Category: Web design

Why Less Is More, When it Comes to Web Pages: A Psychological Insight

October 10, 2012

Why Less Is More, When it Comes to Web Pages: A Psychological Insight It is common to see web pages that are minimalist and simplistic these days, but there are scientific theories behind encouraging sparsely designed websites. Psychological researchers believe that less is more, when it comes to online means of promoting a product. A group of researchers conducted a study wherein it was found that small articles in print media actually yield more response than big ads. Cognitive Limitations From a psychological perspective, the causation of this phenomenon can be attributed to a certain limit in our cognitive capacity when processing varied qualities of information at a given period of time. Human mind is capable of complex analysis of thoughts, information and opposing stimuli. However an overflow of information can lead to diminishing of cognitive processes eventually, even if it is not noticed initially. As a result of this, humans are programmed to register a certain amount of quality information and a tendency to leave out the rest. Information Overload Leads to Avoidance of Message Thus, adding a lot of information on a webpage or in an ad can lead to the reader either forgetting what he just read or becoming indifferent to the information provided, which is definitely not what the marketing professional wants. This fact is known and well established in print and audio-visual media, but in virtual marketing it is not so. It is still common to see online ads that pack in more flash images and textual content than they can fit and that ultimately leads to an information overload, leading to boredom or ignoring the message altogether. Subliminal Processing of Information “In your face” marketing will not only bore or annoy the target audience but will also cause information overload, which leads to possible customers just ignoring marketing messages. No matter how non-opinionated a person is, he or she would already have formed an opinion regarding a company or product because of subliminal messages. When a lot of information is provided in either the web page or in an online ad, it results in a barrage of information that is perceived to be intrusive subliminally. Lexical Comprehension Thus, ideally, web designers must ensure that a major portion of the web page is blank. Powerful meaning can be communicated when simple words are chosen over complex ones, when smaller sentences are used instead of lengthy ones and when less information is provided than bombarding viewers with images, text and videos. Lexical comprehension, which includes both semantic and syntactical understanding requires that an individual is not bombarded with strange syntactical formations. That means, a person should not be subjected to reading sentences that are formed in a complex manner. Similarly, complex semantics must be avoided by choosing not use complex words instead of using simple ones that can be understood by everyone. Simple Typography Web Designers must ensure that the typography they choose is simple, classic and timeless. It should never appear complex and there shouldn’t be even an iota of cognitive effort that is forced on the user or viewer. A good method is to make sure that a large number of people are asked to view the website and its content before it goes live. Similarly, an ad copy’s content and text need to be reviewed by several people to ensure that it is simple and minimalist. What Cognitive Psychology Tells Us about Minimalism It is important to ensure that web pages contain as little information as possible and have a lot of white space left blank. By doing so, marketing professionals and web designers will be able to attend to a viewer’s cognitive resources more efficiently. Following this method of design can be beneficial not only create an enigma or mystery in the buyer’s mind regarding the product but also helps in putting more space and reducing unnecessary hard work. When mystery is created around a product, an enigma remains in the buyer’s or viewer’s mind. Be it maximizing profits, minimizing hard work, or minimizing the buying of more ad space on a website, simplicity can save a lot of money, time and create marketing communications that are effective and aesthetically pleasing. Web designers and ad copywriters on the other hand will gain from understanding basic psychological principles behind minimalism, simplicity and the idea that ‘less is more’.

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Tumblr vs. Pinterest for Web Designers

April 20, 2012

The hottest social networking site right surely is Pinterest and it is known to drive a lot of traffic to websites. Tumblr on the other hand is a popular microblogging platform, which has been around for quite a while. There are similarities among both the services, and each works for different purposes, users and situations. Differences between Tumblr and Pinterest Tumblr is a micro-blogging platform that can behave like Twitter, act as a simplified version of WordPress and is a place to engage in discussion. Pinterest on the other hand is a visual bookmarking tool, that allows you to collect images and videos (and the links therein) on various categorized boards. Both of them depend more on media than text, but are fundamentally different. However, people do use Tumblr to collect pictures and images much like Pinterest. Both the tools can be astonishingly useful to web designers and developers. Let us compare the two services in order to understand which one could be better than the other. Team Collaboration Pinterest allows users to add contributors, which means collaborative collection of images found on the Internet or images that are originally taken can be easy. Pinterest can allow web designing companies to allow several designers to pin images that they like, in a form of visual brainstorming. Commenting and liking images, or pinning them back allows for socializing as well. Tumblr on the other hand is a fully functioning blogging platform that allows for lengthier discussions in the form of comments, and also in the form of text posts. As it follows a blogging structure, web designers can easily publish their strategies, ideas, tutorials etc easily. Collaboration in the real sense may be easier on Tumblr if we were to talk about combining blog posts, images, textual content and videos. Pinterest can be used as bookmarking tool or a place to showcase templates and designs you have created, before or after brainstorming. Marketing and Promotion Pinterest discourages self-promotion, whereas Tumblr doesn’t frown upon it. It is easier to promote oneself explicitly on Tumblr than on Pinterest. On Pinterest, you will have to use tricks and covert methods to promote your products or services. It might be a good idea to drive traffic from Pinterest to your Tumblr blog, where you actively promote your products. Pinterest has a majority of female users, where as Tumblr’s target audience is mostly youngsters. It depends who your target audience is before launching a marketing campaign. However, Tumblr seems to have a better marketing traction. SEO and SMO Both Tumblr and Pinterest are valuable SEO tools. They drive traffic to your company website, help you to generate organic traffic, and also achieve better search engine rankings. Interface Tumblr has more freedom to publish content, and doubles up as a blogging platform as well. Pages can be added and a simple website can be created within the Tumblr platform. On Pinterest, one can pin images found anywhere on the website, or upload original images and categorise them under various boards. Pinterest is more visually oriented than Tumblr, where as Tumblr is more of a publishing platform. Engagement, Discussion and Participation Tumblr allows better engagement and discussion. Thanks to its micro-blogging platform, it not only allows likes and re-blogs but lengthy discussions can happen in the comments section. Pinterest on the other hand allows commenting too, and images can be re-pinned or liked, but lengthy discussions are just not great enough. Web designers who need to discuss projects, tricks and tips, cheat sheets would do better on Tumblr. Web designers who need to showcase their templates, and basically offer visual eye-candy would gain more on Pinterest. Handling Design Projects Web designers can collect templates they like on Pinterest and also pin websites, portfolios of other designers and logos that they come across while browsing the web. Pinterest can serve as a place where web designers can find all the images that inspired them to design their own website. Tumblr on the other hand can be used to promote and market one’s own design projects. It could also be used to upload HTML5, CSS and other coding files in order to discuss with clients or team members. It serves as a collaborative, publishing and media sharing platform, all put together in a minimalist environment. It all depends on which part of the designing process one is handling. Both the tools are equally important and are not mutually exclusive.

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The Magic of Font Replacement

April 17, 2012

While graphics and images can spruce up a site’s look almost immediately, the importance of typography and font selection can’t be downplayed. In fact, people would not want to take the trouble of reading through content that is not published in an attractive font. Choice of Typography Web designers however are limited to using only a few fonts that are ‘web safe’. The idea is to make sure that a certain font which is used is available across all operating systems. If a font is not available on a certain operating system, the page may appear to be filled with numbers and symbols. Moreover, it is no longer accepted to use static techniques to publish content, as they can’t be crawled by search engines. Web designers usually use Georgia, Ariel or Times New Roman for the bulk of the content. Why Font Replacement is Necessary and How to Achieve it However, it tends to become monotonous and even mundane to use the same fonts all across. If designers choose to use something that is a bit edgy or exciting, they might try dynamic text replacement. The idea is to make headers, quotes and such other text with a font that is eye-catching and attractive. Dynamic text replacement must not be used for entire pages, but only those bits and parts which need to stand out, like headings, quotes, menu items and whatever else you might think is important to be highlighted. With HTML5 and CSS3 invading the web evermore, several new font replacement techniques have appeared. Font Replacement Techniques Let’s take a look at services and products that are available for web designers in order to assist with font replacement. Typekit: It is open to all and a designer shall have to subscribe to a font library from one of the many foundries. You would need to customize CSS for it to work and create a font stack to fallback upon, if the font isn’t supported. Kernest: This is yet another service which is open to all and comes with an a la carte selection of different fonts. All that you would need to do is select the fonts you desire and paste them into the generated CSS style sheet. Unlike Typekit, you would not require JavaScript. Many fonts are free, so it can be quite attractive. Typotheque: Another open-to-all service, Typotheque comes with a number of fonts which can be selected, and pasted generated CSS into the stylesheet just like Kernest. Font Squirrel: This too uses @font-face and it looks good on Apple computers as well. It is one of the most preferred techniques at the moment. There are also certain techniques which do not make use of @font-face, and use Flash and scripting to display fonts that may not be available on the users system. These techniques are free too, and are easy to use. sIFR (Scalable Inman Flash Replacement): You would need to embed your font in a Flash SWF file. The chosen text will be converted to Flash text by JavaScript which can later be altered as you require. It is rather difficult to set up as certain aspect are handled by either CSS or JavaScript. Cufon: This is a really popular service which allows you to convert your font to a JavaScript, VML or HTML5 formats. However, Cufon causes a flicker on the screen when Internet is slow. Google’s Font API Service: This is an open source project that is provided by Google. However, if Google servers are down, your fonts may perhaps have a bad day too. Useful Resources for Web Designers The techniques that are available for font replacement are several and there are several exhaustive references online. We have compiled a list of useful references that would help web designers to engage in font replacement. Smashing Magazine has a list of tools and techniques to ensure rich typography on the web. Tutsplus, Zomigi and Webm.ag list a few popular services that we have spoken about, and mention their advantages and disadvantages. Web Designer Ledger and W3Designing both have listed 30 effective font replacement techniques each. These resources can prove to be extremely useful to web designers. In order to choose the best technique, a designer would have to make educated choices and informed decisions. It may all depend on the experience and knowledge of the designer. What one must remember is that when text is replaced with images or Flash, it may not be very good for SEO. Moreover, with HTML5 and CSS3 on the rise, web designers must be open to newer services and try to catch up with the latest in cyber town.

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How to Hire a Web Designer

April 12, 2012

Any business or individual will need to have a professional website in order to have an Internet presence. With internet access spanning tablets, smartphones and computers, it is important that someone who designs your website is experienced, qualified and knowledgeable in an array of factors. Thenceforth begins your search for a web designer. Let us take a look at the scenario. Why Hire a Web Designer? Web designers are professionals who build web pages and are responsible for the creative aspect of it. A website has to look as different as possible, and must reflect the character and personality of a company and the business it’s involved in. Web designers make sure that a website is visually and sensually attractive and eye-capturing. They also save time and enquire with clients what they imagine their ideal website to look like Most web designers have knowledge not only in designing attractive web pages, but also know certain amount of web development, programming, graphics, managing and maintaining websites, and marketing the website that you have just got created. While pure web developers can still create websites that look good, they may just use certain templates to do as, as they are more interested in the functionalities and programming that go behind creating a website. A web designer is specifically concerned with how a website looks and feels. Thus, it is crucial to hire a web designer to save time, personalise your website and create a unique brand identity over the web. When to Hire a Web Designer? When a company or individual requires a new website, blog or a webpage Web designers need to be hired when an existing website needs to be revamped or given a new look Altering the structure of an existing website and making it more social media friendly, or more visually attractive When there are aesthetic and interface issues with a website When there are issues with an already designed website What are the “Must” Qualities to Look for in a Web Designer while Hiring? Before hiring a website, one needs to look at a number of factors, ranging from academic, financial to previous work. Here are some of the basics that you need to explore before hiring a web designer. Portfolio: One needs to look at a web designer’s portfolio whether he is experienced or a fresher. Live websites of what is given in the portfolio would help you to gauge how good a web designer is at his work. You might want to see if there are broken links within any of the websites mentioned in the portfolio, design errors, aesthetic blunders, typography and such. Business Website: A good web designer would always a business website. He or the web designing company is an advertisement for the kind of work that you can expect. However, it doesn’t necessarily mean that a great business website translates to great work. However, it is one of the indications. Skills: A web designer would of course have Flash, Dreamweaver, Photoshop and other graphic tools’ expertise. However, you need to confirm if they also know HTML, CSS and JavaScript. They should also be able to bring someone who can write content or know about Ajax, graphics creation and such. Finances: You must enquire how much they cost. In web designing, it is usually what you get for what you pay. However, it is important to know that this shouldn’t be your primary concern. Accessibility: You would need to make sure that you can contact them after the work is completed and that they are always approachable. Look for a business telephone number in the place where they are based. References: References can help you a lot. While you may not get the best designer in town, you certainly won’t get the worst either. Personal Interaction: Interact with the designer, talk about designing, what they like, etc. general conversations can tell a lot of things about a person. Whom Should You Never Hire? Basically you must not hire a web designer who doesn’t meet the criteria above. To elucidate: Lack of portfolio and references: There are many freelance web designers who either do not have portfolios or have a shoddy collection of templates in the name of a portfolio. Avoid them. Some also hesitate giving references. Again, a big no. Business Website: A web designers website says a lot about him or his firm. If there are broken links or if the site doesn’t feature a sitemap there is no guarantee your website will be perfect. Avoid them too. Price: If a web designer demands more than 50% of the total sum upfront, you should avoid them as well. Web Designers who are Graphic Artists in Disguise: While graphic artists can build basic web pages, they are not web designers. Anyone who doesn’t know HTML, CSS, JavaScript and doesn’t give you marketing support should be avoided. Hiring Individual Designer vs. Hiring from an Outsourcing Agency There are many advantages to hiring a web designer from an outsourcing agency than hiring an individual designer. Access to Other Professionals: When you hire a web designer from an outsourcing agency, you are also getting connected to web developers, graphics designers, SEO professionals, programmers and engineers who may not be accessible through a single web designer. Lower Cost: An outsourcing agency tends to receive a lot of work and thus the cost of designing a website would be significantly cheaper than getting it done from an individual designer. Quick Turnaround: An outsourcing agency takes its business very seriously. With more hands at work, your website would be ready quickly. Experience: A firm always receives more work than an individual designer. Thus, they carry that experience and knowledge. Versatility: An outsourcing agency would be used to dealing with all kinds of clients. This leads to versatile thinking and creative solutions.

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What are Twitter Hashtags?

April 9, 2012

Twitter is one of the most difficult social networks for people to learn. They say, you either get it or you just don’t. Many of us do not have the choice of ‘not getting it’, and hashtags only make the learning curve more difficult. What Are Hashtags? You might have noticed words beginning with # symbol in individual tweets. These are known as hashtags, something extremely central to the way Twitter functions. A Hashtag is a tag that is prefixed with the # symbol, and helps to categorize tweets that are unimaginably dissimilar and non-cohesive. With millions of tweets out there, it becomes difficult to categorize individual tweets, and that is where the hashtag comes to work. Hashtags are used to categorise tweets, and also to give a direction to otherwise random tweets that may eventually get lost. How to Use Hashtags? Hashtags must be used next to relevant keywords without any spaces. If your tweet is related to how HTML5 can improve the quality of websites you deisgn, #webdesign and #HTML5 can be appropriate hashtags. This helps your tweet to appear in search results when people type #HTML5. Hashtags can be used anywhere within a tweet and can even be part of the sentence. Hashtagged words that become really popular are said to be ‘trending topics’. While very tempting to do so, you must make sure that you do not stuff your tweet with hashtags. It may appear spammy or downright unprofessional. Ideally, you should not include more than two hashtags per tweet. Identifying and Tracking Hashtags Hashtags can be identified in various smartphone applications even as you type. However, if you use the computer to use Twitter, there are several tools which can help you to identify popular hashtags. Twubs uses a wiki system to disseminate information on a hashtag. It has an attractive way to display hashtags and the tweets associated. Hashtags.org has been around for a while, and suggests tags that may be relevant to what you are looking for. Tagalus is a dictionary of sorts for hashtags. There are several other tools to discover hashtags on Twitter. Monitter and Twitterfall help you to track tweets from a hashtag in real time. Twilert sends you a daily email of specific hashtag’s uses. You can take a look at some of the popular hashtags for web designers here. Popular Hashtags for Web Designers and Developers #design and #webdesign cater to web designing and designing in general. #wp and #wordpress relate to tweets that pertain to WordPress. #win and # windows are about Microsoft Windows, where as #linux and #mac are self explanatory If you are a developer, you would hashtags like #htm, #css, #htm, #xml, #java and #php would interest developers #webdesigner, #typography, #UX talk about fonts, web designing jobs and user experience. If you are looking for templates, all that you need to do is search for #template! If you are lacking inspiration, you might perhaps want to type, “Badly need some #webdesign #inspiration!” Chances are, you might meet a fellow web designer who would tweet back to you, and give you ideas. #jobs, #gigs, #freelance, #openings can be used along with your area of specialization to search for clients or jobs. For instance, if you are looking for a job and would like to offer PHP coding services, you could search for #jobs #PHP. #fail usually refers to something, well failed or is just not good enough. It can be used in a humorous or derogatory way., depending on the context. Hashtags can be used to organize your own tweets, so that you could go back and search for them easily. You would need to search for a particular hashtag within your own stream in order to retrieve earlier tweets. It can also help in organizing chats, conferences, or events both online and offline. At the end of the day, it depends on you how you use hashtags. It is now being used on Pinterest and elsewhere as well, so it helps to learn popular hashtags without having to look for them when you need to tweet spontaneously. Finally, don’t forget to use a hashtag for your own company, as that can be a powerful identifier on Twitter!

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What? How? Why? About Pinterest and Some Useful Tips

April 7, 2012

The latest social networking site, Pinterest has attracted a lot of press lately. While many have begun to swear by it, there are many of us who still do not understand this novel tool and how it might help us to drive traffic to websites, organize design projects and add a little colour to an otherwise text-filled world. What is Pinterest? In simple terms, Pinterest is an online space where one could organize pictures that are interesting. These images can either be uploaded originally or shared after running into an image while browsing. Once an image is uploaded or shared on Pinterest, it becomes a ‘pin’. A collection of pins that are related to each other can then be organized under themed Boards. It is up to the user what the boards are going to be named, or what sort of ‘Pins’ the board would consist of. How is Pinterest Used? Pinterest comes with an official ‘Pin It Button’, which is a browser extension. Each time you come across an image you like, you could click on the image and pin it under a board of your choice. Of course, you could accompany the ‘Pin’ with a caption or lengthier text as well. At the moment, it is possible to use your iPhone to Pin original pictures. Images can be categorized for further use, or for inspiration. All the hats that you like may be pinned under a specific board, so that others may see which hat you like. Or, you might want to pin pictures of apartments that you may find interesting, and pin them under a board titled ‘Possible Apartments to Buy’. The possibilities are endless! It is also a great tool to make lists of products that you may find attractive online, which you may choose to buy at a later stage. While you can always pin all day long anything that catches your eye, Pinterest is better used with a specific purpose in mind. Moreover, Pinterest can serve as a collaborative tool, with which you can collect images, brainstorm and work on issues that may be important to you. Pinterest is an open and public network. Anybody can follow anyone, and one is not obliged to follow back. One could categorize pins under hashtags, similar to Twitter hashtags. Who Uses Pinterest? Pinterest’s power users are aged between 25 and 44, and 80% of the users are female. They also earn a lot more than most people and have some level of college education. They tend to be located in the Midwestern states of the United States. However, this demographic is quickly changing to include people from other countries, and a growing number of men who have begun to use Pinterest for design projects. Can Pinterest Drive Traffic? All said and done, Pinterest is an important traffic driver to websites. It is particularly important to retail brands, as their products depend on visual appeal. Pinterest was launched way back in 2010, but it already has more than 10.4 million users. Of course, it can’t be compared with Facebook’s 845 million users or Twitter’s 200 million users. What needs to be understood is that Pinterest targets a certain visually oriented target audience, which could be a great platform to look for niche traffic. If one were to consider referral traffic, Pinterest is almost equal to Twitter, with both driving 3.6% of web traffic. Facebook on the other hand, has a share of 26.4%. LinkedIn and Google+ lag behind at 0.2%. Why Pinterest is Important to Web Designers? Most images that are pinned lead to a source link and as Pins can be ‘liked’ or ‘repinned’, they come with a promising traffic driving potential. This is perhaps what would interest SEO specialists and web admins. When it comes to web designers, it is rather easy to surmise that they would pin templates, images and graphics that they may want to use in certain projects. Pinterest is collaborative and social, which also means that web designers can use it to present design ideas to clients. Again, like we always say with social sites, the possibilities are endless. Pinterest is being increasingly seen as a promising tool for web designers, mostly because of its visual nature. Pinterest allows you to organize links based on images that you see on various websites. These images, which might be websites that inspire you to design similarly, could be clubbed under various categories of boards. Top 10 Tips to Use Pinterest 1) Use Pinterest on Websites It is very important to make your presence on Pinterest known to visitors to your website. Pinterest has a number of goodies, which can help you to add Pinterest buttons, either on the page or on individual products that you display. This would encourage visitors to pin products on your site, and eventually drive traffic back to your website, probably resulting in sales. 2) The Right Etiquette Like any other social media website, it is important to not sound like you are over promoting yourself or your products. It is alright to promote your products, but your boards must include images and links to themes, ideas and interests that can be associated with your business. It is important to be nice, polite and non intrusive. 3) Engagement and Participation Increase the number of pins and boards, and keep them relevant to your business. Follow people who follow you, and engage in conversations about what they like and dislike. The more images you pin, the more traffic you will drive back to your website. 4) Keywords and Hashtags Just like in Twitter, Pinterest allows you to use keywords and hashtags relevant to particular pins. For instance, #Flash, #design, #CSS can be relevant hashtags to your web design projects. It is important to identify which hashtags are most relevant to your business. If you are a developer, you could perhaps link images to your blog posts that describe coding, screenshots of HTML and PHP codes, etc. 5) Interest Groups There

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Web Designers vs. Web Developers: The Real Showdown

April 5, 2012

One of the often repeated sagas in the world of web designing is who is better, the web designer or the developer. Turns out, many-a-times the web designers and the web developers too can’t decide and each believes his profession is superior. This clash of egos results in certain comical situations but mostly unfortunate incidents where if the two worked as a team, the end product (the website) would be much better. Who is a Web Designer? A web designer is responsible for the way a website looks and feels. He is responsible for the artistic, graphic and creative aspect of a website. A web designer is most approachable to the client as the client knows how the website must look. A designer thus uses certain web designing tools (Flash, Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, etc) to play with layouts, colors and typography. Web designers are responsible in making a website unique and special, standing out from the rest of the competitors. Who is a Web Developer? A web developer on the other hand makes sure that the engineering of the website is done right. A web developer uses advanced coding, programming languages (C++, Java, PHP, etc) and other techniques to make a website functional and usable. Web developers are less concerned with the creative aspects than the functional aspect of a website. A web developer makes the website ‘happen’, based on what the designer hands out in a PSD file, for instance. Stereotypes of Web Designers and Developers Everyone has heard of the nerdy and geeky developer, who sips gallons of coffee, doesn’t trim beard for days and is slightly asocial, when compares to a designer. A web designer on the other hand is stereotyped to be creative, trendier and more social of the two. These stereotypes unfortunately are played by the professionals themselves, without realising that they are falling victims to ego clashes, which are certainly not necessary in a team. Do take a look at what the professionals themselves have to say about their professions! Also, take a look at an infographic that describes the stereotypes about web designers and web developers. Thus, one could say that a web designer takes care of the designing and creative part, where as the developer takes care of the coding, programming and functional aspects of a website. Both are crucial for a website to work the way it should, and look the way it should. Reasons of Conflicts between Developers and Designers There are many reasons for conflicts between web designers and web developers. There are certain communication gaps and ego clashes that work against working in a single team. Moreover, designers tend to be more creative and find coding and functionality self-limiting. Developers find creativity and divergent thinking radical, and contrary to what they believe: stability and functionality. These basic differences in opinion, attitude and ego-clashes result in most of the conflicts between the two. For instance, developers find it difficult to work with Flash files and designers may not want to work with HTML and CSS because they are not used to them. Designers also tend to be slightly less organized than developers, who almost tend to be OCD personalities. For instance, developers may find it very infuriating to work with unnamed PSD files with several layers. Lack of communication gives rise to most of the conflicts between the two. Take a look at this argument by developers about why they think they are better than designers. However, such arguments need introspection, and only working together can create great results. Advantages of Conflicts and How they May Help in Projects Conflicts always need to be resolved, and when we talk about conflicts between designers and developers we must understand that there are possibilities for opportunities. There are also certain advantages to these conflicts. A dreary argument between a designer and a developer may lead to brainstorming. Brainstorming usually results in clarity of thought and acceptance of difference in opinions. Thus, a conflict may help to increase creative energies and result in a successful project. How to Minimize Conflict and Work Together to Create Great Projects Patrick McNeil, the content director of HOW Interactive Designer, is the author of The Designer’s Web Handbook. The book helps designers to deal with issues they encounter while web designing. It also helps them to tackle issues that they may encounter with developers. He maintains that both of them need to work together, and each can’t do without the other. The best way to minimize conflicts is to communicate. Communicating what seems to be infuriating can give rise to a number of solutions. Moreover, one must also accept that it isn’t possible to do without the other and both web developers and designers need each other no matter how different their thought patterns are. Designers + Developers, Designers vs. Developers

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Designing Websites and Products that Evoke Positive Emotions

March 19, 2012

Cognitive science helps us to understand that there is more to consumer decisions and choices than just good products. While good products and designs are fundamental to their own success in the market, certain choices and decisions made by consumers are not limited to the intellectual quality of a product’s benefits or superiority over others. Design’s Underlying Cognition Psychologists believe that consumers make decisions on an impulse, and the attitude and opinions they develop towards a company, its products or its designs are largely based on their own life experiences, mood states, emotions and certain personality characteristics. One could say that psychological processes like perception, memory, emotions and cognitive schemas play very important roles in consumers’ decision to purchase certain designs and reject others. Jeroen van Erp, co-founder of Fabrique, a multidisciplinary design agency proposed an inverted pyramid model that depicts designers as having the responsibility of creating aesthetic products which provide meaning and evoke emotions in consumers. It is a role that is perhaps more profound than that of an entrepreneur’s, whose job is to profitably sell his products. Psychologists also emphasize that many purchases are emotional in nature, and attitudes are formed when there is an emotional reaction towards a product, when certain memories from past life experiences elicit strong emotions in consumers. These emotions are elicited when a consumer encounters certain product or a design. Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things by Donald Norman explores the underlying psychological process of buying. The book helps designers and manufacturers to understand why it is important to consider emotions, perception and other cognitive processes while creating websites or designing products. Emotional Designing for an Internet Driven World In a world that is dominated by ecommerce and web-driven marketing, a company’s website becomes an intermediary between products and services and consumers who purchase them. A well-designed website has the ability to capture and sustain a consumer’s attention, and this attention can be translated into a positive perception if the design or layout of the website attempts to do so. Perceiving a website positively usually results in processing of that positive information and associating it with positive life experiences. For instance, a website that is designed aesthetically may encourage a consumer to associate those colours with an art class that they took in school, which probably was a very positive and satisfying experience for them. These positive memories evoke positive emotions and mood states that help consumers to associate that particular website with joy, satisfaction or even self-actualization. Emotional Designing for Webpages If we are talking about how one could elicit positive emotions when designing a website, one must understand that the web page is akin to canvas. The canvas can be ‘painted’ with aesthetic images, contours and colors. Intuitive navigation and task-oriented functions are processed by visitors as credibility, trustworthiness and security. These perceptions evoke positive emotions that may translate into loyalty and continued visits. Of course, positive text and careful usage of words, avoiding jargons and not being circumstantial and tangential allow for information to be rendered in an aesthetic manner. Apps and Emotions While designing web or mobile applications, similar psychological and cognitive themes can be applied. An intuitive interface, colors associated with trust, simplicity and minimalism, and reduced clutter in app design help in evoking positive emotions as well. Using minimalism, intuitive layouts and contours, and elegance can help in evoking positive emotions from products and devices as well. Thus, a designer must bear in mind to consider aspects that have direct emotional consequences. Tapping Sensual Responses Sensual stimuli that activate visual, tactile and auditory receptors usually evoke emotions. Products and websites must be designed to please the eye. If possible, websites can have audio in the background and touchscreen capabilities of applications and websites allow for tactile stimulation. It isn’t possible yet to tap olfactory (smell) and gustatory (taste) responses when designing websites, but one can’t predict the future! Emotions are strongly connected to social situations and thus anything that can be shared, help in starting conversations and be an extension of consumers personality always help. Thus, designing for emotions is to remember that customers can and do make decisions based on feelings, impulses and mood states and not based only upon rational arguments and logic.

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SEO Trends in 2012

March 7, 2012

The web has played a major role in expanding business today. And becoming visible to people who matter, is the priority of all business. Search Engine is the key for online visibility as people use Search Engines to find the relevant thing they are looking out for. SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the technique using which the visibility of a website can be improved in Search Engine and rank it higher in Search Engine Result there by placing it on the FrontPage for a keyword. SEO helps in putting one website above others so that it will be noticed and the searcher will click on it and visit the website. When we talk of Search Engine Optimization, we keep in mind that we are talking about Google. With 84% market share Google is the leader in Search.  The business of Search Engine Optimization is quite fickle because of the ever-changing methodology Google employs to rank websites. In SEO it is difficult to predict what will work and what will not because of this frequent changes in the backend algorithm. What is working today might not be as relevant tomorrow.  So a good SEO professional should be well acquainted with changing trend in SEO and keep himself/herself updated with what is coming in. With that in mind we present below few of the expected trends in SEO for 2012. Humanized ranking Whatever automated techniques are implemented to rank sites, nothing can beat it when actual readers start ranking the websites. This way only the really relevant sites will be ranked and appear in the front page of Search result. Search engines like Google have realized this and have resorted to this way for ranking sites. So what is the implication? Link buying, swapping and baiting will rest in peace for ever. Social Media Social media in 2012 will have major impact on Search Engine rankings. The Search result page will contain more and more of social media mentions. The Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ profiles and brand pages will have bigger roles in search engine rankings. For this the SEO strategy should be inclined towards social media. Your presence in social media should be strengthened and enhanced. Share only relevant information in your social network to catch the attention. Also number of Tweets, Facebook Likes and Plus ones can have impact on the SEO. Posting quality and relevant information will draw the attention and will garner more likes, tweets and plus one. While searching for Abhishek Rungta in Google, the 3 results in top 5 are from social network sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Quality and not Quantity Earlier it was thought that longer articles with lot of keywords help in ranking. So it was a trend to write long articles with keyword stuffing. These are considered spam by Google with the recent Google Panda update. Many content firms have been penalized and are still trying to recover from the effect of Google Panda. Those with quality content saw an increased in traffic and rankings. Google is refining the Panda algorithm more with every updates, so that searchers will be able to reach to sites with quality content. So the SEO strategy should consider having Quality, relevant and informative content. Mobile Search The growth in Mobile usage has been tremendous. Introduction of Smartphone at affordable prices is strengthening it further. People prefer to search for information on mobile devices because it is easier and faster and always at reach and give better result in some cases as it employs localized search. So the mobile search market has huge opportunity in 2012 and in coming year. It’s high time the SEO professionals should start consider optimizing the sites for mobile search and the businesses should relook at their mobile strategy. CRO will be the buzzword CRO stands for Conversion Rate Optimization. This means converting your visitors into customers. If you are running an online business, then you can understand the importance of qualified traffic. These are the actual visitors who actually convert into customers. The site needs to be overhauled to engage customer and spend more time on the site. The call to action buttons need to be placed at proper location. SEO aimed at converting qualified traffic to customers will be the order of the day in 2012. Voice Search With Siri from Apple and Google Voice search it is easier to see where the web search is moving. Instead of browsing through a lot of result people tend to look for a direct answer when they are searching for something. Siri has been able to address that to some extent in its infancy. It usually relies on few sites to find the result. So SEO professionals concentrate on how to optimize the site to be in the purview of those sources. In future this new search technology is definitely going to replace all other kind of search. Personalized Search Most of the search engines are now displaying personalized search result. The search result now shows result recommended by people in social network. This can be tested by searching for something while you are logged in to Google and while you are signed out; you will see 2 different sets of result. With recent release of Google’s Search plus Your World, the personalized search has gone to a higher level. Decline CTR for Top Rank A study shows that In 2006, a no.1 rank in Search result used to enjoy a CTR of more than 42%, which declined to 34.5% in 2010 and in 2011 further down to 18.2%. This decline is due to many factors like organization of Search result page, introduction of search technology like Universal Search and Instant search. SEO should digest this hard fact that the value of top ranking is going to decline further. Rich Snippet Snippets are the 2 lines of text that appear below the site Title on a search result page. This is very important, as it provides a gist

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Logo Design: What Goes in Making a Good Logo?

March 6, 2012

Most designers encounter clients who need logos to be designed for them. Though a logo is a tiny piece of art, it carries more weight than reams of pages. What Is a Logo? A logo defines and describes what a company stands for. A logo helps people recognize the company as a different entity from its competitors. It inspires trust, familiarity, loyalty and a certain sense of superiority. It helps define a company as a separate commercial, legal and economic identity which has a place of its own in the world. The shapes, colors and fonts used to create a logo are always different from every other logo that has been designed. Thus it is no surprise than many companies sue each other when their logos appear similar. While a logo does not directly market or sell, it identifies the company as a commercial entity and its products as being separate from others in the market. One could say, that a logo is a signature of a company. What Makes a Good Logo? There are several ways to make sure that a logo is exceptionally good. A good logo has to be graphical in nature, and minimalist. A simple design always attracts and holds more attention than an intricate design that requires greater span of attention. A good logo has to be appropriate for the audience of the company’s products and services. It also has to be distinctive and practical. Logos may have to be printed on a number of merchandize and thus they have to be simple, accurate and easy to recognize. Any logo that is good has an implicit meaning or a message that is conveyed in a unique unstated manner. Even without colour, a logo should be able to stand on its own just because of its shape. It should be designed in such a manner that it can be replicated in any size that the company wants to. Thus, a good logo comes with a good concept and good execution. The Process of Logo Designing Designing a logo cannot take place haphazardly. It requires a certain discipline and the ability to stick to a process. The process involves a design brief, which involves interviewing the client and asking them to answer questions. This may include such elements as what meaning they try to convey through their logo, what the company’s goals, beliefs and ethics are all about. Once the brief is ready, it is time to do the research. A research must include deep insight into the industry that the client belongs to, and the company’s history and also its competitors. Having a reference, which is usually cultural in nature, is always good. Logos should be consistent with contemporary themes and beliefs. It should be recognizable as defining a certain quality. Once all this is done, designers could begin with the actual process of sketching and conceptualizing. Once a logo has been conceptualized, it can be sketched and created on the computer. In between the logo designing process, one needs to wait and reflect on what has been done so far. It allows the designer to think, introspect and come up with newer ideas or ameliorate what has been done already. This step leads one towards revisions and positioning. This helps in explaining the logo to the client, and also building lasting relationships with them. The best logos can then be presented to the client in PDF format or in any manner that may be convenient. Logo Designing Principles While this process is common to all kinds of logos, a logo designer must also bear in mind that the profession of designing logos stands upon certain principles. These principles can be understood in the following manner: Simple: A logo must always be simple, and should have minimalist sub-themes. It should not cause cognitive dissonance among the target audience and should be clutter free. Memorable: A logo should be remembered easily. It should have geometric and recognizable patterns so that the company can be easily associated with the logo and remembered as well. Timeless: Though a logo should be contemporary in nature, it must also be timeless. This only means that shapes and patterns that are chosen must be consistent across classic and contemporary periods. It always helps to be a little conservative when it comes to logo shapes. Versatile: A logo has to be adaptable, and should be able to fit in any place it is printed on. Appropriate: It goes without being said that logos should not be profane or provocative. They should not hurt anyone’s sentiments and should be neutral in nature. It should also be appropriate for all sections of the society. BTW, If you have a logo to be designed, feel free to drop us a line and we will be happy to connect you with our Logo Design team.

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