Incredible Embeddables! Level One...

...moving beyond mere text and hyperlinks.

You and I learn, work and live in a world that is dominated with visual content.

New apps to capture or share visual content appear frequently. 

As you find new tools (or use your preferred favorites) one thing is sure: capturing and creating visual content is easier than ever.
Creating an electronic portfolio is ultimately about telling your story. Regardless of where you begin or the amount of content you have prepared, the heartbeat of your story is based on your experience, ambitions, education, and achievements! Storytelling thrives on making experiences come to life. Adding images or video and other media often ensures that your story is more compelling than if you simply post numerous pages of text. In simple proof, we find images on most Webpages.  And, yes...we also find text!

Question: 

Does visual content draw your interest or influence your attention span?

Fact Check:  
Studies show that 60-65% of all people are visual thinkers. Visual thinkers are described as people who understand processes through visuals or actually interpret and see words as a series of pictures. In addition:
  • Visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than text
  • Ninety percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual
  • Forty percent of people respond better to visual information than text 
All those numbers indicate that we cannot ignore the need for visual content. In today's post, the myeFolio Spotlight takes time to focus on how to embed visual content to your site pages so your connection with viewers will be even more effective. 

Content that imports another resource into the existing location (Website or page) is embedded content. That is most significant because you want to keep viewers in your site rather than sending them elsewhere to see what you’ve got.

Showcase your competence as you increase your use of embeddables. The project or task artifacts you post (possibly in the form of presentations, scanned artwork, or visual sequences) often expand the impact of your site. Who doesn't want that?
The most frequent questions we receive about today's topic relate to tasks that involve the use of images or video clips in content. With much to share about both, we'll address images first and take on the process for embedding video next time.
Once you've captured your image, adjusted the dimensions or quality, and saved the file in GIF, PNG or JPEG format you're ready to upload it to a Web server. Many cloud-based hosting options exist or you can simply upload it to your content repository in myeFolio. Eventually you'll position the image by placing or dragging it where you want it to appear on the page (left, center or right columns; or to display within existing text). 

Each image below links to an example of image usage in existing myeFolio sites. Click the image to see the page content as described.

Images were placed on the page sidebar (center page space could also be used).
Image was posted within existing narrative using Drag-n-Drop or Touch-to-Place positioning. 
Images were embedded using the HTML Source Editor with tag attributes and properties. 
Image was uniquely embedded as an interactive map by capturing the code from the mapping source (in this case, Travellerspoint). 

You can achieve the same results you observed and more.  We've prepared two specific Project Guides to help you add images to your pages. (When clicked, each will open to a new browser tab or window.)

Image Basics:  Simple image control for myeFolio

Embedding Images:  Advanced techniques to increase viewer attention

For ultimate control, you'll want to embed the image within page content. That is best completed using the HTML Source Editor and is explained in the advanced guide (above). 

You'll find other reference guides at myeFolio Resources including one that illustrates the best "Image Preparation Tips" for myeFolio. All files will open in your PDF Reader.

As you apply visual content to your site, you'll also discover that some apps generate unique embed code for you to capture (copy) and then paste into myeFolio's HTML content form. However you add it, embedding visual content is a storytelling plus.

Take a step back and look at your site. Ask yourself where an image would significantly add to your story or best communicate what you want to share. You now know how!

Final Notes:
  1. There are many online tutorials that assist users with the tasks of editing digital images. Image edits must be completed outside of myeFolio. 
  2. Reasons to include alternative text or descriptions were not repeated in today's post. However, the accessibility advantage of following those time-honored rules of the Web is important. 
  3. Remember that the rules of intellectual property and copyright permissions apply. When using visual media not original to or licensed by you, get permission and list source credits. 
  4. If you want to learn more, or have questions when you first try these content practices, give our support team a chance to help you. 
We also enjoy seeing your successes so feel free to brag about what you've completed by sending us a link to your page.