When the branding gets tough, the tough …

I just read a an article on UX magazine that talks about the challenges in maintaining brand guidelines online, when at times these guidelines were created without online, let alone interactive, applications in mind. A situation like this can put designers in between a rock and a hard place. It’s our responsibility to respect and preserve the brand– to represent it well. However, when branding guidelines box us in to the point that we feel it is hampering user experience is when it gets tough.

It takes discernment to know when to embrace the rules and when to stand up and say that the rules need some improvement (which is a tough sell when these guidelines were set up specifically to preserve the brand). And, to me, that’s where the heart of this conundrum lies: your brand is upheld by all interactions with your audience. So maintaining your logo standards is one piece of it but by no means is it a silver bullet because overall user-experience can make or break the brand.

When making decisions about you online presence, some things to consider are usability, tone, clarity, reliability, and the list goes on.

The Fold Versus The Scroll

The fold… that mysterious moving target that webmasters around the globe wrestle with daily. Their challenge; to make sure that all branding, navigation and primary content is located at the top 600 pixels of their web sites so that visitors won’t miss any important messaging. This practice presumably based upon the assumption that web users don’t scroll.

A recent article published on Boxesandarrows.com called “Blasting the Myth of the Fold“, author Milissa Tarquini challenges this notion. Tarquini quotes recent studies which have found that most web users not only scroll, but they will scroll and respond to features located at the bottom of a website. The key to successful web layout is therefore not to cram your content above the fold, but to write compelling content that will entice the user to want to scroll to read more.

Soda fountains not fire hoses

Some churches and ministries look at email as a fire hose it is either on or it’s off. For the most part this is going to get people soaked, but not satisfied.

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CCO + Cool = CCOol!

Okay, so I couldn’t think of a “pun-nier” title for this piece, but that’s not the point. I got “CCO” in the title, which is good enough for SEO.

Coalition for Christian Outreach (CCO) has the unique endeavor of helping churches, colleges, and other academic organizations. They do this by providing Read more >>

Church of the Incarnation

I found the Church of the Incarnation website via Godbit. Overall I think it is a great website: good looking and easy to navigate.

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Kintera launches Kintera Connect

A few weeks back I posted that Kintera might open up their platform a bit, well today the door got a little wider.
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Feedburner gets more free

Mashable is reporting that a fee Feedburner Pro features will be added to free accounts. Woo Hoo! That’s what happens when Google buys you.

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Discover Truth for Yourself…

…with the help of the new Precept website! Congratulations to the Precept team and the Silas team that has been working on this project for several months. While there are a lot of great ideas and features on this site, one area that we’re particularly excited about is the “What is Inductive Study?” feature on the homepage and accompanying introductory pages within the site. This is a great way to introduce new visitors to your ministry and to help them determine their next steps. Take some time to look through this new site!