• 2012

  The dawn of a new year brings a moment of reflection for the year past.

  We laughed; we coded; but most importantly, we got a foosball table.

  Join us as we relive (and badly reenact) the year that was 2012.

  Let the show begin!

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• See what we wrote.

  In addition to some fabulous photos, inside we highlight a few of the articles we wrote over the year.

  

• Read it later.

  Hover over articles to reveal a bookmark. Click and we'll add it to the personal reading list waiting for you on the last page.

  

• January

  • We launch the Contiki Community
  • Joshua, a skilled project manager, joins the team
  • Annie ages yet another year
  • Our plants get some love (on the site, if not in real life)
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• Observations of an Android to iPhone convert A forced switch to a new phone led to a quick comparison of two popular mobile operating systems; explore a comparison of app quality, keyboard, browser, and much more.
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• Our Plants There are more plants than people in the Planet Argon studio, and we felt it was time to tell their story. Meet Conrad, Mortimer, Juan, Cher, Giselle, and all the others.
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• Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse—a Mobile Workshop Jack attended a practice run of Jason Grigsby and Lyza Danger Gardner’s WebVisions New York mobile workshop—"Zombie Apocalypse of Devices Preparedness 101."
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• Bringing People Together: the Contiki Community We walk through the process of designing and building an online community—a destination where people from around the world can connect with old friends and make some new ones.

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• February

  • We reveal a dynamic new studio page
  • Carlos celebrates a birthday
  • We launch a new and improved "What We Do" page
  • Jack leaves us, but only for a little bit
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• Intended Audience? It's hard to believe, but forms can be fun, too. This post is suitable for all levels—from Beginners to Walruses...
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• March

  • We 'mobilify' planetargon.com
  • We welcome Neil, our handsome new developer
  • Planet Argon visits TCI in lovely California
  • Gary takes a much-deserved vacation to Europe
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• Pairing Devices and Debugging with Adobe Shadow A look at a handy little app capable of wirelessly pairing a desktop/laptop to multiple devices- and sharing browser screens among those devices.
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• Timbers Season Opener 2012 One of the many great things going on in Portland right now—you don't need to be a soccer lover to appreciate this fantastic video.
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• April

  • Joshua and Robby head to London to meet with clients
  • We give the McMenamins site navigation a makeover
  • We open an online shop for our fashionable PA swag!
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• Creating and Implementing D^5 Our project manager details our new work process, labeled D^5, which we're using in order become a more efficient and effective design and development agency. Feel free to borrow any of Joshua's helpful insights!
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• Considerations to Make for Your Mobile Website Brian outlines few tips to consider when designing and coding for mobile devices. There's quite a lot to think about - including orientation, pixel density, a grid system, and more—but we help you get started.
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• Relating to the User—Starting from the Top A look at our user experience design work for the McMenamins website's new navigation. As any local knows, McMenamins offers a lot—here's how we consolidated their services into one helpful menu.
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• The Mobilification of Planet Argon Our website, now freshly responsive, delivers content that is optimized for all devices. Follow along on our journey from desktop to mobile, and everywhere in between!

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• May

  • We get a foosball table, and a favorite new pastime!
  • Jack tries to ignore his 30th birthday
  • Andy from Contiki visits all the way from the UK
  • Jack and Brian head off to conferences
  • We write a fascinating new whitepaper
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• Creating Contiki's Mobile Site A four-part series that looks into the process of creating Contiki’s mobile site. With posts dedicated to design strategy, making the mobile prototype, visual design, and implementation—there's something for everyone!
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• Tizen Developer Conference Brian flew down to attend the Tizen Developer Conference and shared the highlights with the team. For the uninitiated, Tizen is a fascinating new open source software platform—have we piqued your interest?
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• Whitepaper—Responsive Design vs. Mobile Site Our new whitepaper delves into two strategies for designing and developing a site that targets mobile traffic—responsive design versus a separate mobile-specific implementation.
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• 14 Things I Learned at WebVisions Jack attends Portland’s WebVisions conference and writes about the 14 things he learned in this two-part series. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll beg for more—we guarantee it!

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• June

  • We release a podcast about mobile vs. responsive websites
  • Ryan, still a youngster, celebrates another birthday
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• Mobile vs. Responsive Design Podcast Listen in on our discussion—our first podcast in quite a while—about the benefits and drawbacks of responsive and mobile-specific sites.
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• Changing Issue Trackers: Meeting & Understanding the Beast A thorough exploration of our new issue tracker, JIRA—the pros, cons, features and a few tips and tricks.
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• Getting Google to Properly Index Your Mobile Site Learn techniques for implementing mobile-optimized sites and ensure your desktop and mobile sites are indexed accordingly. Google's robots are friendly—if you give them what they want
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• June

  • After months of preparation, iKare launches!
  • TCI deploys their PA-designed online tools
  • We celebrate Carl’s birth
  • Neil’s birthday is, unfortunately, forgotten
  • The anniversary of Brian’s birth is celebrated
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• Welcome to the FamilyLink Network! An idea that was more than a year in the making, the FamilyLink connects families and friends to loved ones through a device that shares photo, video chats, messages and more.
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• School’s Out... For Now With our design help, TCI, a K-12 publishing company, released their new online tools for students and teachers, primed and ready for the new school year.
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• “Always Think About What You’re Doing, and Learn As Much As You Can” Jack interviews Thomas Fuchs, Ruby on Rails core alumnus, software developer, and author of the new e-book, ‘Retinafy Your Web Sites and Apps’.
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• Things I Learned at PhoneGap Day With the release of 2.0, Gary decided to give PhoneGap another look. He headed off to the launch talk and highlighted the interesting parts.

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• August

  • Annie participates in Cooper's intensive UX Bootcamp
  • Robby goes on a classic American road trip
  • Annie and Robby visit our new client, Savor Seattle
  • We commemorate 10 years of Planet Argon!
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• What I learned at UX Bootcamp Annie wrote a brief synopsis of the experience of a few days at UX bootcamp. Crawling under barbed wire, climbing rope ladders, muddy runs—Annie does it all in order to develop her UX skills.
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• I Think We Are All in the Business of Just Making Things Look Beautiful Jack interviews Veronica Pisano, Senior Web Designer at design shop OrangeYouGlad. She loves animated gifs and good design, and so should you.
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• Rails Hosting Survey The results are in! We examined what the Rails community had to say—comparing the past, present and giving some thoughts about the future of this incredible framework.

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• September

  • Carl and Brian go to Hawaii (not together)
  • Jack visits his brand-new nephew!
  • We begin working on some inspiring new projects (Tapjoy, Media Solutions and Loudpixel)
  • Contiki’s mobile app launches
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• PDX Mayoral Race: Who Will Win... From a UX Perspective? We conducted a usability audit on the sites of Portland’s mayoral candidates. Who do you think has a friendlier site?
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• Brainstormr 2.0: Introducing Themes! We got a little crazy over the summer—we're not used to all this sunshine here in Portland—and snuck out an update that adds a little pizazz to your brainstorms with Brainstormr Themes.
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• October

  • We're fortunate to get a visit from K2!
  • Gary goes on an exciting trip to Barcelona
  • The rain, as it does, revisits PDX
  • We break ground on a new project with Intel
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• How to Design a Company Picnic T-shirt that Everyone Pretends to Tolerate Our t-shirt designer for this year’s picnic, Jack, walks us through his process of designing something that we pretended to tolerate.
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• Tsilli Pines Says the Best Solutions Come from People Who are Motivated by their Passions Jack interviews Tsilli Pines, one of the fabulous organizers of Portland Design Week, to talk about design, the creative Portland community, and, of course, zombies.
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• Improving Performance with the Modern Website Tune-Up Just like a car, your website is often due for a bit of maintenance. In this post, we journey through website optimization and mixed metaphors.
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• November

  • We experience the election, for better or worse
  • We eat and we drink and we give thanks
  • Joshua leaves on a jealousy-inducing Caribbean sailing trip
  • Carlos goes to Vegas to escape the rain—will he ever return?
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• AppFog from a Frontend Developer’s Perspective Brian ventured into the world of backend development, deploying our Brainstormr app onto AppFog. How did he do, mucking around with those servers? Only one way to find out!
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• Google Analytics: Learning to Track Behavior within a Lightbox We wanted to track even more within our own site, so we devised a strategy to track interactions within a page. Accompany Annie on this journey of Google Analytics.
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• McMenamins Gets Mobile We launched the new McMenamins mobile site and Brian takes us through the process. Whether you're looking for movie times or brewery destinations, this site will help you find your way.
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• 7 Ways to Annoy Users on Your Web Forms You’ve used web forms—lots of them. We uncover seven of the most annoying interactions (and how you can resolve them).

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• December

  • We decorate the studio and celebrate the holidays
  • We make this crazy 2012 Timeline!
  • We exchange White Elephant gifts and eat delicious waffles
  • Becca, our newest designer, joins the team
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• Xmas Tree Short time-lapse of a few Argonistas beginning to decorate the 2012 studio tree. Join us on this exciting journey—from pinyon green to bright and colorful!
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• What Are Your Users Searching For? This witty video highlights the importance of studying the ways in which your users search for your products—I'm sure we can all relate to the struggles of this video's protagonist.
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And finally... »