Evan Williams and Biz Stone of Twitter
“There is something even more profound in what has happened to Twitter over the past two years, something that says more about the culture that has embraced and expanded Twitter at such extraordinary speed. Yes, the breakfast-status updates turned out to be more interesting than we thought. But the key development with Twitter is how we’ve jury-rigged the system to do things that its creators never dreamed of.
In short, the most fascinating thing about Twitter is not what it’s doing to us. It’s what we’re doing to it.” How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live - TIME
How Twitter will change the way we live…
Mapumental - The transcendent web for map data
Mapumental is an online application from England for job and house hunters. Give it an area/zip code and it will draw a map with an overlay of data for house prices, commute time and ’scenicness’ (generated by the web game ScenicOrNot)
It takes various data points to help Londoners understand where they can live if they want to commute to work in a certain time. The maps produced can be altered depending on house prices and also with how beautiful people think the area is.
A lot of data visualization exercises on the web are pretty but not particularly useful. This mashup represents the transcendent web at it’s best - a way of seeing the world that could not have existed even five years ago.
Why Twitter Matters…
A lot of people fail to see the value of Twitter:
“Why should I care what my friend, Dan had for breakfast?”
But this is overlooking the power of a service that is becoming more and more important and valuable. As the Twitter network grows, so does it’s power and reach. With that growth come a number of important benefits:
- Smart Businesses use Twitter as an instantaneous (if unscientific) feedback mechanism. Let’s say you owned a travel web site and you released a new rating feature. Ask your Twitter followers - it’s an instant focus group.
- While Google is great for search, the millions of Twitter followers can act like a human-powered answer machine. Let’s suppose you want to know the best bottle of red wine to go with filet mignon. Google is going to struggle with this. Somewhere in your network of Twitter followers, their followers or their followers followers, is a carnivorous wine expert who can ask followup questions and provide the best possible answer.
- While Google is undoubtable powerful, it’s not live. Someone has to create a page and upload it. Then Google has to index it. All of this takes time. Searching Twitter is instantaneous. This explains why news stories such as the Hudson River Plane Crash on January 15 2009 and heroic pilot Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger, show up on Twitter first.
- If you use an ‘Power Twitter’ application like TweetDeck to isolate groups of people you follow that are all interested in the same thing (i.e. Web Design, Cycling, Tube Socks, etc), chances are that if they decide to ‘retweet’ something it’s probably going to interest you. It’s a human filter for the internet.
Look at the rising number of unique visitors to Twitter Search. According to Compete.com, site traffic rose 24% in the month of April 2009 alone. Habits are beginning to shift and ‘live’ or ’social searching’ is taking off. More and more people are crowdsourcing the answers to their questions and bypassing Google entirely. It will be interesting to see how services like FriendFeed and Aardvark do in the face of this.
photo credit: Search Engine People Blog
More than ‘just shoes’…
Toms Shoes is a company based on a brilliant but simple idea:
“For every pair (of shoes) you purchase, Toms will give a pair of shoes to a child in need.“
This succeeds on a couple of important levels:
- Every time you wear a pair of Toms Shoes you can feel good about helping others.
- These are more than ‘just shoes’. If someone else asks you about your Toms Shoes, you can quickly relate a story that possibly compels the other person to buy some Toms for themselves.
- As such, word of Toms spreads virally (albeit with some help from an AT&T commercial) allowing them to sell more shoes and do more good.
All of this got me thinking… Could you apply the same business model to the world of web design? For every web site we design, could we design a free web site for a non-profit? The proceeds from the commercial site would help fund the non-profit site. The two sites would be linked in much the same way as sister cities.
Using the Transcendent Web for Good
In his 2009 SXSW Presentation, “Everything You Know About Web Design is Wrong“, Dan Willis talks about the Transcendent Web and the idea that tomorrow’s web sites will no longer be billboards but instead will be data aggregators.
“The popularity of mashups (the combination of data from more than one source into a single integrated tool) will continue to grow throughout the century. Content from a wide variety of sources will flow like water into vessels designed for a wide variety of purposes to be displayed by a wide variety of devices. Eventually, most Web sites will likely become a type of mashup themselves.”
Dan Willis, Everything You Know About Web Design is Wrong
Willis points to the example of Flickrvision, one of “why didn’t I think of that?” ideas where Flickr photos are overlaid onto Google Maps as they are posted. This creates a voyeuristic insight into lives of random photographers around the globe. Other (more complex) examples include Mapdango, a web site that acts like the crazed 21st century offspring of an Atlas and the Encyclopedia Britannica. Search for a place like “Boulder, Colorado” and Mapdango will bring together relevant information from Google Maps, YouTube, Wikipedia, Eventful, WeatherBug, Google, Panoramio and Amazon.
What happens then when we take these ideas and apply them to disaster relief or environmental issues? It’s not to hard to imagine a web site that pulls data from Flickr and Twitter and lays it over Google Maps to show where humanitarian travesties are taking place or where ecological hotspots exist. We know from the 7 July 2005 bombings in London that citizen journalists provided the initial coverage of that event as it was happening. Once a site that pulls all of this data together breaks through, it can use Twitter, Facebook, AllTop, Blog Widgets etc to greatly magnify the impact of it’s efforts.
A fully-realized web is emerging, one that goes beyond the static web pages rooted in print design. As web 2.0 matures, charities and causes will be able to leverage community and crowdsourcing to both uncover issues and publicize their efforts at solving them.
At Stormlab, we hope to be a part of this revolution.
The Elements of Design
To an outsider, the visual aspects of web design seem like a confusing and mystical proposition that involve intuition and an arcane knowledge of Photoshop commands. While this is partly true, it’s also the case that there are readily understood concepts that all high-quality designs share.
The Parts
Any web page design is a combination of parts. Commonly these include a logo, main navigation, the body of the page and a footer. Additionally, the designer might be called upon to integrate some sub-navigation, product imagery, marketing copy, advertising, a search query box, a user login area or other features. Each of these elements has a different value in the mind of the client and they want the relationship between the elements to be recognized. How the designer achieves this, in part, is a result of the following ideas:
Placement
We read from top to bottom and left to right so it makes sense that the company logo often ends up in the top left hand corner of the page. And no one is going to put the main navigation at the bottom of the page where the user would have to scroll down to find it. Therefore navigation is always found either at the top or on the sides of the page. The remaining elements of the site are placed in a weighted order according to their perceived level of importance.
In the world of newspapers, the top headlines are always above the “fold” of the paper. This way, people scanning the newsstand can evaluate their choices quickly and easily. Web designers have co-opted this notion, placing the most important screen elements above a kind of virtual “fold” – the bottom of the screen. Below this fold, users can scroll down to see items of secondary importance.
Since design companies have third-party objectivity, one of their most valuable contributions throughout the development process is helping to combat “information creep,” which is the tendency for business owners to want to display everything about their company right on the homepage. A good designer is able to separate out the truly pertinent information and present it accordingly.
Proportion
In addition to placement, proportion plays a key role in steering the eye around a page. Simply put, large things garner the most attention. Often, the company message is top priority and so that gets the majority of the screen real estate. The remaining elements are scaled and positioned accordingly.
Layout
Sometimes an underlying grid system is used to keep elements aligned (in much the same way that magazine content is conveyed). Other layouts can be more organic and fluid in their presentation (such as Flash web sites).
One of our proposed designs for Education Finance Partners made use of structured grid.
Feel
The “feel” of a company can be hard to quantify and so designers try to get to know what their clients like and dislike. This might mean a list of the client’s favorite web sites or a round of questions such as “if your company was a car, which brand would it be?” Interviewing the client in this way helps the designer better understand whether the design should be streamlined and modern, whimsical and retro or maybe even whimsical AND modern.
Once the designer understands the feeling that the client would like to convey, he selects the “clothes” with which to dress the Web site. These clothes fall into three major categories:
Palette
Color choices go a long way toward defining the feel of a site. Will it be a light or a dark background? Neutral tones or bold primaries? Often, the company logo dictates these decisions since it is the one part of the palette that is fixed; everything else must be in harmony with it.
Typography
If the designer has been able to ascertain that this is a retro project then he is going to look at retro fonts that convey an appropriately historical feeling (such as Rockabilly, Art Deco or Communism, for those who know a little about fonts). Likewise, something classical is going to require a serif or script typeface. But sometimes, the feel is more complicated, like “hip with a classical edge” or “playful yet masculine”. In these cases the type choices have to be based on the designer’s intuition and whether or not the fonts he has selected meet these criteria.
Imagery
While the designer is grappling with color and type choices, he also needs to select and create the imagery for the site. Will it be photographic or illustrated? If photographs are to be used, will they be shot especially for this assignment or will stock photography work? Will be an aggressive, modern style of photography or a classic, traditional style?
If the designer is called upon to create the imagery for a site, he may need to illustrate icons or photograph a product. In either case, the work must perfectly match the overall feel of the web site.
BeHeard wanted to recreate a strong aura of the Russian constructivism art movement around their progressive, online bookstore, so we used the imagery of the fist, bold reds and blues and Cyrillic style typography.
Bring it all together
Contrast
While a great deal of time and effort is devoted to making sure that the elements of the site coalesce and that the typography and the imagery exist together harmoniously, it’s also necessary for the designer to employ contrast within the design itself. Visual contrast allows the elements to appear unified and yet distinct at the same time. Some of the methods used to create this contrast include proportion and color which were mentioned earlier. Other techniques include juxtaposing square vs. curved, plain vs. textured and flat vs. dimensional.
The dramatic oval in the middle of our design for EasyCare360 created a dramatic contrast to the rest of the page, imparting a soft, friendly feel.
Space
The use of space and (negative) space in a design provides visual contrast to the content of the site itself. Negative or empty space might seem like wasted space. However, when used correctly, negative space actually amplifies the presence of content and draws attention to it. Negative space must be used mindfully. Too much and the elements within the design appear to be distinctly separate from one another – like little islands of information floating apart. A good design will appear as a unified whole regardless of the visual contrast (and negative space) used within it.
This proposed design for Education Finance Partners uses negative space to produce a bold effect.
Flow
The best way to create unity in a design is to seek flow within the design. For this to happen, one thing must lead naturally to the next. This a matter of echoing the shape of one border with the next, or perhaps using different shades of the same color throughout the design in diminishing strengths that mirror the visual hierarchy of the information. It’s a subtle concept, but employed correctly it elevates the work to a truly professional level.
One of our designs for a Wells Fargo project used echoes of color and the square shape of the logo to create unity and flow.
The Finished Product
If all of the above elements are designed and implemented correctly, then the resulting design can be said to contain a visual hierarchy. A user looking at this design will find that their eye is being led from one element to the next without necessarily being sure why. It might be something as simple as the size relationship and the placement of the items or it might be something significantly more complicated that has to do with the visual contrast, the negative space and the overall flow of the design.
Good web designers achieve success by negotiating their way through a seemingly contradictory maze of shape, color, type, space and layout choices to create memorable designs that convey the appropriate information effortlessly.
The Designers Toolkit: Personas
In ‘The Designers Toolkit’, we take time to pull back the curtain and reveal some of the tools that we use to create better web sites.
A persona is a user archetype we use to help guide decisions about product features, navigation, interactions, and even visual design. By designing for the archetype—whose goals and behavior patterns are well understood—we can satisfy the broader group of people represented by that archetype. In most cases, personas are synthesized from a series of ethnographic interviews with real people in the target audience, then captured in 1-2 page sketches that include behavior patterns, goals, skills, attitudes, and environment, with a few fictional personal details to bring the persona to life. For each web site there is a small set of personas, one of whom is the primary focus for the design.
A good persona description is not a list of tasks or duties; it’s a narrative that describes their life, as well as their skills, attitudes, environment, and goals. A persona answers critical questions that a job description or task list doesn’t, such as: which pieces of information are required at what points in the day? Do users focus on one thing at a time, carrying it through to completion, or are there a lot of interruptions? Why are they visiting this web site in the first place?
Designing for personas is a very useful discipline, because it focuses the design process on something realistic, instead of an infinite range of possibilities. It also helps us go beyond a site design that is only functionally complete, and visualize the qualitative factors that will really make a difference to success. Another positive aspect of using personas is that they give us a way to empathize with the end-users which can lead to key insights that improve the experience for everyone.
Start the sketch
Developing a persona begins with a name, a face and their age. Then we add a career, family and life situation followed by hobbies and interests. Depending on the context of the project, this will then be supplemented with additional relevant information: computer experience, technical savvy, web usage etc. Once we have the critical information, we like to add just one or two personal details, such as what a persona does after work or what personal touches there are in her workspace. Without a little bit of personality, personas can easily turn into ‘elastic users’ instead of precise design targets. The elastic user manifests different priorities at different times and this fictional “User” might be a geek power-user at one moment, or an elderly first-time visitor with poor eyesight the next, the end result can be a jumble of features that doesn’t really suit anyone’s real needs. Ideally, the details for all of this will be drawn from reality, while respecting the privacy of the individuals involved.
Once the rough sketch is complete, we share it with clients and stakeholders since they will often have valuable insights into the “personality” of the persona and can help us iron the details.
Karen Ferguson
Background
Karen is a 32 year old, single woman living in El Segundo, near LAX in California. At 5’ 11’’ she is tall, with an athletic build. She has blonde hair and green eyes. She got divorced when she was 29 and does not have children. She currently lives alone with her dog, Jeremy. Karen is a graduate of UCLA were she received a degree in Literature. She works at Hughes Aircraft, a 10-minute drive from her home. Her title is Partnership Director. She works with Hughes suppliers and customers and is considered a supply chain expert. Her hobbies include photography, yoga, running and eating out. Her favorite restaurant is Cha Cha Chicken in Santa Monica. She enjoys movies and loves reading in coffee shops. Karen drives a 2003 Toyota Highlander.
Web Usage
Karen’s internet usage is limited to work because she does not have a computer at home. She has a Gmail account that she uses to keep in touch with friends. She checks this a couple of times a day. Because of her job, Karen considers herself proficient with the web but she doesn’t like to spend more time sitting at the computer than she has to so she prefers web sites that let her get things done with the minimum of distraction.
Online Shopping
Karen prefers to touch and feel things before buying so she only has limited experience of online shopping. She does use e-commerce sites to gather information, read reviews and compare prices.
Marketing and sales targets may not be design targets
Many product managers and executives are surprised when there isn’t a direct correlation between market segments and personas. The people who bring in the most revenue may not be the best design target. If we were designing an in-flight entertainment system, a frequent business traveler—every airline’s most valued customer—would be a tempting design target. A business traveler would actually make a poor design target, though, because he would be too familiar with flying and with using computers and other gadgets. If we design for the business traveler, the retired bricklayer going to see his grandchildren won’t be able to use the system. If we design for the bricklayer, the business traveler will also be happy.
A small cast
If you’ve ever read a book or watched a movie with an enormous cast of characters, you may have found it hard to remember who was related to whom, who said what, and so on. You probably didn’t feel like you knew any of the characters very well. That’s why a large set of personas is problematic—the personas all blur together.
Ideally, we try to create minimum number of personas required to illustrate key goals and behavior patterns. For example, if we were creating an electronic family calendar, the persona set might include a career mom, a stay-at-home mom, a career dad, and a teenager. If the career mom has the same needs as the career dad, and also does all the family management the stay-at-home mom does, then we would eliminate both the dad and stay-at-home mom personas.
Primary personas
Within a set of personas, a primary character emerges who’s, “… needs must be met, but whose needs cannot be met through an interface designed for any other persona.”
Primary personas provide test cases that deliver the desired results for the complete breadth and depth of use contexts. In simpler projects, they can give a “lowest common denominator” whose needs have to meet, but deliver a lot more besides: a way to model the web site as it will be used in the real world, and to test design decisions with confidence.
Use the right goals
Each persona should have three or four important goals that help focus the design. Not just any goals will do, though, so it’s important to understand which types will help when it comes down to making design decisions:
Life goals are only occasionally useful in design. For example, “Retire by age 45″ would be of little use if we’re designing an ice cream web site, but it may offer valuable insight when coming up with a financial planning tool.
Experience goals describe how the persona wants to feel when using a product; having fun and not feeling stupid are experience goals. Not every persona needs an experience goal; in most persona sets, there is one persona who represents people with a lot of anxiety about technology. One of this person’s goals is to avoid feeling stupid. Other experience goals might center on the product domain. A persona using an online banking site, for example, might want to feel confident that his transactions are secure.
End goals may involve the work product that results from using the tool. If a manager wants to be more proactive, a better spreadsheet tool can help her achieve this goal if it makes her more efficient.
Scenarios
A scenario is a complete journey from first point of contact with a web site, right through to a goal being achieved (hopefully). Like personas, scenarios work best when they’re based on known facts about real users, rather than imaginative guesswork.
To this end, we devise a few realistic, typical scenarios for each persona and record notes on each one:
- Where are they when they’re interacting with the web site. Are they at work? At home? In an airport?
- What other factors impact the persona’s context of use? What speed of internet connection do they have? How much time do they have? What distractions are there?
- What specific goal is driving the persona to interact with the web site on this occasion? What event triggered this scenario?
- What considerations will be foremost in the persona’s mind? What clues are they looking for in particular?
Putting Personas to Work
Personas and Scenarios help us in many ways:
- For surrogate user testing.
- To help advocate for users.
- To communicate user needs.
- To evaluate new features.
- To help make design decisions.
- To help weigh business decisions.
- For task analysis and use cases.
- For customer service scripts.
Want to know more?
As you can tell, web design is a lot more than creating attractive interfaces. If you would like to know more about personas and how they can help us to redesign your web site, please contact us. If you have an idea for the next Designers Toolbox article then please let us know.
How to Start a Business Blog
Our previous article discussed the intricacies of having a business blog. We looked at the business rationale, the benefits, the costs and the legal ramifications. Now we’re going to take a look at getting started in more detail.
Consider the audience
What does your company do? What services or products do you provide? If you are using a blog to draw attention to yourself then the content should relate to the area you’re in. For example, a computer peripheral manufacturer might focus on hardware issues and post articles on Bluetooth compatibility. A horse training facility might feature blog entries covering the ‘how to’s’ of equine management.
Bring it into Focus
Bringing focus to a blog helps you become established as an expert in the field. The implication is that if you offer solid horse training advice, potential clients are more likely to give you their business.
Focus also increases instances of certain words throughout your blog, i.e. ‘Computer’, ‘Hardware’. The more times these phrases occur (naturally) throughout your postings, the more likely it is that the search engines will rank you under those terms.
It may take some time to find the focus for your blog. Initially you may choose one area and discover that all of your posts veer to another topic. That’s okay, it’s an organic process.
Find your Voice
While you are working on your postings notice the ‘voice’ you use. Are you strident or apologetic. Do you say:
“You must use a fail-safe backup system”
or
“It might be a good idea to use a fail-safe backup system”
The distinction is subtle but important. Likewise it is important to distinguish between fact and opinion. Where do you draw the line between your personal views the opinion of the company? When stating facts, always refer to a source and if possible link to that source. Not only is the ethical path, it also you establishes you as a source of inbound traffic on someone else’s site and draws you to their attention. With luck they will return the favor at a later date.
Percolate your Postings
Once you have your blog and you’ve settled on a topic, you need content. For most of us, blogging is a new type of activity and it takes a while to acquire an aptitude for it. The first step is becoming more aware of the conversations around you, items you read or things you’re thinking about. Start thinking, “Is this blog material? Does it match our focus?” Write down ALL of your ideas; you’re brainstorming so anything goes. Then, when you have a comprehensive list - keep the good stuff and disregard the rest.
Once you’ve established what you’re going to write about: break it down. Make a list of the things you plan to cover. These can be your sub-headings. Write a paragraph under each one that explains it in further detail. Sub-divide these sections into paragraphs and expand. Pretty soon you will have the basis for a solid posting.
The next step is key; DO NOT post what you have. Instead, let it sit and percolate. Leave what you’ve written a couple of days and then re-read it. This is especially important when the topic is contentious, i.e. the Net Neutrality Act. Make sure that you are operating within your Company’s guidelines because what you write is a reflection of the whole Company.
As you look over what you’ve written, ask yourself: Does it still make sense? Have you captured what you were trying to say? Are there any ways it could be improved?
Edit
Brevity is key with your postings. Blogs are frequently consumed while surfing the web and people are looking for bite-sized chunks of pertinent information. This is why lists are popular. Make sure you are distilling your message down to its essence.
Post regularly
The one thing that dooms business blogs to failure more than any other is lack of posts. Having a blog is a commitment. It’s a corporate outreach tool and it has to be treated seriously. Find a schedule that works within the constraints of other commitments (once a day, twice a month etc) and stick to it.
If possible assemble a bunch of completed posts if you know you are going to be too busy to come up with fresh content. Spread the load among co-workers. Different team members will bring different ideas and perspectives to the blog. Just make sure that everyone understands the focus and the voice.
The Benefits of Business Blogging
What is a Blog?
According to Pyra Labs/Google, creators of Blogger, “A blog is a web page made up of usually short, frequently updated posts that are arranged chronologically — like a journal.” The term is actually weblogs coined by Jorn Barger in 1997.
Weblogs exploded in 1999 when several companies and developers created the first blogging software. Movable Type, WordPress and Pyra Labs (now a part of Google) offered people the chance to express themselves with easy-to-use tools. They could write posts, add photos, link to other blogs and publish everything themselves without knowing any HTML. Since then, the number of blogs on the Internet has exploded from a few thousand to an estimated 50 million by 2005.
Blogging entered the limelight during the run-up to the 2004 elections when the top political bloggers were invited to attend both the Republican and Democratic conventions as members of the press. This was a savvy move for attracting younger voters. Not only are young adults more likely to read blogs, they are also nine times as likely to have their own personal blog. Young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 make up 25% of all adult bloggers but only 9% of the general adult online population. As they grow older, these young adults will bring their blogging habits with them into the mainstream. Blog use has grown significantly in the past year — online consumers who regularly read blogs increased from 2% in 2003 to 5% in 2004. (Source: Forrester).
Business Blogging
While blogging started as a form of personal expression, it has evolved to include business blogs, which serve as corporate tool for communicating with customers or as a method for employees to share knowledge and expertise.
For business owners without the time to learn HTML or the money to hire a designer/developer, blogging offers an inexpensive method to get their company’s name out on the Internet without the expense of advertising.
Companies can also use blogs to provide internal teams with frequent project updates, or to deliver product support information to customers. In contrast to ordinary Web tools that aren’t designed for frequent updates, blogs make it easy to create new material on a daily or hourly basis. Old entries can be edited easily and comments from readers can be added which make blogs an excellent forum for discussion.
Are blogs good for business?
Blogs aren’t for everybody. But unlike other ideas that got puffed up during the Internet bubble, they are becoming a big deal, especially in terms of improving communication with customers, particularly the affluent male, broadband-connected ones that form the core blogging audience. Most companies believe that they need to “message to” their customers - as opposed to having a conversation with them. Blogs can be a natural, easy extension of an existing relationship or a forced march into openness that will come across as insincere. Monster.com gave its team of career advisors, who usually write career how-to articles, an external team blog where they discuss everything from Monster’s paid time-off policies to how the pennant-winning Red Sox affected workplace productivity. The blog has relevance because its authors, who are already writers, regularly field and answer Monster user questions.
In some companies, legal or regulatory requirements mean that nothing ever gets released to the public without extensive legal review. Blogs can’t create customer dialog if the company isn’t comfortable having those conversations in the first place. There may be some areas - such as product development or recruitment - that make better starting places for external blogs.
A company could simply repurpose press releases on its blog, but nobody would ever read them. Asking for feedback or addressing a customer question in a productive way would be much more valuable. Stonyfield Farm has blogs that focus on women’s issues and the environment — two causes that the company supports and believes differentiates it from other yogurt companies.
Consumers use blogs to have conversations about the companies they do business with. Companies that join these conversations will be most successful if they can connect at an emotional, personal level. Jonathan Schwartz, president of Sun Microsystems, maintains a blog where he shares his thoughts about the business with more than 100,000 visitors each month.
Having a blog also means that a company has to be willing to listen - especially when visitors are allowed to post comments. Acknowledging customer ideas and concerns demonstrates that a willingness to listen and take action. Clip-n-Seal makes a device that can quickly close plastic bags. It uses its blog to post “unexpected uses”, such as protecting diving knives from rusting in salty water. Actions like this will give web users more of a reason to return to a site beyond purchasing a product or service.
Giving customers a view of the inner workings of a company has tangible rewards. Consider the Microsoft Developer Network’s Channel 9 blog, which shows video clips of Microsoft engineers talking about their current projects and invites developers to add their comments. Microsoft had always considered itself to be open to developers but wasn’t perceived as such because access was so limited. Channel 9 not only gives Microsoft a way to be more responsive, but it has also helped the company revamp its image with a core constituency.
One of the biggest benefits of blogging is the effect it has on a company’s search engine ranking. Because blog postings are heavily linked to one another search engines will look upon that content as being more important. The result: Companies have already started strategically using blogs for search placement. For example, executives at Pheedo actively posted and promoted their blog on RSS advertising and as a result, the blog appeared at the top of Google search results for the keywords “RSS advertising.”
Turning the web into a big conversation
One key difference between blogs and other types of consumer-generated content on the internet - such as discussion boards and forums - is the interconnected nature of blogs. Blogs often contain links that reference other blogs, Web sites, and files — which is why news spreads so quickly across blogs. Most blogs are also feed-enabled, which makes it easy to distribute blog postings in RSS, a simple content syndication mechanism. As a result, blog readers don’t need to make a special trip to a Web site to read the blog — instead, they can scan headlines that are pushed to feed aggregators like NewsGator, Bloglines, or My Yahoo! The beauty of RSS is that it makes it actually feasible to follow and read hundreds of blogs. Yahoo!’s integration of RSS feeds means that adding a blog to a My Yahoo! page is as simple as clicking on a button. Also, as users come across a posting in Yahoo! search results, they can also add the blog to their content pages with a single click.
Many blogs offer “trackback,” a feature that shows when other sites link to a specific post. The good news: frequent linking in and out of posts means that the posts can be found more readily and can be ranked more highly by search engines like Google. The bad news: ill will toward a company can spread at viral speed.
At a minimum, companies should track what is being said about them on blogs. Using blog search engines like Bloglines, Feedster, and PubSub, companies can find blogs that discuss topics of interest. These search engines offer the ability to create custom feeds that monitor every blog posting that contains a keyword such as a company brand and deliver those postings as a feed that can be ready by any web browser.
Rather than just lurk as readers, companies can make their first forays into blogs by providing comments to posts on others’ blogs. For example, if a concern is aired about a product, it’s easy to respond to the post with a suggestion on how to solve the problem. This will help to defuse tricky situation, clarifies a company position and demonstrates goodwill towards consumers. Companies should provide employees with training and clear guidelines on what can and should be said on the external blogs, and should start with just a few comments to gauge reaction.
Blogging Internally
A natural place for companies to start supporting blogs is within the enterprise, especially if information must be shared among employees working in different locations or during different shifts. Departments that have information-intensive projects — such as IT or product development — are also ideal candidates for internal blog use. Blogs provide institutional, searchable knowledge management with the added benefit that everyone can easily participate.
The operations and engineering team at the Disney ABC Cable Networks Group used blogs to log help desk inquiries during its round-the-clock shifts, replacing an email-based system. Not only did shifts know that a bug had been resolved, but they were also able to search the blogs to see if a solution had been used before. Moreover, Disney installed a feed reader - NewsGator - that was integrated into Outlook so that the information could be pushed to people, rather than requiring them to come to a site to read the updates.
The result: Not only did email flow die down, but less energy went into political finger-pointing because transparent blogs meant that there was no way to hide mistakes.
Individual team members can be given a blog on which they can give progress updates. That way, rather than having to constantly check to see where colleagues are, team members can simply check their blogs. IT departments have often used a related technology called “wikis,” which allow users to modify a Web-based document — revisions can be tracked, as well. Tickle, a media company that provides assessment tests, recently underwent a search engine optimization process and the manager used wikis to update four different departments on specific keyword strategies and site changes. Used together, blogs and wikis can become a powerful, easy-to-use combination.
How to start a business blog
Can a company survive without blogging? Sure, in much the same way a company can make do without a Web site. You won’t go out of business, but your competitors will have the advantage of a new tool to connect with your customers. Stormlab advises clients to pay attention to blogs and when they feel they are ready to start, to take the following steps:
Start small: Select a product team that’s already communicating regularly with its customers to pilot the initial efforts. One idea: Address frequently asked questions (FAQs) in a blog format. Functional areas like recruitment are also a good, non-controversial place to start. For example, a recruiter at Microsoft maintains a blog where she discusses topics like what the company looks for when hiring an inbound product manager.
Establish guidelines on who can have an officially sanctioned company blog: The selection criteria for a corporate blogger range from general writing ability to proximity to real customer interactions. Start with just a few trusted individuals and provide clear blogging guidelines, making clear to the other employees in the company why these “testers” were selected.
Launch with a dozen already-published postings and post frequently: When the blog becomes public, readers will want a bevy of rich content to peruse - the goal is to have them come back or, better yet, add the blog to their news aggregator. Follow this up with frequent posts to drive readership. Many blogging services allow authoring in advance. Posts can then be scheduled for future publication.
Measure the results: Blog-specific metrics like traffic levels and unique users are essential, but companies should also track incoming links as a measure of the blog’s influence using a service such as MeasureMap (http://www.measuremap.com). Tying the impact of blogs to concrete business goals can go a long way toward justifying the additional risk and exposure that blogs represent. Some examples include comparing blog-reading customers versus nonreaders in customer satisfaction surveys, monitoring the volume of transactions that originate from blog postings, and measuring the reduction of customer service inquiries. Finally, companies should take into account metrics like goodwill, loyalty, and brand equity, which although difficult to measure quantitatively, they will be evidenced through anecdotal comments left in the blog.
The 7 Principles of Design
Why do some designs look more professional than others? These are the 7 design principles we follow when creating new designs:
1. Balance
In design each element carries a certain visual ‘weight’. If all of the parts are arranged on the left of the page then the design will look uneven and unbalanced. By distributing them so that they offset one another the design creates a whole that has a pleasing equilibrium.
2. Proportion
Similar to balance, good proportion maintains an agreeable relation of parts within the whole. It’s the consideration of parts in relation to the whole.
3. Contrast
Without contrast, even good design can be boring (or worse, ineffectual). While balance and proportion help to maintain cohesiveness, contrast adds interest.
4. Economy
Economy is the same as the “less is more” principle. On average, simplicity tends to emphasize a design’s intent more powerfully than complexity.
5. Direction
When elements are arranged well, “movement” or the illusion of direction is created. This helps lead the viewer’s eye and can emphasize the design’s intent (i.e. to sell a product or create a movement).
6. Emphasis
Also known as dominance, this condition exists when design elements are arranged to create a hierarchy of visual importance. For example, the cover of a book might include a title, subtitle, and the author’s name.
7. Space
Perhaps most important to overall quality of design – as important as emphasis, but overlooked by many designers – is space. Including space (often called white or negative space) in a design provides its other elements with all the characteristics listed above. More often than not, a design fails without space because it feels cluttered and overwhelming.
