Content Strategy

Web Accessibility

Lindsey Gemmill — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 15:24:18 +0000

Web Accessibility Lindsey Gemmill Tue, 10/15/2019 - 15:24

At Hook 42 we value inclusivity in all aspects of our business. From the people we hire to the products we build, creating a space that is accessible to everyone is important to us.

Web accessibility, or a11y for short, is becoming a bigger and bigger priority for many organizations. And that's where we come in. With a team of experts working by your side, we can be your on-call a11y specialists, helping you achieve your digital accessibility goals.

Accessibility at Hook 42

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to web accessibility. We carefully review and analyze each area of your website to set you up for success. Since there are a number of ways to be compliant, we've got you covered from beginning to end. No matter what stage of a project you're in, we can help you create a path forward.

Hook 42 provides the following accessibility services:

Automated Site Scans
Manual Site Scans
Accessible Content Strategy
Accessible Design
Accessible Development
Accessible Planning & Remediation
Accessibility Training

From start to finish, we implement accessible best practices throughout our projects. This means in content strategy phases, design phases and development phases, we're looking for ways to improve accessibility. Each project is carefully tested and spot-checked throughout the course of the build to ensure accessible implementation.

Beyond Building Accessible Websites

If you plan from the start to build an accessible product, web accessibility becomes much more manageable. However, not always is there a case for starting fresh. Hook 42 also tackles web accessibility by itself. We have consulted with numerous clients to help develop an accessibility plan and remediation schedule, working as an extension of your team.

Hook 42 can work with you in the following ways to improve the accessibility of your existing website:

Perform Site Audits
Perform Accessibility Testing
Create a Remediation Plan and Schedule
Train Your Team for Accessibility Best Practices

Certified Accessibility Professionals

Our accessibility specialists are certified from the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP) in Core Competencies (Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies or CPACC), Technical Competencies (Web Accessibility Specialist or WAS), and Web Accessibility (Certified Professional in Web Accessibility or CPWA). We're proud to be advocates for progress within web accessibility and are continuously providing our clients with a better understanding of how to do the same.

Ready to Enhance Your Web Accessibility?

Whether you're looking for a consultant, a designer, or a developer, our team builds accessibility into their process to ensure the most inclusive results. At Hook 42, we're always looking for ways to make the web more accessible to everyone and we'd love to help you achieve your accessibility goals. Together we can create a space that everyone can access.

Support & Maintenance

WordPress Consulting & Development

Jonathan Daggerhart — Thu, 13 Jun 2019 19:28:46 +0000

WordPress Consulting & Development Jonathan Daggerhart Thu, 06/13/2019 - 19:28

At Hook 42 we have an excellent team of WordPress Architects and Developers who work with you to create flexible, performant, and secure WordPress sites to fit any business need.

As a team of developers with experience in a variety of open source technologies, we understand the strengths and weaknesses of many platforms. Our experiences help weigh product options to determine when WordPress is the best fit for your project needs and goals.

Custom WordPress Solutions Tailored to Your Business

Our decades of experience with WordPress gives us a familiarity with the product where we are able to seamlessly integrate technologies for your project needs. Hook 42 WordPress Developers specialize in writing secure plugins, developing performant themes, and creating scalable content and architecture that grows with your business.

We have experience with:

Developing custom plugins
Classic WordPress themes
Decoupled WordPress Front-ends
Self-hosted WordPress websites
WordPress hosting platforms such as Pantheon and WP Engine

Why Hook 42 for WordPress?

Not only do we take a hands-on approach to building within WordPress for our clients, we are also involved in the WordPress community. A number of our developers maintain WordPress plugins that are available within the public repository.

Our capabilities with WordPress allow Hook 42 to provide solutions that are catered to specific client needs. We work hard to ensure that our clients get the most from their projects and feel confident knowing their sites are crafted and managed by some of the best professionals in the business.

Need A WordPress Website?

Get in touch with our team today, we're always looking for great people to partner with. Together we can create custom solutions to perfectly fit your business needs.

Speaker Notes: Attending DrupalCon as a Presenter

Danita Bowman — Mon, 22 Apr 2019 17:50:37 +0000

Speaker Notes: Attending DrupalCon as a Presenter Danita Bowman Mon, 04/22/2019 - 17:50

Stanford Cantor Arts Center

Hook 42 — Thu, 11 Apr 2019 00:11:45 +0000

Stanford Cantor Arts Center

Hook 42 Thu, 04/11/2019 - 00:11

Founded in 1891, the Stanford Cantor Arts Center museum hosts an international collection of more that 38,000 works of art. Their previous website, built in 2006, was outdated and limited. Cantor selected Hook 42 to architect and develop their new responsive, component-based website using Drupal 8.

Design Direction

Beautiful, Image-Rich, Engaging, Modern, Responsive, Design Gap Remediation

Key Features

Rich Media Management, Respects Image Usage Rights, Component-Based Flexible Content Tools, Reusable Content, Event Importer, Modern Front-end Technologies

Summary of Work

Stanford Cantor Arts Center underwent a substantial redesign and needed a development partner to implement the site in Drupal 8. Hook 42 created a solid content strategy and toolkit for the small, non-technical content contributor team to artistically showcase their collections, exhibitions, and events. Our team leveraged web components and a solid pattern library to ensure the branding and display was consistent across pages, regardless of the configuration of the content components. In addition to the beautiful and responsive site, Hook 42 architected and developed a custom integration to the main Stanford events feed to automatically populate museum content on the site over time.

Read the UI Patterns Module article by Ryan Bateman that explores the use of the Drupal module leveraged for the websites modular content creation tools.

We analyzed the bold, photo-centric design to create a flexible, component-driven content strategy for a variety of possible layouts. We surveyed existing Drupal 8 contributed projects and the Stanford Web Services framework prototype to determine the best architecture. We created an automated tool for pulling in Cantor-specific events from the main Stanford events feed while allowing for content customization. In the end, Hook 42 built a successful and robust website for the Cantor Arts Center that simplified content entry while providing great flexibility for showcasing their outstanding art collection.

We continue to help the Cantor team by providing ongoing Drupal 8 maintenance and support. You can learn more about this project by watching the 2019 DrupalCon case study presentation.

Reviewing the Work

We held discussions to highlight the thought leadership involved in each step of the process, reviewing key pieces of the project that would be valuable to the Drupal community.

A Cantor Arts Center website case study presentation was delivered by the team at Stanford Drupal Camp 2018. Later, at BADCamp 2018, Kristen Pol and Ryan Bateman presented on the topic. Following the BADCamp presentation was yet another discussion by Kristen Pol and Ryan Bateman at DrupalCon 2019.

Zicasso

Hook 42 — Wed, 10 Apr 2019 23:59:01 +0000

Zicasso

Hook 42 Wed, 04/10/2019 - 23:59

Zicasso is an innovative travel company with a unique and highly successful business model. Its website matches high-end travel agents with travelers interested in upscale vacations. Zicasso chose Hook 42 to completely redesign and migrate its very outdated Drupal 5 website to Drupal 7.

Design Direction

Beautiful, Luxury, Travel, Image-Rich, Mobile-Friendly, Performant

Key Features

Responsive & Parallax Design, High-Conversion Landing Pages, Rich Media Management, Interactive Messaging, Optimized Business Workflows, Custom Tools & Reports

Summary of Work

We redesigned the Zicasso.com site from scratch to make it more visually appealing and easier for travelers, travel agents, and administrators to use. Zicasso.com received considerable positive press and user comments after the new site launch. Information about the redesign project is available in the Drupal.org case study.

During the discovery phase, we worked closely with the Zicasso team to understand their users, complex workflows, and features to create optimal user flows and wireframes. We evaluated inspirational and competitive sites to craft a modern style guide and compelling visual designs. For administrators, we architected content editing tools and admin interfaces to improve efficiency.

On the technical side, we developed migration code to seamlessly move their very large content base into Drupal 7. We continue to make enhancements on a daily basis to their beautiful and engaging website. The end result is an image-rich, responsive, and interactive website that streamlines the luxury travel planning process.

Newsworthy Design

We collaborated with Zicasso to design and develop beautiful and newsworthy user experiences. Zicasso has been featured in The New York Times, Fortune, Travel+Leisure, and many other leading media publications.

Responsive Theming

We craft responsive web pages for Zicasso users to enjoy on their smartphones and tablets.

Content Strategy

We architect Drupal content structures that allow the Zicasso team to reuse pieces of content in smart ways.

Enterprise Drupal Development

We work closely with the Zicasso business team to engineer Enterprise-level tools for streamlined administration and messaging workflows. We continually strive for supporting high performance and reliability, upholding Drupal best practices, and increasing quality assurance.

Digital Asset Management

We enable the Zicasso content team to efficiently leverage thousands of stunning travel photographs by providing customized media tools. We support gigabytes of file attachments for a streamlined messaging workflow.

SEO

We work together with Zicasso's savvy marketing team to optimize the site's web pages for top organic search rankings and provide customized analytics tools for evaluating conversions.

Drupal Migration

We migrated Zicasso's "million node" Drupal 5 website to Drupal 7 as part of a complete site redesign and rearchitecture. Learn about the great migration in the Pantheon + Hook 42 case study.

Strategic Business Consulting

Hook 42 — Wed, 10 Apr 2019 21:42:20 +0000

Strategic Business Consulting Hook 42 Wed, 04/10/2019 - 21:42

Hook 42 can help you define and prioritize your business objectives to create an execution plan that fits your business model.

With the advancements of technology, the global reach of the digital landscape, and the rapid growth of competition in a crowded market, it is imperative to your business to have a successful plan of action to address the disruption.

We are seeing a shift in how organizations operate, and how key adaptability is to the success of a business. Taking charge, and going with the punches will allow you to transform challenges into triumph, and outshine your competitors.

Hook 42’s strategic business consulting helps clients streamline internal operations for optimal performance. Our strategies help businesses face adversity, modernize business models and theories, surpass business goals, and ultimately prepare for a future of success.

Being in a position to face whatever the future brings in stride is the ultimate goal of Hook 42 strategies. Focusing closely on your industry model, and specific needs, we are able to help you scale comfortably and with minimal disruption.

Do You Need Business Consulting?

Are you feeling growing pains within your business structure? Or maybe you’re unsure how to scale your business to align with your goals? Preparing for a new part of your business model to go to market? Whatever changes your business is going through means there is an opportunity for business analysis.

Hook 42 business consulting solutions are custom to your business, and crafted to shape you for the future, get in touch today!

Business Analysis

Business Process Improvement

Multilingual Drupal Installations

Hook 42 — Wed, 10 Apr 2019 21:25:38 +0000

Multilingual Drupal Installations Hook 42 Wed, 04/10/2019 - 21:25

It may seemingly be a small world, but there is more than one method of communication used around the world. If your business works internationally or within a community with non-English speakers, going multilingual is probably a strategic next step for your team. Reaching all of your potential users far outweighs narrowing the reach to a specific community. At Hook 42, we can configure your existing Drupal website for multilingual support or build one from the ground up.

Multilingual Technique

Making a Drupal website handle multiple languages might be easy in theory. You just translate the copy and you're good to go, right? Unfortunately, not so much. Making sure all the modules work in harmony can be trickier than expected. Depending on the CMS, you might need to install a large number of community modules or plugins in addition to updating existing modules and custom code.

For multilingual Drupal projects, Hook 42 focuses on:

Identifying what content needs translation and what does not.
Understanding your short-term and long-term translation needs.
Installing and configuring the right modules to do the job.
Updating custom code to allow text to be translatable.
Facilitating content entry and manual translation processes.

Is A Multilingual Upgrade Right For You?

If you already have an existing website, knowing when you need a multilingual site can seem overwhelming and a bit confusing. However, just having the thought of transitioning to a multilingual site likely means you are ready to upgrade. If you know your services can, or will, reach a broader audience than your primary language of communication, you'll want to make sure you can expand your digital experience to match the growth of your business.

At Hook 42, we understand that there are a variety of factors that come in to play when it comes to making an existing website compatible with other languages. Our experience with Drupal multilingual environments helps us analyze the current condition of your website and the complexity of integrating a multilingual experience for your users.

Ready to Make Your Website Multilingual?

Updating an existing site might be straightforward or extremely hard depending on your Drupal site architecture. The first step is doing a site audit to assess the level of difficulty involved in your transition. Throughout the process Hook 42 can help you answer questions about what it takes to make your website multilingual, and provide a strategy to implement and roll-out a multilingual experience.

Multilingual Drupal Consulting

SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Hook 42 — Wed, 10 Apr 2019 21:21:17 +0000

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Hook 42 Wed, 04/10/2019 - 21:21

Making your site easily visible to search engines is an incredibly important step of your website's design and development. Search engines are the masters, so to make sure your site serves you well you'll want to play by their rules.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is tricky because it involves many factors that may evolve over time, but continuously optimizing your website to comply to these standards will increase your visibility online. Creating a way for users to find you through a search platform is integral to your website traffic. Enhancing your SEO will help you provide them a path to your website.

Hook 42 can help you achieve your goals by auditing your existing site for SEO and providing feedback. Our team can also configure your Drupal or WordPress site to follow SEO best practices.

Full Search Engine Optimization Coverage

The Hook 42 team focuses on both on-page and on-site SEO. We cover common concerns like:

Do you have the right modules installed?
Are your modules configured correctly?
Do you have good URLs and meta tags?
Are the search engines finding and indexing your content?
Do you have duplicate content?
Is your internal linking strategy sound?
Do you have broken links?
Do you have missing content or broken redirects?

Do You Want to Improve Your SEO?

Our team is all hands on deck waiting for the call. Our SEO tuning can happen on existing sites or part of a larger migration or development effort. Don't worry, we only implement "White Hat" SEO techniques.

Accessibility

Content Strategy

Drupal

Omnichannel Content Strategy

Search Engine Optimization

SEO

Site Audit

National Nurses United

Hook 42 — Wed, 10 Apr 2019 21:05:00 +0000

National Nurses United

Hook 42 Wed, 04/10/2019 - 21:05

National Nurses United (NNU) is the largest organization of registered nurses in the United States. Its website provides a service to connect regional Registered Nurses organizations and unite future, current, and retired nurses to support humanitarian and political causes. NNU selected Hook 42 for their ExpressionEngine to Drupal 8 migration project in a very tight timeline.

Design Direction

Brand adherence, Design “refresh”, Responsive, Interactive, Engaging, User-Friendly, High Conversion, Accessible

Technical Considerations

Custom Data Structure Migration, Enable New Content Structures From Redesign, Time-Challenged, Custom CRM integration, Maintain SEO, Large File Footprint

Key Features

ExpressionEngine to Drupal 8 migration, Display of historic content with fresh updates, Improvements for User Experience, Blue State Digital CRM Integration

Summary of Work

We audited their custom ExpressionEngine implementation from their past hosting provider and estimated the effort to migrate it to Drupal 8. We provided a scalable content strategy, Drupal 8 architecture and implementation, migration code implementation, and both backend and frontend development. We also ran SEO health checks, executed the ExpressionEngine to Drupal 8 migration scripts, and provided launch support during the site cutover.

We continued to work with National Nurses United by providing technical training to their internal staff and ongoing Drupal 8 development maintenance and support.

Full-service Drupal Development

Hook 42 — Wed, 10 Apr 2019 20:59:22 +0000

Full-service Drupal Development Hook 42 Wed, 04/10/2019 - 20:59

Hook 42 is a talented team of architects and developers who work with you to create exceptional Drupal sites with best practices and optimized performance, while remaining focused on your business needs.

We have significant amounts of experience with:

Custom Drupal Theme Development
Drupal Module Development and Implementation
Multilingual Drupal Installations
Optimized Drupal Website Performance
Drupal Migrations
Drupal Upgrades

Hook 42 Loves Drupal

We pride ourselves on being active members of the Drupal community, and we bring that expertise to each project. Hook 42 is one of the top contributing companies on Drupal.org, and because of this we know both Drupal 7 and Drupal 8 inside out. Hook 42 and many of our developers maintain public Drupal projects related to security, performance, and user interface improvements. Additionally, our team members participate in many of the Drupal 8 and Drupal 9 core discussions that help drive the future of the Drupal project.

Beyond helping build the software, our team is actively involved in the growth of Drupal in many ways. We attend and help organize many community events. We provide events with training sessions on the latest technologies and presentations that share our experiences working with Drupal and other technologies. We enjoy every aspect of the Drupal community.

Custom Drupal Solutions for Business

Hook 42 has decades of experience developing websites and applications with Drupal. From simple websites to intranets and “ambitious digital experiences”, we are experts in tackling a wide range of complex and simple problems -- and we enjoy the uniqueness that comes with each. Hook 42 Drupal developers are experts in writing secure Drupal modules, performant Drupal themes, and creating scalable content solutions that can grow alongside your business.

Understanding the benefits and pitfalls of working with an open-source product is very important. Weighing those options against your goals and business needs is perhaps the most important part of any successful project. At Hook 42, we make responsible decisions about the technologies that shape your business today to help ensure your future growth.

We take the responsibility of being a true and valuable partner to your business very seriously. You can rely on our experience and dedication to quality for any aspect of your Drupal project.

I’ve hired Hook 42 for three different projects in the last six years, and in each case the quality, thoroughness, helpfulness, dedication, knowledge, and perspective that they brought to the project has been a game changer. Next time I look for a Drupal project partner, I will look to Hook 42 first.

KEN WOLF

Want to Know More About Hook 42 and Drupal?

Whether you’re looking for a reliable development team, need help determining if Drupal is a good fit for your project, or just want to learn more about Drupal and our community in general, reach out and say hi! We're always excited to work with people and businesses to help ensure they have the best Drupal experience possible. Together we can go far.

Enterprise Drupal Development

Integration