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The 12 Do’s and Don’ts of Web Design
InsightsThe days of sad-looking websites are over. Discover twelve do’s and don’ts of effective web design. About the author: Nick Babich (blogs.adobe.com) is a developer, tech enthusiast, and UX lover. He has spent the last 10 years working in the software industry with a specialized focus on development. He counts advertising, psychology, and cinema among his myriad interests. Image courtesy of GaudiLab via Bigstockphoto.
If you design websites, you know that making your designs useful and enjoyable is your top priority. It can be an overwhelming task for anyone who just recently started creating websites, so to simplify it, I’ve created a simple list of do’s and don’ts to keep in mind when designing your next web design project.
First, the do’s
1. Keep your interface consistent
One of the top principles of good UX is to keep the interface consistent throughout the entire product. The overall look and feel of your website should be consistent across all of your site’s pages. Consistency of navigation, color schemes, typefaces, and style of writing can have a positive impact on usability and UX.
Do. Esquire’s design is consistent for all it’s pages.
Practical tip: Make design usable first. Consistency is a double-edged sword. If your website isn’t designed correctly at first, then to make other parts of it consistent will result in consistently poor design. Thus, make design usable first, then make it consistent.
2. Design easy-to-use navigation
Navigation is the cornerstone of usability. It’s the main interaction technique on the Internet. Having good navigation on your site is crucial for ensuring that visitors can find what they’re looking for.
Practical tips:
3. Change the color of visited links
Links play a vital role in the navigation process. When visited links don’t change color, users could unintentionally revisit the same pages repeatedly. Knowing your past and present locations makes it easier to decide where to go next.
Do. Visually differentiate visited links.
4. Make it easy to scan your pages
When users visit your site they are more likely to quickly scan the page rather than read everything on it. For example, when visitors want to find specific content or complete a certain task, they will scan a website’s pages until they find what they are looking for. And you, as a designer, can help them with that by designing good visual hierarchy. Visual hierarchy refers to the arrangement or presentation of elements in a way that implies importance ━ e.g. where they eyes should focus first, second, etc.
Practical tips:
Put more visual weight on important elements. Make important elements such as call-to-action buttons or login forms focal points so visitors see them right away. You can emphasize elements using different sizes or colors.
5. Take content seriously
Copy is just as important as the design of your website. More than 95 percent of information on the web is in the form of written language. Even if your site is beautifully designed, it’s no more than an empty frame without good content; a good website has both great design and great content. A designer’s job is to make sure that the design aids and complements the content.
Practical tips:
6. Check your website for errors
A great piece of work can be easily tarnished by a small error. Here are a few common problems to be aware of:
7. Minimize the number of choices
The number of choices people have affects their decisions; the more choices they have, the less action they take. When you present your user with too many options, you make them think too much. To increase chances for interaction, it’s better to minimize the number of choices.
8. Engage users to scroll
Scrolling sends users deeper into the page and makes them invest more time in the experience, and this increases the chance that users will convert ━ e.g. buy something, sign up for a newsletter, or contact you. Despite that people usually start scrolling as soon as the page loads, content at the top of the page is still very important. What appears at the top sets the impression and expectation of quality for visitors. People do scroll, but only if what’s above the fold is promising enough.
Practical tip: Content at the top of the page sets initial expectations. If a page provides users with high-quality content, they are willing to browse for more content.
9. Label buttons according to what they do
The label on any actionable interface element should always tie back to what it will do for the user. Users will feel more comfortable if they understand what action a button triggers. Vague labels such as “Submit” or abstract labels like in the example below don’t provide enough information about the action.
Don’t. Make people wonder what an interface element does. Credited to UXMatters
Do. Make it clear what will happen when users click a UI element. “Claim Your Free Trial” is a clear label for a sign up form. Credited to Treehouse
10. Make things look like they work
With buttons and other interactive elements, think about how the design communicates affordance. Remember the old adage “form follows function”: the way an object looks tells users how to use it. Visual elements that look like links or buttons, but aren’t clickable ━ such as underlined words that aren’t links, or elements that have a rectangular background but aren’t buttons ━ can easily confuse users.
Don’t. Is the orange box in the top-left corner of the screen a button? No, but the shape and label make the element look like one.
11. Make your website responsive
Today there are more than 5 billion devices running web browsers. This means that visitors can come to your site from various devices such as a desktop, tablet, phone, music player, or even a watch. A big part of UX design is ensuring that no matter how the visitor sees your site, all vital information will be displayed correctly on different screen sizes.
Do. Designers have to adapt their designs to various screen sizes. No matter how big a screen is — from a phone to a watch, or a tablet to a desktop — the site should present information in a clear way. Image credited to Adobe
Practical tips:
Now, the don’ts
1. Don’t make users wait for content to load
Loading time is extremely important for user experience. As technology progresses, we get more impatient, and today, 47 percent of users expect a web page to load in two seconds or less. If a web page takes more time to load, visitors might become frustrated and leave the site. That’s why speed should be a priority when building a web application.
The faster your site, the better experience is. Image credited to Google
Practical tips:
2. Don’t open internal link in new tabs
Users expect different behavior from internal and external links. All internal links should open in the same tab; this way, you’ll allow users to use the “back” button. If you decide to open external links in a new window, you should provide an advanced warning before automatically opening a new window or tab. This might take the form of text added to the link text stating. “opens in a new window”.
3. Don’t use too many typefaces
When you start building a site, it’s always tempting to use a lot of different typefaces ━ five or six different fonts or even upload your own. But, it’s better to avoid that temptation. Too many variations in font types can be distracting, confusing, and borderline annoying.
Don’t. Too many fonts can conflict with each other and overwhelm your visitors.
A common recommendation is to use a maximum of three different typefaces in a maximum of three different sizes. When designing a website think about how can you make the typography powerful by playing with weight, not different fonts.
4. Don’t use too many colors on your website
Similar to typefaces, it’s better to avoid using too many colors in design. Applying color to a design has a lot to do with balance, and, the more colors you use, the harder it is to achieve balance. Using too many colors in design is like trying to convey a million feelings and messages at once, which can confuse the person viewing your design.
Don’t. Use too many colors in design. Credited to Pine-Sol
It’s always better to keep the color scheme limited to a few colors and keep it consistent across your site, unless you want to highlight some important section using color.
Practical tip: Think about emotions you want to evoke from your visitors. Knowing what feelings you want to convey can help you choose the proper color scheme. For example, if you promote meditation products on your website, you won’t want a bright and loud color scheme.
5. Don’t show automatic pop-ups too early
A lot of websites show pop-up boxes with a request to subscribe as soon as you arrive on the page. As a designer, showing pop-up windows is probably one of the most annoying things you can do to someone visiting your website. Pop-ups are interruptive by nature, and, since they are typically used to show ads, users often close them even before reading the content.
Don’t. The first thing people see when they visit The New York Times website is a popup with promo ad.
Practical tip: Time your pop-ups. Before asking visitors to do something, you need to show how you can deliver value. Prevent the box from popping up until visitors reach the end of the page ━ i.e. read all content ━ or stay on the site for some time.
6. Don’t use generic photos of people
Images with human faces are a very effective way to get your users engaged. Our brains are predisposed to pay attention to faces. When we see faces of other humans it makes us feel like we are actually connecting with them, and not just using a product.
However, many corporate sites are notorious for their over-use of insincere photography, which is employed to “build trust.” Usability tests show that purely decorative photos rarely add value to the design and often harm the user experience.
7. Don’t let promotion steal the show
Having too many promotions or ads on a page can easily overshadow the main content and make it harder for users to accomplish tasks. If you have too many ads on the page, they’ll all be competing to get your readers to look at them. This will result in a sensory overload that will ultimately increase your bounce rates. It’s also important to acknowledge that anything that looks like an advertisement is usually ignored by users ━ the phenomenon is known as banner blindness.
8. Don’t play background music or autoplay videos with music
While background music might work in specific cases, like a promo website, it is simply a bad idea for most websites. Unexpected music or sound can annoy and potentially cause problems ━ people might be visiting your site at work, in a public place, or near someone who’s sleeping, and unexpected music could send such visitors away in an instant.
Similar to background music, autoplay videos incorporated into a block of content also irritate users. They should be used sparingly and only when appropriate and expected.
Practical tip: Put users in control. Set music to mute by default, but allow them to turn it on if they click ━ design play/pause buttons for your audio content.
Do. Facebook videos are set to autoplay, but no sound will play unless users show that they’re watching the video ━ i.e. by interacting with the video.
9. Don’t hijack scrolling
Scroll hijacking is when designers manipulate the scrollbar to behave differently on their website. Hijacked scrolling is very annoying for many users since it takes control away from them and makes scrolling behavior completely unpredictable. When you design a website, it’s better to avoid scroll hijacking and let the user control their browsing and movement through the site.
10. Don’t use horizontal scroll
In order to stand out, some designers use horizontal scrolling on their sites. Unfortunately, horizontal scrolling is one of the few interactions that consistently generates negative responses from users. Users often have no idea they can discover content by scrolling horizontally — most of the users are accustomed to scrolling down on websites and don’t usually look left and right. As a result, they simply ignore content accessible through horizontal scrolling.
Don’t. Visitors will have no idea that they should scroll horizontally, especially when there are no visual cues. Image credited to axelwyart
11. Don’t sacrifice usability for the sake of beauty
No matter how beautiful a design is, it should never interfere with a user’s ability to consume the content or interact with a website. One typical example of design decisions that often create terrible UX for the sake of beauty is using light grey text on light backgrounds. This combination affects the content’s readability. It’s better to avoid having busy backgrounds behind content or insufficient color contrast, like in the example below.
Don’t. Low contrast text is always a bad idea.
Practical tip: Check the contrast ratio. Contrast ratios represent how different a color is from another color. Tools like Color Contrast Checker will help you check if you have a sufficient color contrast in just a few clicks.
12. Use blinking text and ads
When creating ads and animations, don’t even consider using flickering flashing effects. Content that flashes or flickers can trigger seizures in susceptible individuals, and is likely to be annoying or distracting for regular users.
Don’t. Unnecessary distractions make users dizzy, and can even trigger seizures in some people.
Conclusion
When people interact with websites, they expect excellent user experience. If you fail to satisfy their needs, they’ll simply move to your competition, which might be just a click away. That’s why with every design decision, you should think what’s best for the visitor and try to make the experience as pleasant as possible.
The ABCs of Securing your Online Intellectual Property
InsightsLearn more about the right steps to take to protect your intellectual property. This article was authored by Hodge Racter. Image courtesy of maxxyustas via Bigstockphoto.
Individuals will start showing interest to your ideas and contents once they found out about your success in blogging. You might even get up one morning to an alert from Google, telling you that your name was mentioned on another blog.
Amazing, isn’t it? Who would not love a free publicity? More than that, you’re very aware that inbound links will help you increase online visibility, enabling you to be found easily by possible clients.
However to your horror, you might just learn that someone uploaded an exact copy of your blog. Yes, word per word.
In such case, every writer’s heart breaks a little considering that they’ve invested a lot of energy to create a unique post.
Since we’re on the internet age now, it can be difficult to avoid your work getting plagiarized or reposted. Nonetheless, there are few things you can do when encountering problems regarding online intellectual property security.
Today, you’ll get introduced with some schemes to secure your intellectual property online. As you recognized these, you can diminish the odds of your contents being stolen.
Understand what Copyright Law is.
It’s up to you whether or not you want to get some help from a certain intellectual property law firm for your online contents. But in which way, know that your post is protected the minute you make it. It is your intellectual property and nobody can simply duplicate it. However, note also that the law just secures the statement of your idea and not the idea itself. And so, if somebody expounds on your post through their own words, that is absolutely fine. Indeed, you should welcome it; think of it as free publicity.
Distribute an Official Copyright take note.
This isn’t required with a specific end goal to secure your work; it also does not give you any extra rights. What it does is remind the world that a specific content is your intellectual property.
Make a Permission Policy.
Make a different page which explains precisely what individuals may do with your works. You can isolate your Permissions Policy into two areas:
a.)what people can manage without your authorization, and
b.)what they utilize with your consent
This doesn’t only shield individuals from reaching you about usage of your contents; it likewise gives you a stated standard to allude to when somebody disregards it.
Hear from them.
Not every person who reposts your contents do it purposely. To tell you, the vast majority basically don’t have a clue about the law and sometimes, they are not purposefully impinging on your rights. Normally, they simply adored your work and felt like they have to share it to others. The thing is they can be just unaware of the law; they only need some instructions.
Ask to take down your post.
Most probably, you want them to still look up to you as a writer; however, it’s understable that you don’t want your rights to be disregarded. In case you learned about people reposting your content, you can ask them to take down your post in a good way. After all, those people are most likely avid followers of your blog and you don’t want to lose them, do you?
What you can do is reach to them in any way possible, through email preferably. Begin by expressing gratitude towards them for posting it then clarify to them that what they did is unlawful. You can also lead them to your Permissions Policy page so they’ll know how it works the next time they want to share another ideas of you.
If the latter fails, demand now.
As you request for a take down, the guilty party can be cooperative or not. Favorably, they’ll apologize to you and take down the said post. However, if they don’t seem to cooperate, your next step is turn your previous request letter to a demand letter. Send them an email with detailed information about the situation. Note that you have already reached to them but they you got no response.
Reach to the violator’s hosting service.
If you can’t get the guilty party to participate, you have to complete a little research. Discover who is their hosting service and send an email. Normally, it is an address like abuse@[the name of the hosting service]. Disclose to them that you are asking for a take down of a particular webpage and clarify why. They’d likely examine things and if they agree to you, send their own particular request to the violator. If the infringers still don’t agree, facilitators will bring down the site.
Contract a lawyer to make a move.
If the hosting service isn’t responsive too, you may need to hire a lawyer to speak to you. You need to measure this against the damage you think is being done and the cost of suit. It can get costly quick, and there is no certification of accomplishment. Violators may disappear and return online even faster than you can work through the legitimate procedure.
5 Things Your Website SHOULD Be Doing
InsightsYou’ve spent time and money on your website. Shouldn’t it return your investment ? Here are 5 criteria that will ensure your website is pulling its weight. Written by Marie Boulton, jerram.co.uk. Jerram Marketing is a team of four highly experienced marketing, design and development professionals. Formed in 2006 they bring over 60 years of combined experience and are each highly trained in specialist areas. Image courtesy of rdomino via Bigstockphoto.
It’s very easy to assume that just because you have a website, you’ll suddenly generate a tonne of traffic and every person that clicks on your website will become an instant lead and you’ll be a millionaire in no time at all. But considering there are over 1 billion websites on the internet (www.internetlivestats.com/total-number-of-websites/) that would mean that a 7th of the world’s population are millionaires just from having a website. They’re not.
Unfortunately, not everyone’s website is being used to its top potential and it might even be giving off the completely wrong tone and impression to what the business actually does. So take a look at these tips to find out what your website should be doing.
1. Is your website telling YOUR story?
Of course, when a visitor clicks on your website, they’re usually looking for information about the services or products you offer so that they can make a more informed decision. But that doesn’t mean that’s all they’re looking for. They’re instantly judging you. It sounds harsh, but how often have you clicked on a website and thought “I don’t like the look of this one, I’ll try another”? The messaging, visuals, content and features that you pop onto your website all play a vital part in telling your potential customers who you are and thus revealing YOUR story.
In this day and age, knowing that our local milkman is competent at his job isn’t enough. We want to know what moves him. We want to know why he became a milkman, where he came from, has he always been a milkman? Then as a consumer, you need to ask yourself, why do I use this milkman and not just buy it from a supermarket? This is the same for websites; there are so many other websites just like yours and knowing that the product you’re selling works isn’t enough, you need to sell yourself. Sell your story. Make yourself stand out.
Do you excel in customer service? Do you donate any of your profits to a charity? Are you a family owned business? Where did you start out? Have you got experience in this field? Find something that can help the visitor relate to and support. All this information is going to be taken into account when they’re looking to make a decision. So ask yourself, whats your story?
2. What are your Core Business Goals?
Maybe it’s because we’re the country that invented football (although China would argue this…) but goals are really important to us. Whether it’s setting yourself the morning goal of getting all your work finished by mid-day or trying to lose weight for that party in 3 days time, we set ourselves goals all the time. So why not shout about it on your website? Just to clarify, I’m not suggesting that you tell your page visitors that you have completed your step goal for the week (unless you’re a fitness business, in which case, that idea was a freebie!) but your business goals.
Many times businesses are so excited about having a new website, that they pop the content on the website and set it free into the depths of the internet. Don’t be naive in thinking that having a site that exists is better than no site at all. Whats the point in having this awesome marketing tool if you’re not going to use it to its full advantages. Your website should be an extension of your company and should achieve the same kind of goals that you have set for your business. (At this point, if you haven’t set your business any goals, you’re on the wrong blog post!). Goals for your website could include simple ones such as creating more lead generation or get more people to call you or fill out more data capture forms.
We like to use S.M.A.R.T. Goals:
Specific:
What would you like to accomplish?
Measurable:
How will you know when it’s accomplished?
Attainable:
Can it be realistically accomplished?
Relevant:
Does this match your business needs?
Timely:
When would you like this achieved by?
S.M.A.R.T. Goals are great for helping you set website objectives in general but can be edited to be more suitable for your visitors to read.
3. Are you Educating your visitors?
This is a really important question to ask yourself – are you educating your visitors? Your website should be there to inform your visitors about your services, it should provide knowledge and insights into your industry and/or topics relating to whatever it is that you do. This can be done through a blog, newsletters, creating video’s and even sharing links to third party websites. Utilise those social media platforms (make sure they’re linked to your website) and use them to your advantage, you have access to millions of people and you can capture them (not all of them just yet!) by sharing a funny meme with a bit of information about your business underneath with a link to your website. By educating your visitors, you make yourself a true resource and just like Wikipedia you’ll become indispensable.
4. Are you flaunting your assets?
No, not in that way! Cheeky…
You’ve spent hours writing the most incredible blog post on why frogs are green and you think you’ve made a groundbreaking discovery, you’ve tweeted it, you’ve Facebook-ed it, you’ve even MySpaced it. But you haven’t received any traffic to your website. Why? Because you forgot to link it back. As I mentioned above, it’s important to utilize social media platforms, but whats the point if you haven’t linked it back to your website? And if you have linked it back to your website, is it easy to find the content?
Make sure you’re flaunting those assets! Do you attend conferences where you speak on topics related to your industry? Show your visitors this; they might have attended the conference and loved your talk but didn’t catch the name of your business. Do you create online tutorials designed to help people fix their problems? Make sure people know where to find it. Are you and your team going on a team day out to Sea World? TELL YOUR VISITORS and make sure it’s easy to find. Often we’re sitting on a goldmine of content assets that we don’t even realise. But pull them out of the attic, dust them off and make them part of your website.
5. Create an Experience.
This is the biggie. This is what all the other tips and tricks lead up to. Creating an Experience. Anyone who has ever worked in sales knows that you have to create an ‘experience’ for the consumer. You take them on a journey to find out what it is they’re after, why they want it and you cater to their needs. If people enjoy their user experience and find that they have the answers they’re looking for (or know who to contact if they don’t) they will come back time and time again. If you implement the above tips, you’ll be well on your way to being one of the 23% of actual millionaires.
Searching for the Perfect Digital Agency
InsightsWith so many good digital marketing companies, finding the perfect match for your business is like searching for a needle in a haystack. Written by Marie Boulton, jerram.co.uk. Jerram Marketing is a team of four highly experienced marketing, design and development professionals. Formed in 2006 they bring over 60 years of combined experience and are each highly trained in specialist areas. Image courtesy of VadimGuzhva via Bigstockphoto.
You’re looking for a way to improve your online presence and create better online recognition for your website. When you go to research your Digital Agency options, you’re confronted with 230,000,000 results from Google and overwhelming confusion. You start from the top of the list, clicking on each website, only to find that they’re not quite what you’re looking for. How are you ever going to choose the right one for you? Luckily, you clicked on this article and I have a few tips and tricks to help you find the perfect company that gets you those all needed clicks on your links and takes as much pride in your website as they do on their own.
Have a plan
The first thing to make sure of is that you have a plan. If you don’t have a rough idea of what you want, the chances are you won’t find the perfect Digital Agency for you. Just like you would ask 5 builders for information and quotes, you need to do the same with a Digital Agency. Once you have narrowed down what you’re looking for, give them a call. Don’t hesitate to ask any questions you have even if you feel like they’re silly, it’s important to make sure you have all your bases covered. And before you make a decision on who you want to go with, ensure that all your questions are answered.
Why do I need a Digital Agency?
One of the questions you should be asking yourself is, why do I need a Digital Agency? Is it higher rankings on Google? Brand recognition? A whole new website? If you know specifically what you’re looking for, tell them! This will help the Digital Agency plan their path and makes it easier for them to tailor their offer accordingly. It’s always worth asking them what else they could offer or do to help you reach those goals too. This is also a good way to find out whether your requests would be a one off contract or whether you would be looking at them doing some sort of website management for you. This is really important if you’re restricted by a budget as it may influence your decision; have a good understanding of your own limitations when it comes to working with Digital Agencies as costing can amount up fast.
Are they what you’re looking for?
You’ve now decided what you want from the Digital Agency and you have picked a couple that are really standing out to you – you need to do your own research into the agency itself. As you’re allowing a company to come in and potentially design and make your website, you need to make sure you like their site. Is it well designed? Is it easy to navigate? Does it do what it’s set out to do? (e.g. Do they explain clearly what they do etc.) If it looks dated and isn’t easy to use, are you sure this is the Digital Agency for you? A good Digital Agency will present their own website well (because it’s their job!) and will make it easy for you to find examples of work they’ve done because they should be proud of that work!
Make sure you read their client testimonials and reviews. Check out their websites too and ask yourself the same questions as before. If you’re still not quite sure about them, ask to meet the teams that would be doing the work for you. This is a great way to find out if you would work well with them, especially if it’s a big project. Plus it would give you an opportunity to find out their techniques, discuss your expectations and it gives them an opportunity to get to know you too. Your website and business is usually an extension of you, so it’s important for the Digital Agency that you hire to get to know you so they can better convey your business.
Keep an open mind
The most important thing is to make sure you feel comfortable working with them. Although it’s important that they understand what you’re looking for, don’t dismiss their idea’s too. They’ve probably been doing this for a long time and can suggest ways that might work well for your company. If you don’t understand something, tell them. They don’t expect you to know how to do their jobs!
There is a lot more to consider other than just competitive pricing. Make sure that you go in with an open mind and a little bit of flexibility. Check that they’re an agency that produces excellent work and has great customer service. Plus a culture that fits you and your business. By following these steps you should find your perfect Digital Agency in no time at all!
KeyLogger Found in WordPress Sites
InsightsThousands of WordPress sites have been infected with a piece of malware that can log user input, a security firm warns. Written by Marie Boulton, jerram.co.uk. Jerram Marketing is a team of four highly experienced marketing, design and development professionals. Formed in 2006 they bring over 60 years of combined experience and are each highly trained in specialist areas. Image courtesy of Virrage Images via Bigstockphoto.
Hacking is a big problem. And it’s not always an easy spot either. We reported a couple of months ago about the Equifax data breach, where hackers were able to gain unauthorised access to the accounts of millions of people due to a technical oversight regarding their admin password.
Many people believe that big companies are not susceptible to being hacked, however, bleepingcomputer.com has just announced that over 5,500 WordPress sites have been infected by Key Logger software. It comes after the malicious script is being loaded from “cloudflare.solutions” domain; anything the user is typing is being monitored. And because the script is loaded in the front and back end, it can also log usernames and passwords. So, what does this mean for you?
Because of the sheer amount of WordPress sites on the web, WordPress is a big target for hackers. Hacking WordPress is like having a master key to hacking a lot of websites on the internet today. Once a hacker finds vulnerabilities within the software, your site automatically becomes more susceptible to being hacked too. When a vulnerability is discovered in a WordPress version, every site in the world running that same version, is vulnerable to the same exploit.
The easiest way to detect whether your site has been infected is with a Malware tool. Check it regularly and monitor the results. If you’re a developer, you can check in the developer tools or check the network tab for any suspicious web socket activity.
However, you can minimise your risks by keeping your software up to date and installing any security patches as soon as they’re released. If you don’t have time to do that we, at Jerram, offer a support and maintenance package, which ensures your site is always kept up to date. We have spent over 5000 hours this year alone, on support, with 5 websites being disinfected after an attack.
Other tips for recognising if you’ve hacked early are:
Try and be pro-active in checking your website periodically. As we’ve mentioned many times before, your website is the face of your business; if it doesn’t work as it should, it will put people off from visiting it again. Maintaining a healthy, hack free website can be a job in itself. If you don’t have the time to give it the attention it needs, get a professional to do it for you.
By having the knowledge on what to look out for, if you ever do get hacked, you will be able to alert the necessary people quickly, before any real damage is done.
How to Present a Web Design to the Client
InsightsThe design phase of creating a website is fairly standard for most web designers. However some problems can arise. In this article, we’ll share some secrets of an effective presentation. It’s originally from instantshift.com. InstantShift is leading design and inspiration related community for web designers and developers daily resource, inspiration and premium web design and development. About the author: Daryna Pukha is a skilled writer at software development company RubyGarage. She enjoys reading and searching about latest web design projects, marketing trends, business practices, and technology advances. She’s been contributing to various blogging platforms covering these topics. Image courtesy of cookiestudio via Bigstockphoto.
The success of your design relies not only on your ability to create something visually appealing but also on your ability to sell it.
As a professional designer, you should know how to communicate with your client and present your product in the best possible way. The better your presentation, the better chance your project will be approved.
In this article, we’ll share some secrets of an effective presentation and some tricks to make your clients fall in love with your work. We’ll start with the number of options you should present your customer with.
How Many Design Options Should I Present?
Sheena Iyengar, a world-renowned expert on choices and decision-making, says that a variety of choices may draw consumers’ attention but at the same time overwhelm and confuse them. That is, given too many consumers will just pick something even if it might not be the best option.
Why present multiple options including ones you’re not so sure about? If you offer too many options, your client may very well ignore your favorite design. This is why we recommend presenting only the final prototype.
This doesn’t mean you should show just one picture, though. Tell the whole story from the very start, providing snapshots of your project at various stages. Explain the decisions you’ve made and how they meet your client’s business goals. Guide your client through all the iterations you’ve gone through to come up with a solution to their problem. This will speak to your expertise and prove that you’ve not simply redrawn an existing design but rather performed a large amount of work.
The main character in your design story is you. Clients will watch and judge you by your words and actions. Therefore, you’d better think about what you’ll say in advance.
How to Charm Clients with Your Presentation
Sometimes, when presenting your design, you can set off a flurry of speculation, disclose too much information or make your client bored. Obviously, that’s not what you really want to do. If you want to deliver a smooth presentation, try to arrange it using these five steps:
#1. Formulate the Problem
What should you do first? Set expectations for your audience: announce what your clients are about to see and what they’ll get out of it. Formulate the problem posed at your first meeting, the assignment you’ve been working on (e.g. to create a fast and great design for a web fitness app), and the approaches you’ve used to handle this problem.
Alternatively, you can start with a quick recap of what your clients have already seen: the last design, an existing product or a re-designed item. You may also touch on the last feedback your clients gave. By doing this,e you’ll lay the groundwork for your main presentation and avoid needless questions.
#2. Address Your Client’s Business
Try to make your presentation more personal. Discuss your client’s brand and their target audience. Your aim is to show that you understand your client’s business. Suppose you’re designing a website for the Soft Blankets company. This website needs to reflect the company’s range of products and prices as well as convey a feeling of warmth and coziness to customers.
You can enrich both your mockups and the final design with your client’s company photos instead of stock photography. For instance, if you’re building a charity website, real photos of a charity auction the company held will have a much bigger impact on your clients and their prospective patrons.
#3. Describe the Design Process
Give a short description of each individual phase of your design process and talk about the information you’ve gained. You should underline as well the ways you leveraged this information to improve the overall design. Here it’s quite important to present the design components as benefits for your client’s business. For example, you might explain that you used more red for a fast food website as it increases a customer’s appetite and may encourage customers to order more food. Now the secret of McDonald’s and KFC is revealed.
#4. Hold a Conversation
A design presentation is a conversation. If you want to get informed feedback, answer questions when they arise and explain anything your client has missed. Make sure that your presentation is clear to your client and that you’re on the same page. Besides, constructive dialog may bring new ideas and solutions.
#5. Gather Feedback
The last and probably most important step is to obtain feedback. Give your clients some time to appraise your work. The time you need to wait depends on your client, their workload and the size of your project. Obviously, large projects take more time to review than small ones. Don’t panic if your client doesn’t respond in the first three days. The website you’ve designed is a big part of your client’s business and they need to be sure it will win their audience.
How to Collect Feedback the Right Way
Sometimes, however, you may work hard and still receive feedback that’s useless or that you can’t manage properly, or the response may take months. How can you avoid such a situation and set the right direction for your clients? Just follow these tips.
1. Plan Ahead
We advise that you clarify all issues prior to collecting feedback. Set a specific date on which your client will provide feedback on your work. Take this date seriously. It would be nice from your side to remind your client about the feedback date a few days in advance. You should also agree on the form of feedback – whether via call, email, or in person.
2. Ask Focused Questions
Quite often, design presentations turn entirely into discussions on content. Clearly, some content discussions are expected, but your client shouldn’t devote all of their feedback to this theme. If you want to get useful feedback, ask specific questions and direct conversation to what you’d really like to hear feedback about.
Don’t ask your clients “What do you think?” Instead, ask them whether this concept meets their business goals or in what ways it fails to do so, or ask them whether the color palette fits the brand positioning.
3. Grasp the True Meaning
While commenting on your project, clients frequently propose solutions rather than point out the problem: “Can you make this button bigger? Can you add more green?” Your task is to identify the core problem or challenge hiding in that feedback.
Always ask them why: “Why do you want this button to be bigger? Why do you think that more green will be better for your website?” Dustin Curtis, founder of Svbtle, asks at least three questions to his clients about their opinions.
4. Apply Logic and Cite Famous Brands
If you don’t share the same opinion as your client, don’t start to criticize and discredit them. Back up your arguments with facts, studies and research instead. Let these facts speak for themselves. Additionally, you can cite famous companies as examples.
Imagine that your client asked you to reduce the font size from 22pt to 12pt. In this case, you could respond with something like “That’s an interesting point. But you know, I recently read a study showing that larger font sizes can arouse stronger emotional connections with a brand. By the way, Medium also uses 22pt font.”
And don’t use phrases that fall into the “I told you so” style. Try to show empathy: “Yes, I was shocked when I heard this too.”
5. Respect Your Client’s Opinion
Even though you likely have much more experience in web design, your client still knows their business better than you. It’s they who will be using the design on a daily basis. So they need to feel comfortable with the website you’ve designed.
If your client remains unsatisfied with your design, revise your work together. Try to find a compromise and adapt the design based on your client’s feedback. Remember that symbiosis of your client’s knowledge and your experience may bear a genuinely successful product.
Now you already know the theoretical part: how to act and what to say while presenting your design work. Yet it’s not clear in what form you should frame your design. What should your prototype look like?
What Type of Prototype Should I Choose?
We can’t give you a universal answer and say “just draw it like this.” But we can ease your job by offering you some handy tips about prototyping flow. We advise you to choose the type of prototype and the tools you use to create it based on the design stage you’re currently in – either the early stage or the final stage. Let’s take a closer look at both of these stages.
Early Stage
The early stage is when you think through the logic and functionality of the website: layout, features, connections and transitions. With your target audience in mind, you form elements that will make the website intuitive for users. Your main goal is to check the product’s operability.
Therefore, at this stage, you can present a low-fidelity prototype in the form of simple schematic screens usually in basic colors and without visual effects or details.
To design a low-fidelity prototype, you can try out the following tools:
With a low-fidelity prototype you need to be careful, as you can face misunderstandings and negative remarks from your client’s side: “Why are the screens so simple? Why did you use such a poor color scheme?” If this happens, take the time to explain to your client what the UX is and how it’s important for their product – that UX is the heart and soul of their future website – and that this prototype is far from the final version.
Final Stage
At the final stage, you need to deliver a high-fidelity prototype to your customer: add interactive elements such as micro interactions, navigation from screen to screen and other animations.
A high-fidelity prototype is a computer-based interactive representation made as close to the final design as possible (in terms of details and functionality) to allow your client to examine the product’s usability and make conclusions about user behavior.
High-fidelity prototypes let you feel transitions and functions of the website more realistically than low-fidelity ones and reveal potential bugs or difficulties at this stage before creating the UI.
If you’re not sure what tools to use to animate your prototype, try these:
Are You Ready to Present Your Web Design?
The form in which you present your design depends on the kind of product, what design components you’re presenting (e.g. layout or functionality) and the stage of the design process you’re in. At the early stage, you can stick with low-fidelity prototypes, whereas the late stage requires you to approach the final product as soon as possible and deliver a high-fidelity interactive prototype.
Of course, the success of your presentation lies in your confidence and the data you possess: keep facts and logic-based arguments at hand to support your opinions. And don’t be afraid to ask your client “why?”.