Your logo is the first impression people have of you and your company or organization, and the brand by which they will compare you to your competitors for years to come. If you’ve been thinking about a logo redesign, you may relate to the “signs you need a logo update” in Design Festival’s article When and How to Update Your Logo Successfully.
Reason 4 talks about keeping at least one element of an old logo intact. We agree.
Let’s face it, "googling" is now part of the English language.
Google is the top ranking search engine, so now the name of the game is to have your site top-ranked on Google.
It doesn’t hurt to have top ranking at Yahoo!, AOL, and MSN either.
But today, ensuring your site appears in top positions in search engine results isn’t a do-it/forget-it proposition.
It takes time and diligence to manually insert the right algorithms into your index and relevant pages
that will get your site noticed and picked up by the Open Project Directory and other major search engines.
It’s time consuming, tedious work that can pay off in big ways. It requires the skill to push the limits without pushing too far and having your site banned for life.
Potential customers find your site before they find your competition
SEO is a blend of technical savvy with effective copywriting. While nothing short of 24/7 vigilance can ensure a site will always come out on top, a few practical strategies can and do make a difference:
We can create keywords or phrases in page titles and headings with the proper keyword density and link usage, then create links from all respected search sources so you have a large number of links pointing to your site. We manually submit everything, and report significant changes in your listing on a regular basis. If your listings fall, we optimize your site to bring it back to top rankings.
OK, so it’s the new thing. But when does it make sense to use a database server? Let’s take a look at the basics.
Basically speaking, a database-enabled web site allows you to customize your content for specific users, or to serve up customized information to answer a specific question by a specific user, e.g., which members or agents or salons are located in California or Ohio, or which are located in a
specific 3- or 5-digit zip code? Note that data can refer to text, numeric, or even date information.
Many organizations today already have mission-critical information arranged in databases. Enabling a web site to serve database information can add immense value to your web communications, This can very easily complement and support your customer service program, and typically reduces your
overall customer service costs while increasing the value you bring to your customer.
Databases have been ushered into the worldwide web through an ever-increasing number of stable yet versatile tools that allow site developers to capture the power of databases. Applications such as PHP, MySQL, Ruby on Rails, and XML combine with standard HTML (HyperText Markup Language) and
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to create powerful yet elegant sites. These applications have the added attraction of being freeware; they are in the public domain so do not require a fee for the license to use the application.
It is a good question. Those that only need a very small, simple site often need only a “static” site, i.e., each page is hard-coded and never changes.
Those who have multiple items that each consist of multiple pieces of similar types of data are more often opting for an XML implementation.
Those who wish to display complex information or who already have their information organized in a relational database use tools such as php or Ruby to query (communicate with) a database management system (DBMS) such as MySQL or Oracle to display their data as requested.
Some organizations run their entire large web site using database technology; others only need a portion of their site to be database-driven. The benefits include:
But again, the best way to determine if your whole site, or a portion of your site, can benefit from database technology is to review your content and site goals with your designer before work begins. To learn more about the advantages of site planning, read Constructing User-Centered Websites. If you’d like to talk more about our database services, contact or 513.677.3887 for more information.
You’ve found the site, now you need one piece of information that you’re sure is there. But where? After several clicks into a maze of dead-end and wrong way streets, you give up. You scream, “I can’t find the information I’m looking for!” So you leave the site, another disappointed user left stranded and frustrated on the Information Stupor Highway. We believe that Websites need to be intuitive and predictable. Structured according to the mental model of the user.
Long before the finished product is uploaded to the host server, we model a site’s structure by creating two types of construction: wireframe and graphical.
These preliminary structures serve as prototypes. The wireframe rests on ActiveCanvas’ development server. The graphic prototype is delivered via static images.
The wireframe prototype includes text, structure, and navigation but not graphics. It allow us to concentrate on the copy and framework of the site without being influenced by it’s look and feel. As with any prototype, the wireframe can change through successive iterations.
Graphics are constructed and placed within the site structure. Nonsense text is inserted where text would normally be. This allows us to focus on the look and feel without being distracted by the text.
Information is placed in the wireframe according to how individuals typically view information. For example, users usually look first at the headlines, then the article summaries, and then captions, and ignore graphics. Concise meaningful titles and headers help the user understand the content and meaning of a Web page. They ignore information low on the page, or anything that looks like advertisement.
In organizing the content, we keep the number of user clicks to a minimum to avoid user confusion. And we keep the navigation scheme visible throughout so the user always knows where they are on any page.
A concise style of writing is vital. Text is written to be scanable. Tone is objective, not promotional. We use highlighted words, bullet lists, and one key idea per paragraph when possible.
Once the client approves the wireframe and graphical prototypes, we combine all the elements into the final version.
This site building method is good for the designer because the wireframes and graphical prototypes takes less time to build. Changes are easier and no time is wasted. In fact, it speeds the final phase of the project by practically eliminating further iterations.
It’s good for the client because it provides a simple interface for the approval process. In the wireframe, clients pay attention to language and accuracy. In the graphical prototype they aren’t distracted with the copy. It helps everyone on the project team focus on the original site goals.
Ultimately, it’s good for the user. And that’s where the rubber meets the road.
Language is our most powerful tool. We use it to filter and define our world.
It empowers us to make connections, get involved, and to influence each other.
It also gives us the power to mislead, antagonize and irritate each other.
Site builders commonly spend huge chunks of time defining architecture, implementing whiz-bang back-ends, and designing
the graphical user interface.
Rarely do they think about a site’s language and how it effects a site’s functionality and appeal to users.
Language (often referred to as "content") plays second fiddle to interface design and (oh groan) spectacular graphics.
Language is often underestimated and sadly undervalued.
Well-written sites speak the language of the user.
Tone, terms, and word choice need to be consistent.
Just as the graphic designer puts a great deal of creativity and sensibility into page layout, font treatments, size, color, kerning and
margins, so too should the Web writer manage the language of a site on a global level.
It takes a watchdog to maintain consistency in tone, terminology, and word choice. A site whose content is written by someone
who understands and speaks the user’s language can suddenly sour if other writers write too many updates.
One solution is a Language Czar.
This is the person whose word is law.
Everyone producing content for the site passes copy through the Czar’s editing process.
Language is a critical part of the site metaphor, the user interface, and the user experience.
It includes vocabulary, word choice, punctuation, and synonyms.
A key element is guidance. Guidance text is a tricky thing.
Too many "click here" statements can send a message to the user that he must be an idiot,
or that your designer hasn’t a clue about designing and building.
Conversely, a user who doesn’t get enough guidance on a page can become lost, or fail to achieve his goals.
A consistent, intuitive navigation scheme is the solution.
Punctuation has its pitfalls. Do you use quotation marks or italics? When do you use the exclamation point?
Your exclamation point might mean that you’re excited about what you’re just said.
To the user it may make him feel like he’s just been castigated or yelled at.
Capital letters make some users feel yelled at too.
Another key area is the terms used to describe the functionality of the site.
In a shopping cart, what’s the difference between Order and Invoice?
Find, Browse, and Search do not mean the same things.
They each have distinct connotations for the user.
Category titles and headers should say what you mean.
Leave the cute metaphors to the artsy types and their ego sites.
Language is extraordinary flexible. With tone, vocabulary, and style you can make the difference between ease of use
and user irritation. Language can make or break the user experience.
Or it can be the great foundation of a user-friendly site.
Talk to a website developer about CSS and your reaction might be something like, “Why are you so euphoric, and where can I get some of that stuff?” Web designers liken CSS to the next coming, or at least the best thing that’s happened since Al Gore invented the Internet. Since I tend to agree, let me tell you why.
Cascading Style Sheets is a standard method for formatting (putting style to) HTML documents. In the beginning days of HTML (the language in which Internet documents are written, or marked-up) tags were used to mark a certain piece of text to be bolded or italicized, or to specify what font face or size in which to display the text. One used tags to mark up the text to define style.
There was one major problem with that method- repetition of tags both within a single file and site-wide across all files. The ramifications of repetition are several:
CSS allows style tags to be indexed within it’s own dedicated file(s) and the style is then referenced whenever needed throughout either a single HTML file or across many or even all HTML files across the site.
Some organizations are including more of their users by opening up access to alternative display devices such as PDAs or speech readers for the blind. Without CSS, one would need to duplicate each page in the site for each alternative device.
To multi-purpose with CSS, only the style sheet(s) are duplicated; that is a very minute portion of a medium-sized site. The correct style sheet is then served depending on the device from which the page request originated.
Obviously it makes a huge improvement on the positive acceptance by the users of your site, so what’s the damage? In fact, CSS is a language and therefore comes without any added cost. The time it takes for a designer to build a custom site using CSS is no more, and usually less than putting style directly into the HTML file. If any change needs to be made, even in the shade of a color or size of a font, CSS is many times quicker to modify.
If you’d like to discuss in more detail about how CSS can improve your web site efficiency, contact
(513.677.3554) for more information.