Smart Alice’s Web Design Blog

Home Page, Web Site of Louis Lortie

Monday, March 1 marks the 200^th anniversary of Frederick Chopin’s birthday.  In honor of one of my favorite composers let’s talk about the web site of pianist Louis Lortie.  For me this web site is the epitome of why we bother to build web sites.  Louis Lortie is a  concert pianist and recording artist.  At his site there is a great depth of information about him, his career and discography, and, most interesting, it showcases his thoughts about music interpretation and its challenges.

Here’s the treasure you’ll find on just one page, Chopin:

• An excerpt from the score of a Chopin Etude
• A series of videos
• A photo of Chopin

The series of short videos showcase  Lortie playing two of the Chopin Etudes (a glorious aural experience) and Lortie, at the piano, talking about his approach to playing the etudes while playing excerpts to illustrate his thoughts.  As each video plays, its title  changes from black to lavender so you can keep track of where you are in the series.  Or, you can click on the one you want to hear.  Great user interface design!  Notice that underneath the video the timer is presented as a musical staff!  Clever design!

Chopin Page, Web Site of Louis Lortie

My only criticism is that the text on the home page is hard to read – a result of using a justified right margin and the italic font with very little line spacing.  The  opacity factor on the font doesn’t help either.

Lortie has created a passionate web site with great depth of information that gives us a window into his soul and the beauty of the music he plays.

Analysis by Smart Alice Web Design, smart web design for businesses who want a unique and effective presence on the internet.

UPDATE 1/26/10: The Boston Globe just published an article that echoes the opinions I expressed below. It includes the quote “Being charged $5,000 a month to manage the SEO process is crazy.” You can read the entire article at
In Web world, a successful marketing effort means gaining inside track on searches

Photo: from the Mel Brooks movie “Young Frankenstein”

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a big deal these days.  For anyone who doesn’t already know what it is, it’s basically doing whatever you can to make sure your web site shows up on the first page of search results given a specific set of words (keywords).  You can pay a search engine directly for this or you can contrive through content manipulation to make it happen.

Before computers, how did a local business get noticed? Besides the usual marketing activities, you could  list your business in the yellow pages.  Remember the days when businesses named themselves “AAA Roofing” or “AAA Mattress” so they would show up first in their category?   Marketing companies are charging big money under the premise that they can use SEO to do the equivalent of “AAA” for you on the web.

There’s no doubt you can artificially promote your site, but I’m skeptical about what works and how much it’s worth.  For example,  I was hired to write web page content for a business I’ll call The Widget Company.   What I wrote was then sent to a 27 year old vice president of SEO at a high priced marketing firm. (That a 27 year old could be a vice president should be the first tip off something isn’t right.)

To increase the probability the web site would come up first whenever a user typed “widget” on Google,  he stuck the word “widget” in front of every possible noun he could, usually creating awkward noun strings.  And stuck the word “widget” inside of product names, creating incorrect product names.  He also introduced grammar and spelling errors. For this The Widget Company is paying a retainer of several thousand a month.  Does anyone besides me smell snake oil?

Because The Widget Company is always running promotions of various types, there is no way to prove a cause and effect relationship between SEO and increased web site activity, in spite of the multitude of charts SEO people create to back up their claims.

But one fact is irrefutable – SEO did create awkward to read text that would have also made the company look like yokels if I hadn’t been able to go back and correct the bad grammar and spelling.

Why is The Widget Company paying for it?  There is one answer – fear.  The management doesn’t understand technology and this creates insecurity. And, as long as everyone else is doing it, they’re afraid they’ll be left behind if they don’t do it, too.

There are some common sense practices to follow regardless of SEO. You do these things because they enhance user interface design, impart information, and help people navigate your site.

• Ascertain key phrases to identify your business and message and use them strategically – in page titles and headings, for example.
• Write straightforward text and organize it logically.
• Present it with legible, user intuitive typography.

You can also artificially plug keywords into your content, but it probably won’t do much good.  Search engine companies are always rewriting search algorithms to ignore such tactics.

Lets do a reality check.  How many web sites are there in the world?  If you own a floral business, isn’t it sort of wacky to think you should come up on the first search page when there are 28,700,000 other florists out there?   However, Google is happy to list you on the first page when a user enters a type of  business and a zip code –   if you’ve included zip code/location information on your web site.  And that’s common sense, you shouldn’t have to pay thousands of dollars for it.

Frankly I’m skeptical of SEO and paying a bunch of money to snake oil salesmen preying on people’s lack of experience with technology.  Common sense, good writing, and strategic marketing along with intelligent web design should be all you need for visibility in your local market.

Commentary by Smart Alice Web Design, 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, smart web design for businesses who want a unique and effective presence on the internet.

Copyright 2009, Alice Gebura, All Rights Reserved.

The experience of good web site design feels like settling into a comfortable chair. However, when the design is visually exhausting, it repels the user instead of inviting him or her in. Let’s take a look at how two yoga studios present themselves on the web and see how we feel about them.

First, the Dog

When I look at the home page of Laughing Dog Yoga the first things I notice are a) the layout feels awkward and b) there are way too many fonts. The layout is basically an endless list. This creates big blank spaces. It makes my eyes tired to scroll through it. On a more personal level, I find the color scheme unattractive.

Font Crazy

There are six different fonts in the left navigation pane and five different fonts in the content area, for a total of 11 different font variations. Fonts vary by color, size, style (bold, italic, etc.) and typeface.

Note the links in the navigation pane are all caps and in white with a drop shadow for an overall blurry (that means hard to read) effect.

The design principles of repetition and clarity should govern your font selection. Too much variety prevents the user from finding and focusing on information.

My overall experience: Uncomfortable

The Lotus – Love Those Colors

By contrast, Mudita Yoga Studio features a beautifully composed photo on the home page.

Look closely at the colors in the lotus blossom. You’ll see these same colors used throughout the site for backgrounds and borders. A collection of related colors form a color palette and this is one characteristic of good design.

I see only three fonts used on the home page. Each one is distinct and each one has a function. There is a font for the name of the business, a font for the navigation buttons, and a font for the main content. Immediately my eye understands and I feel comfortable reading and investigating the site further. I might revisit the sight later just to enjoy the photos. If some of the photos change, that’s even better.

My overall experience: Enchanted

What do you think? Which site do you prefer? Send me a link to another yoga site and tell me how the design affects you.

Analysis by Smart Alice Web Design.