Mokokoma Mokhonoana || Graphic designer

Mokokoma Mokhonoana || Graphic designer » Web development http://mokokoma.co.za Tue, 28 Jun 2011 11:57:55 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Website intro pages, the good and the unnecessary! http://mokokoma.co.za/website-intro-pages-the-good-and-the-unnecessary/ http://mokokoma.co.za/website-intro-pages-the-good-and-the-unnecessary/#comments Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:42:39 +0000 Mokokoma Mokhonoana http://mokokoma.co.za/?p=541

Website intro pages, the good and the unnecessary!

…sometimes we don’t really need the introduction.

In my previous post on website sins I focused on some sites’ lack of a web analytics feature and in this second post to the series the discussion will be on website intro pages both the good and the not so necessary.

The main challenge in achieving simplicity is that it forces logic behind every element that you plan on adding to an interface, the frequent question to oneself as a designer being “what value does this element add to the end-user?”

This is a question that should be applied to design in general, you don’t have to have a minimal approach to design but why have something that it’s absence or presence makes no difference to the design’s overall purpose and intentions?. Aesthetics? well, that’s a valid argument. But not in all cases.

Some designers have a habit of creating intro pages where the user is supposed to click “enter” to enter the website.

This puts your logo in the visitor’s face, it embeds your logo in their minds and they’ll never forget your brand, right? Nonsense!

An average visitor will get to your website because they intentionally wanted to, then why ask the user if they’d like to ‘enter’ your website?

That’s bad web design practice, an unnecessary click.

When backed with a logical reason behind intro pages can actually add enormous value by enhancing visitors’ browsing.

The three most popular correct usage of intro pages is to bless the users with choice of preferred language, html or flash version of the website and option to directly browse sections of the website that interests the visitor.

Below is three examples of intro pages showcasing the above correct usage:

Giorgio Armani

The above intro’s purpose is to give users an option to choose a language of their preference.

Damien du Toit

Here visitors are given the different sections of the website, and a choice to select those that are of interest to them without having to browse through every part of the site. The intro page also displays 10 most recent post from the blog, which is convenient for Damien’s blog followers.

Reggie Legoale

On fully flash based websites an intro page can be used to offer an option to download a flash player, specify technological requirements or to simply buy patience.

What’s your take on ‘click here to enter’ intro pages, especially on sites that publishes new content frequently?

Doesn’t it annoy regular visitors to go through the same intro over and over again? Or should visitors just type the directory to the section that gets new content (e.g domain.com/news)?

Links to sites that practices both the good and the unnecessary usage of intro pages will be appreciated, do share.

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]]> http://mokokoma.co.za/website-intro-pages-the-good-and-the-unnecessary/feed/ 1 Common website design sin, the lack of web analytics http://mokokoma.co.za/common-website-design-sins-1/ http://mokokoma.co.za/common-website-design-sins-1/#comments Mon, 27 Oct 2008 08:17:01 +0000 Mokokoma Mokhonoana http://mokokoma.co.za/?p=448

There is a lot of common website design mistakes made by web designers, I will dedicate a post to each mistake that I’d like to address.

The first ‘sin’ for this series is the most simple to implement but quite an often overlooked feature, especially by ‘newbie’ web designers. This is web analytics, or rather a lack of such a feature.

Web analytics is the study of the behavior of website visitors, in order to improve it. An analysis of the usage patters of a company’s website with the goal of better understanding customer behavior as well as identifying strengths and weakness of the company’s current online offerings.

This may include understanding how many people are visiting a web site, what are the most popular pages, what are the most popular paths, where are people coming from, where do they drop off, how long do they stay, etc.

In a commercial context, web analytics especially refers to the use of data collected from a web site to determine which aspects of the website work towards the business objectives; for example, which landing pages encourage people to make a purchase.

Although this isn’t really design related but it’s a very crucial feature that makes or break a website. No matter how well a website might be designed, it’s a recipe for failure if one cannot measure the website’s performance and effectiveness.

Web analytics is one of the most important features as it allows a web designers to make any necessary changes to a website to adopt to needs and take advantage of visitors’ browsing patterns.

There are many reliable web analytics providers, and most are free of charge. The two that I use are reinvigorate and Google Analytics. It only takes two steps to add the feature to a website, register with a web analytics service provide of your choice, and simply copy+paste the code that they provide you with to all web pages that you’d like to monitor, preferably all pages.

“You can’t control what you can’t measure” – Tom DeMarco

Reports of the website usage must be compiled on regular basis, to measure marketing efforts effectiveness and to highlight areas to amend to improve user experience.

Related Writings:

]]> http://mokokoma.co.za/common-website-design-sins-1/feed/ 2 IEC website punishes its visitors for NOT using ancient technology! http://mokokoma.co.za/iec-website-punishes-its-visitors-for-not-using-ancient-technology/ http://mokokoma.co.za/iec-website-punishes-its-visitors-for-not-using-ancient-technology/#comments Sun, 19 Oct 2008 15:39:13 +0000 Mokokoma Mokhonoana http://mokokoma.co.za/?p=364

I wrote about something similar regarding sabc one’s website, but this time I stumbled upon a worse situation.

Firstly, let me start by educating those of you who aren’t website developers. There’s a traditional web design strategy called progressive enhancement, simply put:

a website must be developed in such a way that all users are able to access basic content and functionality of a web page regardless of their browser or internet connection.

IEC’s website is however doing the opposite which is quite disturbing. I get this message while trying to access their website on FireFox 3 on a Leopard OS (Mac):

Our server detected that you are using a browser or operating system (e.g. Netscape, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome etc.) which is currently incompatible with our website. The current website is only compatible with Microsoft Internet Explorer V4 (and upward) on the Windows operating system.

I always find it disturbing for organizations which can afford professional services but somehow decide not to invest in one.

The other issue that I believe contributes to situation like this is the fact that people tend to make website development a once-off thing, once live websites still need to be monitored and maintained… it doesn’t necessarily have to be updating of new content only – the website (developers) should take advantage and benefit from newly available technologies, that emerged after the site was launched.

The last part of the error on IEC’s website (shown to us visitors who does not ‘meet’ their site’s technological requirements) states that the site is currently under construction to rectify the situation.

We sit and wait hope.

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]]> http://mokokoma.co.za/iec-website-punishes-its-visitors-for-not-using-ancient-technology/feed/ 8 How many concepts should creatives present to clients? http://mokokoma.co.za/how-many-concepts-should-creatives-present-to-clients/ http://mokokoma.co.za/how-many-concepts-should-creatives-present-to-clients/#comments Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:51:29 +0000 Mokokoma Mokhonoana http://mokokoma.co.za/?p=234

How many concepts should creatives present to clients?

This is one of the many debates amongst creatives themselves (and sometimes with their clients), some creatives developed this mentality that the more concepts they present the more the client will believe they’ve earned what they charged.

While it’s tempting and might sound like a good idea to feed the clients with multiple concepts, it always leads to the project taking longer than it is necessary to complete and more options often causes confusion.

As a creative you might develop say 3 concepts to present while you know very well which concept is better than the rest, then why not invest the time you have in working more on the approach that you believe is best to meet the project’s goal.

The other reason I’m not for multiple concepts is that clients tend to try and make ‘one’ concept out of the multiple concepts that you present, “…take this from concept one, use that from concept two and take those from concept three…”

I personally avoid multiple concept and drive clients towards “one concept, multiple revisions”

Presenting multiple concepts does nothing but give the client an opportunity to pick their ‘favourite’ amongst presented concepts… which doesn’t necessarily equal to the best concept for the project.

As a professional designer you are hired to provide the best design solution, then why propose multiple concepts? No matter how good the concepts are, there should the best, that’s the one you should sell.

Just like with a doctor, you pay them to offer the best solution to your medical condition (design challenge), to cure the condition (design goal)… before the doctor can start with his work the patient first will tell the doctor about their condition, pain, when it started an so forth (design brief)…

The difference is you’ll never get a patient dictating how the doctor should treat their medical condition – I guess maybe the thought of a design project failing is nothing compared to the thought of dying.

How many concepts do think creatives should present?

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]]> http://mokokoma.co.za/how-many-concepts-should-creatives-present-to-clients/feed/ 4 My views on facebook’s advertising model http://mokokoma.co.za/my-views-on-facebooks-advertising-model/ http://mokokoma.co.za/my-views-on-facebooks-advertising-model/#comments Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:56:49 +0000 Mokokoma Mokhonoana http://mokokoma.co.za/?p=100

Mark Zuckerberg and the crew behind Facebook has just launched their redesigned users’ profile layout. One thing for sure is that loyal users will definitely need some time to ‘digest’ and get used to the new layout. In this post my focus is more on Facebook’s ad system and a bit on the new layout.

My guess is that one of the reasons they decided to redesign was to maximize their advertising revenue, as one of the first changes one sees is that the new layout has more ads in more places than the prior design.

The common mistake people who aims to make money from their website make is that they always try to incorporate an advertising model/space after the site has been up and running. Ad space/model should be included in the ‘prototyping’ phase before the actual site is designed… it will be better than having to change the layout later just to accommodate advertising when users are already familiar with the existing interface.

With all users’ personal information Facebook has, I think their advertising’s relevance is quite disappointing, couldn’t they use a more targeting ad system? Yes I’m in South Africa but that doesn’t mean all ads from SA companies appeals to me!

Geo-Targeting alone won’t make facebook’s ads reach their potential!

Facebook currently uses age, sex, location, workplace, and relationship status to target users. I believe things like a user’s ‘activities’ can also be of value in terms of filtering ads, if Alfred likes mountain hiking – hiking gear would definitely appeal to him. The user’s ‘Favourite books’ section can also be taken further, as the author’s other books can surely be of interest to the user.

I think most ad models fail to reach the site’s potential because the advertiser doesn’t make the ad’s relevance to the user a priority, they instead get obsessed with how the ad looks and how many ads the user is exposed to.

As a user I’d rather have an irritating and not so good looking ad that appeals to me rather than nice looking ad of a ‘Stop snoring now’ offer.

When I decide to click to view my friends’ photos on FB, all I want to see is pictures of my friends, not some advert asking me: ‘Are you moving to London’ – no thanks, I’m happy with my country and its flaws.

And how does an advertiser get the nerve to ask the users if they’d like to see more adverts? This is like saying [below a billboard], now that you’ve seen this billboard, go 4 streets up, turn left and go 2 blocks up and you’ll find another billboard!

Users use FB to interact with their buddies, they don’t go there looking for ads! So ads should be placed with caution.

Facebook fails at segmenting their users further so companies that advertises on it gets a more user targeted and efficient deal.

A perfect example of a company that excels with it’s online ad model, I’d say is Google, everybody visits Google with the same goal – to search. The reason Google’s ad system is a success is that their ads are in a way what the user is looking for, let’s say you search for ‘laptops’, you’ll be given search results on your ‘query’ plus ads of companies selling laptops in your country/area. Google offers advertising that ‘captures’ people while they’re interested.

What matters should not be the millions of users exposed to an ad but rather the number of users that find the ad appealing. If placed properly an advert could be the second best thing [ after the actual content ] that an advertiser could give the user.

FB has all the info it needs to show ads appealing to users individually, as most of it’s content is user-generated.

I believe facebook’s ad model can be made more efficient to increase their revenue and more importantly show ads that add value to a user’s ‘facebooking’ experience.

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]]> http://mokokoma.co.za/my-views-on-facebooks-advertising-model/feed/ 0 eAdvertising: pay per click or per exposure? http://mokokoma.co.za/eadvertising-pay-per-click-or-per-exposure/ http://mokokoma.co.za/eadvertising-pay-per-click-or-per-exposure/#comments Fri, 02 May 2008 19:52:38 +0000 Mokokoma Mokhonoana http://mokokoma.co.za/?p=73

The internet has without any doubt grown rapidly in the past decade, attracting billions of visitors daily to the world wide web. Which in return initiated an opportunity for advertisers to expose their brand, products or services to billions of online visitors world-wide on a daily basis by advertising on websites.

One of the competitive factors of online advertising is the fact that the advert is working or accessible every second of the 24 hours throughout the cyberspace.

Social networking websites, blogs, news websites and search engines are some of the top kinds of websites that attracts majority of online visitors daily.

In this article my center of interest is more on the fairness of the two popular advertising billing options (both on the publisher and advertiser) rather than the advertiser and the most suitable option for their advertising campaign only.

The two most used advertising space billing system on the web today is either charged ‘per-click’ or the advertiser is charged a ‘fixed’ monthly amount.

Pay per click (PPC) is an advertising model where advertisers only pay (for and) when a user actually clicks on an ad to visit the advertiser’s website.

While ‘per click’ billing is the best option for the advertiser, I believe to some extend it’s a bit unfair on the publisher. Take print magazines and newspapers for example, advertisers are charged for the exposure not on how many readers takes action to their advert.

Shouldn’t the same apply for online advertising, shouldn’t online publishers also be remunerated for the exposure they provide the advertisers’ brand with?

Brand exposure goes beyond the time frame of a particular advertiser’s campaign, A visitor might not find an advert appealing because they aren’t in need of the advertised product or service then BUT because of the advert the visitor might utilize an advertiser’s products / service later should the need arise.

For example I’ve been exposed to a lot of Apple mac resellers’ adverts, I didn’t find the ads appealing only because I wasn’t in a need or looking for a new mac but now (after seeing the ads) I know where exactly to go when the time to upgrade my tools of trade (computer and softwares) comes.

I would love to hear your views on the matter as a (potential) sponsor and/or as a publisher, so please share your thoughts by commenting on this post.

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]]> http://mokokoma.co.za/eadvertising-pay-per-click-or-per-exposure/feed/ 9 Sabc one’s website gets hit by eGravity! http://mokokoma.co.za/sabc-ones-website-gets-hit-by-egravity/ http://mokokoma.co.za/sabc-ones-website-gets-hit-by-egravity/#comments Mon, 18 Feb 2008 06:58:47 +0000 Mokokoma Mokhonoana http://mokokoma.co.za/sabc-ones-website-gets-hit-by-egravity/

…And hopefully, that’s only on my mac.

It looks like the website was deprived a very underestimated yet imperative web development phase, cross browser compatibility testing. A phase which ensures that the user’s experience is enhanced regardless of the browser and platform being used to access the site. Ensuring that your website works across multiple web browsers, platforms and devices will ensure that your website is accessible to as wide range of users as possible.

That’s one phase that makes a web developer’s life hell. While the developer’s priority should always be the site’s users with their browsers and platform in mind. That doesn’t make the process any easier because you still have to contend with different versions of those particular browsers, so a website that functions perfectly on IE 6.0 may look completely different on IE 4.0.

The National Broadcaster’s online nightmare is however, worse than I thought. It seems like the website doesn’t display properly not only on mac browsers but also on some windows browsers. If not all.

Personally, I think the site was tested only on one browser. The web developer’s.

I won’t even touch the look of the site, the functionality (or lack of one) is what I will focus on.

And who is to blame? The web developer, or the client?

Simple, the developer.

Reason being, the process of avoiding such nightmares should be part of the debugging phase. You’re free to argue, but it’s unfair for a client to pay and still be given the task of ensuring that their website displays properly across major browsers or at least those of their target market.

Would you think of it as a fair trade if they sell you condoms and make it your responsibility to ensure that they work properly? I doubt it. You might have quite a hefty price to pay, your life. In business ‘your life’ would be your company image.

This looks horrible on the Sabc’s image. What if the visitor is a potential business client doing their research on the broadcaster through their website?

I personally judge people and companies on their image. If you hand me a ‘cheap-powerpoint-designed-looking’ business card and still expect me to trust you with my brand then I’d say you’re being over ambitious. If you don’t take your image seriously then how the hell would I trust you with mine?

A company’s reputation is often confused with their image. Reputation is only one component of an overall image.

The Sabc might have a reputation for broadcasting quality and appealing tv shows to its audience but one thing they should know is that their company image also includes the quality of their marketing, advertising and presentation materials.

Content is sure king and if you agree to that, then that makes presentation queen.

And what’s a king without a queen?

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