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Website Launch: FBT Architects in Albuquerque

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Oct 22, 2010; Category: Content Management System, Design/Development; Tags: CMS, Design/Development, jQuery; No Comments

Visit fbtarch.com»

We launched FBT Architects’ website this week. It marks an increasingly rare (for Evo) instance of building websites with a custom-developed Content Management System, as we’ve moved primarily to WordPress as a CMS platform.

In this case, however, a custom CMS was necessary to allow FBT the ability to manage the portfolio thumbnail grid images the way they wanted to, arranging them easily and intuitively in the CMS admin area. Adding complexity to the arrangement is the website’s need to highlight thumbnails in the grid when a category of projects is selected, while also changing the list of projects below the thumbnail grid. Further complexity was added by the need to list projects for which there is no thumbnail or project description. A modified jQuery Slideviewer was used to animate the images on the individual project pages.

This is another website designed by Kilmer & Kilmer, Brand Builders, for which Evo provides development and programming services in what has become an ongoing relationship. Though I sometimes give them a slight ribbing for being print designers, they’re actually great to work with because they listen and adjust when I identify an accessibility or other web-related issue. Not all print designers will do that, and their clients suffer as a result. It’s a credit to Kilmer that they put client needs high on the priority list when designing a website, and it’s one of the reasons I like working with them.

Why Bad Websites Happen to Good Companies, Part 10: Not Hiring a Writer to Get Clear, Crisp, Compelling Copy

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Sep 29, 2010; Category: Bad Websites/Good Companies, Communication, Design/Development, Information Architecture, Marketing; Tags: Communication, Information Architecture, Marketing, writing for web; No Comments

There’s a myth in website design that “no one reads the copy.” It’s not entirely true. While most of the people who visit your website will not read most of the copy, the few visitors who are really interested in what you have to offer will. If they’re really interested, they’re your best prospects. And even casual visitors scan your content (quickly), looking for a reason to get interested. If they don’t find it, of course, they’re gone.

Unless you have too much business (I don’t know anyone in that position right now), how can you afford to communicate with website visitors with anything less than clear, crisp, and compelling copy?

Building a great website requires several different skill sets

People tend to think of website design as either a technology project (for which they need a programmer or coder) or design project (for which they need a web designer). There is no doubt that both of those characterizations are partially true, and that people with those skill sets are critical to producing a great—or even adequate—website. But no matter how great it looks or how well it works, without clearly communicated and compelling messages, the site will yield disappointing results (you’d like some results, right?).

Many people pride themselves on their ability to write well. But writing for distracted and non-commital website visitors is a skill few people possess. In addition to being clear and compelling, a web writer must be concise. Using too many words to express a thought chases away all of your casual visitors and all but the most determined of your best prospects. A writer who can develop strong messages and write clear, compelling, and concise website copy should be on your speed dial.

You are not the best example of someone in your market

You’re an expert in your field. Few of your website visitors know a tenth of what you know about your products and services. Because of your expertise, you will make assumptions about what’s important to talk about on your site that won’t match up with what your visitors want or need to know. Website content should be organized and written for your visitors, not for you. It might be more elementary than you would write, but it’s important to communicate with your visitors in a way that helps them quickly understand what you offer. If they understand, they’re more likely to take action.

If a website visitor doesn’t take action, you’ve probably lost them

A skilled web writer can organize your content (information architecture) as part of creating a strategy for moving visitors toward action. That action might be registering for an email newsletter, downloading a whitepaper, or placing an order. For non-profit organizations, it might be making a donation or volunteering. Most people do not arrive at your website with the intention of placing an order or taking the next step toward becoming a customer. If they do so, it’s because the information on the site convinced them. If they’re not convinced, the likelihood that they’ll return to check you out again is small.

A good web writer is good at organizing and delivering copy that convinces people to act. As Elvis Presley once sang, “a little less talk and a little more action.”

A caveat: blogging is different than “writing for the web”

Beyond the ability to write clearly, writing blog posts does not require the same skills described above. Blogging is more of a conversation, a chance for people to get a sense of who you are and what you think. If you’re a bit wordy, no problem. If you want to talk about things only experts in your field will fully grasp, go for it. Lots of successful bloggers cannot write copy that leads website visitors to take action other than leaving a comment. That’s OK because that’s not the goal of (most) blog posts. Just don’t assume that, because someone has a blog and writes “on the web”, that they can write “for the web.”

Is “Good Enough” Really Good Enough?

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Sep 21, 2010; Category: Communication, Design/Development, Zeitgeist; Tags: Business, Communication, Marketing; One Comment

We live in an era of commodification of services. Many of the services that relied on people with specialized skills and expertise a decade ago can be accomplished by low-skilled workers, and in some cases, by automated services (translation into a foreign language, for instance). Few people would argue that services delivered by low-skilled or automated means rival the quality of services delivered by people with expertise and knowledge (try your automated translation out on a native speaker of the language), but some people feel that “good enough” is good enough.

Take website design: a service of particular interest to me. It’s possible to sign up for a free account on WordPress.com, TypePad, or Blogger (using a URL like yourbusinessname.wordpress.com), select from the limited assortment of templates, upload a few images, write a few posts, and you have a website. It’s also possible to hire your neighbor’s kid for a couple of hundred bucks to create a website for you (he’s so good with computers!).

How effective are those approaches? Judging by the ones I’ve seen, not very. They typically communicate little that would convince people in your market to do business with you, and often communicate a great deal of information that turns people away (usually inadvertently and unintentionally).

What many people fail to understand about web design/development is that a website is only partly a “technical/coding project,” and only partly a “design project,” and together those two parts don’t add up to a whole. For businesses, websites are mostly communication and marketing projects. Figuring out what to communicate and how to communicate it (both visually and in writing) is a lot of what you pay for with professional website design. Closely related to communication and fundamental to online marketing is user experience design, which helps turn website visitors into customers. If you find yourself working with a web designer who is mostly concerned with issues other than communication, user experience, and marketing, find yourself another designer.

My question is this: If a business website doesn’t get positive results (more customers), is it “good enough,” even if you paid nothing or next to it?

If your purpose is to grow your business, having a free or cheap website that gathers few visitors and converts none of them into customers isn’t much of a bargain. You don’t get rewarded for how little you spend on your website (“my website sucks but at least I didn’t spend any money on it”). You get rewarded for how effective it is. And effectiveness is still the result of expertise in communication, managing user experience, and marketing.

Why Bad Websites Happen to Good Companies, Part 9: Having a Print Designer Design Your Website

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Sep 9, 2010; Category: Bad Websites/Good Companies, Design/Development, Information Architecture, Usability; Tags: Accessibility, Design/Development; 2 Comments

It’s amazing to me that this still happens with a fair degree of regularity. It would seem obvious that print and the web are two distinct mediums requiring different expertise. But unfortunately, it’s not uncommon. Design-is-design-is-design to many people, and many of them continue to think of web design as “on-screen graphic design.” I’ve discussed this before. It has nothing to do with whether or not print design or web design is “harder” or “better,” but how they are “different.” Asking a print designer to design a website is much like asking an interior designer to redo your landscaping: different expertise and understanding is required. It’s also not the best idea to ask a web designer to design your annual report.

Before I go further, let me say I have worked (and continue to work) with some print designers who understand there are differences and do their best to approach web design differently and accommodate the needs of website visitors. They generally have accepted the fact that web pages must accommodate many different browsers and system settings, and that their work will not display uniformly to everyone who sees it. They recognize that on the web, information is more important than packaging if it comes down to a choice between the two, and they try to avoid ”designing in“ accessibility or usability issues. They take advice about aspects of their design that are problematic from a usability or information architecture perspective. I like working with those designers and in fact, they often push me to do things outside my “comfort zone,” which often leads to me learning something new.

What’s more important: design or information?

Many print designers see the web as a hostile environment for their visual “designs,” which they hold as the most important aspect of web design. It bothers these folks mightily that they cannot absolutely control how their design is rendered in visitors’ browsers. They have little or no understanding of how (or why) to provide for these differences, and often as not, cause usability or accessibility problems trying to control the “user experience,” by which they mean “visual experience.” There are still print designers (in 2010!) who set paragraph or headline text in photoshop and display text as images on their website (how else to make sure that everyone sees your carefully kerned 11.5 point Museo Sans on 18 point leading?).

But while visual design is important (I’m a designer too, and I believe in the power of design to influence thinking and behavior), it’s pointless if the ability for visitors to find, access, or utilize the information is compromised. The fundamental idea of the web is the ability to search and find relevant information. Design that interferes with that is not only a waste of time, but destructive to the purpose of your website. Good web designers understand that and learn techniques and design approaches that preserve and even enhance usability and accessibility.

Should an interior designer design your landscaping?

Even if you really like and trust your interior designer and you love what they can do to a room with color and fabric, do you really think he or she has an understanding of plants, soil, drainage, etc., that will result in a satisfactory landscape? They may love a nice landscape, and relish the challenge of working in a new medium, but the most likely reality is that there are big gaps in their landscape design expertise that you will have to live with in the finished landscape.

As with the example above, rarely do websites designed by print designers live up to expectations of usability, interactivity, search engine-friendliness, or information architecture, regardless of how nice they might look. The understanding of the web and expertise to leverage its ability to communicate, inform, and persuade is simply not present. Good web designers offer these things along with beautiful and functional design.

The above image represents my primary point that, while there is some overlap in knowledge and skills between print and web design, there are large amounts of knowledge and skill required for each discipline that are not common. There are, no doubt, some designers who have mastered both areas, but they are unusual and rare. While I started my design career in print, after focusing on web design for at least a decade, it’s difficult for me to change my perspective back to that required for really good print design; my design mindset no longer supports that perspective. I know from working with print designers that they have similar problems adjusting to a web perspective.

Bottom line: find a good web designer and put them in charge of your website design or redesign. And if your favorite designer is a print designer and you really want him/her to design your website, insist that they find a good web front-end developer to team with. You’ll get better results in how the site serves your visitors, which means your website goals are much more likely to be realized.

Why We Don’t Respond to RFPs: There’s a Better Way

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Aug 7, 2010; Category: Design/Development; Tags: Business, Design/Development, LinkedIn; One Comment

Recently I got into a discussion on LinkedIn about Requests for Proposals (RFPs) and what makes a “good” RFP for web design and development. My position, basically, is that there is no such thing as a good RFP for web design and development, at least not following current “best practices” RFP models.

Why? Because successful websites are the result of collaborative efforts between clients and web developers. RFPs usually preclude collaboration by treating the process as furnishing a defined set of deliverables in a scope of work, with the vendor bound to furnish the deliverables as defined. Alternative (and often better) approaches are routinely dismissed in the interests of “comparing apples and apples.”

RFPs are a problem for everyone involved.

The problem for people writing RFPs is that few people or organizations are capable of defining deliverables in a scope of work in a way that allows for better solutions than they themselves had imagined, because they are rightly concerned with controlling costs. But defined deliverables usually means defined solutions, sometimes ruling out less expensive or more efficient alternatives. Things change rapidly in web development, and what was a good solution 12 months ago can be a decidedly inferior solution today. Even web developers scramble to stay abreast of changes, with varying degrees of success.

Further, few people and organizations are capable of evaluating proposals to sort out meaningful information from BS or fluff. If the best web developer/designer is selected for the project, it’s almost by accident.

The problem for those of us responding to RFPs is that preparing a proposal can easily consume 30-60 hours, depending on the scope of the project. We put some thought into addressing the specific items in the RFP, rather than making a few quick modifications to a standing proposal, and it takes time. Frankly, it’s time that could be spent more productively.

There’s a better way for both website owners and website developers.

Again, all successful website design/development is the result of collaboration between client and designer/developer. Aside from their ability to do the job, the most important thing you’re looking for in a designer/developer is someone you can collaborate with. I believe the following outlines a better way to find a collaborator and establish a collaborative relationship, one in which both parties work for a successful website within the agreed budget and timeline.

Figure out what you want to accomplish with your website. What are your goals? What are the goals of the people who might visit your website? What kind of functionality is necessary to meet those goals?

Figure out who your “audience” is (substitute “market” or “community” if more appropriate) and why they are interested in what you have to offer. Think about what kinds of online interaction with them would further your and their goals.

Figure out your budget. Bigger isn’t necessarily better, but some solutions are precluded by a budget that is inadequate to support them.

Look at websites similar to what you want. Contact the site owners and ask about the designer/developer. Would they recommend working with him/her? Include some local designer/developers in your research; often they will be more invested in your success (if your audience is primarily local, consider restricting your research to local designer/developers). Soon you’ll develop a shortlist of web people you want to talk to.

Call or email each of the designer/developers on your shortlist. Invite them separately to your office or a local coffee shop (or schedule a phone meeting, if they are not local) to discuss your project.

During your meeting, share your goals for your website (and describe functions you believe you need to meet those goals), what you know about your audience, and what your budget is. If they’re not taking notes and asking questions during this part of the meeting, you might want to cut it short. A good collaborator will be engaged and interested in this part of the process, and may even offer suggestions or observations that hadn’t occurred to you.

IF they took notes and asked lots of questions, find out more about them. Ask how they would go about helping you meet your goals within the budget you’ve described. Discuss timeline and try to get a sense of how focused they will be on your website. Ask them to walk you through a couple of websites they’ve launched, describing how they arrived at various solutions or solved design or technical issues. Ask about their business: not just how long they’ve been in business, but who their clients are, how they handle payments, what kind if ongoing support they provide, and what they feel separates their services from their competitors’ services. It wouldn’t hurt for you to take notes for this part.

If you feel you can collaborate with them, invite them to submit a written proposal. The short proposal (no more than two or three pages) should include a description of the project as they understand it, recommendations for a general approach (project phases, technical platform, etc.), an estimate for both time and cost, and contact information for at least three clients who you can call to talk about their experience in working with the designer/developer. Do NOT skip talking with their clients.

When you’re done evaluating proposals (and checking out client references), you should have a pretty clear idea of who you can work with best. Once you make your selection, schedule a project meeting in which you and the developer map out a project plan.

On an ongoing basis during the project, you make decisions together about the best options to help you meet your goals; the developer as trusted advisor, you as final decision-maker. You are now on the path to a great website.