AtiKuS Design

I'm part of many thousands of supporters who are extremely happy with promotion and Barclays (who sponsor The Premier League) have used this knowledge to target us with a specific message.

I've just been looking at the latest Reading FC news on SkySports.com and noticed a banner ad from Barclays which displays a proud Reading FC kit with the Premier League badge adorned proudly on the sleeve. This image is accompanied by a congratulatory message from Barclays.

There's a good chance that Reading FC fans are going to be visiting this page and so it's a great idea to place the banner ad here. On top of this, there will be print ads all over Reading right now with the same congratulatory message.

Barclays are joining in the celebrations with the Reading FC fans and in turn making them look at the bank in a positive way.

Well played Barclays!

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Marketers are always looking for ways to get our attention and with the number of communication channels increasing it seems like I'm constantly being told about new products and sales etc.

However, you really have to be careful when deciding to have a sale, that it doesn't last too long or happen too often. In the UK, there is a furniture retailer called DFS who is famous for always advertising their 'new' sale which "must end soon!". However, I don't think anyone has ever paid full price for anything at DFS because as soon as one sale ends another begins.

If you are constantly having a sale people are going to become accustomed to your sale prices. Soon the sale prices will be how your customers compare all of your products, so anything not in a sale will seem expensive.

On top of this, if you contact people telling them about a sale too frequently they will become desensitized to the message and learn to ignore it.

In the image above you can see an email I get from Costa on what seems like a weekly basis, telling me it's 'Double points' week. I've seen this offer so many times that I just assume it is always going to be double points week when I go, so it is no longer an incentive for me to visit. In fact, it is now disappointing if I visit and I don't get double points.

So next time you are tasked to come up with an idea to get your customers attention, could you think about using a new message? With so many people having sales at the moment it might even be noteworthy to announce that you're not having a sale!

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However, the 'skills' section commits one of my biggest annoyances! It describes the 'skills' he has by telling people what software he can use. I see this type of thing a lot.

When you are trying to tell someone what you do for a living, you should not be explaining to them the software you use.

A doctor doesn't list scaple, stethoscope and sutures as his skills because they are just tools that help him to do his job. It isn't the how you get things done that you should be listing as your skills it is the thing you are creating with those tools that are your skills.

For example, if you are a UI designer your skills are NOT Photoshop and Illustrator, your skills are likely to be Wireframe design, Interface design and creating beautiful interfaces that are intuitive.

While I'm ranting about it, I'll also add that it is EVEN WORSE when employers list software as requirements for jobs. It shouldn't matter if a designer uses Photoshop or Fireworks or any other software to get work done. If they are the best designer out there that's what is important, you as an employer should just buy a license to their chosen programme and let them do what they do best.

I know people out there will disagree with me on this and I'd love to hear what you have to say.

The point I am trying to raise is that people are selling themselves short by stating the software they choose to use as a skill. Instead, people should focus on the things they deliver as their skills.

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I was returning to Pinterest less and less because it was hard to find good people to follow and after the initial excitement of joining had worn off I noticed that there wasn't that much new content (that I was interested in) being added that often.

However, in the last few days I have noticed they have added a 'Friends to follow' feature to my homepage, which is making it easy for me to follow people from my twitter feed. I didn't know most of these people from my twitter feed were using Pinterest and I certainly wasn't going to go looking for them. Now that I am being shown people I could follow, who I actually know (and trust that they will share good stuff) I have started following loads more boards.

This is by no means an original idea, but it has certainly enhanced my experience of Pinterest since it has been added.

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One really nice touch I noticed is their use of microcopy when things are loading. As you can see in the image when ever content is loading there is a quirky piece of copy. For the people who notice these messages (there are a variety of them) it makes the load time feel smaller and also gives you a sense of the light hearted personality of the brand.

Be sure to pay attention to the areas where microcopy could really help you to engage with your audience.

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Dropmark were offering beta testers half price membership to thank them for taking the time to help them out. I'd love to see how many people took advantage of this offer but given the situation I'd bet it was quite high. People who have signed up to beta test an app have already expressed their interest and when they first sign in to their first test session they are highly engaged and are more likely to be susceptible.

If you are running a beta test and want to maximise conversion, you could do a lot worse than trying something like this.

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One example of how not to do that comes from the new location app Everplaces. The service has been designed to allow people to create location based wishlists and to keep track of places they have been and liked. Activity can be tracked both via a web app and a mobile app and it is the early encounters with the mobile app that are less than immersive.

The screenshot above is the first screen you get when you either sign up or login to the mobile app. An empty screen with no explaination as to what to do or look for is certainly not an engaging first experience (I'll point out here that it's still in BETA so I may be being harsh). Instead, it would be a good idea to explain the app possibly by displaying example content, which gives first time visitors something to play with.

Have you seen any examples of services creating great first experiences? I'd love to see some.

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Not only is the app itself lovely, but the landing page which advertises its features is also a great piece of design. One of my favourite aspects of the landing page is the interactive way they chose to show people the apps core features.

Instead of choosing static screenshots and copy to show off the features they have employed an interactive representation of the app which gets people to play with the app in their browser. It's not a fully working app but it does a great job getting you acquainted with the main features.

Not only is this an engaging way to show off the app but it also gives potential customers a very early indication of where things are so they should already feel familiar with the app after they download it.

What do you think?

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However, I want to talk about a small feature of the iPhone app that made me smile while using it yesterday.

The iPhone version of the app incorporates a number of swipe gestures that allows you to maniuplate the content in various ways. One of my favourite interactions is the way in which people can choose to read the next article by continuing to scroll down after the current article finishes. This is reminiscent of the pull-down to refresh convention but you pull-up instead.

I liked this for 2 reasons, the first being just how natural the gesture felt and how easy it was to discover. There isn't a tooltip that informs you it is there, instead you are left to find it on your own. As most people are likely to be scrolling down reading the current article it is something they are going stumble upon.

Also, because the feature isn't explicity explained to people you get a sense of excitement when you find it. Sometimes it is a good idea to leave things for your audience to find because when they do they will get a sense of achievement.

What do you think?

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Chill is a video sharing website that promotes popular videos from various sources. So, getting people's opinions on the content is quite important to keeping quality recommendations coming through. They have created an easy to use rating system that only needs people to click an emoticon that matces their emotions. However, they have gone one step further to make sure people notice the rating area.

The rating area doesn't stand out at first, but as you are watching the video the icons suddenly change from grey to full colour and back again. This is very hard to miss, very much like an animated banner ad it catches your eye. Banner ads are annoying but the designers are trying to get people to give their opinions and so it is a neat way to highlight the feature.

What do you think?

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Last year saw 1 page websites grow in popularity. Everybody agrees people love to scroll, and on many touch devices (including laptop touch pads) it's easier to scroll than click through endless pages.

On top of this, the trend of parallax scrolling sites is still going strong as they add that extra bit of flair to and design (when done well).

However, one problem with the one page website is that every section is seemingly designed to have a specific start and end point and sometimes the design only works when the page is left in the 'correct' position. Of course, if people scroll through the design and don't use the often fixed navigation, this can mean content is being read at a different position than the designer intended. While this isn't a massive issue, it obviously annoyed TIGI hair care enough to cause them to try and solve it.

When you stop scrolling on the site, the pages automatically moves to place you in the 'correct' position. This means that everything is sitting nicely and ready for you to read.

I'm not saying this is a good idea (it's actually a little annoying at times) but it's an interesting idea worth talking about.

What do you think?

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This idea of making it easy to see a products potential is just as important when you move into the online application world. If you are launching a new product that you want people to use you have to try and give them reasons to use it. These reasons could be shown by using example use cases to highlight different methods of working.

This problem came to me this morning when I was invited to Beta test Dropmark, a cloud workspace that allows you to easily share files with your team. However, after signing up for the Beta programme over a week ago I had forgotten exactly what it was, and when confronted with a big emtpy dashboard after completing signup I was left confused as to what to do next. I wasn't compelled to poke about and so I left (I'll probably come back to it when I have more time).

When welcoming new users it is a good idea to make it easy for them to see the potential uses of your product, which could be achieved by starting them off with example content that allows them to explore features or it could be a step-by-step tutorial. The alternative to this is leaving people with a blank canvas and hoping they care enough to experiement, which is a risk I wouldn't be willing to take.

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Designing for numerous devices can be tricky as you have to ensure that you can provide a great experience across every possible resolution. There are lots of great examples of responsive design out there at the moment but just building a responsive website doesn't gurantee success.

Elou Webdesign have created a responsive website that looks good on a small screen but the homepage lacks impact when seen on a desktop. The 'hero' area displays a headline and some example work, which sit either side of the screen. As the browser gets bigger, neither of these change in size they just keep getting further apart, which makes them look disconnected on wider screens. The work examples in this case, are too small and this means they don't stand out as much as they could.

If you're going to design a responsive website you must pay extra attention to the relationships between elements across the website and how they might change at different screen sizes.

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The on-ramp can be a barrier to any web service, where a long set-up process can put people off ever starting to use it. If you can keep the on-ramp as simple and short as possible it will at least ensure you see lots of people starting giving your app/service a go. Once people have been through a set-up process they are far more likely to convert into repeat customers.

Fancy has tried to make their on-ramp as simple as possible and one nice method they have employed to do this is the inclusion of suggested/shared tags and lists. As people begin to 'Fancy' images the site suggests a potential list for it to live in by showing them the name of lists that the object has come from. By default, this creates a list with that name inside your profile for you to add further things to at a later date.

By making it super easy for people to create new lists on their profile they are enhacing their chances of engaging people to come back again.

How can you make it easy for first-time users to get acquainted with your product?

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Seeing how much stock available can cause people to take action, if they think there is a possibility they could miss out by not buying now. Instead of just displaying a number of how many are left Wood & Faulk use a neat little bar graph, which gives you a much clearer view of how many are left across each size. Doing this also highlights which sizes are limited instantly, instead of forcing the customer to read a list of numbers to work it out.

I like.

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This is where Hipmunk comes in. Hipmunk is trying to change the way flights are displayed to give customers a better method for choosing the best deal for them. The first thing you'll notice after running a search is the graphical display instead of the usual list that can be found on every other site. This display plots flights on a timeline showing you when they leave and how long they take making it really easy to see how each flight differs.

On top of this, Hipmunk has created an 'agony' rating that takes into account price, duration and number of stops to help customers choose the best flight for them. This method of sorting is infinitely more helpful than anything else I have seen on other travel sites before.

Hipmunk also uses a great tone of voice on the site, which is introduced by the dancing squirrel mascot and carried on into great copy, for example, you can filter flights by time using the labels like 'hide red-eyes' etc.

Hipmunk is a great experience and I'd highly recommend you check it out.

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The first experience is vital and if you can excite and engage your customer they ate likely to come back.

The app Localmind does a good job of engaging first time users by creating some personal activity, which also shows people what the app is about. Localmind is a location based app that allows you to ask 'experts' questions about local spots.

After signing up and connecting social network accounts to Localmind, you are left to explore your local map for a short while. Then, you receive a message in your Loxalmind inbox that asks you a question about your local area, giving you the option to become an expert and give advice.

When you look closer you see the message is from a Localmind user and is more than likely automated. However, because it isn't in your inbox straight away and you get a notification about the message, you get that little bit of excitement everyone gets when they think someone has contacted them.

This is a clever idea because it makes first time users think there is a lot of activity within the Localmind world and is likely to entice people to come back for more.

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Last year I wrote a post about the importance of learnability. Sometimes interactions aren't instantly intuitive but once learned they feel natural. It's important when designing for this type of interaction to show your customers exactly what they want to know and it's a good idea for this 'lesson' to be shown during the first experience, when your customer wants to be engaged.

There's been a huge amount of hype arounda new iPhone to-do list app called clear in recent weeks and today it launched. Most of the hype has been around the original interaction design that is fundamental to the app. The interactions are far from obvious, however, the designers have employed a great little technique for teaching peple how to use the different gestures.

The designers have created a default to-do list which highlights all of the different interactions that are possible within the app. You're learning how to use the application by actually using the application and not just being shown help-tips of a popup message. The designers are hoping that once the interactions have been learnt that they will feel natural and stay in the mind of their audience. Only time will tell if this actually happpens but they've done a great job of making their app easy to learn at the beginning.

Check out the app for yourself and I'd be really interested to hear your thoughts.

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