Tag Archives: Ideas

Redesigning the country selector

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During our recent checkout study we found several usability issues when using a drop-down for your country selector: a lack of overview, unclear sorting, scrolling issues, inconsistent UIs, a lack of context on mobile devices, and finally, they break the user’s tab-flow. So we took it upon ourselves to redesign the country selector. Using principles of progressive enhancement we turn a standard drop-down into an advanced auto-complete field. This means the drop-down remains accessible, while providing a much better experience in modern browsers – handling typos, multiple spelling sequences, synonyms and prioritization. Read more By Christian Holst for Baymard Institute, 10 Nov 2011.

For those who have heard Dan talking about social objects for beginners (and those who haven't)

As y’all will know, I’m fond of talking about “Social Objects” and how they pertain to“Marketing 2.0″. Even so, some people still get confused by what a Social Object actually is. So I wrote the following to clarify some more: The Social Object, in a nutshell, is the reason two people are talking to each other, as opposed to talking to somebody else. Human beings are social animals. We like to socialize. But if think about it, there needs to be a reason for it to happen in the first place. That reason, that “node” in the social network, is what we call the Social Object. Example A. You and your friend, Joe like to go bowling every Tuesday. The bowling is the Social Object. Read more By Hugh … Continue reading →

Do’s and don’ts of call to action pages

Good call to action pages (including landing pages and sales pages) are an important part of any website that either sells or asks visitors to sign up for something. An effective call to action page can increase conversions and signups by a hundred percent or more (sometimes much more). As designers, we should know exactly what makes an effective call to action page, both in terms of actual design and the kinds of content they should ideally include. Here are more than a dozen do’s and don’ts for crafting great call to action pages. In general, they’re not difficult to design well, but there are certain guidelines that sometimes run counter to a designer’s instincts, or what might work on other kinds of pages. Read more By Cameron Chapman for … Continue reading →

A guide to generating leads on LinkedIn

To me, LinkedIn has always seemed like more of a place to hunt for a new gig than anything else. And since I haven’t been in the job market for a while, I’ve paid it little mind. Plus, I’ve always thought LinkedIn was kind of … well, boring. If Facebook is a rave at a hip downtown hot spot, LinkedIn is a stuffy reception with piped-in music at one of those soulless function facilities conveniently located at the end of an exit ramp. Does that sound harsh? For sure. But now I’ve realized that I couldn’t have been more wrong. Read more By Ann Handley for Entrepreneur, 06 Oct 2011.  

Top 4 reasons your beautiful website doesn’t convert

There can be many pitfalls on the way to getting traffic to that beautiful site you created. All the design and creativity in the world won’t bring visitors to your site. You have to know a few basic laws of optimizing a webpage for search before the traffic will begin to flow in your direction. Below are a few tried and true reasons why your site may not be converting visitors to customers and what simple steps you can take to fix the problems you may be encountering. Read more By Kimberly Clark for WDL, 28 Oct 2011.  

Corporate logos in CSS

Find out how to draw the twitter logo (amongst others) with no images, no JS just CSS. Visit site

The invisible side of design

As designers, we tend to get distracted by aesthetics of our designs, and often do not pay enough attention to the other, invisible side of our creations. This talk discusses the value of functionality, storytelling and thorough editorial work in Web. It argues about the significance of purpose, context and quality in our decisions. It also provides personal insights and practical examples of invisible design being used in practice. Read more By Vitaly Friedman for Speaker Deck, 11 Oct 2011.  

16 pixels for body copy. Anything less is a costly mistake

I know what you’re thinking “did he just say 16 pixels? For body copy? Obnoxiously big! 12 pixels is ideal for most websites.” I’d like to persuade you otherwise. As usability expert Oliver Reichenstein says in “The 100% Easy-2-Read Standard”: [16 pixels] is not big. It’s the text size browsers display by default. It’s the text size browsers were intended to display… It looks big at first, but once you use it you quickly realize why all browser makers chose this as the default text size. Read more By B Nonn for Smashing Magazine, 07 Oct 2011.

15 tips on how successful people think

The world’s most successful people have one thing in common: they think differently from everyone else. This is how John C. Maxwell introduces his New York Times bestseller, How Successful People Think (he’s also written a ton of leadership books, which have sold around 19 million copies worldwide). Because we also believe that smart thinking will change your life, we picked up a copy from Barnes & Noble. Here are the best takeaways. Read more By Aimee Groth for Business Insider, 29 Sept 2011.