A recent conversation with someone new to the web design business about what they dislike when it comes to websites and the functionality their design either helps or hinders. Some of her interview is quoted, along our thoughts:

Dislikes:

I hate when music automatically plays. Even worse if there isn’t a stop or pause button.

Sites that give me a billion pop ups that take forever to go away.

Clashing colours on a website - seems like they don’t care about their business at all.

Too much text.

I hate when contact info is a form I have to fill out instead of just a number or email address.

I hate when a website is completely done in flash.

Any Likes?

Google Chrome is so convenient in searching code.

Addrenaline’s take:

We agree. Trying to do too much at once (too busy, too much text) means your site is working hard but not getting through to people. Not giving visitors control over their experience (music plays automatically) can be irritating as well and any pop-ups should be VERY relevant to people and VERY easy to get rid of.

When it comes to the goal of your site, which often involves a potential client contacting you - the form is not respectful of your visitor’s time. Just give them the digits, so to speak - your phone number, email and (usually) your address. Have a form as well, they can be great to gather important information - but don’t force anyone to use it. Now we come to Flash. Sites built in Flash or with some flash elements can be great, they can be beautiful and exciting and cool… and they can be glitchy, slow, non-mobile-friendly hassles to deal with. Use with caution. Or try JQuery or other alternative methods to achieve a certain goal, after all: the visitor doesn’t care how you coded it, it just has to work well.

- CE

Great web design is really about personality. Getting to the root of the client’s brand, reflecting both their position and nature effectively, and making each element work in harmony to send the same strong message to any visitor: this is who we are, and why you should care.

With today’s wide range of options in web design (both in terms of technology and personnel) there really are no obstacles to having a great website other than bad decision-making. While budget certainly plays a key role, and there is a wide range of expertise between web designers and design firms – the client needs to understand themselves well enough to provide good direction, or step back and let the design team refine their brand and present it in its best light. A great web design team will be very well suited to doing just that – and having the perspective of someone who doesn’t live with the client’s brand every day, and having been presented with similar problems before (and the experience gained from solving those problems) really lets them see what speaks to the client’s audience, what are the key points to focus on, and ultimately the best way to present that information.

The best web development teams keep the following in mind:

• Let the client’s goal (the site’s actual purpose) dictate the layout and design
• Let the website speak with the client’s voice – not the design team’s
• Make SEO (Search Engine Optimization) a driving factor of both site organization and copywriting
• Allow as much of the site to be updated by the client as possible (without needing a course in HTML)
• Keep all the design elements working in tandem to achieve a unified look and feel

There are many other factors that go into the process, but it comes down to smart, strategic thinking first – and great design execution second. Deciding on the best web design firm for your company should start with the best web design conversation.

- CE

We published our “contemporary” new website yesterday http://www.addrenaline.ca. The new site will eventually include live testimonials from clients and demonstrations of our suite of new video and audio equipment.

The new website showcases the work we’ve done for clients such as Computer Data Source of Eatontown New Jersey U.S.A, http://www.cds.net, Caryl Baker Visage of Toronto, Canada http://www.carylbakervisage.com, Final Coat http://www.finalcoat.com, and Protect24, North America’s largest safety and security resource http://www.protect24.com.

To view these projects and several others recently completed by us visit the site at http://www.addrenaline.ca

In case you didn’t know, website WikiLeaks.org is all over the news.  For the second time this year its all around us because of the nature of documents it has attained and released. 

Whether the release of the documents is right or wrong is not the point of this.  The point is simple: WikiLeaks is proof that if you have a web-based concept you believe in and take the steps to make it available, the site may easily take root and rise to a respectable level of success—if not worldwide fame (or infamy).

WikiLeaks launched in 2006.  Five years ago.  Had you heard of them before 2010?

WikiLeaks concept is simple.  The website allowed anyone to submit documents anonymously.  That was the functionality of the site (their servers are dropping them tirelessly due to government pressure). WikiLeaks the company, was founded much the way your internet start-up would be. 

An idea becomes a concept, a domain name is bought, and a website is launched that introduces the public to the concept, and makes the reason they’re there quick and easy to engage - (submission of stolen documents was very easy for WikiLeaks’ users).

Even their timelines make sense within the scope of our every day experience here at Addrenaline.  The wikileaks.org domain was purchased in October of 2006 and the first functional site was live in December of the same year.  They really were just like any other internet start-up.

Their rise was slow.  Initially they had access to a server that was purportedly being used as a node for the “TOR” network (google it).  This meant they had access to several million government documents and they began to record traffic on the network.  One would suspect the idea for WikiLeaks was born out of the fact they knew they could publish this information and needed a platform to do it—anonymously. 

As the site grew, other “leaks” started to be submitted to the site.  WikiLeaks had found its content provider.  All it took was a few years of small fish to land two really big fish in their fourth year of existence.

You may have a concept you feel is a real winner.  Chances are it is born out of some facet of your life or work experience.  A way to make something easier, or better, or a way to stir the pot.  It is your unique view on these experiences that has brought the concept to you, not someone else.  It is your unique perspective that is the “TOR” network of your world and your first “leak” so to speak.

Like WikiLeaks you’ll need to believe in the idea, make it a reality and get it live before you will know the true public perception.  In the case of WikiLeaks I imagine it was a few tech-savvy entrepreneurs with some level of political connectedness who sat on the idea for a while, and discussed it with very few people or organizations.  From what I’ve read of Julian Assange (the self-proclaimed founder of WikiLeaks) the idea was probably treated like one of Lex Luther’s plots for global domination.

In the case of your million dollar idea, you’ll probably have the freedom to discuss it openly with friends and associates, to gauge the concept and gather feedback. 

No matter the “size” of the idea however, take the steps necessary to protect it.  Don’t burst through every single door spurting out your idea and concept.  If you truly believe there is something there research domain names and trademarks quickly and easily online.  Find out what the true roadblocks are, if any, and bring the idea to life fast.  But by all means, protect the idea in the process!  

The second factor in its rise to becoming a household name is that the nature of WikiLeaks made it newsworthy. Their concept was, on the surface, seemingly devious if you were a government, and seemingly respectable if you were a political freedom fighter or activist.  Can you think of a better “hook” for a news story in this age of heightened terror alerts and global protests.

Further, if your idea can leverage an element of pop-culture or if the timing is simply “just right”, don’t wait to throw the switch.  If Facebook had waited another year to get it “just right” they’d surely be #2 behind the worlds other gargantuan social network—whether that would ever have been MySpace is another argument. 

In the age of the internet, “trying” an idea is as cost-effective as it has ever been. 

In the 1950s if you wanted to start a business, your expenses ranged from high to astronomical, depending on the nature of the outfit.  WikiLeaks could have bought their name and built their site for less than $20k.  That’s a risk you can be comfortable with, even a tow-truck driver has to invest more to get his/her business off-the-ground. 

The fact is, Julian Assange and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg probably felt the first 20k was a lot then too!     

— KH

Bruce Lee said that a good martial artist should “Be like water” and move fluidly without hesitation. The idea being that whatever the optimum action, or idea was in a given situation should be used, regardless of any tradition or structure. When it comes to working with a web design company, or any business relationship where more than one party works together to achieve a goal, the same philosophy applies.

Some clients just want to pay you and get the finished product and be on their way. They don’t care how it works, only that it DOES work. Others want to be part of the process - maybe they designed their logo and want input how the layout of a website should be, or they’ve already done everything but just need a little piece of the puzzle solved. A web development company needs to respond accordingly to the unique situation each client presents - be they hands-off, highly involved, or any ‘client-to-company’ ratio in between.

For many graphic design, advertising and web design agencies their creative is not to be sullied by the likes of the client. Perhaps they have award shows on the brain, instead of the client’s needs, or they complain the client kills all the ‘good’ concepts. As if they expect the client to step away from their business and leave it to the professionals, when often the single greatest asset to smart, relevant design comes from the client’s perspective - remember: they know their business better than anyone else ever will.

It’s important to step back when the client steps forward, so to speak - to be like the nature of water - and flow around and support whatever the client brings to the table, and whatever is needed to get a project from beginning to awesome.

Unfortunately, leaving the ego out of the equation may not come naturally to everyone in the design industry, but it’s a refreshing and effective way to adapt to and achieve the customer’s ultimate goal: success.

- CE

If you’ve ever toured re-sale homes with a realtor you’ll agree with me.  When you first walk into a house you know right away whether you’re going to put in an offer based solely on your first impression.  Your decision is made pretty much instantaneously.

A web site is very much the same.  When a visitor lands on your site for the first time they will take in a lot of information (whether contained in your text or not).  They’ll see your logo, the background colours, the fonts on the page, the photographs displayed and how they are displayed - within an instant.

It is the right combination of all of these elements that makes a great website.  Your logo is at the top of this totem pole. 

If your logo demands attention, is creative, employs a great colour palette and creatively conveys the business you do, it will set the tone for the website.

Surely, like me, you have visited pages where a rookie designer has forced the logo into an image placeholder that isn’t the same size.  The result is a disjointed and often fuzzy appearance – this is not to be overlooked, if a customer senses you don’t care about this element of your own site their confidence in you to care about them is diminished.

Conversely, when a great, simple logo is displayed crisply and is allowed to breathe on the canvas, the path to having a great web site is open straight ahead of you - and is yours for the taking.

This leads me to my most important word of advice… let your web site breathe.  Negative space is perhaps more important than the space you have filled with content.  This will allow the content you are introducing to take center stage and will eliminate competition between your core messages.  There is nothing worse than a site that is designed to have every aspect attract attention.  Let the most important component naturally be viewed first, non-consciously by the visitor.

Keep your logo visible and use it intelligently throughout the site to re-enforce your brand at every step through your site.  The visitor may not know much about your product yet, but at least give them a feeling of comfort and ease when they land on your site and you’ll find they are staying longer and visiting more pages.

- KH

All of us have our favorite brands and many of us wear our favorite brands on our sleeve – literally! There is rarely a Saturday that you can’t drive by my house and see me out mowing the lawn in my old AC/DC t-shirt—everyone knows that logo. I wear the shirt because I associate the logo with great music, good times in past and in present, and because I like the band so much I want people to know.

In business, logos and brands are equally important as they are in music, clothing and consumer goods. Your business may not gross like Coca Cola but that doesn’t mean your brand is any less important to your success. The key is presenting a moniker that people will like and associate with your business—however, it must be noted if AC/DC was a terrible band that 4-letter logo would mean nothing. A logo is nothing without some degree of “quality” to back it up. Keep this in mind too, when the Young Brothers started AC/DC nobody knew who they were, not one single person. They built that brand the same way you are building a brand for your business now.

When used as a noun, the word “brand” can refer to a company name, a product name, or a unique identifier such as a logo or trademark.

Before the old wooden split rail fences were used in ranching to keep one rancher’s cattle separate from other cattle, ranch owners “branded” their cattle so they could later identify their herd as being theirs.

This practice later made its way through a number of facets of business and industry including handmade wares, bakes goods, and all of the goods associated with the dawn of the industrialized world. It didn’t take long for high quality products (the cattle and wares) to become identifiable in the minds of consumers by the symbols and marks placed on the goods by the creator or owner. The buying public would actually look for certain marks because they had mentally associated those marks with better beef, higher quality, and a degree of sophistication.

The modern concept of branding grew out of the packaged goods industry and the process of branding has come to include much, much more than just creating a way to identify a product or company. Branding and advertising strategy today is used to create emotional attachment to products and companies. Branding creates a feeling of involvement, a sense of higher quality, and intangible qualities that surround the brand name.

WE ALL KNOW FAMOUS BRANDS – Nike, Mac, Coke etc. A question we often hear: How can I get my business or product to become a part of the list of most identifiable brands in the world? It’s easier than you might think.

Concentrate on your cattle! Your cattle may be logo and web designs (like the work we do) or they may take the form of consulting work, retail goods, or other work. So long as your work is great and people grow to favour the work you do in your field – your “brand” will rise to the top. Now, of course, with a great “symbol” on the end of your branding iron (a great logo!) combined with great work and a great product you’ve laid the ground work to appeal to the consumers sense of emotional attachment. Maybe one day I’ll be wearing a t-shirt with your business’ logo on it while I am out mowing the lawn. I’ll leave that to you.

- KH