Client Vs. Designer

The relationship between you and your designer does not need to be a negative one. The majority of frustration that comes from this relationship is miscommunication. This is not because your designer is not listening to your requests (or maybe they aren’t), but likely because they are misinterpreting your design ideas. Be clear, concise, and try to offer a mini bio of what your company stands for. This will aid you in receiving a logo that conveys your companies message.

Branding

Where does your design lay within a larger scale? Take Facebook, Apple, and McDonalds for example. Can you envision their logo by simply hearing their name? When you see their logo without text accompanying it, are you able to attach it to the company name? Keep this in mind when requesting a design to ensure you are creating a brand for your company.

Trends

Design trends are great when creating ads, blogging, or creating personal graphics – but awful when designing a logo. The reason behind this is simple; you WANT your company to stand out instead of blend in with others. There is no way to separate you from the thousands of other companies if you are following the same trends they are. Logos are suppose to be unique, create a brand, remain recognizable, and if possible – convey a clear message between the company and its purpose.

Amateur Designers

Figuring out which designer best suits your needs is crucial to the success of your design. If you are looking for a design that encompasses professionalism, cleanliness, and symmetry – you may want to stay away from the designer with a “graffiti-like” style. Don’t be afraid to ask to see a portfolio or examples of work similar to your request – this will greatly help you find the best fit.

Whether you’re knowledgeable in design, or know nothing about it, you must be aware of the longevity of your design. One extremely crucial point your designer must hit is creating a vector-based graphic. Vectors are created with mathematical points, which allow you to change the size and shape of your design. A raster graphic consists of pixels, which pixelates your image the more you increase its size.

NOTICE: WHEN YOU BLOW UP A RASTER GRAPHIC, IT BECOMES PIXELATED, WHILE A VECTOR GRAPHIC REMAINS CRYSTAL CLEAR.

This becomes important if you decide you want to take your small logo and blow it up to display on t-shirts or billboards. If your logo-design is not vector based, blowing up your graphic will look atrocious and you’ll likely need to pay a designer to redo it.

Rough Draft

You may not be the next Picasso, but drawing a quick sketch can tremendously help express what you’re envisioning. Of course, this is not a requirement for working with a designer but the more information you can provide, the better. This also applies for envisioned color schemes, shapes, textures, etc.

If you were to guess between the images above, which layout do you think would produce the majority of ‘Sign-Up’s? Most people tend to believe the image on the left would entice people to sign up before the image on the right. In reality – the image on the right is over 300% more effective.

When taking a deeper look into why visitors are more inclined to click on a buried sign up button, the reasons became clear. Visitors would rather click on something that entices something fun and cool. Instead of placing a boring (and standard) “sign up” button, use a more creative phrase such as: “Let’s Do It!” or “Let’s Go!” This will capture your audience’s attention and persuade them to pursue additional information.

Remember, a flashy call to action is not enough to grab the attention of your future audience. Although it helps to design an eye-catching button, that is not your only selling point. Another reason visitors were more inclined to fill out the form on the right is because the ‘sign up’ button was placed below vital information. Before suggesting a sign-up from your visitor; make sure to include supportive content, trusting indicators, Second CTA’s, and promotional images. They need to see what you have to offer, like what they see, THEN continue to sign-up. It is illogical to think someone would sign-up for something before seeking information.

Limited Sources for Online Advertising

One of the number one mistakes in online marketing is only using one source of advertisement (AdWords, Microsoft adCenter, yahoo!, Facebook, etc.). In order to be successful in your marketing, you need to be open to advertising with multiple sources. Which sources you choose is up to you, however, the best places to begin advertising is with AdWords, Microsoft adCenter, and Facebook. Adwords allows you to target your ads by content/search keywords; facebook targets demographic/interest/audience.

Not Tracking ROI

Return on Investment (ROI) tracking is common for beginning online marketers to skip. The main importance of ROI is to determine how much money is being spent versus how much money is being made. From a business aspect, this is huge. As important as clicks are, it’s even more important to check the validity of those clicks – are your clicks ultimately turning into a sale? Remember – it isn’t always the word/phrase that is getting the most clicks a day that is important; instead, it’s the one that is converting at the end of the click. Tracking your ROI can also help you determine if you should change your keywords or bid amount.

Creating A Unfriendly Site for Search Engines

Make sure your site is crawlable. Uncrawlable/unfriendly sites for search engines include: Flash, JavaScript, Ajax and the use of frames. Avoid using these types of websites since they are unreadable by search engines. If a search engine is incapable of crawling your site, the chances of you having a prestigious ranking – or a ranking at all, is slim-to-none. Instead, build a CSS/HTML website, include text (alt=”") to your images/videos/flash, and create unique title tags and meta descriptions.

Messy Ads

The number one concern visitors have with clicking on ads is the potential for scam/viruses. To ensure a positive outlook from your audience create a clean, professional, easily readable ad that portrays a strong and straight forward message. Avoid emojicons, flashing text/images, obnoxious color schemes, or items that do not pertain to your overall message. Relevancy is key! If you do not have the capabilities to create a clean-cut ad, hire a designer who will create one for you.

Not Using a Landing Page

Creating a properly functioning landing page is crucial to your site converting sales. The main goal of the landing page is to get the visitor to convert, which can be aided by: obtaining an email address, filling out a form, registering, or a purchase. To get a full breakdown of the purpose and benefits of a landing page visit our “Landing Page Design” post…

Not Testing Your Landing Page

Following the creation of your landing page, you MUST test it! There is no point in creating a landing page if you are not going to follow up by doing some A/B. Performing A/B testing on your landing page will help you determine if you need to reproduce or edit your current landing page. If you assume your landing page is doing it’s job, to later find out it wasn’t serving its converting into sales, it served no purpose.

Not Doing Research

It will benefit you greatly to study the strengths and weaknesses of your biggest competitors. You can piggyback off their failures by avoiding doing the same thing. Use a keyword tool to determine which keywords are working for or against your competitors.

The Guessing Game

Track your analytics instead of guessing your statistics. Your stats may not always be steady from day-to-day, week-to-week, or month-to-month. Make yourself a spreadsheet so you can compare daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly advertising. Sometimes catching an error a day late means a thousand (or more) dollar mistake. Keep a steady eye on your stats to avoid creating huge irreversible issues.

What is a QR Code?
Quick Response Codes are the newest trend of 2011/2012. People are adding these codes to their business cards, t-shirts, print ads, advertisements, etc. to draw visitors to their company/social media sites.

How QR Code is Read?
A QR code is typically scanned by an iPhone or Android using an App (typically Kaywa). The code acts similar to a barcode although a QR code can store much more data than the standard barcode.

How To Generate a QR Code
Generating a QR Code is simply done through a generator powered by Kaywa. Once you arrive at the QR-Code Generator you select the Content Type (URL, Text, Phone Number, or SMS). After you fill out a couple of things, BAM – your code is created! You can now use your code to attract visitors to your site.

How Can a QR Code Expand Business?
Since QR Codes are still relatively new, the impact they will have on search marketing is still fairly unknown. You can use your QR code to display: product details, location, contact details, coupons, Twitter/Facebook, link to your website, details on event/offer, etc. ]]> http://www.truinteractive.com/quick-response-qr-code/feed/ 0 http://www.truinteractive.com/why-people-leave-websites-within-the-first-30-seconds/ http://www.truinteractive.com/why-people-leave-websites-within-the-first-30-seconds/#comments Tue, 21 Feb 2012 23:18:03 +0000 lindsey http://www.truinteractive.com/?p=590 Continue reading →]]>

1. Overall Design This might come off as slightly snobbish, but lets face it, we are all guilty of judging a book by its cover every once in a while. If I arrive to a website and it is not aesthetically pleasing, I will leave your site within the first 10 seconds. In fact, I most likely will not return in the future. What is unfair about judging a website in the manner is that the overall design of a site isn’t always a direct indication of the value of their content. I might stroll across a hideously designed site, leave, and never explore the brilliance of their content. Why are we guilty of this type of online segregation? Simply because of the creditability behind a well designed website, which suggests organization and professionalism. Even if a site is not from a Fortune 500 Company, it should still maintain enough appeal for any audience. May it be as simple as a personal blog, or as complex as a medical company; a well-produced site will present itself well.
2. Advertisements
   Pop-up Ads: There is nothing more obnoxious than to be bombarded by an advertisement in the midst of browsing a site. Pop-up ads lower your sites credibility and will annoy several users to the point of leaving your site.
   Ad Portions – Too Many Ads: Do not clog your site with ads. Your ads shouldn’t be overwhelming, take up more space than your content, and shouldn’t visually draw your audience away from the purpose of your site.
   Ad Clarity: There is nothing worse than a sloppy, flashing, obnoxious ads. Keep your ads direct, straight forward, simple, and subtle.

3. Interstitial Webpages An interstitial webpage is a page that a user is directed to before viewing the intended page. These pages usually include a large ad that devours 80% of the page, and in small font says something along the lines of “Please wait 30 to be redirected to your page or Click Here to be immediately directed”. Wait, what? Was it effective to direct me to a page that I have no interest in, have to wait 30 seconds to THEN be connected to the page I clicked on? This is a sure way to lose visitors. In fact, when sites include interstitial webpages I never return to their site.
   Google wrote a powerful explanation of their policy and purpose of User Experience. Google perfectly captures how improper use of ads is obstructive. View Googles Article here.)
4. Audio & Video Refrain from Audio and Videos that automatically begin playing when the visitor views your site. We do not need background music to enhance our user experience. In fact, it usually assists users in moving to a site other than yours.
5. Overall Ease of Navigation It’s always a nice surprise to stumble across a site that pushes the envelope with their website design. Even the completely inventive web designs maintain a user-friendly structure. If your navigation does not follow the standard sites (Top Menu, Sidebars, and a footer), make sure that it is easily maneuverable. This is another design flaw that drives me bananas! I do not want to search for your navigation buttons. Also, keep in mind that your navigation needs to make sense. Do not include a list of your ‘Producs’ within your “Contact Us” nav.
6. Register to Continue Do not require your visitors to sign-up prior to viewing your site. Instead, include the option to register somewhere else within your site. A pop-up to register is more obnoxious than an advertisement because the user is forced to spend several minutes filling out a form they had no desire to complete.
7. Pagination Pagination is the flawed design of dividing a single page into multiple pages. For example, if you have an article titled, “Top 10 Vitamins to Expand Life” instead of having one single page listing the top 10, there would be 10 individual pages. Why would I want to click through 10 pages to read a couple of sentences on each page? When articles include this type of display, I am gone. I’d rather find the same information elsewhere where it’s styled on a single page.
8. Awful Text Hard to read text is about as useful as writing on a piece of paper with a yellow highlighter. Who wants to strain their eyes to read your message? This is also paired with text that is too small to read. None of your visitors will be excited to break out their magnifying glass to read your content. Alongside visually hideous text, is its best friend “Poor Grammar”. If you are going to take the effort to post something online, check your grammar and spelling before you embarrassingly post it. This is a sure way to lose ALL credit.
9. Flash Websites For iPhone/iPad users Flash based sites are highly irritating since they are unable to view it. Most web users browse the web on a mobile device, so creating a website that is entirely flash based is silly. There are only a select few circumstances I will tolerate a flash website, and that is only if the site offers something that is a necessity.

Benefits of Dropbox

Aside from how user friendly Dropbox is, here we’ve listed other reasons why we choose to use Dropbox:

Here are some examples of retailers who have incorporated colors to entice buyers.

Amazon:

Orange and Black – creates urgency for IMPULSE SHOPPERS.

Ebay

Red, Navy Blue, Yellow, and Green – this logo incorporates IMPULSE/BUDGET/REGULAR SHOPPERS.

PayPal

Navy/Royal Blue mixture – touches base with both BUDGET and IMPULSE SHOPPERS.

OverStock

Red – BUDGET SHOPPERS.

Shop.com

Orange and Teal – BUDGET and IMPULSE SHOPPERS.

Time Management:

After several years of designing, one of the most important tools (which by the way, I’m still learning to master), is time management. It’s easy to chuck away several hours to a well thought-out design. Heck, I can even spend a couple days on a design. However, not all designs deserve that kind of attention and dedication. The key to monitoring your time is to map out the worth of the design with the worth of your time. For example, it would be silly to spend 13 hours on a design that you are getting paid $100 for. Aside from the payment aspect, planning out how much time you will be spending on a design helps you stay on task.

Plagiarism:

Be weary of where you gather inspiration. As a designer, our eyes are always open to the design in which we’re surrounded. When creating a design of your own, make sure that your work is individual to itself and not a branch of another designers work. Even if you don’t copy the design exactly, you may still be liable for Copyright. This is one of the easiest things to avoid, and one of the most expensive boundaries to cross.

Stay Design-ucated:

Stay educated on what trends are floating around. Currently, circular designs are huge in the design world. Up-and-coming markets, clothing lines, coffee shops, etc. are branding themselves in a circular fashion. Keep your eyes peeled, or research what is popular for the time being. Although old-fashion design can be handy, it’s probably not the most wise to brainstorm off a design from the 1940’s. Keep your design fresh to what’s current.

Tune-out of Distraction:

My design groove is best flowing when I have a small amount of background noise. I suppose that’s just how my brain best functions – a little music, or a tv show/movie is the perfect remedy. On the other end of the spectrum, working while surround by chatting people can really throw me off track. Whether I begin listening to conversation, or get lost in my own thoughts; either way, chatting throws me off. Learn where you groove best and make sure to stick to an environment that best suits your needs. For parents who work at home, sometimes there is no option other than constant interruption from your kids. Dedicate a special place for yourself to escape into your own world. To avoid your kids feeling like you are separating yourself from them, create a ‘special place’ for them as well.

Carry A Notebook

We are strong believers in the power of writing things down. I cannot pronounce how many times I’ve been out-and-about, came up with something brilliant, and within minutes entirely forgot what it was. There is nothing worse than being on the verge of something great and having it flush down the drain. To prevent this from happening, carry around a small notebook and pen to ensure the safety of your thoughts! Whether if be a catchy phrase, a color scheme, or design; this is the perfect place for you to jot down your thoughts while you’re out.

Stay Positive

Give yourself a tap on the shoulders. There’s a lot of pressure included with being a designer, especially when you are troubled with the task of creating something you’ve become stuck on. Although you may currently feel like you are climbing up a vertical incline, this will not remain the case forever. Ease your worries by surrounding yourself with object/people that can positively influence you. That also includes yourself! You may need to remove yourself from your usual workspace to freshen your environment, or put on some relaxing background music. Whatever it may be, find what helps you remain positive and bathe in it!

Take Risks

Often times you have to remember the relationship between an open mind and your “Oh So Stubborn” other half. It’s often hard to break out of our “norm” of design, but in retrospect, that is also what helps us grow as designers. It’s usually the out-of-the-box design that captures an audience’s attention because of the risk it took to push the envelope. This also applies to those hard to please clients. The majority of clients that request design work have a premeditated look-and-feel. Often times these clients are hard to please because they are typically bound to their way of thinking. These clients are actually quite beneficial to your growth as a designer because they force you to step outside of your “norm”. Each designer has their own ‘niche’, which is a style of design they stick to. Clients whom request a design outside of your comfort zone helps you explore new options and overall expand your overall outlook.

Meet With Peers

Since not all designers are a part of a design team, it’s not always applicable to meet with a team for feedback. However, everyone has peers they can lean on. Send out a blast email to your closest peers with your concepts (don’t forget to mention privacy and Copyright of the design you are sending), and ask them for their honest opinions. If you have some specific questions in mind, ask away! Remember, even negative feedback is positive feedback. Negative feedback will demonstrate what isn’t responsive to your potential audience. ]]> http://www.truinteractive.com/5-ways-for-graphic-designers-to-stay-motivated/feed/ 0