Think twice about that huge font and those glassy icons: Look and feel is the first thing we see and notice about most web apps and is often critical to an app's user experience, adoption, and ultimate success.
We chatted with a panel of expert aesthetes in the space, including Spymaster designer Eston Bond, veteran creative director Rich Barrett, designer/developer Warren Benedetto, Mike Rundle of 9rules and Beak fame, and the Paul du Coudray Lowdown, the winner of this year's Rails Rumble appearance category. Here's what they had to say about developers doing double duty as designers, trends they'd like to see disappear, and how aesthetics can help a startup sink or swim.
Is a web app's look and feel critical to its overall success or failure?
"As a designer, I'd love to say it's the most important element," said Benedetto. "Unfortunately, my experience is that the look and feel is often inessential, to the point of being irrelevant. Some of the most successful things I have worked on, in terms of traffic and conversions, have been successful almost in spite of the design, rather than because of the design.
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Thursday, September 17, 2009
Design for Startups: The Aesthetics of Web Apps in 6 Questions
Thursday, July 2, 2009
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Source: http://www.prlog.org/
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Seven reasons your website sucks
Web design errors you make at your peril
Our sister title .net, the bible for web designers and developers, has saved web sites and designers' jobs with its list of the top 10 design mistakes and how to avoid them.
Here are seven from the ten that are guaranteed to make your site suck.
- Non-standard UI elements
With web design, it's tempting to define not only the appearance of page content, but also the browser controls. This is commonplace with forms and scrollbars, but Jakob Nielsen of useit.com reckons mucking about with these elements is dangerous. "Basic GUI widgets are the lexical units that form dialogue design's vocabulary," he cautions. "Changing their appearance or behaviour is like injecting foreign words into a natural-language communication."
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Why You Need to Test Your Web Site with Real Users
I recently attended the Nielson Norman Group User Experience World Tour (see my review if you want to know more). I learned much about making Web sites more usable, but the most common theme was the importance of usability testing. If you think usability isn’t important, a recent test of shopping sites showed that almost half the tasks set to the test shoppers weren’t completed successfully – which equates to a lot of frustrated consumers and lost sales when scaled up to the global level!
Assessing the usability of your site
To assess how usable your Web site is, you can choose a variety of techniques. I hope to convince you that user testing is one of the most important. Below are some of ways you can assess your sites usability.
User surveys and focus groups are marketing tools, to find out what a selected group of users remember about a Web site (rather than how they actually felt while they were using it). Naturally, the "feel" of a Web site is an important element of branding and corporate image. A good feeling can increase trust in the site, so we should not dismiss it.
User feedback solicits the views of a self-selected user group. Caroline Jarrett (http://www.effortmark.co.uk/) says that experience shows that, usually:
Visitors who hate the site leave promptly without responding,
Visitors with minor problems: broken links, typos etc. Often provide feedback, as do those who love the site,
The majority probably think the site is OK and don’t bother to tell you this. Therefore feedback isn’t a reflection of the overall spectrum of user experience, though it can highlight specific problems.
Webmasters may rely on mechanical aids such as log files and automated testing services (like www.usablenet.com). Log files tell you which pages are most visited, longest studied, first/last visited etc., but not whether users found what they wanted, or why they left. Automated services advise on predictable problems: broken links, and missing ALT tags for images, but are inevitably unable to spot complex things like difficulty in locating products, meaningless graphics, or poor results from search pages.
Heuristic inspections are conducted by a usability expert or a team, systematically examining a representative selection of pages. Most people use checklists to evaluate against, though experience and instinct are equally important. The inspection report describes, at least, the most important flaws in the site, and may recommend improvements. However, they can cause problems - the creative and technical people in the Web team often resent the intervention of a know-it-all consultant! For more details of these and other methods, try the Information and Design or Usability 1st sites. Thus, marketing people, webmasters and consultants can help with usability, but with drawbacks. Let’s look at that word again, "usability." The start of the word is the most important – the bit that’s to do with the users. It is the user’s experience of trying to do something with a site that is the critical thing to get right, and this can only be done effectively by testing with real users.
How user testing works
A small number of users (five are usually enough – see Jakob Neilsen’s Alertbox) are asked, one by one, to perform set tasks using the site. Their behavior is observed (not directed!) by a knowledgeable person sitting in the same room, who takes notes on what they do and say. Sometimes, a video link or two-way mirror allows other staff to watch without disturbing the test.
The users are reasonably representative of the target audience for the site. If there are different target audiences, each must be tested separately. Testing can take place at almost any stage of development – in general, the earlier the better. Simple tests of early prototypes allow problems to be fixed, and then the next iteration of the site can be tested. This is a much more efficient use of resources than completing the site and doing one big test at the end.
Summary: Why you need to test with real users
Consultants, marketing and Web development people have their own biased views of what users want or need. But only users can really tell you whether your site meets their requirements.
However experienced the usability consultant who advised you on your site, there will always be some aspects that real users will find problematic. Caroline Jarrett, who’s conducted many tests, says "In a test, at least one user will surprise you by using the site in an unanticipated way." Testing also has a useful side- effect: it can act as a neutral agent to convince your boss, your designers, the marketing team, and the developers of the importance of good usability. While anyone can legitimately question the opinion of the professionals, it takes real nerve to suggest that the intended users of the site don’t know what they need!
Source : http://www.webreference.com/
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Web Development Tips For Contact Forms
The purpose behind the creation of a website is to get people to know about you and to contact you for business purpose. The only point of contact for your website visitors to visit your site and contact you is to go to the contact form and fill in their queries. Hence, it is extremely essential that your contact form be well designed and quite impressing too. Here are some important tips that will be helpful in the development of your contact form.
The first thing that you need to realize about web development of a contact form is to make sure that it is not too long or consists of irritating questions. Keep the web development of the contact form simple . Do not complicate it too much, as people do not like to think when it comes to website surfing. They look for fast and immediate actions.
Many websites restrict their query space text box with character limits. This is incorrect. If the user is not able to file in his complete query there is a possibility that he will get irritated and will not file in anything at all. If your contact form web development can not allow query submission beyond a certain extent, it is advised that you provide a file uploading option, where the user can upload his query file wherein, he can add as many queries as he wants.
Make sure that your web development for Contact forms has made use of Captcha readability. This is the only way you can restrict the SPAM submissions in the contact form. Do not forget to develop your thank you page. The thank you page is a very important page in contact form development. From the user's point of view, if this page is not visible, the user cannot confirm if his query has been successfully submitted or not. Hence make sure that you develop a complete contact form with an encouraging and assuring message in the page that will tell the users that you will revert to their query.
Once your contact form web development is complete do not forget to do a complete QC testing of the form. This is the most important stage of the entire project. The testing should be done keeping the user in mind and ensure that there is no loose thread in the development. Check all the messages, codes and the final appearance of form to cross check all the details.
About the Author- Naman Jain is an online marketing professional, Presently working with Rupiz Media, one of the leading online marketing company offering expert UK web development services and website designing solutions over the globe.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/
Friday, July 11, 2008
The Web development skills crisis
The proliferation of Web technologies has been much on my mind lately. Last week, I talked about the continuum of Web development tools, ranging from traditional browser-based technologies all the way to applications deployed as binary executables. The interesting thing is that all of these tools are designed to achieve similar goals. So which do you use?
I'm not trying to start a flame war. Some developers will swear by Flash, while others will choose AJAX, and even within those groups there will be individuals whose preferences are even more rigidly defined. The question is, how do developers maintain their skill sets -- and, by extension, their value in the marketplace -- when the so-called state of the art seems to change on an almost daily basis?
In contrast to large biological systems, which favor diversity, large programming projects tend toward homogeneity. Excess platforms and technologies are costly and wasteful, both for developers and for the users they target with their applications. Each site will want to standardize on the one or two tools that best meet its needs. Identifying those tools for a Web project, however, can be a daunting task.
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Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Google outlines Web development investments in three areas
To encourage the creation of more Web-based applications during the next several years, Google Inc. will invest in three key areas for developers, including opening up its servers to host their applications, encouraging pervasive connectivity to the Web, and making the browser more powerful, said Vic Gundotra, Google's vice president of engineering, who gave the opening keynote speech at this year's Google Developer Conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.
"Google was born in the era of the Web," Gundotra said. "It's the only platform we've known. It was a platform that was formed by consensus. It was all of us collectively that agreed to a few standards. We feel a debt of gratitude toward that community."
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Thursday, May 15, 2008
Changing the Process of Web Development
Rapid Web Prototyping is changing the process of web development and design. By designing the user interface first and making it extremely clear, developers are able to write the supporting code using the integrated screenshots as guides, thus, in most cases, avoiding written technical specs entirely. This is not to say that technical specs are not required for some complex functional architecture but rather that the development process no longer needs to be based entirely on a written specification document.
Reducing the requirement for a functional spec in preference to creating the user interface has advantages for both technical and business teams. Customer-facing teams can begin user testing before coding begins, reducing the risk of developing functionality that customers will resist or ignore. In both consumer and B2B web applications, having a visual reference for the exact user experience is a preferable investment of time over developing a text or matrix-only technical spec.
The intensely visual nature of the web means that functional specs are generally a waste of everyone's efforts. They cost time and offer no guarantees that the presentation of functional elements will be interpreted correctly. The problem is that simply writing down a technical process does not ensure agreement about the tool’s user experience. Using the complete visual interfaces and screenshots will help get everyone on the same page, literally.
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Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Rich Web development: Is the browser doomed?
Since its inception, the Web has been synonymous with the browser. Pundits hailed NCSA Mosaic as "the killer app of the Internet" in 1993, and today's browsers share an unbroken lineage from that humble beginning.
Today's Web sites are another matter, however. Gone are the static pages and limited graphics of 15 years ago. In their place are lush, highly interactive experiences, as visually rich as any desktop application. The Web has become the preferred platform for enterprise application delivery, to say nothing of online entertainment and social software. In response, new kinds of online experiences have begun to emerge, challenging old notions of what it means to browse the Web.
Take Twhirl, a desktop client for the Twitter online service. Double-click its icon and the application launches in seconds. Its window is small and stylized, with an attractive, irregular border and configurable color schemes. What few controls it has are convenient and easy to use. It's sleek, fast, and unobtrusive. In short, it's everything that navigating to the Twitter Web site with a browser is not.
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Thursday, May 1, 2008
Microsoft releases new version of Web design tools
Expression Studio 2 includes five products: Expression Web for Web design; Expression Blend for multimedia and 3-D design; Expression Design for graphic design; Expression Media for storing and sharing multimedia assets; and Expression Encoder for video encoding. The new release marks the first time that Encoder is in the suite as a full-fledged product, said Wayne Smith, Microsoft group product manager for Expression Studio.
In the new release, all of the products now have support for Silverlight, Microsoft's multimedia runtime for running live and streaming video on the Web. Previously, only Expression Web had support for Silverlight, but it was very limited, Smith said.
In a sense, this is the first full release of Expression, as Silverlight is a key component of Microsoft's design strategy and overall plan to compete with Adobe Systems' Creative Suite and its Flash technology. Expression Studio has only been in the market about a year, but Smith said that the company is not sharing customer-adoption information. However, he said that judging from the interest in preview versions of Expression Studio 2, the inclusion of Silverlight should increase sales of Expression overall.
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Tuesday, April 29, 2008
The Navigation Aspect of Web Development
Thus in recent days design a profitable and good looking website is a must need for all of them. In recent survey it is viewed that first impression of viewers for your site will be the last impression. If your designed website is much attractive and worthy than others then you don’t need to worry about the web traffic.
If this is done at your website then you don’t need to convince buyers with your effective packages. They will automatically convinced and request for a query for more information. Some efficient regulations of excellent web design.
Rules of Effective Web Design
- well navigated website design can catch maximum web traffic into a site. Navigation is the foremost important thing for any site, if it is done excellently more people going into your required web page and you are able to increase the rate of conversion which will be the leading criteria of your business. This is typically the crucial interests that you can get from a well navigated website design.
- You can promote your services and products by adding a mailing list on your website for your viewers. This is a very effective web designing technique and this mailing list will enable your willing viewers to place their e-mail address, their name, as well as their other documents too. Thus you can build your huge list of possible clients.
- You can able to receive a superb search engine raking by your creative website designing. In a recent survey it is proved that accessible website design provides you this gigantic advantage. Professional web design can helps you to achieve required successful search ranking within a quick time spend. Your appointed web designer can import search engine user friendly impacts at your website very easily.
- An effectual looks can boost your business credibility by your website. In point of business view of your online business your first requirement is to gain visitors attention. A visitor must be automatically provides more concentration to you than your competitors. By a perfect affordable web design you can provide them a proper trustworthiness and this expected trust brings more business to your website.
Color adjustment is known as backbone of a website. It directly deals with viewer’s concentration and in a recent survey it is found that color alteration of a site can catch the emotion of visitors. It generates a wide space of influences for the visitor to making their decisions at your website. By a creative website design with fabulous color contrast you can leave a clear message for you visitor about your business deals. By highlighting important parts of a web page with some florescent colors, you can easily attract your viewers at your business through your proficient website.
Nowadays web 2.0 designing style added a qualitative feature in logo designs. Recently, people are vastly using this designing style to draw their unique logos for easily catching the viewer attentions. Making your website is not dabble work for you; your thought is, the design should be as powerful and attractive as it can. Make sure that no such amateurish thing to be done at your website with some awful feature. Lastly do some researches work before starting the designing work and if you have some more time then expend those time into web designing forums to discuss with others about your hassles
Source : http://www.promotionworld.com/
Sunday, April 27, 2008
IBM India'll head mobile web services R & D
The world's largest technology-services company did not divulge financial details. IBM said it is making major investments in mobile software and hardware platforms and opened several solutions labs focused on research and development.
No timeframe for rolling out the services has been finalised. But, IBM said all projects are at the pilot stage..
"In many countries, the mobile phone has become an electronic wallet, the window to the world wide web, an education device. Globally, mobile devices outnumber PCs, credit cards, and TVs," Daniel Dias, director, IBM India Research laboratory said.
The Spoken Web —- voice-enabled mobile commerce, instant translation —- real-time communication, SoulPad-portable device to carry computing application, BuddyComm - social networking on-the-go, and Good Samaritan - mobile healthcare information are the projects on which the IBM labs will work on.
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Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Tips to find great web design, development services
Molly E. Holzschlag
Waking up from a snooze on the way to Australia recently, I chatted a bit with my seatmate over prelanding tea. This well-dressed Englishman's work is to purchase a variety of IT services, and his company has a wide variety of needs and concerns. During our conversation, it became clear that, while he was aware of industry buzz terms such as Ajax and Web 2.0, he admittedly had little idea what they really meant, nor how to find top-quality Web design and development services and solutions for a fair price.
As we chatted, it became crystal clear to me, as a long-time educator and advocate for professional integrity and best practices in Web development and design, that the buyers of services-the consumers, if you will-have been getting short shrift for a very long time. If I had one valid HTML page for every confused client who's told me something akin to "We paid for the most expensive of the three companies, and it turns out the least expensive is cleaning up the mess they made of our site," I could hand you back a very tidy Web.
Consumer confusion is the result of many individual problems when it comes to website design and development services, but in a nutshell, it boils down to the rapid growth of the Web and the lack of competitive measure available. There are few college degrees in the field and there's little to no relevant professional certification. Even fewer people are capable of measuring a company's quality against any professional standards since the entire field lacks that measure, at least for now.
In an effort to assist CIOs and other technology buyers who are required to make seemingly blind decisions as clearly as possible, I offer the following 10 tips. I hope that folks such as my seatmate on that flight will suffer fewer stumbles and greater wins when purchasing Web design services.
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