Gymnasium has seen over 125,000 course enrollments and issued over 12,000 certificates and badges. Its course lessons have been streamed well over 1 million times.

Learn more about what makes Gymnasium award-worthy at thegymnasium.com.

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Aquent Gymnasium Wins ASA Elevate Award — Again! was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

", - "content:encodedSnippet": "Aquent Gymnasium Wins ASA Elevate Award — Again!\n\nThe American Staffing Association has honored Aquent Gymnasium with a 2020 Elevate Award. This is Gymnasium’s second win for its forward-thinking work-based learning programs.\nWith the support of Aquent, one of the world’s leading creative staffing agencies, Gymnasium provides practical training that’s accessible to everyone and bridges the gap between education and opportunity.\nGymnasium’s free, streamable courses cover topics such as web design and development, user experience, accessibility, career skills, prototyping, and content creation. These courses, informed by client and industry data, are developed by experts in the web community to equip students with in-demand skills.\nCourse projects make an excellent addition to any portfolio. Full Courses include 3 to 6 hours of video, quizzes, assignments, a final exam, and a shareable certificate when successfully completed. Gym Shorts include about 1 hour of video, a final exam, and a shareable badge when completed.\nThese records and credentials are integrated with Aquent’s talent management system to assist and benefit recruiters in their search. This has helped Aquent to provide skilled talent for placements and quality training to upskill clients’ own teams. To date, hundreds of newly-certified talent have been placed in roles.\nSince receiving its first Elevate Award in 2018, Gymnasium has gained 41,526 new students and issued a total of 1,753 badges and 5,300 certificates. It also debuted a new content format known as Take 5 tutorials — free videos that teach practical skills in 5 minutes. Since launching in October 2019, Take 5 tutorials have been viewed over 28,210 times (amounting to 1,143+ hours of streaming.)\nOver 1,000 new students join Gymnasium every month. Since launching in 2013, it has reached over 130,000 students from 188 countries. Gymnasium has seen over 125,000 course enrollments and issued over 12,000 certificates and badges. Its course lessons have been streamed well over 1 million times.\nLearn more about what makes Gymnasium award-worthy at thegymnasium.com.\n\nAquent Gymnasium Wins ASA Elevate Award — Again! was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.", - "dc:creator": "Milo Goodman", - "guid": "https://medium.com/p/d97fe0841a57", - "categories": [ - "online-learning", - "staffing-and-recruiting", - "web-development", - "design", - "professional-development" - ], - "isoDate": "2020-11-30T20:49:45.000Z" - }, - { - "creator": "Milo Goodman", - "title": "I Can See Clearly Now: Color and Accessibility in Design", - "link": "https://medium.com/gymnasium/i-can-see-clearly-now-color-and-accessibility-in-design-1fe6382755ff?source=rss----daab3174aa95---4", - "pubDate": "Thu, 24 Sep 2020 21:11:52 GMT", - "content:encoded": "
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Have you ever spent hours tweaking the color palette of a design for a set of tints and shades that looked “just right”? Even if your goal is to make the user experience as visually pleasant as possible, you may be alienating a portion of your audience by prioritizing aesthetics over accessibility. While color choices are often in the client’s control and based on long-established brand identities and personal preferences, designers need to understand the guidelines for using proper color contrast in the context of accessibility. This means that what you design should be accessible for everybody, regardless of how they access or experience it.

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These colors look great on the court, but fall flat on the screen. Image courtesy of welcometoseason16.com.

Defining and Determining Color Contrast

If you’ve ever had difficulty reading something on a computer or phone screen because the typographic color was too dark or too light relative to the background, then you’re already familiar with the importance of high color contrast in design. The use of colors of a similar hue and intensity, known as low contrast colors, can prevent people with visual impairments from reading text or viewing content on a website. When we talk about contrast between colors, we’re mainly referencing the numerical ratio assigned to the difference in light between a given foreground and background. An accessible design would have a high contrast ratio, or a high difference in light, between the colors featured in text, images, links, buttons, and icons.

Imagine a website with pale yellow text on a white button — that kind of low contrast combination would make it difficult or even impossible for most people to comfortably read the words on the screen. On the other hand, changing the yellow to a dark shade of purple would ensure that the content is easy for everyone to see against the light background.

Although accessibility optimization typically falls into the hands of developers, color contrast compliance is one way that designers can directly take part. The key way to determine if your design has sufficient contrast is to confirm that it adheres to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) standards as defined by the Web Accessibility Initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium. WCAG’s minimum success criterion, SC 1.4.3, dictates the lowest color contrast that is considered accessible. These guidelines say that normal-sized text, including pictures of text, requires a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 while larger text (18px/1.5em or larger, or if bolded, 14px/1.2em or larger) needs a contrast ratio of at least 3:1. To learn more and see the difference clearly for yourself, check out WebAIM’s handy contrast checker.

Designing for a Better Experience

While the issue of color contrast is particularly relevant for those with visual disabilities, prioritizing this kind of accessibility can make your website more easy to navigate. Accessibility is synonymous with usability, and everyone benefits when a website is designed with usability at top of mind. While increased contrast mainly serves to help people who perceive color differently, it can also create a better experience for anyone who happens to be browsing in the glare of bright sunlight, as they make their way down a busy street, or while squinting at a screen in the dark.

Although creating a fully accessible design is never an easy task, ensuring adequate color contrast is a great way to begin the process. In addition to guaranteeing that your product is usable to a wider audience, you’ll be taking a step in the right direction when it comes to making the web a more inclusive place for everyone.

Interested in learning more on how to make your design more accessible? Head over to Gymnasium’s new Accessibility Collection to explore free courses, tutorials, and resources on the topic.

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I Can See Clearly Now: Color and Accessibility in Design was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

", - "content:encodedSnippet": "Have you ever spent hours tweaking the color palette of a design for a set of tints and shades that looked “just right”? Even if your goal is to make the user experience as visually pleasant as possible, you may be alienating a portion of your audience by prioritizing aesthetics over accessibility. While color choices are often in the client’s control and based on long-established brand identities and personal preferences, designers need to understand the guidelines for using proper color contrast in the context of accessibility. This means that what you design should be accessible for everybody, regardless of how they access or experience it.\nThese colors look great on the court, but fall flat on the screen. Image courtesy of welcometoseason16.com.\nDefining and Determining Color Contrast\nIf you’ve ever had difficulty reading something on a computer or phone screen because the typographic color was too dark or too light relative to the background, then you’re already familiar with the importance of high color contrast in design. The use of colors of a similar hue and intensity, known as low contrast colors, can prevent people with visual impairments from reading text or viewing content on a website. When we talk about contrast between colors, we’re mainly referencing the numerical ratio assigned to the difference in light between a given foreground and background. An accessible design would have a high contrast ratio, or a high difference in light, between the colors featured in text, images, links, buttons, and icons.\nImagine a website with pale yellow text on a white button — that kind of low contrast combination would make it difficult or even impossible for most people to comfortably read the words on the screen. On the other hand, changing the yellow to a dark shade of purple would ensure that the content is easy for everyone to see against the light background.\nAlthough accessibility optimization typically falls into the hands of developers, color contrast compliance is one way that designers can directly take part. The key way to determine if your design has sufficient contrast is to confirm that it adheres to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) standards as defined by the Web Accessibility Initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium. WCAG’s minimum success criterion, SC 1.4.3, dictates the lowest color contrast that is considered accessible. These guidelines say that normal-sized text, including pictures of text, requires a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 while larger text (18px/1.5em or larger, or if bolded, 14px/1.2em or larger) needs a contrast ratio of at least 3:1. To learn more and see the difference clearly for yourself, check out WebAIM’s handy contrast checker.\nDesigning for a Better Experience\nWhile the issue of color contrast is particularly relevant for those with visual disabilities, prioritizing this kind of accessibility can make your website more easy to navigate. Accessibility is synonymous with usability, and everyone benefits when a website is designed with usability at top of mind. While increased contrast mainly serves to help people who perceive color differently, it can also create a better experience for anyone who happens to be browsing in the glare of bright sunlight, as they make their way down a busy street, or while squinting at a screen in the dark.\nAlthough creating a fully accessible design is never an easy task, ensuring adequate color contrast is a great way to begin the process. In addition to guaranteeing that your product is usable to a wider audience, you’ll be taking a step in the right direction when it comes to making the web a more inclusive place for everyone.\nInterested in learning more on how to make your design more accessible? Head over to Gymnasium’s new Accessibility Collection to explore free courses, tutorials, and resources on the topic.\n\nI Can See Clearly Now: Color and Accessibility in Design was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.", - "dc:creator": "Milo Goodman", - "guid": "https://medium.com/p/1fe6382755ff", - "categories": ["accessibility", "ux-design", "ux", "colors", "design"], - "isoDate": "2020-09-24T21:11:52.000Z" - }, - { - "creator": "Aquent Gymnasium", - "title": "Introducing the Nominees for the 2017 Gymnasium Excellence in Learning Award: Romuald Tisserand", - "link": "https://medium.com/gymnasium/introducing-the-nominees-for-the-2017-gymnasium-excellence-in-learning-award-romuald-tisserand-222f47aa6187?source=rss-695048b8f911------2", - "pubDate": "Wed, 05 Apr 2017 14:22:50 GMT", - "content:encoded": "
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Romuald Tisserand is one of four nominees selected for our Gymnasium Excellence in Learning Award. This award is sponsored by Aquent and Vitamin T and serves to spotlight a Europe-based individual who has demonstrated enthusiasm and initiative for learning in 2016. With a prize of a trophy as well as the coveted Standards Collection of ebooks from our friends at A Book Apart, the award both recognizes the hard work of the honoree and equips them with the tools necessary to assist them in continuing their efforts. Though Laure Navarro was ultimately named the winner, read on to learn why Romuald and his work caught our attention.

Romuald initially started taking courses at Gymnasium to gain new skills and satisfy his curiosity about web development and user experience (UX) design, and he found that the classes were “the most accessible I’ve found; really well set up and with a good difficulty pace.” The UX Fundamentals course in particular helped him master the craft and pass the entry exam at Gobelins, a renowned Paris-based graphic arts school.

In addition to completing our Responsive Web Design, UX Fundamentals, and Javascript Foundations courses, Romuald has produced a variety of projects that can be seen on his GitHub page and his company’s website. Romuald plans to enroll in additional Gymnasium classes with the goal of learning more about coding and creating user interfaces.

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Introducing the Nominees for the 2017 Gymnasium Excellence in Learning Award: Romuald Tisserand was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

", - "content:encodedSnippet": "Romuald Tisserand is one of four nominees selected for our Gymnasium Excellence in Learning Award. This award is sponsored by Aquent and Vitamin T and serves to spotlight a Europe-based individual who has demonstrated enthusiasm and initiative for learning in 2016. With a prize of a trophy as well as the coveted Standards Collection of ebooks from our friends at A Book Apart, the award both recognizes the hard work of the honoree and equips them with the tools necessary to assist them in continuing their efforts. Though Laure Navarro was ultimately named the winner, read on to learn why Romuald and his work caught our attention.\nRomuald initially started taking courses at Gymnasium to gain new skills and satisfy his curiosity about web development and user experience (UX) design, and he found that the classes were “the most accessible I’ve found; really well set up and with a good difficulty pace.” The UX Fundamentals course in particular helped him master the craft and pass the entry exam at Gobelins, a renowned Paris-based graphic arts school.\nIn addition to completing our Responsive Web Design, UX Fundamentals, and Javascript Foundations courses, Romuald has produced a variety of projects that can be seen on his GitHub page and his company’s website. Romuald plans to enroll in additional Gymnasium classes with the goal of learning more about coding and creating user interfaces.\n\nIntroducing the Nominees for the 2017 Gymnasium Excellence in Learning Award: Romuald Tisserand was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.", - "dc:creator": "Aquent Gymnasium", - "guid": "https://medium.com/p/222f47aa6187", - "categories": ["mooc", "ux", "design", "github", "responsive-design"], - "isoDate": "2017-04-05T14:22:50.000Z" - }, - { - "creator": "Aquent Gymnasium", - "title": "Introducing the Nominees for the 2017 Gymnasium Excellence in Learning Award: Alvaro Triano", - "link": "https://medium.com/gymnasium/introducing-the-nominees-for-the-2017-gymnasium-excellence-in-learning-award-alvaro-triano-2fb692695811?source=rss-695048b8f911------2", - "pubDate": "Fri, 31 Mar 2017 20:31:00 GMT", - "content:encoded": "
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Alvaro Triano is one of four nominees selected for our Gymnasium Excellence in Learning Award. This award is sponsored by Aquent and Vitamin T and serves to spotlight a Europe-based individual who has demonstrated enthusiasm and initiative for learning in 2016. With a prize of a trophy as well as the coveted Standards Collection of ebooks from our friends at A Book Apart, the award both recognizes the hard work of the honoree and equips them with the tools necessary to assist them in continuing their efforts. Though Laure Navarro was ultimately named the winner, read on to learn why Alvaro and his work caught our attention.

Alvaro is a Madrid-based freelance graphic designer who credits our courses for helping him to understand American design terminology. After successfully completing Coding For Designers, UX Fundamentals, and Information Design and Visualization Fundamentals, Alvaro was able to apply what he learned to his job as a professional graphic designer. His work, which includes infographic and logo designs and layouts, can be seen in his online portfolio. His portfolio work demonstrates a solid command of type, color, and layout, and his logo design in particular caught the judge’s eye and demonstrates that he has a promising future in the field of design.

Thanks to Milo Goodman for his contribution to this story.

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Introducing the Nominees for the 2017 Gymnasium Excellence in Learning Award: Alvaro Triano was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

", - "content:encodedSnippet": "Alvaro Triano is one of four nominees selected for our Gymnasium Excellence in Learning Award. This award is sponsored by Aquent and Vitamin T and serves to spotlight a Europe-based individual who has demonstrated enthusiasm and initiative for learning in 2016. With a prize of a trophy as well as the coveted Standards Collection of ebooks from our friends at A Book Apart, the award both recognizes the hard work of the honoree and equips them with the tools necessary to assist them in continuing their efforts. Though Laure Navarro was ultimately named the winner, read on to learn why Alvaro and his work caught our attention.\nAlvaro is a Madrid-based freelance graphic designer who credits our courses for helping him to understand American design terminology. After successfully completing Coding For Designers, UX Fundamentals, and Information Design and Visualization Fundamentals, Alvaro was able to apply what he learned to his job as a professional graphic designer. His work, which includes infographic and logo designs and layouts, can be seen in his online portfolio. His portfolio work demonstrates a solid command of type, color, and layout, and his logo design in particular caught the judge’s eye and demonstrates that he has a promising future in the field of design.\nThanks to Milo Goodman for his contribution to this story.\n\nIntroducing the Nominees for the 2017 Gymnasium Excellence in Learning Award: Alvaro Triano was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.", - "dc:creator": "Aquent Gymnasium", - "guid": "https://medium.com/p/2fb692695811", - "categories": ["design", "graphic-design", "madrid", "web-design"], - "isoDate": "2017-03-31T20:31:00.000Z" - }, - { - "creator": "Aquent Gymnasium", - "title": "Introducing the Nominees for the 2017 Gymnasium Excellence in Learning Award: Douglas Smith", - "link": "https://medium.com/gymnasium/https-medium-com-gymnasiumtweets-gymnasium-excellence-in-learning-award-douglas-smith-1a849d3939c3?source=rss-695048b8f911------2", - "pubDate": "Mon, 27 Mar 2017 13:48:12 GMT", - "content:encoded": "
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Douglas Smith is one of four nominees selected for our Gymnasium Excellence in Learning Award. This award is sponsored by Aquent and Vitamin T and serves to spotlight a Europe-based individual who has demonstrated enthusiasm and initiative for learning in 2016. With a prize of a trophy as well as the coveted Standards Collection of ebooks from our friends at A Book Apart, the award both recognizes the hard work of the honoree and equips them with the tools necessary to assist them in continuing their efforts. Though Laure Navarro was ultimately named the winner, read on to learn why Douglas and his work caught our attention.

Douglas, a copywriter, says he was initially interested in our Writing For Web & Mobile course as he wanted to expand his understanding of the topic and had heard that Gymnasium classes are “very thorough and completely professionally-oriented rather than being sales-y or full of hype.” The course, which covers content creation, the role of design, keyword research, search engine optimization (SEO) writing, and user experience (UX), gave Doug the confidence to “press ahead to practice this new knowledge and seek work in this field,” and even inspired his longest blog post describing the meaning and relevance of SEO.

The course influenced the creation of multiple pieces of work as showcased in his online portfolio, including copy for page tags and meta descriptions. As Douglas put it, the knowledge and skills taught in the course play a role in his everyday professional life as “the course’s main thrust of creating content around feedback from highest-value clients and studying the language used by target audiences has formed the keystone of all conversations with potential clients.”

Thanks to Milo Goodman for his contribution to this story.

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Introducing the Nominees for the 2017 Gymnasium Excellence in Learning Award: Douglas Smith was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

", - "content:encodedSnippet": "Douglas Smith is one of four nominees selected for our Gymnasium Excellence in Learning Award. This award is sponsored by Aquent and Vitamin T and serves to spotlight a Europe-based individual who has demonstrated enthusiasm and initiative for learning in 2016. With a prize of a trophy as well as the coveted Standards Collection of ebooks from our friends at A Book Apart, the award both recognizes the hard work of the honoree and equips them with the tools necessary to assist them in continuing their efforts. Though Laure Navarro was ultimately named the winner, read on to learn why Douglas and his work caught our attention.\nDouglas, a copywriter, says he was initially interested in our Writing For Web & Mobile course as he wanted to expand his understanding of the topic and had heard that Gymnasium classes are “very thorough and completely professionally-oriented rather than being sales-y or full of hype.” The course, which covers content creation, the role of design, keyword research, search engine optimization (SEO) writing, and user experience (UX), gave Doug the confidence to “press ahead to practice this new knowledge and seek work in this field,” and even inspired his longest blog post describing the meaning and relevance of SEO.\nThe course influenced the creation of multiple pieces of work as showcased in his online portfolio, including copy for page tags and meta descriptions. As Douglas put it, the knowledge and skills taught in the course play a role in his everyday professional life as “the course’s main thrust of creating content around feedback from highest-value clients and studying the language used by target audiences has formed the keystone of all conversations with potential clients.”\nThanks to Milo Goodman for his contribution to this story.\n\nIntroducing the Nominees for the 2017 Gymnasium Excellence in Learning Award: Douglas Smith was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.", - "dc:creator": "Aquent Gymnasium", - "guid": "https://medium.com/p/1a849d3939c3", - "categories": [ - "web-design", - "content-marketing", - "digital-marketing", - "seo", - "writing" - ], - "isoDate": "2017-03-27T13:48:12.000Z" - }, - { - "creator": "Aquent Gymnasium", - "title": "Introducing the Nominees for the 2017 Gymnasium Excellence in Learning Award: Ania Kierczynska", - "link": "https://medium.com/gymnasium/introducing-the-nominees-for-the-2017-gymnasium-excellence-in-learning-award-ania-kierczynska-88a15e254e82?source=rss-695048b8f911------2", - "pubDate": "Thu, 23 Mar 2017 20:00:32 GMT", - "content:encoded": "
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Ania Kierczynska is one of four nominees selected for our Gymnasium Excellence in Learning Award. This award is sponsored by Aquent and Vitamin T and serves to spotlight a Europe-based individual who has demonstrated enthusiasm and initiative for learning in 2016. With a prize of a trophy as well as the coveted Standards Collection of ebooks from our friends at A Book Apart, the award both recognizes the hard work of the honoree and equips them with the tools necessary to assist them in continuing their efforts. Though Laure Navarro was ultimately named the winner, read on to learn why Anna and her work caught our attention.

Ania, an Agile Project Manager who works closely with content editors, designers, and developers, initially took our User Experience (UX) Fundamentals, Writing For Web & Mobile, and Coding For Designers courses to learn the basics of content creation, CSS, HTML, and web design. The UX Fundamentals course in particular, which was created for both designers aiming to learn how to apply user-centric design principles to their work and non-designers who work directly with design teams or on design projects, helped her to “become more efficient at work―not only in managing projects, but in understanding my colleagues who work in other areas and being able to support them if needed.” The classes also helped her to understand the importance of audience research, UX best practices, and consumer insight.

Thanks to Milo Goodman for his contribution to this story.

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Introducing the Nominees for the 2017 Gymnasium Excellence in Learning Award: Ania Kierczynska was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

", - "content:encodedSnippet": "Ania Kierczynska is one of four nominees selected for our Gymnasium Excellence in Learning Award. This award is sponsored by Aquent and Vitamin T and serves to spotlight a Europe-based individual who has demonstrated enthusiasm and initiative for learning in 2016. With a prize of a trophy as well as the coveted Standards Collection of ebooks from our friends at A Book Apart, the award both recognizes the hard work of the honoree and equips them with the tools necessary to assist them in continuing their efforts. Though Laure Navarro was ultimately named the winner, read on to learn why Anna and her work caught our attention.\nAnia, an Agile Project Manager who works closely with content editors, designers, and developers, initially took our User Experience (UX) Fundamentals, Writing For Web & Mobile, and Coding For Designers courses to learn the basics of content creation, CSS, HTML, and web design. The UX Fundamentals course in particular, which was created for both designers aiming to learn how to apply user-centric design principles to their work and non-designers who work directly with design teams or on design projects, helped her to “become more efficient at work―not only in managing projects, but in understanding my colleagues who work in other areas and being able to support them if needed.” The classes also helped her to understand the importance of audience research, UX best practices, and consumer insight.\nThanks to Milo Goodman for his contribution to this story.\n\nIntroducing the Nominees for the 2017 Gymnasium Excellence in Learning Award: Ania Kierczynska was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.", - "dc:creator": "Aquent Gymnasium", - "guid": "https://medium.com/p/88a15e254e82", - "categories": ["mooc", "online-learning", "ux", "design", "europe"], - "isoDate": "2017-03-23T20:00:32.000Z" - }, - { - "creator": "Aquent Gymnasium", - "title": "French Designer Laure Navarro Wins the 2017 Gymnasium Excellence in Online Learning Award", - "link": "https://medium.com/gymnasium/french-graphic-designer-laure-navarro-wins-the-2017-gymnasium-excellence-in-online-learning-award-41b0bd3a10e5?source=rss-695048b8f911------2", - "pubDate": "Mon, 20 Mar 2017 13:52:10 GMT", - "content:encoded": "

Aquent Gymnasium is pleased to award French product designer Laure Navarro with the first-ever Gymnasium Talent Award for Excellence in Online Learning. This award was given as part of the 2017 Aquent Talent Awards which recognizes excellence in design, UX, content, motion design, illustration from creative professionals across Europe.

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Laure Navarro

Chosen from amongst many impressive nominees who exemplified the qualities of an engaged learner, Laure demonstrated her online learning prowess with the completion and certification of three Gymnasium courses, Responsive Web Design, UX Fundamentals, and Information Design & Data Visualization; the quality of her project work; and, ultimately, her new job as a product designer.

“Laure’s work was especially impressive. Her responsive portfolio website, Minus28.com, demonstrates her knowledge of all that she has learned and her blog chronicles her learning for others,” said Jeremy Osborn, Academic Director at Gymnasium.

In addition to a trophy presented to Laure at the Aquent Awards Party in Paris on March 9th, she also received the Web Standards Collection from ABookApart.com as her prize. Jeremy’s interview with Laure follows.

Jeremy Osborn: What motivated you to register with Gymnasium?

Laure Navarro: I started to use Gymnasium more than a year ago. I was just finishing a course in Industrial Design at the Umeå Institute of Design (Sweden) that I took after a degree in Engineering and while looking for a job, I decided to keep following courses online to widen my vision of design. I had some basic knowledge in UX but wanted to learn more and that’s how I ended up on Gymnasium.

I’m glad I found courses like Gymnasium’s ones and hope they will be helpful for many people like it was for me.

JO: What were your education goals?

LN: My goal was to get better in this field and rapidly. I thought that learning the basics of web design and coding would go great with UX.

JO: What was your experience with our courses? Did they help you get a job?

LN: I really enjoyed the way each course is made, with short videos, quizzes and some homework. It’s really easy to follow and you can go at your own pace.

The courses actually pushed me to create a website from scratch: minus28.com. I could add to my cv some lines and actually got a first job interview for a Product/UX design position, unfortunately they didn’t pick me.

But following these courses finally paid off: I could create more projects for my portfolio laurenavarro.wixsite.com/portfolio (for example “Myks”) and a company in France hired me as a Designer. They liked my broad skills not only focused in product design. And considering how much UX and the internet of things are growing, my profile convinced them.

I’m totally sure that without my own website, the projects on my portfolio and the courses I could add to my CV they wouldn’t have even considered my application. I’m glad I found courses like Gymnasium’s ones and hope they will be helpful for many people like it was for me.

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French Designer Laure Navarro Wins the 2017 Gymnasium Excellence in Online Learning Award was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

", - "content:encodedSnippet": "Aquent Gymnasium is pleased to award French product designer Laure Navarro with the first-ever Gymnasium Talent Award for Excellence in Online Learning. This award was given as part of the 2017 Aquent Talent Awards which recognizes excellence in design, UX, content, motion design, illustration from creative professionals across Europe.\nLaure Navarro\nChosen from amongst many impressive nominees who exemplified the qualities of an engaged learner, Laure demonstrated her online learning prowess with the completion and certification of three Gymnasium courses, Responsive Web Design, UX Fundamentals, and Information Design & Data Visualization; the quality of her project work; and, ultimately, her new job as a product designer.\n“Laure’s work was especially impressive. Her responsive portfolio website, Minus28.com, demonstrates her knowledge of all that she has learned and her blog chronicles her learning for others,” said Jeremy Osborn, Academic Director at Gymnasium.\nIn addition to a trophy presented to Laure at the Aquent Awards Party in Paris on March 9th, she also received the Web Standards Collection from ABookApart.com as her prize. Jeremy’s interview with Laure follows.\nJeremy Osborn: What motivated you to register with Gymnasium?\nLaure Navarro: I started to use Gymnasium more than a year ago. I was just finishing a course in Industrial Design at the Umeå Institute of Design (Sweden) that I took after a degree in Engineering and while looking for a job, I decided to keep following courses online to widen my vision of design. I had some basic knowledge in UX but wanted to learn more and that’s how I ended up on Gymnasium.\nI’m glad I found courses like Gymnasium’s ones and hope they will be helpful for many people like it was for me.\nJO: What were your education goals?\nLN: My goal was to get better in this field and rapidly. I thought that learning the basics of web design and coding would go great with UX.\nJO: What was your experience with our courses? Did they help you get a job?\nLN: I really enjoyed the way each course is made, with short videos, quizzes and some homework. It’s really easy to follow and you can go at your own pace.\nThe courses actually pushed me to create a website from scratch: minus28.com. I could add to my cv some lines and actually got a first job interview for a Product/UX design position, unfortunately they didn’t pick me.\nBut following these courses finally paid off: I could create more projects for my portfolio laurenavarro.wixsite.com/portfolio (for example “Myks”) and a company in France hired me as a Designer. They liked my broad skills not only focused in product design. And considering how much UX and the internet of things are growing, my profile convinced them.\nI’m totally sure that without my own website, the projects on my portfolio and the courses I could add to my CV they wouldn’t have even considered my application. I’m glad I found courses like Gymnasium’s ones and hope they will be helpful for many people like it was for me.\n\nFrench Designer Laure Navarro Wins the 2017 Gymnasium Excellence in Online Learning Award was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.", - "dc:creator": "Aquent Gymnasium", - "guid": "https://medium.com/p/41b0bd3a10e5", - "categories": ["graphic-design", "ux", "online-learning", "mooc", "design"], - "isoDate": "2017-03-20T13:52:10.000Z" - }, - { - "creator": "Aquent Gymnasium", - "title": "Learning New Skills Can Change Your Life", - "link": "https://medium.com/gymnasium/learning-new-skills-can-change-your-life-a40124879d3d?source=rss-695048b8f911------2", - "pubDate": "Sun, 26 Feb 2017 00:44:17 GMT", - "content:encoded": "

Part III: Overcoming Economic Barriers

While Girls Who Code and The Last Mile provide access to skill-building resources to counter institutional inequalities, a nonprofit called Bit Source is using skill-based education to address economic changes that have impacted entire populations. As the nation’s coal industry has collapsed, Kentucky in particular has been hit hard; this past spring, coal jobs in the state fell to the lowest level since 1898. Left behind by the fall of coal production and the changing job market, the former mine workers at Bit Source in Pikeville, Kentucky upgraded their skill sets by learning app, game, software, and web programming and design. This training has enabled these displaced workers to refocus their passion and revitalize their careers.

\"\"
Michael Harrison, right, at BitSource, an internet start-up in Pikeville, Ky. Credit George Etheredge for The New York Times.

While skill-based education is changing the world by leveling the playing field, it also has the potential to close the skills gap. On a national level, this gap — between those employers want and those applicants have — is widening: the United States currently has 5.6 million job openings, a near record high, and 7.8 million unemployed citizens. Experts predict that if the gap isn’t bridged by 2020, there could be up to 25 million vacant jobs in all fields combined. The gap could shrink if job seekers, be they new graduates or experienced professionals, start to take skills development into their own hands.

Free online courses are ideal for those who are digitally proficient and operate on their own schedule, with the majority of online classes allowing students to go at an individualized, flexible pace. As a result of all the new and accessible options for online education, every type of learner has the opportunity to acquire new skills and create a brighter and broader future for themselves on their own terms.

Thanks to Milo Goodman for his contribution to this story.

\"\"

Learning New Skills Can Change Your Life was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

", - "content:encodedSnippet": "Part III: Overcoming Economic Barriers\nWhile Girls Who Code and The Last Mile provide access to skill-building resources to counter institutional inequalities, a nonprofit called Bit Source is using skill-based education to address economic changes that have impacted entire populations. As the nation’s coal industry has collapsed, Kentucky in particular has been hit hard; this past spring, coal jobs in the state fell to the lowest level since 1898. Left behind by the fall of coal production and the changing job market, the former mine workers at Bit Source in Pikeville, Kentucky upgraded their skill sets by learning app, game, software, and web programming and design. This training has enabled these displaced workers to refocus their passion and revitalize their careers.\nMichael Harrison, right, at BitSource, an internet start-up in Pikeville, Ky. Credit George Etheredge for The New York Times.\nWhile skill-based education is changing the world by leveling the playing field, it also has the potential to close the skills gap. On a national level, this gap — between those employers want and those applicants have — is widening: the United States currently has 5.6 million job openings, a near record high, and 7.8 million unemployed citizens. Experts predict that if the gap isn’t bridged by 2020, there could be up to 25 million vacant jobs in all fields combined. The gap could shrink if job seekers, be they new graduates or experienced professionals, start to take skills development into their own hands.\nFree online courses are ideal for those who are digitally proficient and operate on their own schedule, with the majority of online classes allowing students to go at an individualized, flexible pace. As a result of all the new and accessible options for online education, every type of learner has the opportunity to acquire new skills and create a brighter and broader future for themselves on their own terms.\nThanks to Milo Goodman for his contribution to this story.\n\nLearning New Skills Can Change Your Life was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.", - "dc:creator": "Aquent Gymnasium", - "guid": "https://medium.com/p/a40124879d3d", - "categories": ["education", "future-of-work"], - "isoDate": "2017-02-26T00:44:17.000Z" - }, - { - "creator": "Aquent Gymnasium", - "title": "Learning New Skills Can Change Your Life", - "link": "https://medium.com/gymnasium/learning-new-skills-can-change-your-life-7d20b867a1ca?source=rss-695048b8f911------2", - "pubDate": "Sun, 26 Feb 2017 00:44:06 GMT", - "content:encoded": "

Part II: Helping Former Felons Forge a Path to Employment

In Part I of this series, we focused on Girls Who Code, an organization that is helping to close gender and race gaps in science, math, engineering, and technology through skill-based education. Other nonprofits utilize this tactic to bridge institutional gaps; for example, The Last Mile is an organization that tackles the issues of recidivism and rehabilitation by teaching incarcerated men to code. With the goal of equipping underprivileged Californian prisoners with the skills they need to reenter the job market post-release, their program teaches everything from HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and Python to web design and data visualization. Because 76% of prisoners are rearrested within five years of their release, skill-based education is vital to break the cycle of incarceration and help these men re-enter their communities. As most of the inmates were imprisoned before the rise of the Internet, The Last Mile provides them with hope and the in-demand skills that would otherwise remain out of their reach.

\"\"
Inmates at the San Quentin computer lab. Photo: Andrew Landini.

Despite the presence of programs like The Last Mile, there are still countless obstacles that impede those with felony convictions from gaining employment. We looked into our own policies about hiring former felons, and found that there are no limitations. However, many of our clients, especially those in highly-regulated industries, require extensive background checks that often end up excluding those with certain types of convictions. Organizations such as Help For Felons and Jail to Job have formed in an effort to combat this and help those who are ready to return to work but unable to find any.

Keep an eye out for our final installment in this series, which will focus on the role of skill-based education in helping displaced coal mine workers to find alternative means of employment.

Thanks to Milo Goodman for his contribution to this story.

\"\"

Learning New Skills Can Change Your Life was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

", - "content:encodedSnippet": "Part II: Helping Former Felons Forge a Path to Employment\nIn Part I of this series, we focused on Girls Who Code, an organization that is helping to close gender and race gaps in science, math, engineering, and technology through skill-based education. Other nonprofits utilize this tactic to bridge institutional gaps; for example, The Last Mile is an organization that tackles the issues of recidivism and rehabilitation by teaching incarcerated men to code. With the goal of equipping underprivileged Californian prisoners with the skills they need to reenter the job market post-release, their program teaches everything from HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and Python to web design and data visualization. Because 76% of prisoners are rearrested within five years of their release, skill-based education is vital to break the cycle of incarceration and help these men re-enter their communities. As most of the inmates were imprisoned before the rise of the Internet, The Last Mile provides them with hope and the in-demand skills that would otherwise remain out of their reach.\nInmates at the San Quentin computer lab. Photo: Andrew Landini.\nDespite the presence of programs like The Last Mile, there are still countless obstacles that impede those with felony convictions from gaining employment. We looked into our own policies about hiring former felons, and found that there are no limitations. However, many of our clients, especially those in highly-regulated industries, require extensive background checks that often end up excluding those with certain types of convictions. Organizations such as Help For Felons and Jail to Job have formed in an effort to combat this and help those who are ready to return to work but unable to find any.\nKeep an eye out for our final installment in this series, which will focus on the role of skill-based education in helping displaced coal mine workers to find alternative means of employment.\nThanks to Milo Goodman for his contribution to this story.\n\nLearning New Skills Can Change Your Life was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.", - "dc:creator": "Aquent Gymnasium", - "guid": "https://medium.com/p/7d20b867a1ca", - "categories": ["prison-reform", "prison"], - "isoDate": "2017-02-26T00:44:06.000Z" - }, - { - "creator": "Aquent Gymnasium", - "title": "Learning New Skills Can Change Your Life… A Lot", - "link": "https://medium.com/gymnasium/learning-new-skills-can-change-your-life-a-lot-87e1c9ec20f5?source=rss-695048b8f911------2", - "pubDate": "Sun, 26 Feb 2017 00:43:47 GMT", - "content:encoded": "

Part I: Bridging Gender & Race Gaps

Whether in a classroom or online, broadening your skill set can transform your future. In addition to setting you apart as a creative professional, mastering a new skill or two can help pave your path to success by improving your employability in an increasingly competitive job market. This principle is what drives our work at the Gymnasium; it’s our raison d’être — our reason for existing. We’ve heard from many students who have used their newly-developed skills to pursue their passions and change their career paths in significant ways. Beyond empowering individuals, however, skill-based education has an even greater power: the potential to bridge institutional gaps that put vulnerable groups at a disadvantage. This post is the first in a series of three that will address this issue, beginning with the topics of gender and race.

For women, learning new skills can open doors that were previously barred shut. Research shows that while female and male students perform equally well in science and mathematics on standardized tests, males outscore their female peers when the grader is aware of the student’s gender. While this stereotype-fueled bias can be unconscious, it is indiscriminately insidious in its effects. Sexism lowers girls’ overall self-esteem in their ability to succeed in science and math and hinders their aspirations of careers in these fields, and women continue to remain underrepresented in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) programs in higher education and in the STEM workforce. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, women earned just 9,974 of the 55,367 computer science bachelor’s degrees completed in the 2013–4 academic year, and in 2014, women held under a quarter of jobs in the fields of computer science and math.

In addition to gender, there are also substantial race and class gaps. Disparities begin as early as kindergarten, with students who are white, Asian, Pacific Islander, or from higher-income families tending to score significantly higher in science and math than their peers who are black, Hispanic, Native American, or from lower-income households. The racial disparity is reflected in the makeup of the STEM workforce, which has remained 70% white for nearly the past two decades.

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Enter Girls Who Code, a nationwide nonprofit group that works to fix this problem by providing disadvantaged girls of all races and nationalities with the opportunity to escape gender bias and immerse themselves in the world of computer science alongside their female peers. One chapter of the group, the Brookview House Girls Who Code Club in Roxbury, Massachusetts, operates specifically for homeless middle and high school students with the aim of equipping them with the skills that can move them and their families out of poverty. The girls follow a standardized curriculum that outlines topics like HTML, CSS, and website design, teaches them how to create apps and video games, and requires them to complete a Computer Science Impact Project that gives back to their community. For the girls at the Brookview House, who don’t have access to computers at home or working Wi-Fi at school, the Girls Who Code Club is a safe haven to master skills that were previously considered to be off-limits.

In addition to building confidence, the program is designed to ensure that each student pursues their passions and ends up in college. Of the 4,000 students that they have trained since the group’s inception in 2012, 3,600 are now studying computer science despite originally wanting to go into another field. The remaining girls plan to work in engineering, law, medicine, and other areas in which they can apply their newfound technical talents.

Stay tuned for our second installment in this series, which will build on the importance of learning new skills by highlighting the role that skills-based education plays in helping former felons to find employment.

Thanks to Milo Goodman for his contribution to this story.

\"\"

Learning New Skills Can Change Your Life… A Lot was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

", - "content:encodedSnippet": "Part I: Bridging Gender & Race Gaps\nWhether in a classroom or online, broadening your skill set can transform your future. In addition to setting you apart as a creative professional, mastering a new skill or two can help pave your path to success by improving your employability in an increasingly competitive job market. This principle is what drives our work at the Gymnasium; it’s our raison d’être — our reason for existing. We’ve heard from many students who have used their newly-developed skills to pursue their passions and change their career paths in significant ways. Beyond empowering individuals, however, skill-based education has an even greater power: the potential to bridge institutional gaps that put vulnerable groups at a disadvantage. This post is the first in a series of three that will address this issue, beginning with the topics of gender and race.\nFor women, learning new skills can open doors that were previously barred shut. Research shows that while female and male students perform equally well in science and mathematics on standardized tests, males outscore their female peers when the grader is aware of the student’s gender. While this stereotype-fueled bias can be unconscious, it is indiscriminately insidious in its effects. Sexism lowers girls’ overall self-esteem in their ability to succeed in science and math and hinders their aspirations of careers in these fields, and women continue to remain underrepresented in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) programs in higher education and in the STEM workforce. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, women earned just 9,974 of the 55,367 computer science bachelor’s degrees completed in the 2013–4 academic year, and in 2014, women held under a quarter of jobs in the fields of computer science and math.\nIn addition to gender, there are also substantial race and class gaps. Disparities begin as early as kindergarten, with students who are white, Asian, Pacific Islander, or from higher-income families tending to score significantly higher in science and math than their peers who are black, Hispanic, Native American, or from lower-income households. The racial disparity is reflected in the makeup of the STEM workforce, which has remained 70% white for nearly the past two decades.\n\nEnter Girls Who Code, a nationwide nonprofit group that works to fix this problem by providing disadvantaged girls of all races and nationalities with the opportunity to escape gender bias and immerse themselves in the world of computer science alongside their female peers. One chapter of the group, the Brookview House Girls Who Code Club in Roxbury, Massachusetts, operates specifically for homeless middle and high school students with the aim of equipping them with the skills that can move them and their families out of poverty. The girls follow a standardized curriculum that outlines topics like HTML, CSS, and website design, teaches them how to create apps and video games, and requires them to complete a Computer Science Impact Project that gives back to their community. For the girls at the Brookview House, who don’t have access to computers at home or working Wi-Fi at school, the Girls Who Code Club is a safe haven to master skills that were previously considered to be off-limits.\nIn addition to building confidence, the program is designed to ensure that each student pursues their passions and ends up in college. Of the 4,000 students that they have trained since the group’s inception in 2012, 3,600 are now studying computer science despite originally wanting to go into another field. The remaining girls plan to work in engineering, law, medicine, and other areas in which they can apply their newfound technical talents.\nStay tuned for our second installment in this series, which will build on the importance of learning new skills by highlighting the role that skills-based education plays in helping former felons to find employment.\nThanks to Milo Goodman for his contribution to this story.\n\nLearning New Skills Can Change Your Life… A Lot was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.", - "dc:creator": "Aquent Gymnasium", - "guid": "https://medium.com/p/87e1c9ec20f5", - "categories": ["web-development", "women-in-tech", "coding", "education"], - "isoDate": "2017-02-26T00:43:47.000Z" - }, - { - "creator": "Aquent Gymnasium", - "title": "The Good, the Ad, and the Ugly: the Pros and Cons of Ad Blockers", - "link": "https://medium.com/gymnasium/the-good-the-ad-and-the-ugly-the-pros-and-cons-of-ad-blockers-74881e5e9f16?source=rss-695048b8f911------2", - "pubDate": "Thu, 23 Feb 2017 21:32:05 GMT", - "content:encoded": "

What Are Ad Blockers?

Ad-blocking software is known for its ability to automatically remove unwanted online advertisements, including, but not limited to, web banners, embedded audio and video, and pop-up windows. In most cases, this is achieved by either interrupting the connection between content providers and third-party ad networks or blocking tracking scripts that follow user web activity. This type of content-filtering software debuted in the early 2000s after the rise of the Internet, and in the years since, it has steadily made its way into the mainstream.

Why Do People Want to Block Ads?

As of 2016, over 70 million people actively use ad blockers on their desktop computers, laptops, smartphones, and tablets in the United States alone. The majority are simply fed up with the high amount of annoying advertisements that disrupt their daily browsing experience. A recent study revealed that the most hated types of advertising are full-page web pop-ups, autoplay audio and video Internet ads, and online video pre-rolls, while the most favored formats are unobtrusive kinds like billboards and magazine ads. This reaffirms what most already know — no one likes to be interrupted.

Many are also attempting to escape ads that increase the load time of their chosen content, decrease the battery life of their device, and increase their data and bandwidth usage, while others are hoping to avoid malicious ads containing malware, phishing scams, or viruses. There are privacy concerns as well, as the vast majority of ad networks and tracking systems collect information about user behavior. In addition to removing virus-laden pop-ups, ad blockers make it easy to browse anonymously by cutting off these systems.

What Are the Downsides of Ad Blocking?

While it’s easy to see the appeal of ad blockers, the software has nearly as many drawbacks as it does advantages. Despite its name, ad blockers often end up blocking more than just advertisements. For example, ad-blocking software automatically blocks Intercom, the in-app messaging tool that we use on our ad-free platform to provide user support and deliver important notifications. The only way ad-blocking users can access this part of our website is if they whitelist it by adding our URL to their personal inventory of acceptable pages. This content-blocking issue is relatively common; many users of Adblock Plus, the most popular ad-blocking software on the market with over 500 million downloads worldwide, have complained that the service has inadvertently cut off their access to YouTube in addition to other desired content that is unrelated to advertising.

Ad-blocking software also has a direct effect on websites that host ads, as well as all who earn their livelihoods from the online content industry, including columnists, content creators, editors, and journalists. Many of the pages that we visit daily are only free because of ad revenue, and without it, they will eventually be forced to either shut down or begin charging for access to content. In an attempt to compromise with these websites, Adblock Plus recently debuted an Acceptable Ads Program which allows publishers to apply to have their ads pre-approved and automatically whitelisted for every Adblock Plus user. In order to qualify, advertisements must meet a list of criteria to be deemed non-intrusive — they must be clearly marked as ads; they must cover less than a quarter of the screen; and they cannot automatically play audio or video — among others.

This initiative is controversial, however, due to its selectivity (its overall acceptance rate is just 9.5 percent) and its exception that larger companies with over 10 million ad impressions per month, such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, can pay an undisclosed fee to have their ads reinstated. Smaller websites are forced to beg their readers to manually whitelist their page, although research indicates that this tactic is not effective enough to change the behavior of most ad-blocking users. After running over 500 appeals on half as many websites, researchers found that only one-third of all visitors made the effort to utilize the whitelist. Appeals for donations are similarly unpopular: just three out of one million users obliged when given the option.

How Can Advertisers Adapt?

It has been estimated that the use of ad-blockers will cost advertisers 35 billion dollars by 2020, if it continues at its current rate. Some have tried to respond to this epidemic by offering ad-free subscription plans for a small fee, but only a fraction of users have been willing to pay up. Others install ad blocker blockers that claim to provide a number of solutions, including analytics to measure ad blocking and “ad recovery” to restore advertisements and recapture lost revenue. Unsurprisingly, this attempt at subverting the efforts of customers only drives them further away.

The best long-term strategy is to solve the underlying problem and focus on creating a better ad experience for dissatisfied users. In this light, many companies have started investing in online native advertising — ads that are designed to blend in with the content on any given platform. Popularized by BuzzFeed, online native ads are the modern version of product placement, and, when done right, they are entirely non-intrusive. Most prefer native advertising, and research has shown that it has both twice as much visual focus and a 18 percent higher lift in purchase intent than traditional banner ads. As native ads are also virtually undetectable to ad blockers, this may be the simplest and most effective way for both advertisers and consumers to overcome block shock. By changing the way they market their products and services, advertisers can ensure a higher-quality user experience and eliminate much of the concern and frustration that leads to the use of ad-blocking software in the first place.

Thanks to Milo Goodman for his contribution to this story.

\"\"

The Good, the Ad, and the Ugly: the Pros and Cons of Ad Blockers was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

", - "content:encodedSnippet": "What Are Ad Blockers?\nAd-blocking software is known for its ability to automatically remove unwanted online advertisements, including, but not limited to, web banners, embedded audio and video, and pop-up windows. In most cases, this is achieved by either interrupting the connection between content providers and third-party ad networks or blocking tracking scripts that follow user web activity. This type of content-filtering software debuted in the early 2000s after the rise of the Internet, and in the years since, it has steadily made its way into the mainstream.\nWhy Do People Want to Block Ads?\nAs of 2016, over 70 million people actively use ad blockers on their desktop computers, laptops, smartphones, and tablets in the United States alone. The majority are simply fed up with the high amount of annoying advertisements that disrupt their daily browsing experience. A recent study revealed that the most hated types of advertising are full-page web pop-ups, autoplay audio and video Internet ads, and online video pre-rolls, while the most favored formats are unobtrusive kinds like billboards and magazine ads. This reaffirms what most already know — no one likes to be interrupted.\nMany are also attempting to escape ads that increase the load time of their chosen content, decrease the battery life of their device, and increase their data and bandwidth usage, while others are hoping to avoid malicious ads containing malware, phishing scams, or viruses. There are privacy concerns as well, as the vast majority of ad networks and tracking systems collect information about user behavior. In addition to removing virus-laden pop-ups, ad blockers make it easy to browse anonymously by cutting off these systems.\nWhat Are the Downsides of Ad Blocking?\nWhile it’s easy to see the appeal of ad blockers, the software has nearly as many drawbacks as it does advantages. Despite its name, ad blockers often end up blocking more than just advertisements. For example, ad-blocking software automatically blocks Intercom, the in-app messaging tool that we use on our ad-free platform to provide user support and deliver important notifications. The only way ad-blocking users can access this part of our website is if they whitelist it by adding our URL to their personal inventory of acceptable pages. This content-blocking issue is relatively common; many users of Adblock Plus, the most popular ad-blocking software on the market with over 500 million downloads worldwide, have complained that the service has inadvertently cut off their access to YouTube in addition to other desired content that is unrelated to advertising.\nAd-blocking software also has a direct effect on websites that host ads, as well as all who earn their livelihoods from the online content industry, including columnists, content creators, editors, and journalists. Many of the pages that we visit daily are only free because of ad revenue, and without it, they will eventually be forced to either shut down or begin charging for access to content. In an attempt to compromise with these websites, Adblock Plus recently debuted an Acceptable Ads Program which allows publishers to apply to have their ads pre-approved and automatically whitelisted for every Adblock Plus user. In order to qualify, advertisements must meet a list of criteria to be deemed non-intrusive — they must be clearly marked as ads; they must cover less than a quarter of the screen; and they cannot automatically play audio or video — among others.\nThis initiative is controversial, however, due to its selectivity (its overall acceptance rate is just 9.5 percent) and its exception that larger companies with over 10 million ad impressions per month, such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, can pay an undisclosed fee to have their ads reinstated. Smaller websites are forced to beg their readers to manually whitelist their page, although research indicates that this tactic is not effective enough to change the behavior of most ad-blocking users. After running over 500 appeals on half as many websites, researchers found that only one-third of all visitors made the effort to utilize the whitelist. Appeals for donations are similarly unpopular: just three out of one million users obliged when given the option.\nHow Can Advertisers Adapt?\nIt has been estimated that the use of ad-blockers will cost advertisers 35 billion dollars by 2020, if it continues at its current rate. Some have tried to respond to this epidemic by offering ad-free subscription plans for a small fee, but only a fraction of users have been willing to pay up. Others install ad blocker blockers that claim to provide a number of solutions, including analytics to measure ad blocking and “ad recovery” to restore advertisements and recapture lost revenue. Unsurprisingly, this attempt at subverting the efforts of customers only drives them further away.\nThe best long-term strategy is to solve the underlying problem and focus on creating a better ad experience for dissatisfied users. In this light, many companies have started investing in online native advertising — ads that are designed to blend in with the content on any given platform. Popularized by BuzzFeed, online native ads are the modern version of product placement, and, when done right, they are entirely non-intrusive. Most prefer native advertising, and research has shown that it has both twice as much visual focus and a 18 percent higher lift in purchase intent than traditional banner ads. As native ads are also virtually undetectable to ad blockers, this may be the simplest and most effective way for both advertisers and consumers to overcome block shock. By changing the way they market their products and services, advertisers can ensure a higher-quality user experience and eliminate much of the concern and frustration that leads to the use of ad-blocking software in the first place.\nThanks to Milo Goodman for his contribution to this story.\n\nThe Good, the Ad, and the Ugly: the Pros and Cons of Ad Blockers was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.", - "dc:creator": "Aquent Gymnasium", - "guid": "https://medium.com/p/74881e5e9f16", - "categories": ["advertising", "ad-blocking"], - "isoDate": "2017-02-23T21:32:05.000Z" - }, - { - "creator": "Aquent Gymnasium", - "title": "Stellar Advice for Getting a Job in Web Design", - "link": "https://medium.com/gymnasium/stellar-advice-for-getting-a-job-in-web-design-8357be39ddda?source=rss-695048b8f911------2", - "pubDate": "Wed, 08 Feb 2017 17:15:30 GMT", - "content:encoded": "

2016 was a banner year for live events at Gymnasium. We talked to web design thought leaders Stephanie Hay, Jeffrey Zeldman, Eric Meyer, Aaron Gustfason, Ethan Marcotte, Karen McGrane, Erin Young, and more. We were thrilled to hear their thoughts on trends and best practices in prototyping, UX, UI, design standards, responsive web design, and writing for the web.

By the end of the year we had five awesome videos to share, and while we are very pleased that thousands of viewers saw the live events, and even more viewed the recordings, we could not help ourselves but to create one more.

As it happens, Jeremy Osborn, our event host and Gymnasium’s Academic Director, asked several of our guests to share advice for folks looking for their next job in web design. This video is a compilation of what they told us.

We hope you enjoy it. Stay tuned for more exciting events in 2017.

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Stellar Advice for Getting a Job in Web Design was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

", - "content:encodedSnippet": "2016 was a banner year for live events at Gymnasium. We talked to web design thought leaders Stephanie Hay, Jeffrey Zeldman, Eric Meyer, Aaron Gustfason, Ethan Marcotte, Karen McGrane, Erin Young, and more. We were thrilled to hear their thoughts on trends and best practices in prototyping, UX, UI, design standards, responsive web design, and writing for the web.\nBy the end of the year we had five awesome videos to share, and while we are very pleased that thousands of viewers saw the live events, and even more viewed the recordings, we could not help ourselves but to create one more.\nAs it happens, Jeremy Osborn, our event host and Gymnasium’s Academic Director, asked several of our guests to share advice for folks looking for their next job in web design. This video is a compilation of what they told us.\nWe hope you enjoy it. Stay tuned for more exciting events in 2017.\nhttps://medium.com/media/577a99a1286a257756040e16f3f5151b/href\nStellar Advice for Getting a Job in Web Design was originally published in Gymnasium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.", - "dc:creator": "Aquent Gymnasium", - "guid": "https://medium.com/p/8357be39ddda", - "categories": ["ui-design", "responsive-design", "web-design", "ux-design"], - "isoDate": "2017-02-08T17:15:30.000Z" - } -]