Topshop

Princess Fashion House

Next

Nerve Music Store

My Wardrobe

Mozilla Store

Klassiker in Acryl

John Lewis

Go Incase

Expresso Rub

ETSY

Elegance

Carhartt

Apple Store

Conclusion

So there we are - well designed websites offering a unique shopping experience! If there are any we have missed off - pop them in a comment below!

Also posted in the Attitude Design Journal.

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What is a “Home Page”?

A homepage is the first page the user comes to when typing in your url. This page would normally introduce your site in someway and it is the way in which your site is introduced which we want to focus on. One thing we want to make clear is that a “holding page” is not what we would class as a home page. A homepage offers you the navigation for the site and is “functional”. As a side point, Flash introductions and pages which say “click here to enter”, are not only terrible from a search engine perspective, but also from a usability perspective. So we are not talking about holding pages, in fact we don’t even believe in them.

What do you want your Home Page to do?

The Home Page is different from the other pages on your website. Why? Because the user has not asked for any specific information that they will see there. They have not clicked on an “about us” button or an “our services” link. The Home Page is all about what YOU WANT the user to see. It’s a portal to show the user what’s in the website and sell the information held further within the depth of the site. When the user clicks through to another page that page will display the info the user has requested - but on the home page the user hasn’t request any information yet. To keep users on your site you will need to show the user at least one of two things 1) What they came to the site to see or 2) Something that they didn’t expect but, upon seeing it, they will be interested in. For example you may go to a supermarket for milk but at the checkout you notice the chewing gum, nicely and conveniently stacked by the side of the till. The next thing you know is you have bought the chewing gum as well - something you didn’t go into the shop to buy! This principle can be used within your home page design. Normally, what you want your Home Page to do, is to give a balance between showing the user what they expect to see and attracting them to areas of your site they might not have known about but that you want them to be tempted by.

The “Shop Window”

Retail shop windows carry massive lessons for home page designers. Take a high street fashion shop for example. The shop window will typically contain the following - the logo of the shop, some attractive graphics, some plastic models displaying a wide range of garments which are sold in the shop.

Now a website is slightly different but the ideas are the same. The logo will give the overall authority and brand recognition to the website as it does above a shop window. The attractive graphics mean that the user’s eye goes to the area of the site which you want them to go to. These graphics may carry key messages which entice the user to go to that section of the site. Then there is a wide display of tasters from different areas of the site like the wide range of garments used in show windows. All of these things need to sit within an overall structure so the user can navigate simply and effectively.

Another lesson that can be learnt from shop window displays is that they are always changing. New products, new displays, new seasons. If there is a sale red “sale” words appear. They are always changing. This brings interest and attracts attention. It’s the same with your website. Update the information, change the main image / messaging graphics. Do you have a latest news section? Pull areas through to the home page. These things help to keep your site looking fresh.

Priorities

When designing a Home Page though, because there will be so many areas of your site which are important, you need to make some decisions. Firstly you need to ask; “what areas do I want the user to go to”? Then ask what areas will the user probably want to go to. For example you might find with a bit of research that people are coming to your site to read your blog - which is nice - but you want them to buy your products. Once you have established a user pattern you need to decide on the priorities of each section of the site. This will help you to create a Home Page which will have the balance. It will have enough of the things the user will want to see to make sure they don’t go away, but it will also have those things which you want the user to see. How do you find out what your users are doing? Install Google Analytics - It’s the best free website tracking software. Poynter have some very interesting research results. Basically they tracked where users eyes go over a site. Top left is most popular - bottom right is least popular. See the example below:

The above is of course, just a guide because if strong graphics were used on the bottom right the eye might levitate to that area. However it’s important to understand how people will naturally look at your website and make things easy for them.One thing which is essential is that you give the user an easy way to navigate and that they can clearly see they have come to a website owned by your company. Normally this is done with a consistent header bar which includes a logo and the main sections of navigation for the site.

Keep the message simple

The problem that some people have is that they want to say so much to a user that they cram everything in their home page. Remember sometimes less is more. Consider the apple site below:

The user clearly sees what Apple want them to see, although areas which the user might want to look at are displayed in four boxes below or they will be able to access them via the navigation at the top. In this example Apple have basically got 4 levels of priory. 1) the main message area, 2) The 4 boxes 3) The navigation and 4) the footer. Obviously things may be different for your company and your priorities may be different from an established brand like Apple.Heres another example from Skype. The text can be picked up by search engines but there really is only one thing they want you to do - download their software.

Last example - Ebay below - they have a few things they want users to do.

If you are not signed up, they want you to do so, so thats there as a priority. However what they also want people to do is get shopping so they have a few ways of doing that. One is a list of areas of products, another is by pulling our collections which may interest the user. All have the main aim of getting people face to face with the products - but all communicate what Ebay does best.We could of course feature many more sites but we’re confident by now you will be able to take the form of thinking we are promoting and apply it to your website. Get those priorities right and then your home page will start working far more effectively than if you haven’t thought things through…

Stay up-to-date

Just as a retail store may keep giving it’s shop window frames a fresh lick of paint and changes it’s window from season to season, so your site will need to be updated on a regular basis. Is your site a couple of years old? Chances are that web-design has moved on, even in 2 years. There will be new technologies, better techniques and new design styles.Also consider that peoples browsers change - IE6 might be the most popular browser for your audience today but maybe IE7 will be in a years time. What if your website falls apart in IE7 because it was not tested for the latest version. It’s important to review your site on an ongoing basis to ensure you maximize what the web can do for you.

SEO

Search engines have a massive influence on how many people will visit your website. This is where Search Engine Optimization comes in. Your home page is the main page of the site that will feature in the rankings. It’s worth getting an expert to analyze it and suggest improvements so that you can rank higher than your competition for key search terms.

Other interesting articles on this subject

Want to find out more - well folks if you liked that you’ll love these:

• Alert Box | Top Ten Guidelines for Homepage Usability
• A List Apart | Home Page Goals
• UX Matters | Home Page Design
• Web Style Guide | Home Page
• Alert Box | The Ten Most Violated Homepage Design Guidelines

Conclusion

So there we are, a brief outline of how you can improve your homepage, your online shop window. If you have any comments or suggestions that could help others please leave a comment…

This article can also be found at Attitude Design.

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What Is A Call To Action

Basically a “Call To Action” (CTA) is a section of text which tells the user to do something. For example “contact us today”, “find out more”, “register now” or the famous “click here”. Normally a call to action is placed along-side an attention grabbing advert or graphic.

There has been much discussion on CTA’s, from userbility, accessibility, design and marketing perspectives. There is no general way of doing CTA’s because it depends on what you are trying to get the user to do and where you CTA is placed. Here we have laid out a few guidelines for making your CTA’s better…

Wording

Many web designers argue that the commonly used “click here” is inadequate as a CTA because it does not convey why the user should take such an action.

It is commonly acknowledged that an effective CTA will inform the user as to why they should follow it. For example if we came across a “register now” CTA it informs us as to WHY we need to click it. “Click here” is an expression which fails on the informative front.

However on the other hand “click here” is a commonly used term which seems to work for the big companies. For example, see below:

Now we’re not suggesting that this makes it right but if it works for them then it’s logical to ask why can’t it work for the rest of us? The answer is of course, that it can work for us - only we can make our CTA even better. For example on the WSPA banner advert above, it may work saying “click here” but what if it said “click here to save a gorilla”, or “click here to find out why we need your help”. This would tell the user why they should do what it says as well as using the common term “click here” telling them how to do it. To make the CTA even stronger you could, for example, on the MYA cosmetic surgery advert have “click here for a free brochure”. This example offers incentives to the user as well as telling them why they should click.

The best word to use is “Free”. Marketeers all agree that “Free” is the most powerful word. So whatever it is, whether it is a free product or simply free information. A killer call to action then would include the command “click here” with the incentive of “free”. “Click here for a free sample” for example.

Messaging

Again the messaging which accompanies the CTA needs to be clear and simple. Most of all though it needs to give a sense of urgency. For example “Sale Now On - Hurry, ends on Friday” with the CTA “click here to see what’s on offer”. If we also added “Free” in there somewhere we would have a irisistable call to action!

The message needs to appeal to your target *audience and it needs to grab their attention. Don’t tell the user what you want them to do in the message, thats in the CTA, tell them what they will want to hear then tell them what to do.

Design & Images

Obviously CTA’s come in all shapes and sizes. The most simple CTAs are used in HTML text in anchor tags like this. Text links are useful for search engines who record the text held in anchor tags and add them as bonuses to search phrases - however they don’t look great. Use them in your copy but maybe use an image based CTA somewhere as well. If you are going to use a CTA in text - why not pop an icon next to it help the user to it from other text or links.

When styling CTA’s its important to make them obvious. The idea is to make sure the sure knows that they are supposed to click on it. Below are some examples of “button” style CTA’s:

CTA buttons are widely used alongside images with marketing messages. The message gets the interest, the CTA tells the user what to do. Again the principles of the wording of the CTA still apply but when coupled with graphics, especially appealing ones, the eye is incited in a way which simple plain text cannot do.

All images that you use need to be uncomplicated and need to back up or enforce the message and call to action. Sometimes just using a product shot will do the trick, other times a clever concept could be developed into the image. The important thing is to keep it simple though.

Conclusion

So there ends a breif introduction to makign your CTA’s better. Has anybody got any other tips or examples of better CTA’s? Leave a comment below…

This article can also be found on Attitude Design

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So why is that? Why is it that females don’t seem to be as prominent in web design as they are in say fashion design? Is the graphic design industry sexist? How can we balance the sexes in the industry and do we need to?

To open up this debate and to get an insight into what it’s like for female web designers we contacted four notable designers who kindly agreed to answer the questions below. I’m sure you may have heard of some if not all of them so I’m sure there will be no need to justify their presence here. If you do wish to find out more about these professionals check out their websites below.

Larissa Meek

Tanya Merone

Rina Miele

Veerle Pieters

Now the intros are over lets get into those questions…

1. Do you think there are less female designers than male? If so why do you think this is?

Larissa Meek
I know without a doubt that there less female designers in the interactive medium but I don’t think that it will be that way forever. I’m not 100% sure why, but I suppose it has to do with misconceptions. Ultimately it’s a relatively new industry and in the past many women were not into computers because it seemed a bit too technically complicated. After all, how many women do you know that are into fixing cars? Many women are creative but the technical fears of computers can seem intimidating.

Tanya Merone
It just so happens that I personally know about the same amount of male and female designers. However, from my online experience there appear to be many more male designers out there.
I believe this is rooted in the tradition. Computers were brainchildren of math and engineering minds, where men held most of the jobs. From there, bits and pieces of design emerged and were mostly self-taught by computer techies. Schools didn’t begin offering computer design courses until very recently.
Coming from a technical school myself, I have learned most of what I know about design on my own and not in school. Only towards my graduation I started hearing about courses teaching computer design. But before then – a few of those who were interested in computers (mostly guys) self-taught themselves the art of web design.

Rina Miele
I was asked a similar question before. There are definitely less female designers, though I’m not sure the reason. Design isn’t the kind of thing males would have a better aptitude for. I can’t seem to put my finger on it. Perhaps women aren’t interested in design as much as men are, much like with video gaming. Most women don’t care for it. It’s not to say that women can’t be better players… it just doesn’t appeal to them in the same way perhaps. Maybe this is a similar scenario.

Veerle Pieters
Depends on what kind of designer you are talking about. If you mean a traditional designer then I would say there are a lot of female designers out there. If you mean web designers than it becomes the opposite and that’s probably because the traditional designer isn’t too fond of making things technical and it scares them.

2. Do you feel that there is a stigma associated with females within the industry? If so please describe it.

Larissa Meek
No, I don’t feel that there is a stigma at all. I have never had any issues with being a woman in the industry. I feel that I have had equal opportunities just like anyone else. If anything, I have a stigma from being on Reality TV.

Tanya Merone
Although slowly changing, a stigma certainly exists in the wider computer industry, but I don’t think it’s much of an issue in graphic design field. Rather the issue seems to be lack of awareness that graphic design is not the same field as development.
Companies will often rely on their development gurus to produce applications and websites - but chances are the resulting product will not be appealing to the user. iPod is an excellent example – if it wasn’t for the appeal of its design, it would have fared much worse when competitors introduced technically superior models.

Rina Miele
I’m not sure it’s a stigma with women in design, or with women in the workplace altogether. I think that women definitely get taken less seriously by some men. I don’t think it is a problem that is getting worse, however, but quite the opposite. I think that this mostly happens in older generations, and as time passes this “stigma” will fade.

Veerle Pieters
I certainly don’t think so and to be honest I never think in terms of gender when it comes to work. I strongly believe any woman can mean as much in this business as her male counterpart if she sets her mind to it.

3. Do you have any examples of sexism you have personally had to suffer - with clients or within the industry?

Larissa Meek
I’ve never experienced sexism in the industry.

Tanya Merone
I have been fortunate enough not to experience any obvious signs of sexism, but I did wonder on more than one occasion the basis for certain decisions.

Rina Miele
As I was mentioning above… seriousness, accepting women are professionals and are as fully capable as men. Some men just can’t do those things. Personally, I’ve experienced a trace of this (with clients and within the industry), but nothing to stifle my career completely.

Veerle Pieters
I never had that problem, in fact the opposite.

4. How do you think this lack of female designers could be changed?

Larissa Meek
With time, more and more women will enter the industry because of girls whom truly were born in the computer era. These are girls who had a mouse in hand before they could say their first words. As more girls learn design, code and user interactions on the web; more will come to find passion for the industry. This medium is the future and there are new opportunities every day.

Tanya Merone
I think it’s great that there are now classes which teach computer design - I sometimes get emails from students telling me they’ve been asked to analyze my website by their professor :) Like I mentioned before, I haven’t had the chance to take many of these while I was a student. But I believe that this is a big step towards establishing computer design as a distinct field, separate from technical computer fields, thus drawing more females to it.

Rina Miele
At least in the industries I work in, I’m not even sure it needs to me changed. Would it make a bit of difference? Perhaps on some levels. The female perspective may be played down a bit. Though, I haven’t felt the dominance by an overly masculine design aesthetic guide my mouse clicking hand. Good work is good work. At least that’s how I see it. Maybe my experiences have led me to be a bit blindsided about the rest of the industry. But in any case, I don’t feel a strong male dominance impairing my work or my career.

Veerle Pieters
That depends on the person in question if she is willing to learn and experiment and grab an opportunity. It isn’t like men are holding us back, it’s up to you to set up a goal and go for it. This isn’t a gender issue in my eyes.

5. What would your message be to any females wishing to enter the industry?

Larissa Meek
Work hard and never stop learning. Technology is always changing. To quote Leonardo da Vinci, “Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master.”

Tanya Merone
I often get emails, many from females, asking me how I got to where I am and what steps should they take to get there. Ultimately, you have to love doing it. It is the most important part, in my opinion, regardless of which industry we’re talking about. If you love what you do, you’ll find a way to be great at it.
There was a point in my life right after I graduated from college where I had to decide between two paths: getting paid descent money for doing something I don’t enjoy, or doing something I love for a very minimal salary. Luckily I have chosen the second path. The low wage was only temporary, and now I’m earning good living doing what I love most.

Rina Miele
Don’t feel threatened or intimidated by the (potentially) overwhelming amount of males in the industry. Just focus on being the best artist you can be and doing what you love, because in the end, that’s all that’s going to matter.

Veerle Pieters
It isn’t a scary male world, in fact most men are glad to see a women and her fresh new ideas.

Moving Forward

We’d like to thank the interviewees for their time and the interesting insight they’ve given.

So do you have anything to say dear reader? Any suggestion as to why women are few in number in our industry? Do you have any comments or questions for the above ladies? We’d love to hear from you so leave a comment below…

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I find that brand portfolios are always a tricky subject. You find that with any large organization who develop a brand portfolio that they normally start off with little or no regard for the over-all styling in regard to each other. New products or services (shall we call them “ventures”) develop as a law unto themselves.

Suddenly, one day a marketing manager wakes up and realizes that the umbrella brand identity (in this example the “BBC brand”) seems alien to its children. Then steps are made to bring the portfolio into line so that a consistent style is met across all of them.

I often find Its a tricky process with each brand having people who care patiently about it. Also each brand has its own audience and messaging and so if done incorrectly can really upset peoples perceptions.

However I always think that when a brand portfolio is brought into line, it can’t be measured in the short term re-action but on the long term.

Before & After

Below is a before (left) and after (right) of the BBC’s branding:

Good Things

Overall when you look at the before and after of the BBC’s radio brand you can immediately see that they were in a complete mess when they sat next to each other. There really wasn’t any common theme which ran through them. Now they are cleaner and more consistent with each other. The most consistent elements being that they are all circular and a BBC RADIO brand sits in the same place in regard to the main identity.

They are also not boring and still have elements of uniqueness. I particularly love these minute unique elements. The Radio 3 “clef” mark is really clever as well as the “speech” mark on the radio 4 identity. These really help to subtly distinguish the target audiences and to some degree help you understand what each station does.

One thing that has been carried across is the colors of the old logos. I guess this still lends a little familiarity with the old and keeps some recognition.

Bad things

A few things I’m personally not keen on is the italic text in the 5 live logos - italic text does not line up very well and seems to unbalance things. Personally I try to steer away from using italic text using it only to emphasize areas in block text. It is harder to read and as we mentioned above is terrible to line things up with.

One of the weakest is the BBC RADIO 7 logo - I guess the weird thing that eats into the “7″ is a smile which is carried through from the old logo. Doesn’t do it for me. It needs to be more obvious.

Overall

Overall I don’t think things are too bad though. It’s solid and consistent and compliments the main BBC identity. They are all in line and site nicely together. What are your thoughts readers? Leave comments below…

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