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INTERACTIVE AGENCY
Web Design
Usability
The one-page website
Here in the creative room at centresource, we’ve been noticing a new trend popping up with more and more frequency in the world of web design: the one-page website. For a creative, it’s an example of yet another way that designers and developers are figuring out how to break down the walls of traditional websites. And we love it.
CentreSource sets future trends | Smashing Magazine
When Jason O’Brien created http://BountyBev.com, he did it as a labor of love & it shows his passion for beautiful design & layout. Well, it seems that Smashing Magazine also agrees - they feature his design as one of the design trends of 2010 (Design For Delight). Check it out!
Sorry, your card has been declined
Most people would not be very excited to receive an e-mail that says “Payment Declined.” Did I forget to pay a bill? Is my credit card over the limit? Did my rent check get double posted? What on earth is going on? For me, this was actually welcome news. It means that I had found the only way to get past a critical flaw in a Web application.
“That was Awesome!” Understanding the Key Components of Experience Design
When was the last time you had a really enjoyable experience with a product or service? Do you remember how it made you feel? Do you remember what about it made you feel that way? What about your experience stuck out most in your mind? If you are like me, some of these questions can be fairly difficult to answer, while others may be incredibly obvious. On top of this, the answers may seem clearer in one case than they do in another. Welcome to the world of experience design. This post is primarily taken from the first part of a presentation I made a BarCamp Nashville in 2009, entitled “Whoa! Creating Engaging User Experiences“.
Slide from Whoa! Creating Engaging User Experiences
“I feel the need… the need for speed!”
For anyone (like myself) who has been religiously following Google and the amazing things that they have done to improve people’s experience on the web, you would have noticed a pattern in December 2009 of “speed.” The reasons for their speed obsession are clearly justified; a user’s experience on the web is made or broken by the speed at which they are able to browse, including the initial page load, the responsiveness of the interactive components, and the number of clicks to get to retrieve their desired information.
As such, Google has been busy releasing various tools to help with user’s experiences on the web:
New Year’s Resolution: Update Your Browser
You have likely already seen this video. Google interviews a number of people in Times Square to see if they can answer the basic question: What is a Browser? Less than eight percent guessed correctly, and you can be reasonably sure that figure translates well into the general public. When it comes to the Internet, one of the single most integral pieces of the experience often gets overlooked.
Spy On Your Site Visitors With ClickTale
Over the course of the past few months, our designers and strategists have been hard at work brainstorming and creating a new centresource.com. We’re nearing the completion of this site and can’t wait to share it with you! One thing that we found to be helpful when strategizing the format and features for the new web site were observations that we made while using a tool called ClickTale.
FIREWORKS Sold Here!!!
I live in the wonderful town of Pleasant View, Tennessee. It’s located about a 30 minute drive northwest of Nashville. Yesterday, as I passed exit 31 on I-24, I saw a sign in bold red letters proclaiming… “FIREWORKS Sold Here!” Nothing too fancy or flashy, just red paint on a white sign.
I began to recall fond memories from my childhood… memories of the all-too-seldom family vacation fireworks stop. At every exit with fireworks I would beg my parents to pull over and let me partake of explosive goodness. I’m not sure if it was the idea of blowing something up, or the large red arrow that caught my attention, but regardless…I wanted them…NOW.
Writing Content? Think Brief.
Content is king, right?It takes great content to both 1) optimize your website for high organic rankings on search engines, and 2) communicate the concept and benefit of your business to your web traffic.
Great content is keyword-focused, frequent, and direct. It’s also brief – probably even more brief than you’d want to assume.
This study on web usability highlights some startling facts for those long-winded writers among us (myself included):
- Users tend to spend a baseline of about 25 seconds on your page if they’re actually reading content. In that 25 seconds, they’re reading about 104 words.
