Luke Brason

About Luke Brason

Altruism and sheer bloody mindedness: lessons from digital pioneers

Fresh thinking is vital if we want to grow and adapt with (or even ahead of) new technologies and innovations. If we stagnate we lose, just ask the England cricket team.

This often means taking some time away from regular projects and responsibilities, and giving ourselves space to look at things from other viewpoints and perspectives.

In my case, while ruminating about personal and team goals for 2014, I found myself exploring inspiration and ideas from some of our greatest digital pioneers.

10 practical tips to cultivate a creative mindset

There have been a lot of articles recently about big data, technical innovations, the internet of things, the latest search algorithms etc.

We have an increasing volume of information to consume and assimilate on a daily basis. Yet we can’t allow ourselves to get completely caught up in granularity and detail, we are emotional creatures and creative thinking must be part of our daily diet. 

A comparison of the Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and UKIP websites

With political fever in the media building towards a 2015 general election I’ve taken a look at the present state of the four main UK political party websites (Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats and UKIP). 

This review and analysis is based upon website ease of use and content engagement from the perspective of a new visitor. 

So which party has the best website strategy? 

Make your website user friendly with core building blocks

I tend to keep an eye on the UK’s most popular websites (Alexa is a good source for this data), as I know that my clients and their customers are likely to be familiar with their navigation features, tools and interfaces.

There is a risk that creating something ‘too new’ or ‘too different’ can give rise to negative user feedback, a recent case in point being Microsoft® Windows 8 lacking a Start button.

For most projects, delivery timescales are tight and there isn’t time to experiment with wild and fanciful navigation.

More importantly, users want to find things quickly. They don’t want to have to ‘learn’ how to use your site, it should be intuitive to them.

Five steps for working successfully with creative teams

Want to get the best from your design studio?

Whether they’re newly hired or long-standing partners, here are five top tips, based on 15 years of agency-side experience, that will get you results, rapport and respect (and possibly even access to their stash of brightly-coloured confectionery).

Are you responsive, mobile or app-based?

I was recently asked by a client “If time and money weren’t an issue, what type of mobile development would you do? Responsive, mobile or app?”

“All three,” I replied.

“Ok…  And if you could have just one?”

Most of my projects (and particularly the one in question) revolve around brand communications and loyalty programmes, here’s my running order: