The Crafty Blog

This is where we share our insight, knowledge and news

  1. Crafty Coffee June announcement

    We look forward to seeing some old and new faces so come along for some early morning tea, coffee and baked goodies.

  2. The A/B/Cs of Unbounce Landing Pages

    Effective landing pages are a critical component of any website. And although the #CraftyHack project is time constrained, we wanted to take the time to optimise our message and attract the most potential customers to our free trial. To rapidly deploy our experiment, we used Unbounce to create landing pages and measure conversions across multiple variants - in effect an A/B/C test. Without conversions you don't have a business.

  3. Crafty Devil Hosts Another Successful Crafty Coffee

    Last Friday saw Crafty Devil host the second Crafty Coffee web technology networking event of 2012. A bi-monthly event, Crafty Coffee is a great opportunity for early morning coffee and conversation with similarly minded professionals.

  4. CraftyHack Adventures in Ruby and Pair Programming

    When we took on the #CraftyHack project earlier this month, our goal was to challenge ourselves and stress test how we operate. We knew that, to reflect our real working lives, we’d have to fit it around ongoing work, and balance swift progress with delivery of a world class product. With high client expectations to meet, the last thing we want is to waste time or jeopardise our reputation. Even if, in this case, our client is ourselves.

  5. Crafty Devil Readies Holibob for Beta Launch

    Belfast web app developer Crafty Devil, is approaching the half way point in the company’s #CraftyHack exercise, designed to ‘stress test’ the company’s operations and better assess the service it provides to customers.

  6. Craftyhack - Keeping It Simple

    As a web designer, the temptation is always there to over indulge on fancy effects and the latest techniques, often to the detriment of the user experience. Back in 2000, a total lack of regard for the customer proved fatal to online retailer Boo.com.

  8. CraftyHack - Product Research and Validation

    I’m undertaking two parts of the #CraftyHack project that I care passionately about - researching the problem, and documenting the User Experience requirements that the design and technical teams will use to build the product.

  9. Crafty Devil Takes Customer Satisfaction One Step Further!

    Every business claims to be focused upon providing a level of service, which exceeds customer expectations. However, Crafty Devil is taking customer satisfaction one step further, by becoming their own customer!

  10. It’s Crafty Coffee Time!

    Building on the success of the inaugural Crafty Coffee held in January, the next Crafty Devil is being held on Friday 23rd. March 2012. Bringing together a diverse mix of local business people, web professionals and marketers, Crafty Coffee is an informal, networking event.

  11. CraftyHack - Assessing the Problem

    Over the next month, we will be building an app and documenting the process, in order to help new customers, and ourselves, understand exactly how we do it. We’ll be using the project to examine our current working methods and make them even better.

  12. What’s In A Name?

    Have you considered the best address (a.k.a. domain name) to help identify your business online? Sometimes as well as using your brand or trading style as a domain, it can make sense also to register a generic brand, term or phrase as a domain name too.

  13. Making Continuous Deployment Achievable

    Crafty Devil Developer Pete Hawkins shares some of what he’s learnt, about smarter, more efficient working practices, working on the development of Planzai’s unique project completion app.

  14. Beyond Search Engine Optimisation

    So, you’ve got a website. You’re spending money on online advertising and search engine optimisation (SEO). But is there anything you might have forgotten? Well for all too many businesses, the answer is ‘Yes’.

  16. Generic TLD (gTLD) Registrations Commence

    It's now possible to register a generic Top Level Domain (gTLD). Hailed as the biggest change to web addresses in a generation, what are the implications for your brand or business?

  17. We’re Hiring! UX/Design Lead

    We're seeking an experienced, talented and passionate web designer to join our growing team. The successful candidate will be ready to engage with customers, and play a key role in delivering UI to major projects.

  18. Bndhck partners with Crafty Devil

    Crafty Devil is pleased to announce that we’ve commenced work on ‘Bndhck’, a collaborative music creation service.

  19. Five Steps to a Better Planned Year

    It’s been a busy start of 2012 at Crafty Devil, but not before we took some time to define our strategic goals for the year, and commit to the actions that would help us achieve them and make 2012 our most successful yet.

  20. Crafty Coffee - Networking Event

    Crafty Coffee is an informal, early-morning networking event, hosted by Crafty Devil at our spacious conference room situated on Belfast's Holywood Road.

  21. Crafty Devil Celebrates 5 Years Of Success

    Belfast web software specialist, Crafty Devil, has recently celebrated five years in business with a special customer reception at the company’s offices.

  22. We’re Having A Party!

    This year Crafty Devil celebrates five years in business. Recognising that this important milestone would never have been achieved without the support of our customers... we're asking them to join us too!

  23. It’s Appening For Business Too…

    Just mention the word ‘app’ and to most people it will conjure up images of iPhones, Blackberrys, iPads and various App Stores. Such images are hardly surprising. But there's more to apps, than just consumer apps.

  25. Bigger and Better

    Having outgrown our previous offices, Crafty Devil has moved to brighter, bigger and better offices, as we write a new chapter in the history of our company. The new premises are easily accessible by bus, car and even by plane!

  26. Welcoming Jimmy Spratt

    Leading Northern Ireland software developers Crafty Devil, recently met with Jimmy Spratt, DUP MLA for South Belfast to discuss the challenges faced by SMEs in the current economic environment.

  27. Reasons to be Appy. Part 1.

    Much has been written about HTML5 with some pundits claiming that it will sound the death-knell for native apps and app stores. In this post, guest author John Switzer takes a look at the debate.

  29. Award Success for Harlequin

    Harlequin Plastics are proud winners of the 2010 OFTEC Excellence Award for Best Website.

  31. Asidua Expression Engine Launch

    A new Expression Engine content-managed site for premier local-government integration specialists.