The Webmasters' Desk

Web site design overview

Mark Anderson — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 18:05:37 +0000

Web Design From Scratch offers a great high level view of designing a site. Here’s the skinny:

Know what you’re doing
Know what the site needs to do
Know what the site’s visitors want
Get a good picture of the personality and style of the web site
Sketch out highly successful scenarios
Organise views into a site map
Sketch the essential features & look
Map your visitors’ attention
Arrange the visual elements to work together

I encourage everyone to re-read this article before every project (myself included).

Designing using information patterns

Mark Anderson — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:13:10 +0000

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of 37signals‘ approach to application and Web design. There’s something about their approach that is exceptionally clear and easy to use.

Not too long ago, I found a blog post on their site that reveals the secret: patterns.

I encourage you to give the article a read and refer to it the next time you need to bring clarity to a collection of seemingly disparate information.

Four Sites Deconstructed

Mark Anderson — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 21:27:43 +0000

Jakob Nielsen analyzes four sites for usability in his April 14 column Four Bad Designs.

“Bad content, bad links, bad navigation, bad category pages… which is worst for business? In these examples, bad content takes the prize for costing the company the most money.”

Ouch.

Let me know what you think. Nielsen is a polarizing figure for Web designers, so I hope we can have some good discussion.

Web Slingers Local 186 will kick off at noon on Tuesday, March 25th

Mark Anderson — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 13:43:33 +0000

The first meeting of the Wisconsin School of Business Web Slingers Local 186 will kick off on Tuesday, March 25 from noon to 1:30 p.m. in the Capitol Conference Room (5120 Grainger). During the first meeting we’ll get to know one another and outline a list of topics to discuss over the next few meetings.

I encourage everyone to register for the Webmasters’ Desk (this blog) and post comments, or if you’re brave, post a full-fledged entry.

Stay tuned!

Web 2.0 Thumbnail Sketch

Mark Anderson — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 21:24:35 +0000

Social media and social networking sites offer new opportunities for organizations to publish content and interact with their customers. So just what the heck is Facebook? Why would I upload video to YouTube? Who stole the “e” from Flickr? Answers to these questions and more in this post. (more…)

How is Facebook like the mob?

Mark Anderson — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:27:22 +0000

Social networking sites are incredibly popular, particularly with college students. In particular, Facebook stands out as having the most penetration into this demographic. So, from a marketing perspective, it only makes sense that Facebook is the perfect place for universities to focus their social marketing strategies.

Not so fast.

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Wordpress Ahoy!

Mark Anderson — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 21:28:09 +0000

We’ve managed to get Wordpress up and running on IIS. More to come. Yay!

When HTML Email Goes Horribly Wrong

Mark Anderson — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 14:46:42 +0000

I get a lot of questions about how to make email newsletters visually appealing. While I understand the desire for adding some sizzle to your communications, This entry from design standards champion, Jeffrey Zeldman, outlines the pitfalls that await the HTML emailer.

The article, When is e-mail like a bad website?, deconstructs an HTML email sent from a major cell phone manufacturer, presumably with plenty of resources to perform usability testing (Be sure to look at the screenshots to see how mangled the messge gets). (more…)

What’s precise vs. what’s helpful

Mark Anderson — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 21:42:02 +0000

Take a look at the following collection of New York City subway maps.

The maps on the left are very precise. They are geographically pure. This would be great if they were intended for geographers or anyone else who needs a precise map.

However, these are graphics to inform people who ride the subway. They could care less about the surrounding landscape. They just need to find the right transfer, to get in the right tube. The information and clarity of the subway lines themselves is what’s most important.

The maps on the right are redesigned with the user in mind. They clarify the relationship of the subway lines to one another. Geographical purity is sacrificed, but the result (in theory) is a happier and more civil subway commuter.

Who is your audience? Do they need every tiny detail? What can you remove to provide more clarity to the message.

Remember, design and communication is the practice of subtraction.

Tracking Referals from a Campaign with Google

Mark Anderson — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 02:53:03 +0000

I get this question a lot: “how do I track how many people click through from my newsletter/ad/flux capacitor?” The best way to do it is to use Google’s URL Builder

What it does is tack on extra information to the URL for analytics tools (like Google Analytics and LiveStats) to chew on.

Here’s an example:

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