Fresh ID » Design

Two New Communities Coming!

Kristi — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:47:37 +0000

I wanted to tell you real quickly about two new communities we’re forming and how you can participate if either of them are right for you.

#SMbyDesign Weekly Twitter Chat

#SMbyDesign is a Twitter chat I have long dreamed of starting. A Twitter friend named Daryl Woods and I had this discussion probably two years ago but I did not make it happen, though it keeps coming up. So today, another friend, Emily Fitzhugh who is a social media consultant and I decided to make it happen! We’re kicking off this Thursday (yes, day after tomorrow) and will do this every Thursday morning at the following times:

PST 7:00 AM
CST 9:00 AM
EST 10:00 AM
UK 3:00 PM
KUWAIT 6:00 PM
BANGALORE 8:30 PM
HONG KONG 11:00 PM

I’ve shown a few representatives from different countries here as we tried really hard to make this time work around the globe. #SMbyDesign chats will cover a few different aspects of social media design:

the actual design processes and challenges of branding and doing interesting things for clients or your company on social media platforms
great examples of social media channel design we see that is inspirational or pushes the envelope and gets us thinking about new ideas for engaging fans
interviews with designers, agencies and marketers who have done a phenomenal job of branding social media channels so we can learn from them
strategy and tactics for different platforms for those just starting out in social media (though it will help you to be somewhat savvy as many conversations will be of an advanced nature)

A lot of advice can be found online for how to market yourself on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or LinkedIn. But advice on maximizing these channels from a design and branding standpoint is not so readily available. To truly do “social media by design” it takes more than a strategy – execution of the brand being extended visually and emotionally is important and yet not talked about as much. Let’s discuss it together!

Girls/Women Who Love MLS Soccer Community

Also in the process of being formed is a social community for women like Sherry, Heather and I who love their pro soccer team here in the US: MLS pro soccer. Some great sites like http://kickette.com exist but are largely focused on soccer overseas. We noticed a missing presence of female-oriented blogs and personalities, though they exist scattered around the web and social channels… we want to bring these women together and create a safe and fun place to both learn about the sport (a lot of us don’t know the technical aspects and so some reporting goes over our heads) and to show other women that there are crazy, soccer-addicted females all around them that they can relate to. This is not so much to exclude men, as it is to be able to freely talk about things that interest us that don’t interest and usually annoy the men (player hair and fashion IS a very important topic!) Some phenomenal women around the nation are part of the founding group – you’ll get to know them after we launch. The community is open to any female of any age that loves her MLS team and watching pro soccer.

This site will be launched prior to the season opening games. If you’re interested in being notified when it launches head to our temporary site and submit your email to be notified. We will be so happy to meet you and play with you in our new community when we launch!

I hope you’ll join me in the #SMbyDesign Twitter chat on Thursdays or the soccer community if you’ve been bitten by the MLS bug like I have. If you have any questions about either group, let me know in the comments!

Thoughts on Love and Design

Kristi — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 02:48:18 +0000

All great creations, or at least the vast majority, seem to have love as an impetus. Whether it’s the painful, stabbing sting of rejection or love gone wrong, or the euphoric high of love requited with a sublime being, or the amazement a parent feels when looking at a being that they actually made, love is both a driver and an instigator to design and creativity. Due to Olivier’s (@thebrandbuilder on Twitter) admiration of the writer Steven Pressfield I recently read an interview in which Hemingway says that “the best writing is certainly when you are in love.” I also just finally saw the movie The Social Network, which portrays both Facebook and Napster as having been created out of the pain of love lost. I’ve designed many, many websites and brand identities in a frenzy of work brought on by love gone astray, so I could relate to that more than to Hemingway being inspired to weave a loving tapestry with his words when enamored with a real-life leading lady. In the movie Like Water for Chocolate a woman deeply in love with her sister’s fiancé creates dishes of food so powerful it intoxicates guests and they all feel what she was feeling as she cooked… the pouring out of her soul that she could not express with her beloved. At its essence, design’s goal is to elicit feeling that will lead to action or reaction of some kind: you will be compelled to feel something or to do something based on the mere experience of a piece of paper, tactile, film or digital impression online. That really takes some work! That is why love, or love’s lasting impression, gives power and thrust to what we create in its glow or aftermath. It gives the designer the extra edge of feeling and momentum required to take nothing, or a random group of objects, and turn it into ‘something’. When you can design something that moves someone, like Tita did in Like Water for Chocolate, your emotions transfer through the design to the audience. They then experience what you experienced when you created it and your job as a designer has been fruitful. So what about writers block, or designers block, or musician or filmmakers block? Could it be that the block is representative of a lack of emotion in your life? Are you in love with a mate? Are you feeling connected to your family? Are you present with your friends and wrapped in the warmth of your loving friendships? Are you pining for one you are not with for whatever reason? Are you excited with passionate joy about your business? Are you enthralled with a community or team or project? If you get in touch with your feelings or lack of them, you might find the block to creative expression will pass. Design benefits from something original – a unique sense of humor, a quirky twist, a strong, powerful point to make… so a mind expanded by love might be more capable of seeing what others aren’t and finding that element of surprise, wonder, or terror (for dark subjects) that captures attention and makes an impact. Love, like design, is abstract – beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What makes sense to some makes no sense to others. A commercial that makes some people laugh or cry or outraged will completely unfaze some who see it. A room design that surrounds some people with a feeling of bliss will be repulsive to others – that is the nature of design, feelings and human emotions. So the best a designer can do is strive to communicate honestly with the audience they hope to appeal to and trust that like minds will share like feelings. What is your experience with creativity? Do you find yourself less inspired when not in love, or hitting more blocks when not overwhelmed with emotions of some type? Leave a note with your thoughts, and… love be on your side.

Using Custom WordPress Design to Complement an Existing Site: Red House Media Case Study

Kristi — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 19:19:40 +0000

RedHouse Media is an advertising agency of long-standing in Brainerd, Minnesota, where they specialize in traditional marketing, creative work and photography for clients of all types. They have a well-defined brand and had a company blog that was not serving their needs as they began to grow and get more involved on social networks.

Creative Collaboration

Because RedHouse does design, they had a good idea of what they wanted their blog to do, but didn’t have the developers or experienced blog designers to bring it to life. When Aaron met Kristi on Twitter in 2009, it seemed like a great complement of skills, so they hired us to design and develop what they envisioned. Since we are both design agencies, it was easy to stay on the same page regarding the creative approach!

Extending the Brand

Kristi liked the chalkboard effect they use in their website, and wanted the blog to be a seamless transition and extension of the site, rather than feel like a separate site like their existing blog did. To achieve the transition, she took the header, footer and page shell from the main site and used that as the framework for the blog. Now, when visitors click in the header navigation they go from site to blog without realizing they are actually on two different domains (the blog has a unique address so it can be used as a standalone site, too.) This level of detail is not something that can be done with an off-the-shelf theme. This blog was designed from scratch and new fonts and images were used that complemented the RedHouse Media brand so that it appeared to be 100% authentic for their brand… this is not the brand and style of a theme designer or even our particular style.

Development Details

Though it’s not immediately obvious, there are a number of small details we designed and coded in this blog that give it some enhanced functionality or enabled us to extend the brand:

They have an email newsletter, that we added a submission form for in the sidebar for easy subscription.
They have a special calendar of events that function like blog posts. Upcoming events display in the sidebar, and when clicked you can see full text, pictures, video or whatever one could put in a blog post, for the entry.
We found adorable and free social media icons that looked appropriately “chalkboard-drawn” in addition to some chalkboard-styled fonts, that bring character and distinction it in keeping with the main site design.
We used the Twitter api to post the latest tweets from each team member, plus the latest tweets that mention @RedHouseMedia
A lot of sites use the Tweetmeme “Retweet” badge, but we opted to use another one that we could customize colors for to match this site. A palette of reds, grays and charcoals is continually used to keep this brand tight and we didn’t want to alter that with third-party badges that would disrupt the flow.
The most recent video they post shows up automatically in the sidebar.
“Latest Comments” in the footer, in addition to Recent Posts, give visitors an indication of what’s being discussed right now on the blog and within the company.

End Result

The best end result for us is a satisfied client, and RedHouse Media has expressed satisfaction and appreciation for the details we brought to the process of designing theirblog. As Aaron Hautala, founder of RedHouse Media told Fresh ID CEO Lisa Qualls,

We’re getting good responses from visitors and clients; mission accomplished! We test all contractors on the RedHouse brand first, and we’re very satisfied with the style and quality of work you produced for us. I’d like to partner on client blog development in the future based on this experience. I like that we didn’t have to pay you to learn – other providers we spoke with kept telling me “how hard” it was going to be to do what we wanted, but your team didn’t. I appreciated the pushback on design problems and liked that Kristi used her knowledge to solve the design issues, instead of saying “that’s not going to work.” Having a designer with a similar vision (bigger than normal) who gets excited about our ideas is a major plus!

We were excited to hear that in January 2010, the RedHouse Media team won a Gold Addy for their site and complementing blog by the American Advertising Federation of Central Minnesota. As if we weren’t already pleased with how this project turned out! We look forward to partnering with RedHouseMedia on more creative work in the future. Check out the live blog now!

How Social Media Has Changed Digital Design

Kristi — Mon, 31 May 2010 16:11:06 +0000

This is an amazing presentation, well-designed itself, about how social media adoption in mass numbers has changed the way we designers approach projects, solve problems and meet needs these days. Great line to remember: “Social media is bringing back humanity to all digital life. We are no longer users, consumers, shoppers. We are all people again.”

People are Powering Brand Identity Changes

Kristi — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:07:00 +0000

I’m excited to see some brand redesigns that have recently occurred, to two long-standing brands we are all so used to we probably don’t even think about them much, for bananas and ketchup. Heinz has updated, with brilliant results, the lowly ketchup packet and if you think about it, you’ll see how people and their needs factored into this design. The old ketchup packets can be messy, inconvenient (if eating while driving, and unfortunately, we have to do that sometimes) and they don’t even hold much. The new condiment packaging is more like a small tub, so you can peel back the cover to dip your fries or whatever in it, OR you can rip off the top and squeeze out the contents. The beautiful part of the design is that it resembles a tiny bottle of ketchup… this was inspired creative thinking, to solve real complaints by customers for over 30 years, and I really love it! Yahoo has an excellent piece on this from the company’s perspective about how and why they made this change and what took them so long… they’ve apparently been working on a new design for years. Chiquita Bananas have also been modernized, with a playful, icon set of stickers that will introduce a whole new cast of characters to banana lovers. Stickers, games and a Facebook community give people something to play with and talk about… there are even skateboard graphics! Everyone knows bananas are healthy to eat, but with all of these little images and fun ways to participate with the brand itself socially, now I believe they’ll be more fun. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see this positively impact Chiquita’s bottom line. The graphics are kid-friendly, but not kid-like, if that makes sense… they will appeal to adults too, especially those who Tweet and hang out at Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and the like, where we talk in OMG’s and LOL’s. The images are quirky, fun and cool. There’s a wonderful article with a lot of details about the design here… check it out! Their website also rocks – very interactive and playful… corporate businesses could stand to take some lessons from it about how to present information in small chunks and make exploring a site fun and compelling. The thing that cannot be denied is that people are increasingly affecting what brands do, where they participate online, and what they offer. And that’s a great thing! We’ve had focus groups and marketing analysis for years, but those efforts to get into customer’s heads by nature, can only represent a small sampling. With the advent of social conversations, sentiment analysis, and being able to directly ask anyone listening online what they think about your brand, or what they need, the opportunities for hitting the target when changing a product or service are better than ever. I have noticed, in the last six months, nearly every single proposal we do has SOME element of social marketing or social presence in it, because it’s needed (we think) or wanted (by the prospect.) Despite the economic troubles nearly everyone has faced, it’s a really fun time to be in the business of branding, marketing and selling!

My Favorite Prototyping Tools

Kristi — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 17:41:36 +0000

A user interface designer relies on certain things: a fast, working internet connection, a big enough screen to handle the inevitable hopping back and forth from one window to another, some excellent music, and a steady supply of his or her favorite addictive beverage of choice… in my case, coffee or Coke Classic. But those are just the accoutrement needed to set the stage. An interaction designer must rely on one or more tools with which to turn the brilliance bursting forth from highly stimulated and caffeinated synapses, into pure bottom line revenue. Well, ideally at least. I have my staples, those products I cannot and will not live without, which happen to all be owned by the same company these days. Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Dreamweaver have fueled the development of most software products I have worked on. Though they will always be used for my ultimate design and final polishing, I’ve recently discovered a few products that make creating a prototype almost as easy as having a thought, and I want to share these finds in case other user experience professionals or developers looking to prototype new features might benefit from them. Balsamiq Mockups Makes Rapid Prototyping Fun! I happened onto Balsamiq Mockups via a Twitter comment by Alex Horstmann about how great this product is. One of the big back-and-forth debates among information architects and user experience designers is the level of prototype that should be created and presented. Info architects generally rely on wireframes… the outlining of sections and navigation elements and the like. People who design the product line branding and comprehensive user experience like I do, often go whole-hog and want to communicate all their creative ideas, along with the taxonomy, navigation, etc. It can be time-consuming to do that, and sometimes even a visual designer just needs to show a simple feature interaction concept. Historically, I love to sketch with pencil and paper. It’s been the fastest way for me to work a design problem out for myself. But then I usually want or need to share it with developers, and I have a sketch. Do I scan it, recreate it using one of my standard tools, or just get on the phone and describe it??? With Balsamiq Mockups, I can grab and place “sketchy” elements such as dropdowns, icons and other form elements onto a blank notebook page online, then save and send it to my team. Peldi Guilizzoni, owner of Balsamiq and developer of the product, sets a new standard for customer service, which is one reason why this product will always draw raves from me, despite my occasional gripes about Adobe Air, which is the platform the product is built upon. Meet Peldi and you will agree with me. This product was and is “designed for users” by Peldi himself. If you have a problem, he strives to fix it, and uses the excellent Get Satisfaction site to stay in constant contact with users who need help. If you have a request, Peldi will seriously consider it, usually implement it, and if he cannot or shouldn’t, he provides the research behind his decision and fully explains why not. That is RARE, even in this day of more transparent and more open applications. And now maybe Peldi will know why it took me so long to put this review up – I can’t stop blathering on about how great he is with his customers, and stay focused on the software itself, which is why you’re here. So go see the software for yourself! >> Try it now, before you buy it! >> Twitter Balsamiq Skitch Takes Screenshots to a New Level of Convenience Working with software, I’ve taken a lot of screenshots. I’ve taken them into Photoshop and refashioned them completely, I’ve drawn circles and put giant pink “Please do not do this!!” messages on them, and I have often had to take multiple shots of a long web screen and then put together the hacked up pieces in a Photoshop file so I can have the long screen to work on or annotate. Thankfully, a new Adobe Air tool called Websnapshot has eliminated that issue, as long as you have a direct link to point to. But Skitch, though it doesn’t take a screenshot of the entire web page, does so much more, that it is well worth the money you don’t have to pay for it. It’s in Beta and Free as of this writing. Here’s what Skitch does, brilliantly and easily: find something you need to take a screenshot of, open the Skitch application, snap the portion of the screen you want, draw circles, boxes and write notes on it to explain your issue, post it to your online account, then share the link with the people you choose. Nathen Harvey, Director of Operations at VisualCV, turned me onto this modern miracle. He uses it to communicate with users and developers, because he can snap a screen and put notes on it and distribute it within minutes. The ability to post a screenshot online and grab the link to send in an email, rather than having to save and send an attachment from your own hard disk space is truly awesome. Learn the lingo and try it! I love this tool. >> It’s free… nothing to lose but a moment of time. Try it! >> Twitter Skitch >> See Nathen’s Skitch Message Online GUIMags & GUIMagnets Makes Whiteboard Collaboration Productive Beyond the Meeting Gathering in a conference room, brainstorming with smart people, the smell of fresh markers permeating the air… nothing beats it (sometimes!) But after hours spent in a conference room, what do you have? A lot of stuff on a whiteboard that has to be transcribed, remembered and implemented immediately, or all the hours of work are at risk of being lost forever. Enter these little whiteboard magnets that are so obvious, you’ll wonder how you lived without them all these years. I love the GUImags story… the lead designer had some carpal tunnel issues, and was stuck at home healing. He used refrigerator magnets to make interface elements, and the Eureka! moment struck him: he needed magnets of interface elements to make design faster and easier. (And less physically debilitating!) GUIMagnets is a similar product of laminated form elements. Rik Schot, a User Experience Designer in Nederland, was working on a website form (and no doubt, making frequent changes) when he realized there had to be a better way to prototype. Now, there is a trick to this – you will have to take pictures and distribute them of the whiteboard designs, until GUImags partners with someone like Polyvision or Scanr, or designs a unique solution themselves. Output of the meeting is a critical element of this process and I hope they will come up with a full solution soon, because I think this could be a really valuable product in team settings. GUIMags mentions several other products coming soon that will aid your prototyping & collaboration: GUIBoards is a neat whiteboard with built-in resolution sizes that looks like a helpful concept. GUIMagnets are sold on a laminated sheet, but GUImags come in a little briefcase – you’ll look so official when you show up for meetings! >> Learn more about GUIMags >> Learn more about GUIMagnets Additional Products for User Interface Designers Gliffy Does Diagrams in a Jiffy! I so couldn’t help that headline. But Gliffy does seem really cool. I have known about them for several years, and they’ve rebranded themselves to focus on using their tool for online wireframing, diagrams, storyboards, etc. This tool is easy to use and would really come in handy for professional sitemaps and interaction flowcharts. They offer a free one-month trial, and paid subscriptions following that. I haven’t tried the wireframing options they offer, but it looks pretty neat. Check them out. Dabbleboard – A Powerful Online Whiteboard I just discovered Dabbleboard but have only dabbled in it so far… it takes a bit of getting used to. The concept is really cool though – you can draw online, instead of offline using pencil and paper, and then show your lovely sketches to others much quicker than you could sketch, scan and send. I tried making a user interface as lovely as the Dappleboard example shown here, but couldn’t in the few minutes I spent with the product. I think you have to add some elements or something from this UI Toolkit. I’ll explore the product more when I have time. For me, Balsamiq Mockups was faster and easier to get started with, but Dabbleboard has one key thing I like, which is the idea of drawing electronically so I can avoid the step of scanning, or recreating sketches in a full-blown prototype before showing them to people. You don’t have to sign up to play, which is awesome, so try Dabbleboard out today and let me know what you think. Have I missed any other cool prototyping or user interface-related products? I’d love to hear about them if you use something not mentioned here!

Is Your Child Chic? Bento Designer Lunches Rule for School!

Kristi — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:41:01 +0000

In a new variation of designing for users, Moms around the world are gearing up to make their kids the most fabulous lunches they have ever experienced. Fortunately, for those blissfully ignorant of Bento and the latest designer trend of “cute food”, a host of sites and experts exist to help you make your babies lunches the BEST lunches their peers and teachers have ever laid eyes on. And I think it’s great, because who says the food we eat to sustain us can’t be healthy, appealing to look at, a little mischievous and FUN? This picture, from Cooking Cute, a website by dedicated mother and Bento-designer Ngoc, is just one of many examples of a Bento-styled lunch. Audrey is her niece, and this meal really is a thing of beauty… what a treat to open your lunchbox and find something like this in it! I cannot help but think the Bento concept is adorable, while simultaneously being thankful I have no school-age children to prepare these time-consuming treats for. The Oilman likely would not appreciate the gesture of having cute food on his plate, though he has gotten used to every meal having a “theme” such as Greek, Italian, French or my personal favorite, Tex-Mex, featuring authentic Texas flavors, such as mesquite-grilled meats and veggies. No Kansas hickory for me, thank you! Continue reading for Bento resources and pictures… because no plate of food you serve should go undesigned. And if you like pretty things as much as I do, you won’t want to miss seeing these visual treats. Bento 101 Alanna Kellogg provides a great introduction to Bento over at BlogHer. If you’ve never before heard of Bento, or are new to this designer food craze, start here for six easy lessons for taking Bento back to school this year. Cooking Cute The definitive site for all things Bento… pictures, recipes, tips, links, resources, an A-Z glossary and more! LuckySundae’s Beautiful Bento Design – 180 Meals! This Bento designer’s work was featured in the book “Face Food” and you’ll see why after looking at these photos… very creative, charming and whimsical… not to mention edible! Face Food: The Visual Creativity of Japanese Bento Boxes Book description: “All across Japan, parents come up with unique ways to bring attention to their children’s lunch boxes. And what better way to make children eat than to turn their midday meals into a cartoon? With Face Food, Christopher D Salyers documents the very real phenomenon of crafting food into visually creative and appealing forms, such as Pikachu, Daraemon and Cindarella, bringing health, heart and imagination to the bento box.” Bento Lunchbox with Nested Containers Very neat modular lunch box with 5 microwave-safe containers that fit inside, from Reusable Bags. Perfect for kids or adults who want to take lunch to work. Cooking Cute’s Bento Box Collection I covet these beautifully decorated lunchboxes… they’re enough to make me want to try serving Bento lunches around here after all! Fortunately, Ngoc has posted links to retailers where she purchased them, so be sure to check them out for even more Bento container options. Fun Food Blog Packed with love, for you… great Bento-centric blog with lots of tasty photos and food for thought, though it makes me yearn to eat lunch apart from The Oilman instead of with him as we usually do, just so I can leave him sticky notes with adorable drawings on them with his packed meal. Do you have any Bento-making experience? I’d love to hear your comments and see photos if you have them to share.

Do Visual Resumes Work for Job Hunters?

Kristi — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:43:12 +0000

I’ve been exploring the idea of a visual resume, after having to create a document that showed a quick overview of the type of work I do. I designed a mini-portfolio called “Six Fresh Brands” that shows thumbnails of six corporate brands I’ve done, with my skills categorized into three segments to create a simple 3 page pdf. I have since found so many neat ideas online, from people trying to creatively communicate what they have done and can do, and companies trying to help users create a visual cv. It can be so difficult to show the scope, the depth, and the breadth of a professional’s skills over a period of time. Wordle’s Word Cloud Generator One tool I learned about that helps people create a visual resume is called Wordle. If you like playing with graphics and text and colors, this excellent Java-based web application will occupy you for hours. The colors and layouts are all customizable, and the designs it creates actually look good. You take the text from your resume, copy and paste it, and then play with the output until you’re satisfied with the results. Here is one version of my resume in Wordle form… does this word cloud approach communicate capabilities effectively? You could design so many cool pieces with this art… like a blog header or presentation cover. I just love Wordle! A Resume in Pictures Karen Storer is a visual thinker who presents information using maps and diagrams, so it only made sense for her to present her resume in the same way. Can you picture her solving your communication problems like this? Do Diagrams Help Depict Capabilities? I also took a stab at using a Venn Diagram of my “universal experience” concept as a visual resume. What’s missing in this image is any sort of dates or companies… but would this add anything to a traditional resume, because you can see a lot in a glance? Resume Presentations Some folks have used Slideshare to create moving graphic resumes. Alihadi has created an autobiography that made me laugh, as well as educated me on his work history. This format lends itself to creating and defining your own personal brand. I wonder what an HR director would think, if sent the link to this? I’d love to know, since I may be tempted to make my own Slideshare resume someday. >> Slideshare Samples Timeline Resumes NavAgility is in the business of visual timelines, which can be used to depict a person’s work history. I believe you can drill down into the different work experiences shown, and get the full-blown text of that job history, making this more like an interactive site. But, Do Visual Resumes Work? Some design professionals expect their portfolio to serve as a “visual resume.” But portfolio images are typically just work samples, unless dated and laid out chronologically. What I want to know, is if depicting your work history graphically is effective at getting the attention of the right people, or if they are just novelties meant to amuse graphic-inclined folks like me who find them interesting to study. I assume the traditional resume would also be required, but I’m not sure if that’s correct, if you can fit the dates and companies to depict your work history inside the visual presentation. I’d love to hear it straight from human resource professionals and recruiters, if they’d be willing to take this short survey or leave comments here, to give job hunters some insight. >> Take the Survey

Web 2.0 is not a Brand

Kristi — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:25:50 +0000

I can’t say definitively what Web 2.0 is, in fact, experts often disagree about the precise meaning of this ubiquitous term, including Tim O’Reilly, the man who coined it in 2004. O’Reilly’s latest definition of the term seems to be this: Web 2.0 is a transformative force that’s propelling companies across all industries towards a new way of doing business characterized by harnessing collective intelligence, openness, and network effects.

Fine. We can work with that, because the purpose of this discussion is primarily about design and branding. What I DO know, and in this area thankfully, I have some expertise, is what Web 2.0 is NOT. And Web 2.0 is not a brand.

These fun, cool graphics do not provide a substitute for the necessity of a brand, they cannot distinguish you from competitors (anymore) and they do not, in and of themselves, provide the critical distinction that a great brand experience offers, that moves a company leagues beyond the pack.

I read an artist’s definition of Web 2.0, and she described it this way: “Designs that conform to strict generic conventions, leaving little space for originality.” Harsh, but fair. The de facto standard these days, to “prove” you are indeed Web 2.0, seems to be the use of glossy, shiny bits of icons, buttons and other artwork. I have clients that say, “Make me look Web 2.0, please!” but they don’t fully understand the point of this phrase, and their confusion is partly caused by the prevalence of look-a-like sites. To be Web 2.0 requires more than a glossy, shiny, look, and in fact, those elements are NOT the best illustrations for any and every company and organization. It’s so easy to get behind these days, with all the millions of social media sites and mashups and opportunities to connect, but at its heart, a Web 2.0 site or application should remain more about connecting to others, collaborating and sharing resources, and ultimately ensuring the natural flow of information that the internet itself allows.

There is something that needs to wrap around all the user-defined, personalized, socially-connected text, audio and video, sort of like the universe envelopes the globe. That something is your BRAND. Your organization’s brand needs to be a unique entity, very much like you are as a person, with inherent traits, ways of being and interacting with others, and a sparkling, distinct personality. For some brands, “sparkling” can be captured visually in shiny, glossy buttons and bits of graphic fluff, and the content, tone, products, services and people behind the company, organization, or individual will match the graphic image. Others require a different approach, and it is for this reason I became disturbed when I noticed that Quicken has altered their site to look and feel “Web 2.0 compliant”, possibly with unintentional results. (Enlarge the image to see my pithy design comments.)

I mean no ill will toward the designers of this site – I don’t know anything about the decisions behind this design update, such as marketing pressure or personal preferences. What comes to mind when I see it, is that I don’t feel this is a sustainable brand, and therein lies my problem with it. If we change our branding every time a trend is hot, guess what happens over time? We lose all brand identity, all the brand equity (or we never build any) and our old brand assets will now become brand liabilities, as we scramble to redo everything.

The folks at cpseo.com define Web 2.0 as a trend in web design and development – a perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services (such as social-networking sites, wikis and blogs) which aim to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing between users.

The word perceived is very important, and accurate, for the real world of web development. Designing your site to look like a blog, or finding some cute n’ shiny buttons to use, or even developing the most perfect site code using tableless xhtml and css, does not create loyal customers or have define the brand experience. You should take advantage of new technology and use the best visual imagery you can afford, but the real crux of offering a more advanced web site or application, at the end of the day, lies in good old-fashioned brand definition and user experience planning, by people who care about users, customers and site visitors.

A man named Markus Angermeier designed a great visual mindmap image intended as a definition and tool for understanding Web 2.0.

If you look closely, you’ll see the word “brand” does not appear anywhere on this map. It can’t… the brand is the container, for all of these wonderful (and wacky) things. Without the container, there is chaos. Let your brand serve as the funnel through which all of your design, development, and social media experiments trickle, so that you can build a brand that will last a lifetime… unlike some of the trends and fads we embrace, then discard. Your brand states who you are in the world. Are you just like everyone else? I don’t think so. Show us who you are, and don’t worry so much about looking Web 2.0, is my unsolicited advise.

User Experience Activities for Ecommerce & Software

Kristi — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:47:50 +0000

In an effort to better communicate what I do for clients, I’ve created two PDF documents that describe the various user experience activities that take place on an ecommerce or software design project.

This was actually a bit harder than it looks – I began with the intention of creating a UE process, but the truth is, these activities can be done at various times throughout the life of a project, so they are somewhat chronological like a process, but not totally rigid. Many times, multiple things are going on at once. For example, I might be working on a Product Design Guide for developers, packaging design with marketing, and doing user testing on a particular feature, so it’s impossible to say “we must do this first.” Each company I work with is different and so the process has to be flexible to account for time, budget and necessity.

Italic bold phrases in this document (ie. Personas) represent actual deliverables that will most likely be produced as a result of doing the activity, and are all things I have produced for various clients and employers. I will eventually offer a complete library of deliverable samples for people who are new to user experience, or companies who are curious about those documents. I hope you enjoy these!

>> User Experience Activities | Ecommerce
>> User Experience Activities | Software