Design in Context: A Web Design Blog by Greg Kihlstrom

I resolve to...

Write more posts this year, maybe even several a week.
This is just the first.

But, like all resolutions, I might not be able to quite keep up with my wishes.

Happy New Year, and let's all be better Web Designers in 2009.

On Writing a Good Web Design and Development RFP...

There are plenty of articles about how to write a good Web Design and Development RFP - we even have one on my company's Web site.  But despite this, we still get some Request for Proposals that are fairly incomplete, and end up requiring a lot of explanation. But here's a few quick tips that really help reduce the confusion and help you get a much more accurate proposal:

• If you THINK it might be helpful, please include it.  This could be that your Web server is  located at the North Pole and only has FTP access every 2nd week on Wednesday at 10PM, or it could be something a lot more mundane.  Either way... it can seriously help a vendor prepare their bid.
• Check your terminology. If you have a consultant (or even a friend) that is more knowledgeable about language and terminology, consult them to make sure you are stating things correctly.  Some times, in trying to SOUND too technical, you might end up saying the wrong thing, and just causing confusion.
• Admit what you DON'T know. If you need strategic assistance, or even help determining what it is that you need, it's okay.  Maybe you need to include a 'Phase 1' that is a strategic planning phase.  Even if there is a very small budget for this, it might save tens of thousands of dollars (if not more) down the road to have a real strategic plan in place.
• Don't be afraid to ask follow-up questions. Every vendor has their own way of responding to an RFP, but that doesn't have to be your problem.  If you get such a wide variety of responses that it's like comparing apples to oranges, figure out a way to level the playing field by asking follow up questions.

And like I said, there's plenty more articles out there... good luck.

Design is a Collaborative Process

This is going to sound completely contrary to my "Design by Committee" post from a few weeks back, but I assure you that it's not.

Every once in a while I'm reminded of how much the 'end product' of a design project ends up being a  collaboration.  There are times when I get to work on a personal project and there is no client giving input, but most projects have an external 'client,' even if that is only one person making decisions for his/her organization. 

I think that there is something very satisfying about knowing that a few very different people's ideas can be incorporated into something and not only WORK, but create a kind of synergy.  It pushes you to reexamine your own process and open yourself up to an alternate way of thinking.

There's definitely a line where a committee waters down a passionate idea and where a few people can take a good concept and make it live and breathe.  And it's nice to be on the right side of that line.

A Little Help with Web Analytics

If you're just getting started trying to read your site metrics using Google Analytics or another application and don't really know what you should be looking at, here's 3 things that can tell you a lot about who's coming to your site and how they're getting there.

1. Unique Page Visits
It's important to distinguish between visits and 'hits.'  Hits are each time a page (or any file) is served from your Web host.  If your pages have a lot of images on them, or if every employee in the company has the company home page set as the default page in their browser, you might be getting a lot of HITS but not a lot of valuable VISITS.

2. Referring Sources
By looking at where your traffic is coming from, you can tell a lot.  If most of your traffic has no 'referring source' it generally (though not always) means that people are directly typing in your URL to get to your site. 

If they are coming from a Search Engine such as Google, Yahoo! or MSN, you can also drill down and see what keywords (or search terms) they used to find your site. 

If they are coming from another Web site, you might want to see what page they are being directed from.  Maybe your company is mentioned in an article, or a partner link.  I've actually found out that I've won a design award just by doing that, so some times it can be good news.

3. Top Content
By seeing what your most viewed pages are, you can begin to learn about how your Web site visitors are actually USING your site. 

Web analytics is not an exact science, and there is generally a lot of interpretation that needs to be done, even by the most savvy experts out there, but there's a few things that you can detect fairly easily.  First of all, unless you have a lot of advertising or inbound links to very specific pages in the lower levels of your site, your home page is going to be one of the highest traffic-yielding pages.  This is not going to be a surprise to anyone.  Where it gets interesting is when you start to see what the other top content pages are. 

Again, unless you track users' exact actions, you can make deductions that might not always be true, but if your home page is the page that gets the most hits, and your "Services" page that is one level down in your site's navigation gets the second most hits, I would say you can safely assume that most people first come to your home page, then click the "Services" link.  That in itself is pretty valuable information.

And from there you can spend as much, or as little, time as you want to.  I hope that helps a little.

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Greg Kihlstrom is the Creative Director at Carousel30, a Washington DC Web Design and Development firm

Is Anyone Scrolling Out There?

One of the big rules in making a Web site "usable" from the very start of the Web was that no one scrolls on a page. Is this still true?

The answer, as always, is... it depends.  Even Jakob Nielsen, the premier usability expert says that "In more recent studies, we have seen that most users scroll" in some cases. So, 14 years after his first usability experiments, it's finally OKAY TO SCROLL A LITTLE.  That makes things a little easier, but it still doesn't mean you should go crazy with the long pages.

When it comes to scrolling, there are a few things to consider:

1. Whenever possible, put primary and secondary navigation, as well as key messages above "the fold," or the bottom of the first screen-full of information.  People will scroll down if they see information they deem worthwhile, but you still want to catch their eye and give them a reason to scroll down.
2. Remember context.  When someone is on the 3rd level down from the home page, they are doing more than 'browsing' your site.  They are interested in the content you are providing.  It's okay to let them scroll now.  On the home page and secondary pages, make sure that information is as close to the top as you can, but below that, you can feel free to have more information. 
3. On Web Forms, be logical.  It's daunting to fill out a form that makes you scroll down 5 page lengths to fill out.  Break up the information into logical chunks.  It gives the user the feeling of making progress and allows you to break up the information a little for all sorts of testing purposes.

So there you have it.  Relax.  Scroll a little.  Just not too much.

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Greg Kihlstrom is the Creative Director at Carousel30, a Washington DC Web Design and Development firm

Web Design is relative: How to rate a Website's Effectiveness

I was recently asked the following question by a potential client:

"There are so many Websites, and some are better than others.  What makes one site better than another?  What are the characteristics of an outstanding website?"

That's a pretty broad question.  How does one judge if a Website advertising a new luxury car is better than an informational portal about health issues?

The answer is... you don't.  I believe the ways to judge ANY Web site's effectiveness is the following:

a) Context
Context refers to how a Web site is intended to perform based on the type of information it was intended to present.  An online advertising site should be treated much different than an informational portal, for instance.  I put this first, because this is really where you start - putting apples with apples.

b) Effectiveness
Effectiveness refers to how users are able to get to content that they need to get to and how many clicks they need to get there.  This can be measured by straight up sales, Web analytics, a reduction in 'help desk' phone calls/emails or even the viral impact of word of mouth.

c) Aesthetic appeal
While it is not the most important element of a Website (there are plenty of successful, boring sites out there), aesthetics is certainly an essential part of any interactive experience. The trick is to make the look, feel and layout of a site fit the context of the information, while offering site visitors something a little unexpected that they can't find anywhere else.

d) Technology used for good
Technology can also create an outstanding user experience, and just as easily make it unuseable.  Use it where it helps someone visualize something better or get access to information quicker or more naturally.

Now, get back to work.  There are a lot of Websites that need help still...

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Greg Kihlstrom is the Creative Director at Carousel30, a Washington DC Web Design and Development firm

The "Design by Committee" Syndrome

It's dreaded by just about any Web Designer out there.  It might start off as a subtle "I showed it to my colleague and they didn't like that color blue" or "my spouse took a look and doesn't like dropdown menus" or... well, you know how it goes. 

Sooner or later, everyone and their mother is giving their opinions on what makes a good Website.  Where does it end?  This is what we call "Design by Committee."  Its more obvious form is when a company allows too many different people to have input and the overall design becomes 'watered down.'

While it is very important that key objectives of a Website redesign project are decided and agreed upon  by all necessary powers that be at the very start of the initiative, there is a definite time where an expert (that's us, Web Designers) needs to be able to distill these core objectives and turn them in to an engaging, dynamic experience.  Having too many chefs in the kitchen at every point in the design process is not going to improve the finished product.

Make sure that there are points where usability testing and feedback is welcomed.  This is a crucial step in the process, but doing it at the right time is also just as important.   The overall vision of the Web site  will be more memorable and dynamic if it comes from a small team.  Specific placement of a few key elements is something that might need to change after some usability testing.

I ran across this article on boagworld.com that  suggests some ways to combat "Design by Committee" syndrome.  I won't recreate his post here, but will just say that having a good process beforehand is a great way to keep things from getting out of hand.

Good luck, and stay strong.

The State of Web Design Awards

I think that Web Design Awards have sometimes gotten a bad rap.  Back in the day, those fancy Flash sites that looked pretty but offered nothing in the way of real information or usability seemed to be winning them all, and so many complained that the REAL Web sites that were well-designed on a functional level were losing out simply because they didn't have fancy Flash transitions.  But on an informational and functional level, those 'boring' sites were really well-designed.

They were right.  But really, the trends in Web/Interactive Awards have really been following the overall trends in the Web in general.  We're seeing a lot more of a marriage of aesthetics and usability these days, and I can only hope that this continues.  I'm pretty sure it will.  Now that we have more advanced technologies to make real-time interactions with servers, showing/hiding relevant information and so much more, us designers are able to take advantage of information and technical functionality to provide a well-designed site.

And hopefully win some more awards.  I want to add a new shelf to my trophy case this year.

It might be time for a Content Management System...

Marketing Departments of the World: If you have a full-time Web person at your company, you might not think you need a way to update the pages on your organization's Web site yourself.  But some times it's just nice to have the power to do things yourself.

Any marketing department should have the ability to make changes and enhancements to the wording on their site's pages.  And how many times have you found yourself waiting for your IT person to make a change to a page, only to find that by the time it got done, it wasn't done exactly how you wanted.

Just imagine:

• You can make changes to the META and Title tags (enhancing your Search Engine Optimization)
• You can quickly fix that spelling or grammatical error (even though you could've sworn your team went over those things 10 times already)
• You can add a page for a new product in about 10 minutes
• You might create a landing page to do a little lo-fi A-B testing with your Google AdWords advertising

There's plenty more, of course, but it's amazing what you can do when you are able to separate the content from the functionality on your company's Web site.

Easy way to get validating HTML and Graphics

Most Web Designers are forced, to some degree, to be both creative and technical - having to be creative with how the interface will look and what supporting graphics to use, etc.  At the same time, they need to make sure they WORK - there are some things that, no matter how cool they would be, are just not practical.  And add on top of that the fact that many times you have to cut your designs up into validating XHTML/CSS/Graphics, etc... some times it's just not practical to do it all.

My company just created a Web site for these guys - WebChopShop - and we've used them a few times to turn our Web Designs into HTML and Graphics.  Especially on a quick turnaround, some times you just need some help with that end of things.