Disclaimer: The views expressed on this site are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employers. :) – Manning Krull
Welcome
These articles reflect my insights from working in digital media, mostly in the healthcare industry, over the last twenty-plus years.
Update 2025:
I'm in the process of overhauling this site! I used to have over a hundred articles here; I'm currently tweaking and re-posting all of them.Articles list
Jump down to a topic:
Digital philosophy |
Accessibility |
General digital best practices |
Emails |
Banner ads |
Websites |
IVAs |
Touchscreens |
Miscellaneous
Digital philosophy
- A Crease in Space and Time - Updated October 24, 2024
- Focus on success - Updated October 5, 2024
- The birthday cake - Updated October 5, 2024
- Users will not work hard to consume our marketing materials - October 1, 2024
- Digital best practices protect us - Updated October 5, 2024
- There's more to success than the creative review - October 1, 2024
- My digital philosophy mantras - October 1, 2024
- Throwing our clients' money away - October 13, 2024
- Getting aligned - December 5, 2024
- Cameras on - October 2, 2024
- UX, empathy, and birds - September 26, 2024
Accessibility
- ADA and accessibility basics - Updated October 5, 2024
- Accessibility and font size - Updated October 5, 2024
- Many people have visual impairments - Updated November 12, 2024
- Legibility is a requirement - Updated October 5, 2024
- Meaningful link text, aka link purpose - Updated October 24, 2024
- Add a "skip to main content" button to your website template! - October 1, 2024
- Two things that opened my eyes about accessibility - October 9, 2024
- A new look for digital - Updated October 5, 2024
- "It's okay, the client signed a waiver" - Updated October 5, 2024
- Users are human beings - Updated December 11, 2024
- A matter of empathy - Updated December 11, 2024
- Alt text basics - Updated October 5, 2024
- My favorite alt text tip - Updated October 24, 2024
- Your website's framework may not be ADA-compliant! - November 12, 2024
- Alt text for decorative images - December 5, 2024
- Alt text 101 for Bluesky - December 1, 2024
- Bluesky, gifs, and autogenerated alt text - December 4, 2024
- Bluesky, accessibility, and reposting - December 10, 2024
- Instagram and alt text - December 5, 2024
- Corporate end matter and non-meaningful links - December 9, 2024
General digital best practices
- Mobile first - Updated October 5, 2024
- Content and audience - Updated October 5, 2024
- Engagement cheat sheet - Updated October 5, 2024
- Brand fonts in digital - Updated October 5, 2024
- Hey, read this! Larger text is more engaging - Updated October 5, 2024
- Mobile only? - Updated October 5, 2024
- Preview on your phone! - Updated October 5, 2024
- Responsive 101 - Updated October 5, 2024
- Overcoming resistance to mobile-first - Updated October 19, 2024
- You can't call it "mobile first" if you're designing desktop first - Updated October 5, 2024
Emails
- Your email best practices consultant - November 11, 2024
- Rethinking email design - Updated October 24, 2024
- A perfect email - Updated October 5, 2024
- More email guidelines - Updated October 5, 2024
- Email and web-safe fonts - Updated October 5, 2024
- Image swapping in email - Updated October 5, 2024
- Repositioning elements in email - Updated October 5, 2024
- Emails: four types of watchouts - Updated October 5, 2024
- Styling alt text for emails? - December 16, 2024
- Animated gifs in email - Updated October 5, 2024
- Stop putting charts in emails - Updated October 5, 2024
- Be careful with email creation platforms! - November 7, 2024
- Your Veeva Approved Email consultant - December 16, 2024
- OFT emails, part 1: the worst format in the universe - December 13, 2024
- OFT emails, part 2: more info on this garbage format - December 16, 2024
- OFT emails, part 3: info for creatives - December 16, 2024
- OFT emails, part 4: info for devs - December 16, 2024
Banner ads
- Rethinking banner ad design - Updated October 24, 2024
- Wordcount in banner ads - Updated October 5, 2024
- Six levels of engagement for banner ads - Updated October 5, 2024
- Conflicting goals - Updated October 5, 2024
- Banner ads: four types of watchouts - Updated October 5, 2024
- 30-second banner ads? - Updated October 5, 2024
Websites
- Page load speed - Updated October 5, 2024
- Popups: dos and don'ts - Updated October 5, 2024
- Laptop/desktop: consider smaller screens - Updated October 5, 2024
- My SEO formula - January 6, 2025
- "Make it like Apple.com" - Updated October 5, 2024
Interactive visual aids (IVAs)
- Veeva CRM: a quick overview - Updated October 5, 2024
- Creative specs for Veeva CLM and Engage - Updated October 5, 2024
- You are putting too much content on your slides - Updated October 5, 2024
- Responsive IVAs? - Updated October 5, 2024
Touchscreens
- Touchscreen basics - Updated October 5, 2024
- Touchscreens: screensaver and time-out - Updated October 5, 2024
Miscellaneous
- Let me talk to your clients - Updated October 5, 2024
- My most hated UX/QA failure in years - December 12, 2024
- QR codes: what makes them successful - Updated October 5, 2024
- QR codes in digital? - Updated October 5, 2024
- Best practices for domains, urls, etc - Updated October 5, 2024
- Devs and bugs — some management strategies - December 4, 2024
- Creating animated gifs in Photoshop - Updated October 5, 2024
- Words mean things - Updated October 5, 2024
- Extracting animated gifs from PowerPoint - Updated October 5, 2024
- Extracting high-res jpgs and pngs from PowerPoint - Updated October 5, 2024
– Manning
Questions/comments? Feel free to contact me at manning@manningkrull.com. I update these articles pretty frequently — best practices evolve over time as the world of digital quickly changes, and I always welcome insights from others.