As mentioned in my last post, creating a strategy and project plan before beginning the design and build of a website or web application is perhaps the most important step in launching a successful website. Most successful businesses start with a business plan, it is our job as web strategists to translate that plan into the ever evolving web. Read the rest of this entry »

Occasionally you come across a little nugget like this; for all you clients who don’t know.

Today the 12th Annual Webby Awards nominated LevelTen for the Best Charitable Organizations/Nonprofit Website of 2008 for our creation of NationalBreastCancer.org.

Winners will be announced on May 6, 2008 and honored at The 12th Annual Webby Awards in New York City on June 10th, 2008.

LevelTen is so excited for this amazing nomination and for the opportunity to be honored alongside other talented professionals in our industry. Our team is dedicated to using the web’s best practices in building fully functional and asthetically pleasing websites for our clients. Last year, we were recognized as a Webby Award Official Honoree for RepublicWorldNews.com and are excited to have our hard work noticed again.

As a nominee for a Webby Award, LevelTen is also eligible to win a People’s Voice Award. People’s Voice voting, sponsored by Nokia, is open to the public from April 8th to May 1st at http://pv.webbyawards.com. Simply visit the page, sign up with an email address, go to the Society section and vote for NationalBreastCancer.org in the Charitable Organizations/Non-Profit section. (It’s that easy!)

Hailed as the “Oscars of the Internet” by the New York Times, The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet, including Websites, Interactive Advertising, Online Film & Video, and Mobile Websites. The awards are judged by the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences, a global organization that includes David Bowie, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson, AKQA Global Creative Director Rei Inamoto, “Simpsons” creator Matt Groening, Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington, Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser, and The Weinstein Company’s Harvey Weinstein.

This year the Webby Awards received nearly 10,000 entries from over 60 countries and all 50 states.

“The Webby Awards honors the outstanding work that is setting the standards for the Internet,” said David-Michel Davies, executive director of The Webby Awards. “LevelTen Design’s Nominee for NationalBreastCancer.org is a testament to the skill, ingenuity, and vision of its creators.”

Once again, congratulations to everyone at LevelTen who worked so hard on NationalBreastCancer.org. Additionally, at the LevelTen site you can read more about NationalBreastCancer.org and our award winning sites.

I love it!

An introspective article over at A List Apart by Luke Wroblewski delves into the reasons why…

we can do better. In fact, I believe we can get people engaged with digital services in a way that tells them how such services work and why they should care enough to use them. I also believe we can do this without explicitly making them fill out a sign-up form as a first step.

The blog is an excerpt from his forthcoming book, Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks (Rosenfeld Media, 2008), and you can read it here!

The article is super informative, and expounds upon the practice of gradual engagement, whereby a user is drawn into the website due to useful or practical information that pertains to their specific needs. Avoid gradual engagement solutions that simply distribute the various input fields in a sign-up form across multiple pages. It’s a good possibility that this will reduce efficiency and not delight anyone.

TOP 5 CLIENT REQUESTS

1. My Unqualified Friends have different Ideas…
   - Judge the idea on its merits, reasonably explain why it may not work, due to your research, experience, etc.
2. Purple is my favorite color, Why don’t we use that?
   - Backup with documentation, color board, creative specs, etc
3. We need more stuff about the FOLD!!
   - A significant amount of research is available to show that users understand they can scroll for more content
4. There’s so much EMPTY SPACE, can’t you fill it?
   - White space contributes to the general hierarchy of the content. NO.
5. MAKE MY LOGO BIGGER
   –>NO. the content on the page is not the logo.

Establishing the Purpose:
Aesthetics and Function. The two cannot be removed from one another in web design. They exist as your highest priority and business principle.
Read the rest of this entry »

As a designer, I rely on my vision to impart a hierarchy of data within web pages. It takes a jarring reminder from the smart folks at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival to remind me that not everyone can see the colors I painstakingly deliberate over, the varied and specific shades that I cross-browser test for universal appeal. Even color contrast can be lost to a slight case of color-blindness.

Assistive technologies are on the rise, and we learned about a full spectrum that are available now.

Read the rest of this entry »

So there I was, sitting in room 18ABCD at SXSW 2008 watching a presentation designed more for the Food and Hospitality industry than for an Interactive Conference, thinking, “why the hell did I spend good money to listen to this shit?” Read the rest of this entry »

Respect! Was the first panel I attended this year at 2008 SXSW Interactive Convention, and as a novice I really wasn’t sure what to expect or what I would take away. The panel included several key personnel from HappyCog and they explored several aspects of the design and development process.

One concept that I really found interesting was the idea of designing with content in mind; and not just in mind but actually in hand and integrated during the entire design process. Imagine as a designer actually being able to know how much content will fill a page before you make the decision where to put a graphical element. It sounds great but the problem is that with 9 out of 10 projects, our clients have put no thought into their content before we begin the design. And content is the most important piece of their project. Sorry design, usability and features guys, but it is true. What you have to say on your website could be the difference between thousands, possibly millions, of dollars in revenue. It’s not the client’s fault, they just don’t realize that if they’re going to have a 10 page website then essentially they’ve got to write a 10-page paper about their company, and if they’re not great writers they’re probably going to procrastinate.

In the future, I will be making a big push to have the client deliver their content first which will solve two problems. The first, allowing the designer to create a design that fits around the text perfectly. The second, no more delays in closing out a project that is complete aside from undelivered client content.

The single most important thing about your website is not it’s functionality or usability, it’s not the marketing behind it our the hours your team spent developing the single most important thing about your website is good design. No matter how you slice it if you can’t engage your traffic beyond that initial 8 second first impression all the clever bells and whistles in the world won’t equate to additional page views and conversions. So I reiterate that good design is vital in achieving what ever your goals and objectives are for the website, but what if you don’t have access to a great designer or better yet really don’t have the capital to afford one right now? I’d suggest using a pre-designed template; we’ve been using them for quite some time and they’re really a great economic choice for someone on a restricted budget for a couple or reasons. First, you save a few bucks and everyone likes saving some money. Second, you can actually see what your design will look like before the developers even get started; and finally, they’re ready to go so usually you can have your site up and running in no time at all.

If your interested there are several great resources out there for some beautiful templates take a look and let us know if we can get one plugged in for you.

FreeCssTemplates.org
Free-Css.com
TemplateWorld.com
Arcsin.se

Every now and then someone takes my sarcasm to the next level, and this is one of those times. Granted Agency Fusion came up with the concept, but I posted my little snip first only without the video work. If you’ve ever worked with difficult clients you’ll get a real kick out of Make My Logo Bigger Cream, Enjoy!