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.

One Creative Battle of Many

I love this depiction of humanity verses the machine called “Animator vs. Animation.” The setting is in a Macromedia Flash interface and the sparks fly. Even if you have never ever had to work with a graphics program, you’ll appreciate the rage against the computer.

Subtle Touch in Google Reader

I use Google Reader to read my RSS feeds. I’m subscribed to 173 feeds and in the past thirty days I’ve read scanned 7,750 items; I’ve probably read more like 6,000 items or about 200 items per day.
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Starting Point for Churches

We all need a starting point to everything in life. I have been fortunate enough to work with a lot of big hearted great churches out there and found a similar starting point for all of them when it came to their website redesign project. Based on that background, I compiled a list of Read more >>

Monkey + Robot = Monkbot (or Cybonky)

Okay, I admit it…  This is a stretch.  But I could not pass up the opportunity to bring to your attention one of todays great marvels of technology.  Please, take a moment to appreciate the beauty of technology, as featured in this Discovery Channel documentary:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK1WBA9Xl3c

If scientists can do this with a monkey, just think of the possibilities of what Silas Partners can do with your website.

Learning from Newspaper Frontpages

Thank you, Matt from the Signal vs. Noise blog for making a great point: there’s a lot in common with good newspaper design and good web design. Notice how these newspaper “best front design” winners use visual heirarchy. There are other good applications of information architecture (or “design by another name “) to be gleaned from this print institution dating back to 1622’s The Weekly Newes. Any ideas on other best practices we can take from newspapers?