Usability & Functionality

Using basic user experience best practices will help your site in significant ways and is yet another way of how to improve a website. Understanding the way someone uses a site will create your definition on how to arrange content, order content and build functionality to create expected behaviors by your audience. It is extremely important to develop clear distant pathways on how to navigate the content. This will move your user throughout the site and achieve goals you define like filling out a contact form, requesting more information or signing up for future email marketing. Functionality requirements will define the elements that need to be present in order for your user to use and interact with site content when and where you intend.

Content

You want to make sure the content you put on your site is useful to your user. You want to teach them about your business, brand and offerings. The type of content to include on your site will vary based upon your marketing strategy and plans. If you want to appear as a resource and a go to place for the latest industry information you will want to include a blog feature on your site with recurring content that a user can keep coming back for. If you want to allow your customer to be able to see work you have created you will want to include a searchable portfolio or gallery of work.

 Accessibility

When you build a website, you will want to test the site to make sure it works well and that the functionality is maintained in all the browsers, platforms and on the multiple devices your audience uses. Making a mobile friendly version of your site is a necessary step these days as the mobile penetration is growing every day and will soon be greater than that of desktop computer usage. You will always want to take into consideration any disabilities your audience may have and build functionality that will make your site accessible to them.

Search Engine Relevance

When you create a site, content and tags you will want to find keywords that help you rank higher in search engine for relevant terms. The search engine will crawl your site and index the content from live text, coding and tagging. In order to rank higher in search results you will have to continue to allow your site content and search terms to evolve over time. Your site will build up search engine credibility the longer is it up and the more traffic is sees.

These are just a few ways of how to improve a website and if you work at addressing them, your site will be better than ever.

So, what is usability?

Basically, usability is the way to make sure everything on the site works well. Every designer tries to invent something unique each time they design a website. Often, it’s not making website easier to use. The value of website usability is to remind the designers to create websites that can be easily used and navigated by it’s audience. Successful websites are created when there is a good balance between creativity and usability.

Website Usability Best Practices.

Here are just few of the many website usability best practices:

Ease of use
Once the user gets to your page he shouldn’t have a doubt of what it is your business is doing and why they are here and not on any other site. Clearly spell it out in a tagline or welcome message. Make sure elements on your site are in a obvious visual hierarchy, buttons. Define different areas that are easy to tell apart and create visual clues that are familiar to the user.

Clear navigation
Your visitors should be able to easily navigate to the information they are looking for. Navigation should always be consistent on all the pages. You may think that people that get to your site always land on the homepage but that’s not the reality. User can get to any page in the middle of your site without knowing where they are and who you are.

Professional looking site
Your site should look professional and reflect your brand. If your website looks unprofessional, not organized and put together badly, you will loose credibility in the visitor’s eyes.

Search box
Include a search box on every page of your site, just in case your visitors won’t be able to find the information they are looking for.

Fast loading
Make sure your website is loading fast. People don’t like to wait and you are risking loosing potential customers. Limiting the number of animation and graphic elements will help with loading speed.

Short forms
Don’t make forms too long. Users will think it’s too much work and decide not to go all the way through the form completion.

Accessibility
Make sure your website is accessible. It’s a good practice and you then are not potentially missing out on the market with people with disabilities. Think about how people may use your site and on what type of device and then design and build to that.

Usability Testing

Testing your site is the only way you will know for certain if a feature or layout will work or not. You can outsource usability testing or perform it yourself. You may see that users interact with the site in ways that you might have not suspected. That will allow you to improve usability and increase your conversions. Everyone uses the web differently and you have to create a way to try and get them to interact with it the way you intend. The testing can reveal this.

What is Website Content?

Content is not merely the words you choose to put on the site. It is basically all the types of things you want to include to give someone more information about your company. You want to make sure to identify the types of content to best communicate and achieve your marketing strategy goals. It can include things like:

• Images
• Blogs
• Games
• Case Studies
• Informational Request Forms
• Quote Forms
• Testimonials

A Content Calendar

It is extremely important to refresh the types and body of content on an ongoing basis. A website is a living breathing thing that should evolve over time. You need to give potential and existing customers a reason to continue to come back to your site. This helps keep your brand and products or services top of mind. Which is a very important place to be when a person finally decides to make a purchase. In the calendar you can determine the frequency of these updates as well as what to update. It can serve as an action plan throughout the year for what to do next.

Delivery of Content

Another key piece of the website content strategy is where on the site to deliver the information. Is it on the home page? Is it in it’s own section? A structured and well thought out hierarchy and navigation structure will show how to best arrange these content elements. You want to make sure through common usability practices to bring the users through the content in the exact way you intend. Giving the user multiple touch points to access the same information is a good idea.

A website content strategy is a necessary part of a successful website launch and always can be referred back to in order to optimize performance through analytic tracking. This allows you to create a starting point to move forward from.

A site map is usually developed before the wireframe for each page is created. The site map defines the basic site architecture and shows where each element lives in the backend and through the navigation. This functions as a game plan for how everything is displayed and built. Once you have the place and navigation structure determined, you can begin to build the wireframe for each page. Some pages will have unique wireframes and others may use existing ones with content switched out. It depends on what each page is being used for and what content is required.

Considering Content Hierarchy

You must take all of the elements or types of content you want to include on your site and decide what information is the most important for your user to see and digest. What is it that you want the users to do or what is the purpose of your site? You will put these elements towards the left and top of your page. A best practice is to place your logo first or in a prominent place on the page to help reinforce your branding and let your users know they have come to the correct site or who’s site they are on. The navigation in most cases will be second most important, followed by the content you define as the most important or gets the users to engage with it in the way you intend.

Making Your Site Easy to Use

Usability considerations should be a big part of the wireframe creation. You have to make sure you design a wireframe that is easy to use, navigate and content is displayed quickly and consistently. So that when a user moves from one action to another they know what to expect. Nothing is more annoying to a user than a site that is broken or switches the way information is displayed or accessed throughout the site. It creates confusion and frustration and that’s the last thing you want to do.

What is a wireframe and other marketing related questions are explored in the Creatage blog. Take a deeper look at all our blog posts to learn more about marketing.

Finding a Good Fit

You need to find an agency that you feel does a good job representing other brands. It helps if the agency has experience or related experience in the particular category your product or service falls into. This gives them initial insight into the audience and often the competitiveness of the space, but it is not necessary. Agencies are used to diving in and getting up to speed pretty quickly. Doing research on the different agencies and their clients can help you narrow down the agencies you want to bring in for review. It is helpful to bring in a few and ask for specific information and define tasks from each to compare. This also allows you the opportunity to meet with the people in person that would most likely work on your account. You get to experience the potential client agency relationship first hand.

During these meetings you can get a feel for how you are heard, how your input was received and the level of creativity of the agency. They can provide you with a plan or vision for how they see your product or service reaching your audience. You can determine if you have similar goals and if they solved they marketing questions you have asked them.

Types of Agencies to Consider

Full Service Ad Agency–this is an agency that offers a wide variety of services and can help really keep your branding consistent and provide a single line of communication for all your marketing efforts. If you really like the relationship this is a great option.

Specialty Agency–this type of an agency specializes in one or a few related marketing fields, like digital only agencies. They can bring a great level of experience and understanding to a particular media. This type can be beneficial to a company who needs just a few marketing pieces or has an internal team to support the rest of the marketing. It is not impossible to use a set of specialty agencies to meet your variety of needs. It just requires more management from your company to keep everyone on the same page.

Fostering the Relationship

Communication is key. An agency partner needs to be abreast of your ever-changing business climate, company goals and new objectives. Your agency needs to be flexible, adjust thinking and sometimes meet impossible deadlines. They have to feel like part of your company and your team. A good client agency relationship should feel effortless and seamless.

The nest step is to make sure you have proper technical support for your IPad in business whether you are going to outsource it or keep it in house. Once the technical infrastructure has been setup, you can determine what applications are necessary and will provide a return on the investment. Things to consider when choosing an IPad as a business solution are the multiple ways it can be used. Some of them are communication, document and file access, productivity, reporting and analytics, social networking and customer service. In this article will we focus on communication and the other solutions in subsequent articles in this series.

Communication Made Easier

The evolution of the IPAD has expanded corporate communication to new levels. It is not limited to strictly phone calls and emails anymore. New technologies have allowed us to do video calls and video conferences. This is a vital asset to any company especially those that are geographically disbursed. Internally, companies are utilizing the Facetime application to connect with colleagues to collaborate on everyday business activities. Having face to face conversations is important, but having them all in the same room is becoming more and more challenging.  Companies are seeing a decrease in email traffic and travel costs are being significantly lowered.  Externally, companies are utilizing the Facetime application to consult with clients giving them that feeling of personal attention.

Overall communication is one of the key aspects of any business. Utilizing the Ipad platform has given businesses and clients an enriched communication atmosphere.  It has escalated customer service and helped cut telephone and travel costs. This IPad in business solution is definitely a legitimate one.

We have a wide range of experience with truly diverse clients. Take a look at our portfolio to see some examples of our work. If you are interested in speaking directly to us about how we can service your particular needs, contact us here.

As internet technology evolves and your business grows our website maintenance service will take care of the changing demands of both. Different website maintenance service plans are available. This service can be helpful for the following project types:

• Corporate website design and development
• Custom ecommerce web design and development
• Microsite design and development
• Landing page design and development
• Custom wordpress design and development
• Personal website design and development
• Custom blog design and development
• Mobile website design and development

We have a wide range of experience with truly diverse clients. Take a look at our portfolio to see some examples of our work. If you are interested in speaking directly to us about how we can service your particular needs, contact us here.

It is extremely important for companies to identify and explain all aspects of their brands through corporate guidelines. It gives information on how to represent the brand everywhere and can be given to anyone doing work on behalf of the brand. Corporate identity guidelines serve as the main foundation for creating consistency in the brand.

Personal website design and development or custom blog design and development may be the right choice for these types of sites. The site should show your brand and ideals from a content and look perspective. You will want to convince people to come back and take a look at your new content. In personal website design and development you will need to decide the direction, purpose and functionality you would like to include in the site. A website planning document can help with this.

It can be built in a CMS like WordPress that can be easily updated and managed. A website maintenance service can help support the personal website design and development updating efforts if you don’t want to do it on your own.

We have a wide range of experience with truly diverse clients. Take a look at our portfolio to see some examples of our work. If you are interested in speaking directly to us about how we can service your particular needs, contact us here.