So everyone’s heard — Consumer Reports says that the new iPhone is badly designed causing weak signals and dropped calls. As a left-handed person, I was shocked that lefties were told they were holding the phone wrong. Jobs cleaned it up soon after, but here is a good example of poor usability. This blunder cost Apple a decrease in stock price, bad PR and some annoyed customers. The negative media attention seems to have outweighed the phone’s many good features.

RANT: Web sites and interfaces in general should clearly and easily draw people to where they want to go. Offer people too many choices, and they can’t make a decision.

Perfect case in point: Even though I love my HTC Droid Eris, there are little annoying things about the interface. Sometimes I wonder if the programmers and designers ever tried to use the phone. Let’s say you want to use the GPS feature and get directions to go to a destination. In the menu there are three feasible options — Navigator, Navigation, and Maps. Now the first two choices seem more likely, but already I’m annoyed that the phone is making me feel stupid for not knowing the difference between Navigation and Navigator. By the way you can get text directions through the Maps option. Choosing Navigation, you also get text directions, but voice turn-by-turn directions are only through Navigator.

Then if you’d like to change your Home screen, would you choose Setup or Settings? Only a tech savvy person would know to choose Settings. Setup would be for when you are first setting up your phone. Then why is it a menu option next to Settings?

The clock feature is also exasperating. How do you edit the city shown on the clock? You don’t. You must create a new clock for a new city and then delete the old one.

The list goes on and on. With each new phone I am forced to learn new things that aren’t even in the manual. I had to Google a couple of things, thank goodness the phone has internet access. Anyway, the point is, test your applications, interfaces, web sites please. Don’t be lazy, cater to the users. They will thank you in the end.

Does your business cater to young people?

Do children primarily use your website?

Have you tested your website’s usability on your target market… children?

Children and toddlers, even, are using the internet on a regular basis. A website that targets these young people will need special design considerations, but it will also present challenges in user experience. What this means is that young kids have special needs and challenges that need to be taken into consideration when designing a website for them. These include:

Eye-hand coordination

Non-readers or new readers

Ability to click mouse buttons

Ability to use keyboard

You may want to consider:

Having audio or video instructions

Not placing important navigation below the fold

Not using complicated functionality when simplicity will do

Not recreating standard design conventions, this could be confusing

Check out an article in UX Matters that Heather Nam recently published entitled Designing User Experiences for Children. She lists a useful list of suggested design conventions when designing for children.

What is a Competitive Analysis?

I often recommend a competitive analysis to small business owners who are looking to design or redesign their websites. You generally identify several or many industry competitors, and based on quantitative and qualitative analysis, I prepare a summary of findings and recommendations for the website. A competitive analysis will help you see what your competition is doing right and what they’re doing wrong, and how you can do things better. You also save yourself time by not reinventing the wheel, while at the same time adapting and innovating features and functionality.

How Would My Website Benefit from a Competitive Analysis?

• Get an edge over your competition’s website
• Find the best way to format your website
• Get a conversation going about possibilities
• Think of new ways to present information
• Think of new things to include
• Help decide the best approach for a visual style
• Compare usability and set a benchmark for improvement

Get your competitive analysis now. Contact Mindspring Design.

A client asked for a scrolling bookshelf. The client requested custom graphics on the shelf, informative popups, and links clicking through to each product. And the client wanted it to be easy to add or remove products to the shelf. Could I do it? Yep. If you’d like your own custom shelf, call me.

But if you want a FREE scrolling bookshelf, Shelfari can give you one of your very own. I created a quickie shelf on their website’s widget creator and this is what I came up with (it takes several seconds to load):

Not too shabby, huh? Click on a book and you go to the Shelfari site, then you can go to Amazon.com to purchase. Shelfari even allows you to input your Amazon affiliate id while creating the bookshelf. There are also a few different shelf color choices. Try it out, it’s fun!

Yesterday, Darren Waddell of Mashable.com posted about HOW TO: Create and Distribute Effective Online Coupons. More and more consumers have internet access and smartphones, and online coupons are a great way to encourage spending. This article describes the types of online coupons, ways to distribute, and how to measure your success. Mindspring Design is skilled at designing effective online coupons, whether they be a simple online banner and coupon code, or a printable email coupon. So let’s get started!

Okay, so this was a recent question in a small business forum. I will paraphrase it below then give my response. I also welcome your responses!

I have run an online shop for the past year. Although I only sell one product, there are over a thousand styles available right now. My products are high quality and low price. Most are priced $15.

However, business is not good because I only receive 20 orders per month. Is my product unpopular? Useless? Why aren’t people buying from my site?

I appreciate any suggestions from you.

Puzzled

Great question! I don’t want to disclose this person’s business website. However for the record, their product is for everyday wear. Though only one product is sold, there is such variety in styles, the seller can create a niche market. The web site looks professional and secure for shoppers. The web site also offers several ways to search for what you want.

So what the deal? Here’s my response:

Dear Puzzled,

Congrats on a web site that is well-organized and professional. It even looks as though you have optimized your web site for keywords pertaining to your product. Have you put your name out there? Submit your site to e-commerce search engines so that your products come up in their internet searches. Maybe you can even do some search engine marketing like Google AdWords. Promote yourself with press releases, news articles, email newsletters, videos, whatever you can think of!

Now another thing to look at…. the buying process has to be really easy, there can be no roadblocks or annoyances.  When I clicked on “Add To Cart”, a dialog box popped up saying “You Must Login First.” Then users must sign up for your site just to purchase a tie.

My suggestion is to eliminate this step.  Allow people to “Add To Cart” and to pay as anonymous guests. Then once you have gotten their payment/billing info, offer the option to save them as a registered user in your database.  I hope this makes sense, it will eliminate the alarming popup box that might be discouraging shoppers.

Well what do you think?

This Week in The Biz Bite, Entrepreneur Coach Whitney Keyes lists her Top 10 Small Business Technology Resolutions. Three of them especially caught my eye. I believe that these are major things every business should do all year long every year! Here’s an excerpt:

10. Work the Web. Ask yourself if your website (you do have a website, right?) still fits the needs of your business. Is it time to upgrade to an e-commerce solution so you can sell your products or services online?

I agree. I suggest getting a professional competitive analysis to see how your website stacks up to your competition. You will then get personalized recommendations for the most cost effective ways to expand your online presence and increase your website ROI.

7. The Search is On. Do you know what SEO is? Search engine optimization improves your rank on sites like Google and Yahoo! A few keywords can catapult your ranking in only a few months.

I continue to see small business websites that have not yet tapped into this opportunity. Step out into the search engine spotlight by investing in SEO. Consult with an SEO specialist to determine how you define your organization/products and how to capitalize on your strengths while  attracting new customers.

6. Be Smart and Social. Do some social media due diligence to find out if your industry cares about tweets, friends or followers before you invest valuable resources in social media.

Have your web designer do research on the viability and potential for social media. Do a test run to see the results. Be bold, think outside the box, and you might just be surprised!

In addition to Ms. Keyes recommendations, I also strongly suggest that small businesses put in place a regular web analytics schedule. This will enable you to see how well or poorly your website is performing monthly or quarterly. Then your web designer will suggest simple, practical improvements to increase the effectiveness of your site.

Mindspring Design adopts the AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Designers | the professional association for design) Design Framework. This process is adopted in whole or in part for all our current and future web design projects.

Why incorporate a process? This framework helps our clients understand what is involved in the design process. Creating branding and websites is not just an ethereal, serendipitous journey. Design decisions are based on research, communication, problem-solving and innovation. Our clients are well-informed collaborators throughout the process, and their business goals are a top priority. View successful case studies here.

Contact Mindspring Design at 856-393-0385 to see how incorporating this framework into your next website project can generate value for your small business.

Mindspring Design also has developed its own exclusive, comprehensive 62-point system for creating and assessing your printed graphics materials.

Dowload: 25 Essentials for Email Marketing Campaigns.

What do you think? Have these worked for you?