Blend Interactive

How do you stand out in a sea of sterile accounting sites? For Cherry Bekaert, one of the fastest-growing firms in the U.S., the answer was bold design, smart strategy, and a flexible Optimizely build. Blend helped bring their personality to life — turning thought leadership into a standout experience. https://bit.ly/44IsgPk #Optimizely #WebDesign #Strategy #ProfessionalServices #DesignSystems

Umbraco v16 is here and it’s all about refinement. Improved accessibility, better backoffice experience, fewer annoyances, and a new rich text editor. All part of the bigger roadmap toward v17. Chase Burandt, one of Blend's lead developers and Umbraco Certified Master Developer, shares his top takeaways from the update: 1. Inheritance — First and foremost, "Inheritance" is back — meaning document types can once again inherit from other inherited types. This was removed in v14. 2. Backoffice progress — The new Backoffice continues its progress from v14 with more components already built into core. 3. Fewer notifications — The notification experience has been cleared up, removing pesky notifications that overlapped with actionable buttons whenever a developer or user saved their progress. 4. Updated rich-text editor — The rich-text editor (RTE) has changed from the old industry standard (TinyMCE) to TipTap. When upgrading, all existing rich-text editor fields will be migrated to TipTap, but TinyMCE is still available as a package from the marketplace. (Do note that the TinyMCE licenses have changed.) 5. Property level permissions — This is great additional feature where editorial users and groups can be given have specific permissions of what they can edit on a page at the field level. This will enable clients to have complete control of their editor experience. 6. A big stepping stone — While v16 isn't a major release, it is a stepping stone to the upcoming v17, the next Long Term Supported (LTS) version alongside another LTS release of .net10. 7. Accessibility — Overall, the main focus for v16 is accessibility and functionality in the backoffice, helping shore up any minor issues introduced over the past few versions. This ensures that the next LTS version is going to be the best stable version of Umbraco we have seen yet. Huge thanks to Chase for this breakdown! We’re looking forward to seeing what the community builds with v16 and beyond. #Umbraco #v16 #CMS #Backoffice #WebDevelopment #DeveloperExperience #dotnet #OpenSource #LTS #TipTap #TinyMCE

📍Replacing Google Maps for Better Privacy Google Maps can compromise HIPAA compliance. So, Blend partnered with Freshpaint to help a Children’s Hospital launch a secure, custom map solution within Optimizely. Better privacy. Same great experience. https://bit.ly/4kWGtNM

A few of us traveled to beautiful Odense, Denmark for the 20th Codegarden and it did not disappoint! We presented, accepted an award, met new people, learned a lot, and joined discussions on all things Umbraco. Our trip left us feeling inspired by those in our friendly community and excited about all that's to come with the Umbraco platform. We're already counting down to next year!

When parents are searching for care, your provider directory should offer more than a name and phone number — it should offer clarity, trust, and action. Corey Vilhauer, Director of Strategy at Blend, shares how children’s hospitals can upgrade the provider search experience to truly connect patients and providers with features like: -Smarter search -Location-aware filters -Seamless scheduling + contact -Rich, trustworthy provider profiles Get the rest of his insights and recommendations here: https://bit.ly/45uUVIr

"Change is hard — and we're all changemakers." - Neha Sampat (Founder & CEO, Contentstack) We attended Contentstack's Partner Day last week, and we left ready to be a changemaker for our clients — to guide them through their challenging web problems to reach creative digital experiences. Thanks for having us, Contentstack, we're so excited to kick off this partnership with you! 

Fifteen years! That’s how long Corey Vilhauer has been shaping design strategy at Blend, doing it with heart, humor, and an unmatched sense of rhythm (both musical and metaphorical). To celebrate his incredible milestone, we’re sending him and his family on a trip packed with all his favorites: vinyl gems, hiking trails through Washington’s wild beauty, and even a few skate parks to explore. Thanks for everything you bring to Blend, Corey—and congrats on fifteen years! 👏

We're ONE WEEK out from this year's Codegarden! We can't wait to be back with our friends from around the world for more learning, collaboration, and good times. #Codegarden #H5YR #Umbraco

We're getting ready to say hello to everyone at Codegarden — the Umbraco way. Can you tell we take #H5YR seriously around here? 🙌  

🚨 New hire alert! 🚨 Please help us welcome Steve, Blend’s newest .NET Developer! We can't decide what we're most excited about— his 19 years of experience in web development, knack for problem solving, or talents in music and creative writing. Either way, we can already tell he's a fantastic addition to our team. Welcome, Steve, we're so happy to have you!