Archive for February, 2012

I’ve Gone Mobile, Have You?

Tuesday, February 14th, 2012

For months now, we’ve been talking about the exploding trend toward using smart phones and tablets as the primary connection to the Internet. I have to admit that I was preaching the news, but didn’t really accept it. Now I do.

So far this morning I’ve used my iphone to check the news, read email, GPS directions to the car dealership, oh, and talk to the office. Six months ago I was always leaving my phone in my purse and forgetting to turn it on. Now it’s my constant companion. If it were waterproof, it would go right into the shower with me. I no longer see a phone but an all-purpose, irreplaceable assistant for my life.

I know there are folks who are ferociously resisting this role for technology. But I’m sold. Are you?

Now one of our oldest and dearest projects, the Cardinal’s Appeal for the Archdiocese of Washington, has gone mobile. It was an exciting challenge to take this finely-tuned, historic campaign into mobile technology.

Designing a mobile site is more than just “shrinking” an existing site. To be effective, a mobile site must display only the most pertinent information that people need when they’re on the go. A mobile user experience (there’s that UX again!) is not the same as the PC desktop experience.

Take a look at the difference in the two Cardinal’s Appeal sites to see what I mean.

  • Navigation. We designed a simple navigation system with large buttons that were easy to activate on a touch screen.
  • Content. Although the desktop website has a generous amount of stories, history and information to offer, the mobile site only includes the most critical content: About the appeal, donate and contact, with sub-links to the main site and the Spanish version.
  • Branding. Although the viewing area is small, we made it a priority to honor was the branding for the campaign. Remember, a mobile site is just one more tool that you can use to establish an identity and set yourself apart from your competition. The same design and marketing standards have to apply.

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What’s in Your Online Closet?

Tuesday, February 14th, 2012

We see it over and over again. Organizations invest time and money to redesign their web sites but still load as much information as possible into each page. They want fancy functionality and beautiful design, but don’t take time to “clean their content closet.”

Our top goal as web designers is to offer a satisfying experience to site visitors. That means getting people to the information they need quickly and making it easy for them to act. In web lingo, this is called a “positive user experience” or UX (if you’re into acronyms).

The emerging wisdom today for web content development is “less is more.” Sometimes our clients struggle to understand that the key to effective communication is to keep the information as simple as possible.

Jakob Nielsen, a guru of usability, says that the experience of a consumer is akin to a journey. He says, “Keep journeys short and focused to allow users to reach information quickly and easily; anything less and they’re going to go elsewhere.”

Steve Krug, author of Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, recommends, “Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what’s left.”

Here are some tips to give your visitors the experience they deserve.

  • Organize, organize, organize. Think about why people come to your site, what they most need and the most direct way to get them there. Tailor the content to support their goals more than yours.
  • Anticipate user mistakes. Make every process easy whether it’s using an online donation form or accessing contact information or finding in-depth articles. Even with the best planning, mistakes always will occur. Be sure to provide an obvious way for visitors to “undo” actions when they make an error or change their minds.
  • Help visitors focus. Consumers can be easily distracted by bright colors, bold text and moving objects. Keeping this in mind, if you want the consumer to stay focused keep the distractions at a minimum.
  • Lean on the experience of your web development team. Sometimes your internal staff may have a strong attachment to content even though it is no longer helpful to site users. An objective assessment can help you know when it’s time to let content go, just like that 10-year-old sweatshirt crammed into your closet.

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