Page 352 -

ChaPter 11 • Designing effeCtive outPut 319

MaC appeal

Creating Blogs

Blogs are being written by corporate users for both internal and external communication. Blogs are
informal and personal, and they often invite comments and feedback. They are easy to create and
update and are designed to change daily. Companies are using blogs for advertising and to build
social networks for consumers, clients, and vendors around their products, building trust and cus-
tomer relationships.
Corporate blogs are monitored out of a sense of responsibility for the participants. Guidelines,
policies, and laws that shape monitoring practices include shared cultural, ethical, and legal values
such as respecting other employees and customers; not publishing any sensitive or secret corporate
information or anything protected by copyright (without permission); and excluding anything that is
hateful or profane or that violates anyone’s privacy.
Even with all of the preceding guidelines, you still need to ensure that blog posts are written in
a human voice, not immersed in legal language. The latest entry should be at the start of the blog. It
should contain the following elements:
1. The permalink, or permanent link, specific for the blog post, which should never change
2. The headline or title of the post
3. The primary link, which connects the reader to the subject under discussion
4. An optional summary, often appearing after the link
5. The blog text or commentary
6. An optional image
7. A block quote containing quotations or other material from other sources that contributes to
the discussion (often indented or in a different font to set it apart from the main text)
8. Links for comments by other people
9. Other blog software features, such as a calendar, search form, and other universal features.
One highly acclaimed desktop blogging editor for the Mac is MarsEdit by Red Sweater. It is com-
patible with WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, and many other blog publishing platforms.

3. Be an original.
4. Determine how you will price the app.
5. Follow the rules for output design.
6. Design your icon.
7. Choose an appropriate name for the app.
8. Design for a variety of devices.
9. Design the output for the app.
10. Design the output a second time for different orientation.
11. Design the logic.
12. Create the user interface using gestures.
13. Protect your property.
14. Market your app.

We’ll concentrate on the steps that are design oriented in this chapter.
Set Up a Developer Account
Apple charges a software developer a $99 fee to develop and list an app in the App Store and then
takes 30 percent commission on everything it sells. The author receives 70 percent. Some think
this is too small a cut for the author, but it depends on your perspective.
Apple insists on approving everything sold in its App Store. This means there are some
restrictions that frustrate software developers and, sometimes, consumers. Here’s where the
walled garden (in this case the term refers to an array of pre-approved apps, that are closed to
outside developers) comes in: You won’t find any app with objectionable content in the App
Store. And you won’t find a great app that lets you reprogram the mute button on your iPhone to
function as a camera shutter either.