Allan & Steve are the chubby founders of LessEverything. This is their blog, hear them rant, praise, give advice and talk about Just Stuff, Less Accounting, Lovd by Less, More Honey, Less Memories, Code, Business, Design, Marketing
Photoshelter.com is a stock photo site that advertises on various design blogs I visit. I had to click on their banner because they advertise "The Coolest Stock You've Never Seen". I entered the site, but first I had to register to see the pictures (noted as strike 1). Yeah the images are interesting, but how much are they? No pricing anywhere. I selected an image, it showed a photo details page. I had to select another link to find the pricing (this is already starting to suck). There I was met by a wall of drop downs that I had to select before seeing a price.
*Select Continent
*Select a Country
*Media (Electronic, Print and about 20 other options)
*Media Type (Web Catalog, Web site, Banner Ad and about 20 other options)
*Media Type Class (1/2 Screen, Full Screen, and about 40 other options)
*Duration of Usage (1 week, 1 month, 3 months and about 10 other options)
Good Lord, that took 2 minutes...I'm I suppose to repeat this step for every image?
STRIKE 2!!!!
Price $1081 -- STRIKE 3!!!
Goodbye PhotoShelter
I am sick of dreadful copywriting on websites. The only sites that warrant an excuse for being boring are banking and hospital websites. Most web design companies write copy around their design. I think this is backwards approach. However some design companies really think about copywriting, even still their copy makes me frown. Designers, if you like it or not copywriting can effect your design, make sure its doesn't bring your design down.
Today I ran across a site and thought the design was good and the copywriting was very clever, enjoy.
fortysevenmedia.com
Today I ran across a site and thought the design was good and the copywriting was very clever, enjoy.
fortysevenmedia.com
I was recently sent this redesign of mashable.com, the person that sent it to me says its leaked and we're the first to see it. Well I am honored they picked me to show the "world" but I wish it was a better design.
There's nothing really wrong about it but there nothing right either, its vanilla, its gray, its lukewarm, its blah. Enjoy it and feel "special" for seeing this :)
Thanks to my cold friend in the igloo for sending this to me.
There's nothing really wrong about it but there nothing right either, its vanilla, its gray, its lukewarm, its blah. Enjoy it and feel "special" for seeing this :)
Thanks to my cold friend in the igloo for sending this to me.
This isn't a post about politics, its about design. I found some major similarities between to the two splash pages. What do you think?
Why are the photos of the candidates and their families black and white? Is that to appear not tied to an ethnic group? I imagine there is probably some major market research behind that decision.
I do applaud John Edwards' design team for not being so stuck on red, white and blue.
Why are the photos of the candidates and their families black and white? Is that to appear not tied to an ethnic group? I imagine there is probably some major market research behind that decision.
I do applaud John Edwards' design team for not being so stuck on red, white and blue.
I am trying to force myself to read more books. My goal is to read a book, post a review and then pass that book along to a reader. I will only read books that our blog readers recommend.
Here's the first...
"Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug
Link to Book
Its about usability, sorry nerds.
I plan on finishing this short book this week, who wants it? Shipping is on me.
Got a book I should read? No Diet Books Please. :)
Attention designers: please use icons sparingly in your designs. They should be used to guide the user's eye to important links. Too many icons result in an overwhelming feeling by making it hard to find a starting/focal point. Friends don't let friends over use icons.
Example below...
Example below...
Attention My CSS Peeps! Here's a valuable resource for choosing fonts and all the "fonting" details in css. I've been using this site for over a year and loving it.
Post a link to a resource you use daily (programming or design).
http://typetester.maratz.com/
Besides Twitter's concept, why is Twitter successful? Simply put, the barrier to entry and reentry is painless. Initially I can setup my account, import my email contacts and start twittering in a minute or two. Each time I twitter the thought process is quick, its not a blog post, its not an essay, its a twitter. It’s a quick thought. The barrier to entry, the steps to completion, are fast and simple. Having the ability to twitter via instant messenger is just icing on the cake. With IM I don’t need to log into twitter.com and navigate to the correct page. I just type my message into the Twitter IM Buddy and move on.
What sucks about signing up for a gym membership? The two-hour signup process! What’s awesome about Burger King? The food, ha no, the quick drive-thru.
What steps can you remove from your registration process/user interactivity to make the barrier to (re)entry less painful for your potential users?
(Twitter Name = LessAllan)
A major pet peeve of mine is a design without a font hierarchy. BusinessCatalyst.com once again does a nice job of it. Note the text within the green square. Its a large font but because of the color, it doesn't dominate the design's balance. A couple of bad font choices can ruin a design.
Design doesn't have to be overly creative to be clean and beautiful. BusinessCatalyst.com proves my point, especially the "Join" page (Link). Having your design elements align properly helps the visitor's eyes to flow around the site smoothly. Notice the spacing between the headers and bodies of text, it gives your users a gap for their eyes to realize the elements are different. Pay close attention to these details it will make or break your user's experience.
I know its a lame graphic, but its still a good lesson to remember.
cheesy stock photo1) Where's the focal point? Give the user's eye a place to start.
2) Alignment isn't pleasing to the eye, spacing needs to be consistent
3) Your message isn't displayed quickly. WTF is this site about?
4) Use Font Hierarchy, please.
5) Unimportant Data Shown, lets not waste time.
6) No really, that data isn't important, remove it.
7) Its not User Interface Design its User Experience Design. Think about your user and their purpose for being there. Where are they going next? Why?
8) An unmemorable experience, a user spends 10 seconds on your site, do they remember you later?
9) Too many navigational elements and link colors, keep your link colors down to a minimum, this might sound stupid but i've witnessed this first hand. If you have a site with 4+ link colors don't do it.
10) Designing for flow first, the user needs to go here, then here and they must go here. This is typically a print designer mistake. Each page looks great but there's no smooth flow through the site.
I love simple clean design that is memorable to the user. I often do critiques for other designers, sometimes when I am in a bad mood I think of myself as the Simon Cowell of design.
Here is a recent help session.
Here is the design he sent
What I said....
Here is the design we came up with in 10 minutes of talking, its rough but its a better start.
Think about the process of what you are trying to accomplish. What does the user need to do next? On this app the user needs to select a city first to be able to see the available menus in their area. Why show them anything else besides "pick your city"?
If you need an outside opinion on your design hit me up. I love to chat about design issues and help push someone towards a solution.
Here is a recent help session.
Here is the design he sent
What I said....
- Less text, if you can explain the concept in 2 sentences its not written well or the concept is too confusing.
- Less data, don't waste the user's time by showing irrelevant data (why show the user "other locations", I don't care about people in NYC can order).
- Less confusion, can your Mom navigate the site?
- Less visual elements, you want people to go into ordering their meal, not read text and get distracted.
- This isn't a social network, so why have newest users?
- Less blah, don't be bland, don't call bland, simple. They are very different.
Here is the design we came up with in 10 minutes of talking, its rough but its a better start.
Think about the process of what you are trying to accomplish. What does the user need to do next? On this app the user needs to select a city first to be able to see the available menus in their area. Why show them anything else besides "pick your city"?
If you need an outside opinion on your design hit me up. I love to chat about design issues and help push someone towards a solution.
I wanted to share my design process for clients projects, maybe its different than most. It works for me.
In theory my process is to "peck" at a design or issue. Peck until inspiration dies or until my design or ideas fall into a rut. Pecking allows me not to waste time on a bad idea, sometimes a bad idea feels so right at the moment. Later you look at that idea and its totally wrong, you forgot something or you have created more confusion.
1) Review documents from spec or emails from the client. Our specs... now that is something we'll talk about later.
2) Work on other things. I usually do some sort of bike ride or walk in the evenings. During that time I think relax and go over the spec again in my head.
3) The next day or later that night I will sketch out my ideas maybe its a quick comp in PS. Work for an hour or so maybe inspiration hits maybe it doesn't
4) Let those thoughts clear out, it might take a day.
5) Continue thinking about issues if any...
6) Work on the concepts further until inspiration dies OR IF YOUR DESIGNS START LOOKING THE SAME. At any point if you designs start looking the same, stop, do something else.
7) Usually after a couple days of pecking the right idea rises to the top and its easy to see the right direction to go in.
I have found pecking to save me alot of time and it gives me the ability to juggle multiple projects at once, keep the creativity mojo flowing.
If you have a design process let me know, I would love to hear how it works for you.
In the past 7 days, I’ve had several people randomly email me saying that a site called ShoeBoxed.com looks like Less Accounting. So I check out their site.... and well.... “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” -- I guess. OK, maybe they didn’t use our site as inspiration. Perhaps I have a twin out there, separated at birth and he (or she) designed ShoeBoxed.com. ….you decide…
Notice the colors, the logos, the layouts and even the ideas are similar.
Notice the colors, the logos, the layouts and even the ideas are similar.