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\n\n\t{"rowid": 13, "title": "Data-driven Design with an Annual Survey", "contents": "Too often, we base designs on assumptions that don\u2019t match customer perspectives. Why? Because the data we need to make informed decisions isn\u2019t available.\n\nImagine starting off the year with a treasure trove of user data that can be filtered, sliced, and diced to inform new UI designs, help you discover where users struggle the most, and expose emerging trends in your customers\u2019 needs that could lead to new features. Why, that would be useful indeed. And it\u2019s easy to obtain by conducting an annual survey.\n\nAnnual surveys may seem as exciting as receiving socks and undies for Christmas, but they\u2019re the gift that keeps on giving all year long (just like fresh socks and undies). I\u2019m not ashamed to admit it: I love surveys! Each time my design research team runs a survey, we learn so much about customer motivations, interests, and behaviors. \n\nSurveys provide an aggregate snapshot of your users that can\u2019t easily be obtained by other research methods, and they can be conducted quickly too. You can build a survey in a few hours, run a pilot test in a day, and have real results streaming in the following day. Speed is essential if design research is going to keep pace with a busy product release schedule. \n\nSurveys are also an invaluable springboard for customer interviews, which provide deep perspectives on user behavior. If you play your cards right as you construct your survey, you can capture a user ID and an email address for each respondent, making it easy to get in touch with customers whose feedback is particularly intriguing. No more recruiting customers for your research via Twitter or through a recruiting company charging a small fortune. You can filter survey responses and isolate the exact customers to talk with in moments, not months.\n\nI love this connected process of sending targeted surveys, filtering the results, and then \u2014 with surgical precision \u2014 selecting just the right customers to interview. Not only is it fast and cheap, but it lets design researchers do quantitative and qualitative research in a coordinated way. Aggregate survey responses help you quantify the perspectives of different user segments, and interviews help you get into the heads of your customers.\n\nAn annual survey can give your team the data needed to make more informed designs in the new year. It all starts with a plan.\n\nPlanning your survey\n\nBefore you start jotting down questions to ask users, spend some time thinking about the work your team will be doing in the coming year. Are you planning new mobile apps or a responsive redesign? Then questions about devices used and behaviors around mobile devices might be in order. Rethinking your content strategy? Then you might want to ask a few questions about how your customers consume content.\n\nYou can\u2019t predict all of the projects you\u2019ll be working on in the coming year, but tuck a couple of sections in your survey about the projects you\u2019re certain about. This will give you the research you need to start new projects with solid foundational data.\n\nGoogle Drive is a great place to start collaboratively building survey questions with colleagues. Questions that seem crystal clear in your head get challenged, refined, or even expanded quickly when the entire team can chime in. \n\nAs you craft your survey, try to consider how you\u2019ll filter it once all of the data is compiled. Do you need to see responses by industry, by age of an account, by devices used, or by size of company? Adding the right filter questions can help you discover fascinating patterns in user segments. Filtering on responses to a few questions can surface insights like: customers in non-profit companies with more than 100 employees are 17% more likely to use an Android phone and are most attracted to features A, D, and F. A designer working on the landing page for a non-profit would love to have concrete information like this. Filter questions are key, so consider them carefully. But don\u2019t go overboard \u2014 too many of them and you\u2019ll start to hurt your survey response rate.\n\nMultiple choice questions are the heart of most surveys because respondents can complete them quickly, which increases response rate, and researchers can analyze them without a lot of manual categorization. Open text field questions are valuable too, but be careful not to add too many to your survey. You\u2019ll hate yourself after the survey\u2019s done and you have to sort through and tag thousands of open responses so patterns become visible. Oy vey!\n\nAn open-ended question works well towards the end of the survey. At this point respondents have a lot of topics swirling around in their head and tend to say weird things that will pique your interest. This is where you\u2019ll find the outliers who are using your product. They\u2019ll be fascinating to interview, and on occasion will help you see your work in a brand new way.\n\nConclude your survey with a question asking permission to get in touch for a followup interview so you don\u2019t pester people who want to be left alone. \n\nWith your questions nailed down, it\u2019s time to build out that survey and get it ready for sending!\n\nBuilding your survey\n\nThere are dozens of apps you could use to build your survey, but SurveyMonkey is the one that I prefer. It lets you pass in variables for each respondent such as user ID and email address. Metadata about respondents is essential if you\u2019re going to do any follow-up interviews with your customers in the coming year. SurveyMonkey also makes it easy to set up question logic, showing questions to customers only if they responded in a certain way to a prior question. This helps you avoid asking irrelevant questions to some respondents.\n\nDetermining survey recipients\n\nOnce you\u2019ve chosen a survey tool and entered all of your questions, you need to gather a list of recipients. Your first instinct will be to send it to everyone. You might say, \u201cI need maximum response and metric shit tons of data!\u201d But this is rarely the best approach \u2014 broad distribution almost always leads to lower response rates, increased noise, and decreased signal in your data. Are there subsets of customers you could send to, like only those who are active, those who are paying, or have been with you for a certain length of time? Talk to the keepers of your customer database and see how they can segment it so you can be certain you\u2019re talking to just the people who will have the most relevant responses for your needs. \n\nIf you want to get super nerdy when finding the right customer sample to survey, use a [sample size calculator]. Sampling is a deep subject best explored in other articles. \n\nCrafting your survey email\n\nAfter focusing your energies on writing and building your survey, the email asking your customers to respond seems almost trivial, but it will greatly influence your response rate. Take great care when writing your subject line and the body of the email. If you can pull it off, A/B testing subject lines can greatly improve the open rate of your email and click-through to your survey. My design research team has seen a ~10% increase in open and click rates when we A/B tested. We\u2019ve found that personalizing subject lines and greetings with the recipients name (ie. \u201cHey, Aarron. How can we make our app work better for you?\u201d) gave us the best response rates. Your mileage may vary.\n\nThe tone of your email is important \u2014 be friendly, honest, and to the point. Those that are passionate about your product will be happy to share their perspective. Writing a survey email that people will actually respond to ain\u2019t easy \u2014 in fact, they\u2019re almost always annoying. But Ben Chestnut found a non-annoying way to send a survey email and improve response rates.\n\nThe email sent for the 2013 MailChimp survey let customers know what we\u2019d been up to in the previous year, and invited feedback on what we should work on in the coming year.\n\nThe link to your survey should be a clear call to action. A big button with a label like \u201cAnswer a few questions\u201d generally does the trick. The URL linking to the survey will need to include some variables like user ID and email. It might look something like this if you\u2019re using SurveyMonkey:\n\nhttp://surveymonkey.com/s/somesurveyid/?uid=*|UID|*&email=*|email|*\n\nAs each email is sent, the proper data will be populated in the variables, passing it on to the survey app for inclusion in each response. This is the magic that will help you pinpoint customers to interview down the road, so take special care to test that all is working before sending to all recipients. How you construct the survey link will vary depending on what survey tool and email service provider you use, so don\u2019t take my example as gospel. You\u2019ll need to read the documentation for your survey and email apps to set things up properly.\n\nPilot before sending\n\nBy now, you\u2019ve whipped yourself into a fever pitch over your brilliant survey and the data you hope to collect. Your finger is on the send button, poised for action, but there\u2019s one very important thing to do before you send to the entire list of customers: send a pilot email. How do you know if your questions are clear, your form logic is sound, and you\u2019re passing variables from the email to the survey properly? You won\u2019t, unless you send to a small segment of your recipients first. \n\nThe data collected in your pilot will make plain where your survey needs refinement. This data won\u2019t be used in your final analysis, as you\u2019re probably going to make a few changes to your questions.\n\nSend the pilot survey to enough people that you can really stress test the clarity of the questions and data you\u2019re gathering, while considering how much data can you comfortably throw out. If you\u2019re sending your final survey to a few thousand people, you might find a couple of hundred recipients for your pilot will give you enough insight into what to improve while leaving the vast majority of the recipients for your final survey.\n\nAfter you\u2019ve sent your pilot, made your survey adjustments, and ensured the variables are being passed from your email into the survey app, you\u2019re ready to send to the remainder of your customers. This is your moment of glory!\n\nAnalyzing your results\n\nAfter a couple of weeks you can probably safely close the survey so no other responses come in as you transition from data gathering to data analysis. Any survey app worth its salt will chart responses to your multiple choice questions. Reviewing these charts is a great place to start your analysis. Is there anything particularly interesting that stands out? Jot down some of your observations. I like to print screenshots of the charts for each question, highlighting areas of interest. These prints become a particularly handy reference point for the next step in your analysis. \n\nPrinting results from a survey makes comparing different customers easy.\n\nViewing aggregate data about all responses is interesting, but the deltas between different types of customers are where the real revelations happen. Remember those filter questions you added to your survey? They\u2019re the tool that\u2019ll help you compare customer segments.\n\nMost survey apps will let you filter the data based on response to a question. If the one you\u2019re using doesn\u2019t, you can always export your data and create pivot tables in Excel. Try filtering your data based on one of your filter questions, such as industry, company size, or devices used. Now compare those printed screenshots of baseline responses to the filtered data. Chances are you\u2019ll see some significant differences in how each group responded to your questions, giving you clues about the variance in interests and motivations in customer segments and a leg up as you work on future design projects. \n\nOpen-ended responses are equally interesting, but much more time-consuming to analyze. Yes, you need to read through thousands of responses, some of which are constructive and some of which are not. Taking the time to tag each open response will help you see trends and filter out the responses that are unhelpful.\n\nUnlike questions with predefined answers, open-ended responses let users express unique ideas and use cases you may not be looking for. The tedium of reading thousands of response is always cut by eureka moments when users tell you something fascinating that changes your perspective on your app. These are the folks you want to pull out for follow-up interviews. Because you\u2019ve already captured their email addresses when you set up your survey and your email, getting in touch will be a piece of cake.\n\nFilter, compare, interview, and summarize; then share your findings with your colleagues. Reports are great for head honchos, but if you want to really inform and inspire, create a video, a poster series, or even a comic to communicate what you\u2019ve learned. Want to get really fancy? Store your survey results in a centrally accessible location so anyone in your company can research and discover the insights they need to make more informed designs. \n\nGood design researchers discover valuable insights. Great design researchers turn those insights into stories.\n\nConclusion\n\nAs we enter the new year, it\u2019s a great time to reflect on the work we\u2019ve done in the past and how we can do better in the future. Without a doubt, designers working with a foundation of insights about customers can make more effective UIs. But designers aren\u2019t the only ones who stand to gain from the data collected in an annual survey\u2014anyone who makes things for or communicates with customers will find themselves empowered to do better work when they know more about the people they serve. The data you collect with your survey is a fantastic holiday gift to your colleagues, one that they\u2019ll appreciate throughout the year.", "year": "2013", "author": "Aarron Walter", "author_slug": "aarronwalter", "published": "2013-12-13T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2013/data-driven-design-with-an-annual-survey/", "topic": "design"} {"rowid": 14, "title": "The Command Position Principle", "contents": "Living where I do, in a small village in rural North Wales, getting anywhere means driving along narrow country roads. Most of these are just about passable when two cars meet. \n\nIf you\u2019re driving too close to the centre of the road, when two drivers meet you stop, glare at each other and no one goes anywhere. Drive too close to your nearside and in summer you\u2019ll probably scratch your paintwork on the hedgerows, or in winter you\u2019ll sink your wheels into mud. \n\nDriving these lanes requires a balance between caring for your own vehicle and consideration for someone else\u2019s, but all too often, I\u2019ve seen drivers pushed towards the hedgerows and mud when someone who\u2019s inconsiderate drives too wide because they don\u2019t want to risk scratching their own paintwork or getting their wheels dirty.\n\nIf you learn to ride a motorcycle,\u00a0you\u2019ll be taught about the command position:\n\n\n\tApproximate central position, or any position from which the rider can exert control over invitation space either side.\n\n\nThe command position helps motorcyclists stay safe, because when they ride in the centre of their lane it prevents other people, usually car drivers, from driving alongside, either forcing them into the curb or potentially dangerously close to oncoming traffic. \n\nTaking the command position isn\u2019t about motorcyclists being aggressive, it\u2019s about them being confident. It\u2019s them knowing their rightful place on the road and communicating that through how they ride.\n\nI\u2019ve recently been trying to take that command position when driving my car on our lanes. When I see someone coming in the opposite direction, instead of instinctively moving closer to my nearside \u2014 and in so doing subconsciously invite them into my space on the road \u2014 I hold both my nerve and a central position in my lane. Since I done this I\u2019ve noticed that other drivers more often than not stay in their lane or pull closer to their nearside so we occupy equal space on the road. Although we both still need to watch our wing mirrors, neither of us gets our paint scratched or our wheels muddy.\n\nWe can apply this principle to business too, in particular to negotiations and the way we sell. Here\u2019s how we might do that.\n\nCommanding negotiations\n\nWhen a customer\u2019s been sold to well \u2014\u00a0more on that in just a moment \u2014 and they\u2019ve made the decision to buy, the thing that usually stands in the way of us doing business is a negotiation over price. Some people treat negotiations as the equivalent of driving wide. They act offensively, because their aim is to force the other person into getting less, usually in return for giving more.\n\nIn encounters like this, it\u2019s easy for us to act defensively. We might lack confidence in the price we ask for, or the value of the product or service we offer. We might compromise too early because of that. When that happens, there\u2019s a pretty good chance that we\u2019ll drive away with less than we deserve unless we use the command position principle to help us.\n\nBefore we start any negotiation it\u2019s important to know that both sides ultimately want to reach an agreement. This isn\u2019t always obvious. If one side isn\u2019t already committed, at least in principle, then it\u2019s not a negotiation at that point, it\u2019s something else. \n\nFor example, a prospective customer may be looking to learn our lowest price so that they can compare it to our competitors. When that\u2019s the case, we\u2019ve probably failed to qualify that prospect properly as, after all, who wants to be chosen simply because they\u2019re the cheapest? In this situation, negotiating is a waste of time since we don\u2019t yet know that it will result in us making a deal. We should enter into a negotiation only when we know where we stand. So ask confidently: \u201cAre you looking to [make a decision]?\u201d\n\nWhen that\u2019s been confirmed, it\u2019s down to everyone to compromise until a deal\u2019s been reached. That\u2019s because good negotiations aren\u2019t about one side beating the other, they\u2019re about achieving a good deal for both. Using the command position principle helps us to maintain control over our negotiating space and affords us the opportunity to give ground only if we need to and only when we\u2019re ready. It can also ensure that the person we\u2019re negotiating with gives up some of their space.\n\nCommanding sales\n\nIt\u2019s not always necessary to negotiate when we\u2019re doing a business deal, but we should always be prepared to sell. One of the most important parts of our sales process should be controlling when and how we tell someone our price. \n\nUnless it\u2019s impossible to avoid, don\u2019t work out a price for someone on the spot. When we do that we lose control over the time and place for presenting our price alongside the value factors that will contribute to the prospective customer accepting that price. For the same reason, never give a ballpark or, worse, a guesstimate figure. If the question of price comes up before we\u2019re fully prepared, we should say politely that we need more time to work out a meaningful cost. \n\nWhen we are ready, we shouldn\u2019t email a price for our prospective customer to read unaccompanied. Instead, create an opportunity to talk a prospect through our figures, demonstrate how we arrived at them and, most importantly, explain the value of what we\u2019re selling to their business. Agree a time and place to do this and, if possible, do it all face-to-face. \n\nWe shouldn\u2019t hesitate when we give someone a price. When we sound even the slightest bit unsure or apologetic, we give the impression that we\u2019ll be flexible in our position before negotiations have even begun.\n\nThink about the command position principle, know the price and present it confidently. That way we send a clear signal that we know our business and how we deal with people. The command position principle isn\u2019t about being cocky, it\u2019s about showing other people respect, asking for it in return and showing it to ourselves.\n\n \n\nEarlier, I mentioned selling well, because we sometimes hear people say that they dislike being sold to. In my experience, it\u2019s not that people dislike the sales process, it\u2019s that we dislike it done badly.\n\nTaking part in a good sales process, either by selling or being sold to, can be a pleasurable experience. Try to be confident \u2014 after all, we understand how our skills will benefit a customer better than anyone else. Our confidence will inspire confidence in others. \n\nSelf-confidence isn\u2019t the same as arrogance, just as the command position isn\u2019t the same as riding without consideration for others. The command position principle preserves others\u2019 space as well as our own. By the same token, we should be considerate of others\u2019 time and not waste it and our own by attempting to force them into buying something that\u2019s inappropriate.\n\nTo prevent this from happening, evaluate them well to ensure that they\u2019re the right customer for us. If they\u2019re not, let them go on their way. They\u2019ll thank us for it and may well become customers the next time we meet.\n\nThe business of closing a deal can be made an enjoyable experience for everyone if we take control by guiding someone through the sales process by asking the right questions to uncover their concerns, then allaying them by being knowledgeable and confident. This is riding in the command position.\n\nJust like demonstrating we know our rightful position on the road, knowing our rightful place in a business relationship and communicating that through how we deal with people will help everyone achieve an equitable balance. When that happens in business, as well as on the road, no one gets their paintwork scratched or their wheels muddy.", "year": "2013", "author": "Andy Clarke", "author_slug": "andyclarke", "published": "2013-12-23T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2013/the-command-position-principle/", "topic": "business"} {"rowid": 7, "title": "Get Started With GitHub Pages (Plus Bonus Jekyll)", "contents": "After several failed attempts at getting set up with GitHub Pages, I vowed that if I ever figured out how to do it, I\u2019d write it up. Fortunately, I did eventually figure it out, so here is my write-up.\n\nWhy I think GitHub Pages is cool\n\nNormally when you host stuff on GitHub, you\u2019re just storing your files there. If you push site files, what you\u2019re storing is the code, and when you view a file, you\u2019re viewing the code rather than the output. What GitHub Pages lets you do is store those files, and if they\u2019re HTML files, you can view them like any other website, so there\u2019s no need to host them separately yourself.\n\nGitHub Pages accepts static HTML but can\u2019t execute languages like PHP, or use a database in the way you\u2019re probably used to, so you\u2019ll need to output static HTML files. This is where templating tools such as Jekyll come in, which I\u2019ll talk about later.\n\nThe main benefit of GitHub Pages is ease of collaboration. Changes you make in the repository are automatically synced, so if your site\u2019s hosted on GitHub, it\u2019s as up-to-date as your GitHub repository. This really appeals to me because when I just want to quickly get something set up, I don\u2019t want to mess around with hosting; and when people submit a pull request, I want that change to be visible as soon as I merge it without having to set up web hooks.\n\nBefore you get started\n\nIf you\u2019ve used GitHub before, already have an account and know the basics like how to set up a repository and clone it to your computer, you\u2019re good to go. If not, I recommend getting familiar with that first. The GitHub site has extensive documentation on getting started, and if you\u2019re not a fan of using the command line, the official GitHub apps for Mac and Windows are great.\n\nI also found this tutorial about GitHub Pages by Thinkful really useful, and it contains details on how to turn an existing repository into a GitHub Pages site.\n\nAlthough this involves a bit of using the command line, it\u2019s minimal, and I\u2019ll guide you through the basics.\n\nSetting up GitHub Pages\n\nFor this demo we\u2019re going to build a Christmas recipe site \u2014 nothing complex, just a place to store recipes so we can share them with people, and they can fork or suggest changes to ones they like. My GitHub username is maban, and the project I\u2019ve set up is called christmas-recipes, so once I\u2019ve set up GitHub Pages, the site can be found here: http://maban.github.io/christmas-recipes/\n\nYou can set up a custom domain, but by default, the URL for your GitHub Pages site is your-username.github.io/your-project-name.\n\nSet up the repository\n\nThe first thing we\u2019re going to do is create a new GitHub repository, in exactly the same way as normal, and clone it to the computer. Let\u2019s give it the name christmas-recipes. There\u2019s nothing in it at the moment, but that\u2019s OK.\n\n\n\nAfter setting up the repository on the GitHub website, I cloned it to my computer in my Sites folder using the GitHub app (you can clone it somewhere else, if you want), and now I have a local repository synced with the remote one on GitHub.\n\nNavigate to the repository\n\nNow let\u2019s open up the command line and navigate to the local repository. The easiest way to do this in Terminal is by typing cd and dragging and dropping the folder into the terminal window and pressing Return. You can refer to Chris Coyier\u2019s GIF illustrating this very same thing, from last week\u2019s 24 ways article \u201cGrunt for People Who Think Things Like Grunt are Weird and Hard\u201d (which is excellent).\n\nSo, for me, that\u2019s\u2026\n\ncd /Users/Anna/Sites/christmas-recipes \n\nCreate a special GitHub Pages branch\n\nSo far we haven\u2019t done anything different from setting up a regular repository, but here\u2019s where things change.\n\nNow we\u2019re in the right place, let\u2019s create a gh-pages branch. This tells GitHub that this is a special branch, and to treat the contents of it differently.\n\nMake sure you\u2019re still in the christmas-recipes directory, and type this command to create the gh-pages branch:\n\ngit checkout --orphan gh-pages\n\nThat --orphan option might be new to you. An orphaned branch is an empty branch that\u2019s disconnected from the branch it was created off, and it starts with no commits, making it a special standalone branch. checkout switches us from the branch we were on to that branch.\n\nIf all\u2019s gone well, we\u2019ll get a message saying Switched to a new branch \u2018gh-pages\u2019.\n\nYou may get an error message saying you don\u2019t have admin privileges, in which case you\u2019ll need to type sudo at the start of that command.\n\nMake gh-pages your default branch (optional)\n\nThe gh-pages branch is separate to the master branch, but by default, the master branch is what will show up if we go to our repository\u2019s URL on GitHub. To change this, go to the repository settings and select gh-pages as the default branch.\n\n\n\nIf, like me, you only want the one branch, you can delete the master branch by following Oli Studholme\u2019s tutorial. It\u2019s actually really easy to do, and means you only have to worry about keeping one branch up to date.\n\nIf you prefer to work from master but push updates to the gh-pages branch, Lea Verou has written up a quick tutorial on how to do this, and it basically involves working from the master branch, and using git rebase to bring one branch up to date with another.\n\nAt the moment, we\u2019ve only got that branch on the local machine, and it\u2019s empty, so to be able to see something at our special GitHub Pages URL, we\u2019ll need to create a page and push it to the remote repository.\n\nMake a page\n\nOpen up your favourite text editor, create a file called index.html in your christmas-recipes folder, and put some exciting text in it. Don\u2019t worry about the markup: all we need is text because right now we\u2019re just checking it works.\n\n\n\nNow, let\u2019s commit and push our changes. You can do that in the command line if you\u2019re comfortable with that, or you can do it via the GitHub app. Don\u2019t forget to add a useful commit message.\n\n\n\nNow we\u2019re ready to see our gorgeous new site! Go to your-username.github.io/your-project-name and, hopefully, you\u2019ll see your first GitHub Pages site. If not, don\u2019t panic, it can take up to ten minutes to publish, so you could make a quick cake in a cup while you wait.\n\nAfter a short wait, our page should be live! Hopefully that wasn\u2019t too traumatic. Now we know it works, we can add some proper markup and CSS and even some more pages.\n\nIf you\u2019re feeling brave, how about we take it to the next level\u2026\n\nSetting up Jekyll\n\nSince GitHub Pages can\u2019t execute languages like PHP, we need to give it static HTML files. This is fine if there are only a few pages, but soon we\u2019ll start to miss things like PHP includes for content that\u2019s the same on every page, like headers and footers.\n\nJekyll helps set up templates and turn them into static HTML. It separates markup from content, and makes it a lot easier for people to edit pages collaboratively. With our recipe site, we want to make it really easy for people to fix typos or add notes, without having to understand PHP. Also, there\u2019s the added benefit that static HTML pages load really fast.\n\nJekyll isn\u2019t officially supported on Windows, but it is still possible to run it if you\u2019re prepared to get your hands dirty.\n\nInstall Jekyll\n\nBack in Terminal, we\u2019re going to install Jekyll\u2026\n\ngem install jekyll\n\n\u2026and wait for the script to run. This might take a few moments. It might take so long that you get worried its broken, but resist the urge to start mashing your keyboard like I did.\n\nGet Jekyll to run on the repository\n\nFingers crossed nothing has gone wrong so far. If something did go wrong, don\u2019t give up! Check this helpful post by Andy Taylor \u2013 you probably just need to install something else first. \n\nNow we\u2019re going to tell Jekyll to set up a new project in the repository, which is in my Sites folder (yours may be in a different place). Remember, we can drag the directory into the terminal window after the command.\n\njekyll new /Users/Anna/Sites/christmas-recipes\n\nIf everything went as expected, we should get this error message: Conflict: /Users/Anna/Sites/christmas-recipes exists and is not empty.\n\nBut that\u2019s OK. It\u2019s just upset because we\u2019ve got that index.html file and possibly also a README.md in there that we made earlier. So move those onto your desktop for the moment and run the command again.\n\njekyll new /Users/Anna/Sites/christmas-recipes\n\nIt should say that the site has installed.\n\nCheck you\u2019re in the repository, and if you\u2019re not, navigate to it by typing cd , drag the christmas-recipes directory into terminal\u2026\n\njekyll cd /Users/Anna/Sites/christmas-recipes\n\n\u2026and type this command to tell Jekyll to run:\n\njekyll serve --watch\n\nBy adding --watch at the end, we\u2019re forcing Jekyll to rebuild the site every time we hit Save, so we don\u2019t have to keep telling it to update every time we want to view the changes. We\u2019ll need to run this every time we start work on the project, otherwise changes won\u2019t be applied. For now, wait while it does its thing. \n\nUpdate the config file\n\nWhen it\u2019s finished, we\u2019ll see the text press ctrl-c to stop. Don\u2019t do that, though. Instead, open up the directory. You\u2019ll notice some new files and folders in there. There\u2019s one called _site, and that\u2019s where all the site files are saved when they\u2019re turned into static HTML. Don\u2019t touch the files in here \u2014 they\u2019re the generated files and will get overwritten every time we make changes to pages and layouts.\n\nThere\u2019s a file in our directory called _config.yml. This has some settings we can change, one of them being what our base URL is. GitHub Pages will assume the base URL is above the project repository, so changing the settings here will help further down the line when setting up navigation links.\n\nReplace the contents of the _config.yml file with this:\n\nname: Christmas Recipes\nmarkdown: redcarpet\npygments: true\nbaseurl: /christmas-recipes\n\nSet up your files\n\nOverwrite the index.html file in the root with the one we made earlier (you might want to pop the README.md back in there, too). \n\nDelete the files in the css folder \u2014 we\u2019ll add our own later.\n\nView the Jekyll site\n\nOpen up your favourite browser and type http://localhost:4000/christmas-recipes in the address bar.\n\n\n\nCheck it out, that\u2019s your site! But it could do with a bit more love.\n\nSet up the _includes files\n\nIt\u2019s always useful to be able to pull in snippets of content onto pages, such as the header and footer, so they only need to be updated in one place. That\u2019s what an _includes folder is for in Jekyll. Create a folder in the root called _includes, and within it add two files: head.html and foot.html. \n\nIn head.html, paste the following:\n\n\n\n
\n \nRecipe by {{ page.recipe-attribution }}.
\n\n\t