Motive Media LLC

User Experience in Webdesign : Part One – First Impression

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:11:00 GMT

User Experience

When you think about a user's experience for websites, most designers and developers will automatically start talking about clean code and accessibility. This is a very good aspect of a user's experience to think about and is in fact very important. You must also think about many other aspects of the user's experience, as it is much more then just clean code and accessibility.

First Impression

From the moment you start typing in that cool new website your friend told you about on Twitter in your browser to when you leave saying "I have had enough" and close the browser window is all part of the user experience. You need to take into consideration the entire time the user is on your site and what the user experiences from start to end.

The start and end of a user's experience on your website can dramatically invoke feelings towards your company or even change their views on your service. The first impression is just as important as the last impression they are given once they have finished using your site. The importance of "The First Impression" has been a long time know fact in many industries and facets of life. Your first impression on a date, how you greet your new boss, applying for a new job, it is all about the first impression you convey to the user. When a user has not had their entire life to know you and your business, the first impression is the most important information they receive to start guiding you off of.

"Unpacking your iPod is like 'undressing your girlfriend for the first time'." - Andy Budd

The first type of impression that a user experiences comes from the speed of your website loading followed by the visual design and layout of the site.

"Web users form first impressions of web pages in as little as 50 milliseconds (1/20th of a second), according to Canadian researchers. In the blink of an eye, web surfers make nearly instantaneous judgments of a web site's 'visual appeal.'" - First Impressions Count in Website Design

The Halo Effect

The Halo Effect? Wait weren't we talking about web design not Halo and the Xbox. Wrong Halo. "The halo effect refers to a cognitive bias whereby the perception of a particular trait is influenced by the perception of the former traits in a sequence of interpretations. – Wikipedia.org". The 'Halo Effect' was made popular by a man named Edward Thorndike. Edward would conduct psychological studies on commanding officers on how they would rate their soldiers. He found that the commanding officers would find a single (good or bad) trait in the officer and use this to define and form their view on the soldier. Most soldiers would in turn either get "all good traits" or "all bad traits", either 5 stars or 1 star if you will.

Now what does all this have to do with web design? Since we know that people tend to see one good trait or one bad trait in a services, person or company and use that to form a view about them, then we can safely apply this to the user's experience on your website. Your websites design, layout and colors and invoke a lot more feelings then you believe. Your web presence will effect the way a user sees you and your company.

Professional High End Design can dramatically help keep your visitors at your site and in trust good feelings about your company and or service.

Having a well planned out means of conveying your services and information will keep user's coming back and spending more time on Your Website instead of Your Competitors. As simple as creating a easy to use navigation can increase your site's turnaround and bounce rate. Many users will become confused and leave a website if it takes to much time to locate what they are looking for. Having your information nested deep into your site under many links will do this to a user. One of your major goals on your website should be to make your information available to the user as easy and quickly as possible. Hiding all your links in a drop down menu and making user guest just will not cut it anymore. Remember the KISS principle, Keep it Simple, Stupid.

"In brand marketing, a halo effect is one where the perceived positive features of a particular item extend to a broader brand. " - Wikipedia.org

A excellent example of this helping out the rest of a company's products is Apple's iPod. The success of the iPod has in turn helped create a "glow" around all other Apple products. The iPod and now the iPhone has had such a positive effect on the way user's see all other products created by apple. This is what having a professional web designer and developer can do for your website and company.

5 Keys to a succesful website

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 21:20:00 GMT

5 Keys to a successful website

Design and Aesthetics

All too often people are so focused on getting the job done for a good price that they completely disregard the need for high quality Design and Aesthetics. Its true! Many companies will sacrifice so much to save a few bucks, when they don't know who they are really hurting in the end. Themselves! If you think about it for a second and really ask yourself "What are my customers or users going to be looking at while browsing my site?" THE GRAPHICAL LAYOUT! Don't get me wrong – content is King, However you need to note that high quality design helps to instantly gain credibility and to create a positive user experience. (I'll get into that later). You want users to come back right? Well if you have a beautiful site you have a much better chance of that. We have seen so many times that our customers will be doing a good amount of sales through their outdated website, and all they need is a face lift to really open the gate to make some major improvements to their bottom line. For example: We just finished working with a client out of AZ, (due to NDA we can not disclose the name) who had a very outdated website. They we're pushing around $50,000 of online revenue with this older site. They came to us in need of a face lift (among other things) to really help them capture a larger amount of the revenue to be made. We got them going with a brand new site, and to both of our amazement they did just under $50,000 in the first two weeks of launching the new site! Now that speaks for itself. Design and Aesthetics are so key and we see it time and time again! With that being said I hope that you agree that the graphical representation of your company's image is so very important.

Good Quality Content

Content is King! In the information NOW world we have come accustomed to, it is so important to have relevant content that really communicates your message clearly. (Not to mention it needs to be posted in a timely manor) The whole point of the web is information. Whether that be information on a product or service, or about the most recent developments in the election, it is so very important to have a message that is relevant to the purpose of the site. We recommend Content Management Systems (CMS) for most of our clients. What this does is creates a system for the site owner to update and edit content "on the fly" from any internet connection. It can even be done on your PDA device! This gives the ability to give your audience what they need NOW! The CMS is a great tool and its very powerful, but its just a tool to help you publish great content. If your site doesn't have great information then users are going to be quickly discouraged and will hit the back button. Thats why Content Is King! You can make a site look great and have all kinds of amazing features and message boards, but if there is nothing attracting a user there besides eye candy they wont stick around. We usually suggest hiring a copywriter to write all the content for the "Static" or Mostly Static pages on the site (ex. Home page, About Us, History, etc…). Just as you'd hire an electrician to do your new lighting system you should hire a copywriter to take the message you want to communicate and effectively structure it to captivate your audience.

Clear Calls to Action

Calls to action or CTA, is something like a "Buy Now" button, or a "Contact Us Now" link. Its something that Calls the user to do something. If your user has to dig through a plethora of graphics, pages, and text to find a way to buy your product or service you need to re-evaluate your Call to Action placement. This is same concept can be applied to the navigation of your site. If a user has to "find" the navigation, or rollover it to see that it is in fact how to get from page to page then your designer was probably just thinking "oh this is neat" rather than thinking about the actual user and how it may be difficult for them to navigate from page to page. A lot of times developers and clients alike will loose sight of the fact that they are creating a gateway for the customer or "End User" to access vital information and they need a way to ask questions, get more information or even set up a face to face meeting. Without clear calls to action the user has to "dig" to find them. Vital calls to action should be on every page in the same location throughout the site, just like the navigation.

Information Gathering

Let me start out by saying that Data Mining is a multi million dollar industry. With that being said don't you think it'd be a good idea to collect some data for yourself? I'm not suggesting that you sell the data or even distribute it. (we do no such thing) What I am saying is that if you persuade a user to submit their information by holding drawings or giveaways, this gives you an avenue of blasting specials, and updates to people who have visited your site in the past. Even if two or three people choose to take you up on the offer thats extra money in your pocket as well as giving all of your customers a reminder that you're still here.

Great User Experience

The user experience is what is created when a user is on your site. Its the experience the user is having. They can be negative and positive. We want all user experiences to be positive. Thats why we think this is an important key to a successful website. Think of your website as an information theme park. You want people to tell other people to go to your site. Wouldn't it be great to hear adjectives like "Great, Nice, and Sexy" when they talked about your website!? Now if someone was saying things like "Frustrating, Confusing, and Cluttered" you'd be a bit concerned in how your "theme park" was operating. If that is the case it might be a good time to kick around the idea of an overhaul.

I hope these five keys will help you in developing your site. The web is an ever evolving beast and as time goes on I'm sure we'll add to this list, and I'm sure there are many more that people could add to it to make it better. Thanks for reading!

It was a great Weekend – Back to business!

Tue, 27 May 2008 22:21:22 GMT

I just wanted to take a quick breather and update you all on what we're up to here at Motive Media.

Well it was a great Memorial Day weekend here in Boise. The weather was amazing until around 5:00pm on Monday. It rained all evening, but other than that it was great! I didn't go out of town or anything fun this weekend but I am proud to say I got a lot of things done around the house! I mowed my lawn, Cleaned the garage, and Cleaned up my "man cave". (oh yes – I have a man cave) Everyone here at Motive Media were going to meet up on Friday night and hit up the Go-Kart track at Fastlane here in Boise, but those plans fell apart. :( Just as every weekend does this one came to a close and fast forward to right now — Its Tuesday. We had Quizno's for lunch, and I'm sitting here writing a blog.

Right now we're working on a myriad of projects like the new and improved Greg Olsen Art , an interactive website for Venga Ventures, and we're also re-branding ourselves! This is very exciting! We've taken on a whole new approach to our focus. We're not just a website development and graphic design shop anymore! We've taken on the role of an "Advertising Media Company". I'd go into great detail about this, but I want to wait until we launch our new site. I don't know how to explain our new site except that its much more…"us"!

Thats it for now. Thanks for reading!

Advertising Media Companies. Small is the New Big.

Thu, 22 May 2008 20:45:00 GMT

Small is the new big? Oh yes!

I'm sure you're sitting there wondering how in the world I can justify saying that. Well I can see where you're coming from. If we're talking about buying socks I would much rather go buy at wal-mart than at a smaller local store for a number of reasons. Obviously the odds are that wal-mart is going to have much more selection and much lower prices. Because they are so large. So this is a no brainier.

Now lets apply that same theory to Advertising Media Companies. When you're shopping for a website for example – where do you go? You'll probably go to one of the larger local agencies. You walk in the door of their 30,000sq ft. building, you sit down on the plush leather couch in the lobby, and you wait for an Account executive to come and meet with you in the conference room to go over your needs. It all seems great until you think of who is paying for all of that decor and the Account execs Italian suede shoes. You and other customers! So you want the quality of the larger agencies without the price tag! Here is where the problem lies! Larger agencies have to put ten hands in the project to make it successful. When they do this it drives up costs. They have to charge the premium price to afford the premium talent. Do you see where I'm going with this!? Now lets explore another option.

Small Agencies. We – ahem! I mean – They have a much smaller organization thus less overhead and of course smaller prices without compromising quality. There are great benefits to working with the smaller agencies or "micro agencies" as I like to call them. Like the greater amount of control the client has over the project. Smaller agencies understand your need to get the message out without leaving your arm and leg with them. They understand that there is a need for quality Branding, Website Development, Marketing and Advertising and cater to the smaller companies much like themselves. Another great benefit is the smaller the companies usually have less hoops you have to jump through to make changes to your project and evolve it as the idea evolves. I believe that right here in your town there is a small agency waiting to talk to you about your needs and help you execute with the same finesse and quality as the "Big Dogs" without the Italian shoes and fancy decor.

Now that we've summed up the benefits between larger and smaller agencies what do you think? Is small really the new big?

Thanks for reading!

Mobile Internet - Google tops most countries

Wed, 21 May 2008 22:00:00 GMT

Recently Motive Media purchased new phones, the HTC Mogul, which lead me into the world of the mobile internet. After being a consumer of the growing realm of on-the-fly data in the palm of your hand for the last three weeks, I decided to do some research on what other users were accessing on their handhelds.

I came across an interesting report that was put out by Opera Software which outlined their stats they have gathered from all their Opera Mini Browser users. There is a couple of very interesting key points that stood out of the report. First, 40% of all mobile internet traffic is done on a social networking site, amazing!

Second, Over the course of 2 full years the Opera Mini user base rose from 1 Million to 40 Million, that's a 4000% increase! And last but not least a stat about Google, over ten countries Google was ranked as the average 2.3 top visited web site. Just another reason for everyone to convert to the ever building community of Google.

All in all this research has pushed the importance of enhancing our web services to involve Mobile Internet website production. The future is mobile browsing and I am hopping on the train!

Importance of company branding and identity

Tue, 20 May 2008 17:01:00 GMT

Your company Branding and Identity is an underestimated area in most business. You need to realize how important good branding is.

When people see the little red swoosh on a product, they automatically identify that product as a well produced, popular item. This swoosh holds a certain value thanks to good marketing and branding of the company's identity. If you are not aware of what company I am talking about well then you should go check out Nike.

In todays very competitive industry of marketing and advertising, you need to have your company image, solutions and business products all summed up in one small little logo. This then transfers over to all your company's collateral, business cards, car decals, website, brochures, letter heads, folders and such. You must keep a engaging presence with a image and identity that has the same feel across all your media.

This means keeping a consistency of design and wording throughout all of your company. Not having some level of consistency will greatly damage your company's image. Not necessarily making your company bad, but making it difficult for your consumers and the public to clearly identify products and services with your company. You need this consistency for your current customers and new customers to start adding value to your name and products. These is why the public will pay more money for a product that is just the same as something you can purchase at Walmart for half the price. Its all about how you represent your company and its products / services.

If you are in the mood to read a little more about branding, even if your not you should still check these articles out and bookmark them, go to these below.

Fast Company – The brand called you

Jared Reitzin – The Importance of branding

New Apple Store in Boston Opens

Mon, 19 May 2008 22:36:00 GMT

Apple opens a beautiful new store in Boston. Now this might now excite most of you, but being an apple fan this makes me a little excited. And to think, this new store is not even in the same state as I am in. Just having an apple store open does not make my eyes open wide, but the design of the new store in Boston does. The previous photo (green none opened store) thanks to Jordan Golson. The new photo (opened store) thanks to Brad at The Big Noob

Is blogging really that important? YES!

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:14:00 GMT

I found this post on Entrempeneur.com

Its an amazing post. Check it out

Blogging is really that important!

Don't use Bold use Strong

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 00:14:00 GMT

Desing Coding – Youtube – The new age rap of how to design and code

Natural High in New Media Development

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 20:57:00 GMT

Hello all! I am glad to say that this will be my first post for Motive Media's Blog. I have been trapped in my cell for over a year and decided that it was time to crawl out ;)

If you have ever taken on a large project that included multiple phases and multiple people then hopefully you will be able to appreciate this post. Working in new media for over 4 years and having a new media company, you get to experience the ups and downs of business, and the highs and lows of emotions. I could rant about all of the horrible things, but I won't go there. I am going to cover the greatest thing that we (two partners and myself) here at Motive Media have found to be the greatest part of running your own new media business, completion of a project.

Moving through the process of entire project is very stressful and can be draining at some points. Especially, if you have to fill in many roles like; client relations, managing, and obviously production. I think you get the point that I am trying to get across, almost every project has a high stress level that sits on you until the project is completed. We all know that this, at times, can become very hard to deal with.

But nothing compares to the natural high you receive after the completion of a project. You get the first surge when you know the project is done and it has been published. The second surge hits you during your follow-up meeting with your client. But the third and best surge hits you a couple days or even a couple weeks later when you are looking back on the project or you see your project in the public and realize that YOUR COMPANY produced that! Realizing that you built a relationship, made a sell, produced the project, and made the client happy all hits you at once and it is something that can be explained in words.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my first post :) I am off to enjoy a beautiful Saturday in Boise!