Lightbox: illuminating ideas by Astriata
man and woman look at tablet

insider insights

workplace topics

Attracting Talent Graphic

Optimize Your Website to Attract Top Talent

Today’s pandemic-fueled hiring market makes it tough for organizations to attract the employees they need. How can your website help?

Employee Retention

Employee Retention: Why Your Website Matters

Too often, employees get overlooked as users of your website. How can you optimize your website to engage and retain top talent on your team?

Remote Team Graphic

6 Tips for Managing Remote or Hybrid Teams

Want to improve how you manage your remote or hybrid team? Consider these 6 tips from our executive leadership roundtable.

the trifecta

usability

Want to know the most overlooked but important aspect of a user-friendly site? Consistency. You’d be surprised that something so intuitive doesn’t happen on a lot of websites. How does your own website stack up? Ask yourself: Does the label on your navigation match the page title/header on your page? Can someone get to the page through your menu? Is the relationship of this page clear to others?

design

Very Peri. It’s Pantone’s color of the year, described as “a dynamic periwinkle blue hue with a vivifying violet red undertone [that] blends the faithfulness and constancy of blue with the energy and excitement of red.” What do you think of Pantone’s pick? Take our poll.

technology

The search within your site is only useful if the search results (usually the first 5 or 10) are relevant to the search. Often, too much of a page is indexed, and pages appear in the results based on words or phrases that appear in the navigation or footer. Different systems have different ways of excluding certain reused, or global, pieces of content, such as headers, footers, navigation, and sidebars, but chances are, your content management system lets you check a box to indicate whether or not to index a piece of content.

mental memo from Aline

Happy lunar new year to all! It seems like only yesterday that we were ringing in 2022. Fast forward to February, as we prepare to celebrate our 20 years in business. While the business has evolved over the years, the core of what we do – designing to inform – remains the same.

Here, I’m excited to share with you the debut of our newsletter, LightBox. We look forward to passing along helpful and interesting information about the world in which we work – specifically related to our three focus areas: usability, design, and technology. In this first issue, we address the “Great Resignation” and the role your website can play in both engaging new employees and retaining those who make up your team. We also impart tips and good reads, plus highlights of a client success story. Oh, and one more thing: to celebrate our 20 years in business, we’re highlighting some of our favorite projects on Instagram. I don’t know where the time goes. I suppose that’s a sign that we love what we do.

Stay tuned for our March issue of LightBox, where we’ll investigate the role of psychology in the online user experience.

In the meantime, stay well – and when it comes to usability, design, and technology, stay intentional.

Aline, Astriata CEO & Creative Director

project focus


When Geothermal Technologies needed an animation to explain their innovative technological solutions to increase global access to clean, economically competitive geothermal energy, we created an animation to break down the complex science into clear, digestible visuals and terms. Read about the project and watch the award-winning animation.

cerebral matters

Curated resources that bring light to intriguing topics.

resources to remember

“5 Digital Trends to Focus on in 2022”

Download our new guide – and discover how to improve member experience and drive recruitment in your alliance or professional organization. 

social instincts

Though we find it hard to believe, this year marks 20 years in business! Help us celebrate by catching our Flashback Fridays – where we showcase our work over two decades – on Instagram.

feedback loop

Very Peri Pantone swatchDon’t forget to tell us what you think of Pantone’s color of the year, Very Peri. See what colors complement it nicely.  Take our poll and see how others voted.

stay connected