The Tragedy of Comic Sans
In what may be the definitive final argument in the Comic Sans wars (those of you who attended my FileMaker DevCon session know what I'm on about), Pixartprinting via Sara Boboltz of Huffington Post have given us an infographic that shows the true economic and...
ROI: Raising Your Company Profile
Adopting a new software system for your company is a major undertaking, so you want to maximize your return on investment. In part two of our ROI series, we discuss one of the best ways to do that: bragging.? A significant benefit of improving your company's...
The Purpose of Icons
Key Takeaways Icons guide interaction and reduce cognitive load: The primary purpose of icons is to visually communicate actions, options, or statuses faster than text—helping users engage with software more intuitively and efficiently. Solid vs. outline icons...
Dead Man’s Curve
Learn how to avoid a common mistake growing businesses often make. Dead Man's Curve, it's no place to play Dead Man's Curve, you best keep away Dead Man's Curve, I can hear 'em say Won't come back from Dead Man's Curve Jan and Dean, Dead Man's Curve There is a pattern...
DevCon San Antonio – Another Successful Year
Attendance was up at FileMaker DevCon 2014 in San Antonio, Texas. Alchemy Group President Bob Shockey wrapped up all three afternoons with a design panel on Tuesday, sharing the stage with Heather Winkle, Matt O'Dell, Don Levan, and Andrew Paulsen; a session on...
StylŌ: Previz Your Themes and Styles
Themes and Styles are a welcome addition to FileMaker Pro 13. But how do you keep track of all the details that give these tools their potential power? Here's one way: use?StylŌ to help you put together the elements of your theme. With powerful reporting to provide an...
Calculating ROI on Custom Software
Anyone who has ever tried to purchase a car based on gas mileage knows that real-world results are different from what's written on the sticker. It's even harder with custom software, because there is no sticker. One thing is for certain: done right, a new business...
Bob Shockey to Speak at DevCon 2014
Alchemy Consulting Group founder and CEO Bob Shockey will once again speak at the FileMaker Developer Conference. This year, Bob will start with a discussion of ?real-world type design in FileMaker Pro and Go, including some typography basic information and an...
Interface Copy Rules
I found a great article from a designer at Google Ventures, about how to use text in interface design. Anyone who follows Alchemy Group knows that we focus heavily on the visual design aspects of interface design in our FileMaker business ?solutions. This article...
Why You Should Use FileMaker Pro
These days, the voluminous amount of data we collect in the course of conducting business transactions requires us to find an efficient way to manage it. There are already big names in the database management software niche, like SQL Server, Microsoft Access and...