This was a fun project. At the beginning of every design or redesign project I ask what’s the audience for this web site. For Pony Party Place the audience is families with young children. Research showed unanimously that children respond best to cartoon web sites. This is my first cartoon-style web site and I had a blast with it. I purchased a stock cartoon pony, but the rest of the cartoon images I either created in Photoshop or got from free clip-art sites. I also did an on-site photo shoot at one of the parties, which, by the way, looked like one of the best kid birthday parties ever.
A few years ago I designed a web site for violinist Randy Sabien. It featured his new CD at the time, Rhythm and Bows.
With the release of his his next CD, Soul of a Man, Randy wanted to update the Home page. I took some new photos of Randy (you can read about the photo shoot here), changed the layout, and included sample listening tracks.
Randy’s fishing photos are also on the CD cover and the CD itself.
The new web site
Jeff McCord asked me to design the cover for his novel, Undocumented Visitors in a Pirate Sea.
Designing the book cover was a lot of fun. Jeff had definite ideas about what he wanted on the cover:
- the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy
- a pirate flag
- some sort of UFO image
We lucked out because there are two great images in the public domain we could use of the Kennedy and a pirate flag. I used Photoshop to remove the helicopter from the Kennedy photo and add a more interesting sky from another photo of mine. Then I used Illustrator to design the text on the cover.
He also wanted me to help him with the submission process for publishing the book on the Amazon Kindle.To publish a book for the Kindle you need to have your book manuscript in HTML format. Jeff wrote the book in MS Word and sent me the Word document to work with. There’s a function in MS Word that converts a Word document into an HTML file, which I tried. The result was an ugly pile of junk code that sort of worked. I spent more time cleaning up the code than I would have doing the HTML myself. Lesson learned: don’t use the MS Word convert to HTML function. The book is available on Amazon: Undocumented Visitors in a Pirate Sea
I also created an author web site: Jeffrey Roswell McCord, Author
All content Copyright 2013 Alice Gebura. All Rights Reserved.
Today my client The Investor Advocate posted a remembrance of the great legal journalist Anthony Lewis, who died a week ago today. As a young man Lewis was greatly influenced by Justice Harlan Fiske Stone’s footnote to his opinion in U.S. v. Carolene Products Co., decided in 1938. You can read the details as they relate to Lewis in the post.
My job was to find an image to go with the post so I started by searching for anything related to the court case.
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“80% of what we perceive is visual information.”
A Web Site is Mandatory
Today, if you have a business, you need a web site to be taken seriously. Everyone realizes it and everyone wants a web site. But paying for a web site is expensive. It costs a lot because a skilled professional spends a lot of hours collating materials, creating a design, and programming the code behind it all.
Cutting Costs
There are less expensive alternatives to hiring someone to build you a custom web site. You could write a blog, create a Facebook page, or use a template. This post investigates the pros and cons of using templates to create your web site.
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I’ve always enjoyed the 7 deadly sins as thematic material for art and literature. So I got a big kick out of the following use of the 7 sins to structure a narrative on bad web design. Its origin is a webinair by Seth Rosenblatt at the American Marketing Association. It came to me via a newsletter by Lynn Ericson from Ericson Mitchell. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
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I attended a workshop in Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging. The Ikebana concept that impressed me the most was that of visual motion. Ikebana strives to keep the eye engaged by eliminating any element that would stop the continuous scanning motion of the eye. Some examples of such eye stopping elements are:
- Straight lines
- 90 degree angles
- Absence of negative space (space between objects)
The photo to the left shows an Ikebana arrangement.
Example of Ikebana
Notice the following:
- Simplicity, only 3 elements: white calla lilies, pink azaleas and black tray
- Curved lines, no straight lines
- Only 5 upright flowers grouped as 3 + 2, creating negative space between the vertical elements, the stems
- Negative space between the horizontal elements: calla lilies at the top, azaleas and tray at the bottom
Despite the sparse, simple aesthetic, its visual interest pulls you in and keeps you there. Isn’t that what we want for our own web sites?
I gave some thought to how I could apply this to web design. I believe when you drill down and understand your goals and core values and how to realize them, you arrive at a truth that can be expressed simply and effectively.
If you don’t really understand who you are and what you’re doing, what better way to cover it up than to keep piling on more and more until you get a web site that looks like this:
Analysis by Smart Alice Web Design & Photography, smart web design for businesses who want a unique and effective presence on the internet.
Another argument emerges for simple web design (see my previous post Creating Your Web-Scape) in Drake Bennett’s article on cognitive fluency, Easy=True. Cognitive fluency is the psychological precept that “people prefer things that are easy to think about to those that are hard…In any situation where we weigh information, fluency is implicated in our decisions about everything.”
In a nutshell, when information is easier to mentally process, people feel attraction and belief. The opposite, disfluency – making things difficult to grasp, creates a cognitive roadblock that makes people wary and uncomfortable.
While this might seem intuitively obvious, evidence abounds that plenty of businesses (and web designers) don’t get it.
Bennett’s article is a terrific resource for more information on fluency and disfluency and the supporting research.
For the purpose of this blog let’s take a look at the practical implications of fluency and disfluency in terms of web design. Keep in mind this is all based on research, not my own preferences.
Disfluency:the art of making things difficult –
Web Design that Loses Business
Here are some characteristics of a disfluent web site that will leave web site visitors with a negative impression.
Inaccessibility
- Unfamiliar words (for example, technical jargon and acronyms)
- Names and words that are difficult to pronounce
- Complex syntax
- Illegible text (see my previous post The Dog and the Lotus)
- Missing information or convoluted instructions
- Functions that don’t quite work
Sensory Overload
- Overcrowding the page
- Visual distractions
- Multiple columns of disparate text
- Little or no white space
- Flickering animation
Inconsistency
- Confusing navigation
- Poor organization
Fluency:the art of making things easy to understand –
Web Design that Encourages Business
Here are some characteristics of a fluent web site that subliminally suggest to visitors that your business is reputable and trustworthy.
Repetition
- Consistent navigation and page layout across the web site
- Artful repetition of key ideas(note: repetition is good, redundancy is bad – know the difference)
Clarity
- Legible fonts and color coordination
- Plenty of white space
- Language and syntax that everyone can understand
Simplicity
- Message boiled down to its essence
- Graphic design and content that are easy to assimilate (accessible) both visually and conceptually
Web Site Analysis: The Glass House
Let’s take a look at the web site for The Glass House and see how well it does fluency wise.
Repetition: The grey box is repeated throughout as the background to the title (I like the opacity that reminds us of the see through quality of glass), the background in the drop down menus, and the background for other important pieces of information.
Clarity: The site contains a lot of information, notice how it’s been logically organized and categorized.
Simplicity: One column layout, plenty of white space.
Verdict: Fluency. I’m convinced this is a reputable organization dedicated to professionalism on all levels.
Analysis by Smart Alice Web Design & Photography, smart web design for businesses who want a unique and effective presence on the internet.
“The web design of this web site is horrible.” My daughter was rather annoyed. She had looked up the web site of a local bookstore because she wanted to call them about a book. All she needed was the phone number. Her irritation increased the more she had to click around to find such an obvious piece of information.
How many businesses get caught up with slick, flashy web design but forget to take care of basic information? How many times have you had to click Contact Us to get to a phone number? I’ve visited sites where the phone number or location are seriously buried.
If you want people to call you or locate your place of business, put that information in a prominent location on every page, and never beneath the fold. Consider other factors that contribute to visibility: contrast, font size and color, reverse type, and so forth.
Check out these business sites and see how long it takes you to find the phone number.
Analysis by Smart Alice Web Design & Photography, smart web design for businesses who want a unique and effective presence on the internet.
Copyright 2009, Alice Gebura, All Rights Reserved.