Your Brand | Your Passion

Do you create web content? Or websites? For your own site? For your intranet? For external clients?

Many of us who either create content or redesign websites, web apps, intranets, etc. have to decide or help our clients decide how to organize the content (otherwise know as information architecture). One of the best ways to classify your content into meaningful groupings that you will use on your site is through card-sorting.

So, what is card sorting?

Card-sorting is pretty much just what it sounds like: you write down all the high level topics you would like to see in your site (or have in it already) on 3×5 cards. Or prepare cards on your computer (be sure to have some blanks for the sorting group). You can even run card sorts online (WebSort or OptimalSort are two online sites), though you will lose the visual and verbal cues you would have when interacting with your sorters.

Open and Closed card sorting

I have participated in both an Open and a Closed card-sorting exercises. Both experiences helped me to understand the process before running a card sort myself. I recommend you take part in a card sort or two as a participant if at all possible, before holding one yourself so that you’ll better understand the process.

In a Closed sorting, you ask people to place their cards into already Named piles. In an Open sorting, you will simply ask people to make piles of cards, and afterwards, you will discuss how to classify (name) them together.

Informal card sorting

I’ve also participated in a very informal sorting exercise, where department heads were asked to name all the types of content they wanted on the site, particularly from their own department.

As they responded, topics were written on stickies, which were immediately affixed to a white board, in piles. The piles were arranged and rearranged into groups, and the category names were eventually written on the board. The participants could immediately agree or disagree with the organization of the site, and the design team had an agreed-upon architecture within a couple of hours.

Would you like to know more?

For a great description of of the steps involved in running a Card Sorting, see: Play Your Cards Right: Run Your First Card Sort. Anyone for a game of cards? is another interesting article on card sorting. As is: All about Card Sorting.

So many folks do not “get” Twitter, so I thought I’d help folks with the basics.

What is Twitter anyway?

Twitter began as an instant messaging service that would help groups of people chat online together. Sort of like an old-fashioned party-line updated for the social media era.

So, in keeping with the limitations of instant messaging on cellphones, a 140 character limit was set for the length of a single post, or tweet.

Okay that’s the background. What is so mesmerizing about a new instant messaging system?

Well, it’s the group aspect of it, imho. A whole group of your friends can communicate together, or at least respond to your tweet. This is the broadcast aspect of Twitter.

Ever want to be a broadcaster?

As you grow your followees (people who follow you), you are developing a network of people who receive your tweets. You can choose to limit these followees to close associates and friends, in which case you can use it to advise your friends what you are doing at any particular time.

If you want to meet up with whoever’s available for dinner, just tweet where you’ll be dining, at what time, etc. and ask your friends if anyone’s available to meet you there. Your tweet is broadcast to your friends, they can answer one by one,  and if all of them are following each other, you’ll quickly know how many can join you.

From that basic idea and utility, Twitter took off. In addition to close friends, you can broadcast your latest blog post, or a project you’re working on, an article you read on a particular subject of interest. As you grow your followers (people whose tweets you follow) and followees, you begin to participate in larger conversations. That leads to networking…

So how do you network using Twitter?

Once you figure out that you can follow most anyone on Twitter (though they may not follow you back), you realize that you can have access to people you’d like to network with. For instance, if you are interested in government affairs or autism, whatever, and search http://www.search.twitter.com using that term, you might find people you’d like to network with, who you can then follow. If your profile and tweets interest them, they may follow you back. Then you may initiate a discussion about mutually interesting topics of your choice.

Over time, interesting relationships can be built, especially if you use your real photo in your profile. I was hesitant, then realized that using my photo helped people recognize me when we meet in person, for example at a networking event.

Why do people call Twitter a search resource?

I mentioned www.search.twitter.com earlier. Search any topic you like, and you’ll find what people are posting on that topic. If you use TweetDeck, you can also see a tag cloud of topics being tweeted. These days people also use “#term” to classify their posts according to that term. Check out #blogcakes or #sxsw for example. That’s just the beginning of how Twitter is being used as a search resource.

Is Twitter a waste of time?

Depends on how you’re using it, your goals, your commitments, your time. Like any other online activity, it does take time. It can be a great source of news, which keeps you up-to-date with news interests. It can broadcast your press releases, or blog posts.

Social media mavens love Twitter, going right for the broadcast aspects, as well as a few others. Lots of people twitter their bad customer service experiences. Many large businesses have begun replying to those tweets, bringing better customer service results directly to customers.

Businesses are finding all sorts of reasons to use Twitter. I still love the story I shared in an earlier post about a cafe offering online take-out orders using Twitter.

Hope this helps you “get” Twitter a little better. Get out there and try it, and don’t be afraid to follow people you don’t physically know. Who know who’ll you’ll meet… your next employee or employer, your next movie friend, your next relationship. Anything’s possible!

Web accessibility refers to the ease with which people can access all of the content on your website. Accessibility is often thought of in relation to disabilities such as blindness, deafness, ADD and ADHD, color blindness, etc. However accessibility is important to all users of your site, if you would like to engage them, inform them, encourage them to purchase products, etc.

Until recently there were guidelines for accessibility such as Section 508 Information Technology Accessibility Standards and W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines but no testing sites, which makes it hard for web designers to easily improve their sites, based on the feedback provided by testing sites.

The University of Illinois has just launched the Illinois Functional Web Accessibility Evaluator 1.0 (FAE), a testing site that addresses this need. Web designers and developers can register for free accounts which allows us to test whole sites, not just single pages. Highly recommended!

I recently wrote this factsheet for a prospective Adwords client and thought it worth sharing with folks who haven’t yet used Adwords. There’s much more to Adwords, it’s a wonderfully complex system. So, see this as a teaser, and feel free to ask questions!

What is Google Adwords, anyway?

Google Adwords refers primarily to advertising placed into search results pages (there’s more, beyond the scope of this post).

Searchers input a string of words (called keywords, in Adwords terminology) for which they want information. Google search returns a list of web pages that are relevant to the searcher’s keywords, called organic search results, and text ads, called Adwords ads, using an auction system based on relevancy to decide the order of the ads on the page or pages.

Therefore, for your Google Adwords ad to be listed high on the first page of search results, you must have developed a highly relevant ad, using some or all of the steps listed below.

How to create winning Adwords campaigns

1. Determine the goals of your Adwords campaigns, such as:
   Better visibility on search pages and Google maps, build credibilltiy as experts in particular areas, increase traffic to your website, drive new customers/clients to contact you/buy from you.
2. Develop lists of keywords that customers/clients might use to find you when searching.
3. Optimize your website to be more search engine friendly (seo). This may include adding the specific keywords that customers/clients use to find similar pages in Google search, adding subheads including keywords, adding meta-keywords, etc.
4. Decide on the topics of your ad campaigns. Create ads using relevant keywords. Create alternate ads for split testing, to continually improve the relevancy of your ads.
5. Decide on initial maximum amount you are willing to spend per click per keyword. We usually begin low, and receive feedback from Google on how much you will need to spend to move your ad onto the first page of results and up the page.
6. Decide on initial maximum budget per day for each campaign and overall. Google will recommend higher budget based on overall number of clicks per campaign. We’ll review the campaign with you and discuss changing budget during the year.
7. Depending on your goals and your website, develop landing pages (specific to particular campaigns), or add forms to pages already relevant to the ads created in the Adword campaigns.
8. Review the process and start again from the beginning, always testing results as we progress.

There’s more complexity to the process, as I mentioned at the beginning, but this should give you a good overview of what Adwords is all about, and why you might want to try it.

I just bought my first Kindle book (it was actually two-for-one), after downloading the Kindle for iPhone free app from Amazon. Super easy to install, the syncing with Amazon was a dream. It took only moments before I could read what I’d just bought.

I wanted to include a photo with this article, but my iPhone is enclosed in a clear plastic case including screen protector, so every photo I try comes out very blurry, so you’ll just have to take my word for this, or try it yourself. If you want to see some photos, take a look at Kindle for iPhone Walkthrough

The type is very clear and easy to read, the controls simple and easy-to-use. I envision this replacing a carry-along novel on Metro rides (it takes me a half hour to an hour to get anywhere), while waiting for people to show up for meetings, etc.

But for me, it’s mostly a wonderful way to read myself to sleep at night. Much lighter than a book, much easier to hold than a Kindle (and no extra expense since I already own an iPhone). No need to keep the lights on, it functions as its own booklight. Just gotta stay up long enough to turn it off (and should keep it plugged in while reading if you can).

The only negative I’ve found so far is that it doesn’t seem to want to rotate to a landscape format. I like the default type size (you can make it smaller or larger very easily), but I don’t like that the text is justified at that size, so I’d prefer to tilt it for a wider screen width.

Yes, there are questions about the cost of the books ($9.95 for recent titles), but I was able to find a two-for-one novel series I hadn’t yet read, so that’s $5.00 per book. And I don’t have to buy the Kindle. I predict that this will add to Amazon’s bottom line, since many iPhone users won’t want a Kindle but won’t mind buying the same books for their iPhone.

This is the year of Twitter, or at least the year I decided to join the ranks of Twitterers.

So far so good. I signed up,  and the next day (today) someone on the DC Web Women’s elist asked if we wanted to network together on Twitter. So, I went from no following, no followers to following 64 and being followed by 27 in one day.

I haven’t played with Twitter enough yet to have formed definite opinions. I can say that it’s really easy to network with a lot of people at once, once you have a network. I learned about a few events, articles, conferences, services quickly and painlessly. I look forward to sharing ideas, links, events, etc. with my network.

Among others I began to follow Mr. Tweet, and saw a post called Twitter to Go which is an sweet story about a coffee shop that began by chance to use Twitter for take out orders. The punch line is that they doubled their clientele simply due to word of mouth on Twitter. The possibilities for this kind of viral marketing are boundless.

If this sounds like gibberish to you, it might be time to give Twitter a try. At least that’s what I’m doing. You can find me here: @eDesignGal

May you enjoy a peaceful and happy holiday season!

SEO, or search engine optimization means optimizing the content of a web page for search engines so that the page shows near or at the top of the page of search results. Why is this a concern for web designers and web developers?

Web designers and developers don’t normally consider themselves content creators or writers. However, web designers and developers are often the people who are tasked with adding titles, headings, meta tags, and span styles to web pages. These items can all be used to optimize a web page for search engines, so it’s important for web designers and developers to have a basic understanding of search engine optimization.

SEO vs information architecture

A lot of time is typically given to information architecture at the beginning of a web development project. Information architects and front end developers plot the flow of information in a web site to develop the most logical flow and navigation schemes that will work most efficiently for users of the site.

You might say that information architects look at a site from the top down (though not all sites are top-down hierarchies). SEO begins at the other end, or bottom-up, on each individual page of a site. It is based on users searching for very specific information, using search terms and search phrases. When a user searches for information, they are free to select from the results, so the result that matches their search most closely is the result they will most likely choose.

This means that they enter a site on the page they are looking for, and often leave from the same page, either after satisfying their interest in the page, or moving from there to whatever action the web page moves them towards (often to the shopping cart on an e-commerce site).

Keywords

An SEO professional will analyze the terms that are most likely to be used by people interested in a specific page (called keywords), will make sure that those terms appear in the title, the headings, emphasized text (either bold or italic). SEO specialists develop lists of up to 20 keywords for a topic, and add them to the Titles, Heads, Meta Description and emphasized text on a page. As a web designer, you won’t be tasked with developing keyword lists, however, if you are aware of how search engine spiders work, you can make sure than main keywords (including location) are used throughout a page.

Organic Search Engine Results

We’re discussing what is called Organic Search Engine Results in this article. That means the unpaid results that search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Ask and others return in their main listings. Not the paid ads, although those paid ads use the same techniques to increase relevance which helps them rise to the top of the results page.

The Title of Each Page Counts

Each page of the web site should have a unique title that will interest the person who sees it in search engine results. Take a look at Google search results. First you see the Title of the page, then the Meta Description Tag (if the web developer has included it). Search terms are highlighted throughout. After the Meta Description Tag information (or whatever information the search engine’s spider has found, usually the first paragraph of the page) comes the url.

The Meta Description Tag

Even if you habitually fill in the page Title, it’s less likely that you add a unique Meta Description Tag, yet this is what search engine spiders look for after finding the page Title. Here’s the HTML syntax for the Meta Description Tag (add angle brackets at beginning and end):

META NAME=”Description” CONTENT=”Your descriptive sentence or two goes here.”

You can assist the searcher (and your client of course) by adding a summary of the page to the header of the page in a Meta Description Tag. Or you can make your client aware of its importance and ask them to supply copy for each page’s Meta Description Tag, if they are interested in determining what copy a search engine shows, rather than leaving the choice up to the spider.

Headings, Pull quotes, Boxed Text, Emphasized text

The next thing search engine spiders look for are the Headings you have used throughout. So, if content comes to you without Headings, add them! Break content into short paragraphs and add Headings. Add pull quotes, boxes, emphasized text. Search engine spiders will pick these elements out and rank your page higher for the terms emphasized in these ways.

There’s more to SEO

A full SEO campaign will include many components, including identifying competition and their use of keywords, keyword analysis, adding keywords to content, links-building programs, adding fresh content on a regular basis, submitting web press releases with inbound links, etc. The web designer/developer might only participate in a few of the components. These may be very important components though, so discussing them with your clients is worthwhile and can add to the services you provide and the compensation you receive from each web project.

Helvetica is one of the world’s most often used typeface families. This is due not only to its classic sans serif design, but also to the fact that it is the default sans serif font on the Macintosh platform (the look-alike Arial was chosen for default use on the Windows platform).

Designed in the 1950s by Max Miedinger for the Haas Type Foundry in Switzerland, the revival of Akzidenz Grotesk aimed at creating a continuously weighted family, in condensed and expanded as well as regular weights. This gave the family tremendous versatility. The name comes from the Latin name for Switzerland: Confoederatio Helvetica.

It’s impossible to grasp the power Helvetica had over designers before the digital age. If you’d like to understand its history and the love affair designers have had with Helvetica (which is often passed over today due to overuse), you’ll be interested in “Helvetica: A documentary film” by Gary Hustwit, 2007.

Shot in the US, England, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, France and Belgium, the film mixes visuals using Helvetica with interviews of well known designers: Erik Spiekermann, Matthew Carter, Massimo Vignelli, Wim Crouwel, Hermann Zapf, Neville Brody, Stefan Sagmeister, Michael Bierut, David Carson, Paula Scher, Jonathan Hoefler, Tobias Frere-Jones, Experimental Jetset, Michael C. Place, Norm, Alfred Hoffmann, Mike Parker, Bruno Steinert, Otmar Hoefer, Leslie Savan, Rick Poynor, and Lars Müller.

Here is a group of trailers for the film with several interview samples:

“Helvetica: A documentary film”: trailers

It’s well worth viewing. Hope you enjoy it.

For the past two years, we’ve compiled a list of Design competitions and Events and published dates here in this blog. This year, we added a Design Calendar to the main website. In addition to the list, updated for 2007, you’ll also find a calendar, showing all the events/deadlines month by month.

We’d really appreciate your help with this project. Send urls and details of design competitions and events, and we’ll add them to the calendar. Help us make this calendar better and better.