The ‘quick’ requests for design help from friends and family are rarely that quick. I for one can be distracted quite easily if something fresh and different is waved in front of me.  Especially if an idea springs straight to the front of your mind… that, or if you’ve had too much caffine that day.

Here a sarcastic b*gger turns into a funny bugger as he plays around in the absence of a brief.

Not funny… maybe its just me then!

Visit the post at 9gag.com here: http://9gag.com/gag/118274/

If you like that then I really suggest you visit David Thorne’s blog.  For example, this post is very very good about once again, someone wanting something for free.  Excellent.

Whether content is king, or, navigation is king (can’t have great content if people can’t find it), or whether aesthetics are king (only in mind of the designer perhaps!) but the article makes good sense of audience though processes that every designer must pay close attention to.

Read the full post entitled – Human Behavior Theories That Can be Applied to Web Design.

I also have contacts from individuals and businesses  who want a helping hand setting up the site… demystifying the domain purchase and management, to hosting accounts to design and content support.

In both cases, I often find myself asking clients the same questions.  Who are you, what do you do, what do you want, what do you the site to be, what messages do you want the site to ‘say’ to your audience… etc etc.

As such I have a pre-project document which aims to help focus clients’ minds on what is required.   Firist thing I need to get across is that its them providing the content, I can often drive, support and manage but I know websites, and not their business.

Found another great list which I am going to add to my pre-project document… a great list anyone thinking of a website should be hammering out for themselves as soon as possible.

http://sixrevisions.com/project-management/20-questions-to-know-for-avoiding-website-project-disasters/

1. How do you describe your organization/business in one sentence?

Amazingly, many small businesses have never taken the time to answer this one simple question. By getting this insight from them, you’ll have an anchor to tie together the entire project. If the client can’t do this, the project is likely to end up as a messy site that lacks focus.

2. What three words describe your organization/business?

Tough? Yes. Important? Extremely. Users need to quickly understand what a business website has to offer, and why they should care. These three key words will help develop a clear message for the site’s users and can drive everything from the website color palette to information architecture. They can also help with SEO in some cases.

3. What makes you unique?

In marketing lingo: “What’s your value proposition?” Helping the client define what makes them stand out from their competition can be one of the most helpful insights you can attain at the forefront. If you know what makes them unique, you have a great basis for building a website on.

4. How do you describe your primary site audience?

Is the audience young? Old? Web-literate? Knowing the audience can influence everything from the font size and style to the navigation approach.

One word of caution on this one: Many clients will describe their ideal audience rather than the one that actually visits their site. Take their input as opinion and validate whatever you can through analytics reports if they have an existing site. If it’s a new site, you may be able to gain some insights by studying competitor sites through web tools like Compete.com.

5. How much time do you think the average visitor spends on the site per visit?

This question can help determine the width/depth of the site and the navigation structure, as well as the site features that are needed. For example, if the site you’re building is a community-driven site, then you’ll want to consider some game mechanics that will help increase user participation and have them stay longer on the site. Again, check this against real web analytics results whenever possible.

6. What is the primary purpose of the site? What’s the secondary purpose?

Many clients want their site to be everything to everyone. By writing down a single primary purpose, they’re setting direction for the site. Is the purpose to generate a contact? Sell an item? Inform the visitor? Induce some other action?

7. Is your primary focus on long-term repeat visits or short-term single visits?

With this information, you can help the client determine whether the content of the site will drive their focus. A brochure-ware site won’t encourage repeat visits because the content will be static for long periods of time. A daily blog might not make sense if one-time visits are the primary focus. Questions like this position you as an expert so you can help them reach their goals.

8. If a visitor spends 2 minutes on your site, what three things (in order of priority) do you want them to know?

This question is all about limiting scope creep and defining the goals of the site. With this information, and the answers in some of the questions from above, you should have a crystal-clear picture of what the site needs to do from the client’s perspective.

9. Who are your major competitors?

As part of your research phase, it’s helpful to know and look at who the competitors are to see what works and what doesn’t in their particular industry. The goal here is to see if you can produce a product that outdoes the competition, which is something your clients will love you for.

10. What sites do you like?

It’s helpful to see what good sites are in the eyes of your client: sites that have features, layout, content or design that appeals to them. Almost every experienced designer has run into a case where multiple mockups are provided, only to find out that they want a site that looks a lot like one that already exists. Get this information on the table early and you’ll avoid headaches and wasted time.

11. What sites do you dislike?

On the flip side, allowing the client a chance to vent about sites they don’t like will provide you with a better idea of what to avoid. Many clients have a hard time describing what they like/dislike unless they see it. This gives them a chance to do that, as well as educate you in the process.

12. Are there specific site features you would like to see included?

This is another question to help you gently set the scope of the project and make sure that the expectations are discernibly explicit. Don’t let client assumptions turn your project into a money-losing proposition. Site features could be blogs, search features, social media integration, and so forth.

13. What do you find most annoying about using websites in general?

Give the client a chance to vent! It’s better to find out that they hate certain things now rather than after you’ve included them in your designs.

14. Are there any colors or features that should be avoided?

Defining colors that need to be avoided can save you from embarrassment later. Few things are as embarrassing as accidentally using a color palette from a major competitor. Never assume you know the answer to this one.

15. Will you need to update the content of the site on your own?

Geek speak: Do you need a content management system? Should we consider building the site on a platform like Drupal, WordPress or Joomla? This one could clearly impact the scope of the project.

16. When would you like this project to go live?

It seems obvious, but this is a biggie. Assuming you know how long it will take you to complete the project — and if you’re a professional designer, you better! — this will help you define the key deadlines, deliverables and benchmarks.

It also puts some responsibility back on the client. Who hasn’t been burned by a client who fails to deliver content and approvals in a timely manner, but still wants the launch date to remain the same?

Last, but not least, it will keep the client from calling you every day for status updates.

17. Will this site need user registration and be able to save data?

Geek speak: Is there any database work that will need to be done? Most projects with dynamic components and databases will require more work and discussion to define specific requirements and deliverables. This is good to know up front so that you don’t get hammered by massive feature creep.

This question also enables you to assess if you are able to do this project based on your skill set and whether or not you’ll need to contract someone who can.

18. Who is the single, primary point of contact for this project?

I am sure that some of you are smiling at this one. Nothing spells disaster like having more than one client making decisions about a site (i.e. designing by committee). It’s almost guaranteed that you’ll be given conflicting direction at some point when this is the situation. Therefore, it’s important to establish who has the final say for times when the project comes to a screeching halt because of decision paralysis.

19. Will your site need a way to contact you via a web form?

Simple stuff: but it’s so common that many clients assume it’s a freebie and doesn’t take any work at all. Make sure you define this type of stuff up front.

20. Is there anything else you would like to communicate to me?

“Let’s get it all on the table now.” Some clients are so full of ideas that they have trouble making decisions until they feel that you’ve heard all their ideas and suggestions. Rather than fighting that throughout the process, give them a chance to share their ideas up front.

What Do You Do If a Client Can’t Answer?

If you can’t get the client to provide any of these answers, I’d strongly suggest that you consider declining the project. If they can’t clearly explain their core business and the purpose of the site from their perspective, it doesn’t bode well for the project overall and you know that this will be a tough project to complete. You have to think about opportunity costs: By taking on a disaster-bound project, you can be affecting your chances in completing existing projects (as well as taking up new ones).

If you use this list on a project or have used similar lists of your own, we’d love to hear how it helped your projects succeed. We’d also like to hear some of the horror stories about failing to get these answers early on.

However, with the numerous stylish and classy non-serif fonts out there for example, designers have either had to juggle with Javascript to load hosted fonts or simply manually create graphics of their desired headings and sub heads in copy.

The following link poiints to the release of IE9 where the @font-face CSS tag will enable pages to load fonts from a hosted file.  Superb.

http://developer.practicalecommerce.com/articles/1891-Web-Safe-Fonts-and-Beyond-Embedding-Custom-Fonts-in-Your-Development-Projects

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/world-cup-match-replay

Click on the image below for a closer look!

Also found a funky portfolio site worth visiting. Very simple, very obvious and it works – 41six.com

SixRevisons published a very nice article on the 17th March 2010 about writing articles for the web.

How to Write an Amazing Article by James Costa summarises a number of key features of a sucessful post and is an example of the points he raises.

‘Content is king’, ‘know your audience’ and writing with an engaging style are all common sense principles that are all too easy to forget.  Similarly, I’ve posted before about keeping things short, sweet and punchy and never to assume people will read your posts if you write essays rather than posts or articles.

An excellent resource, I encourage all to read this and enjoy the SixRevisons website.

A word of caution though – always try to get a second opinion.  Being blinded somewhat by your good idea, you might miss something important.

Mathieu is a client who is an osteopath in Ealing and Uxbridge .  Their 2008 brochure, featured on the left here, was designed by them in-house.  However, without the benefit of another point of view, the result was a nice picture of a happy man standing on a rather large phallic outcrop of rock.

So, the ideas of freedom and relief certainly shine through, but those with a more devious sense of humour, will see something else other than what Mathieu & co had in mind.

Some great advertisments found on OneExtraPixel.com (via Smashing Magazine) – definitely worth a visit.

The interface does take some getting used to, but not long as many editing functions are similar to Word.  Beyond that, the main thing to learn is creating the all important links and either uploading or linking to images.  Learning time 30mins?

Other key benefits concern the blog.  Visitors need a reason to visit your website… not just once but again and again.   Take a step back and ask yourself, why should a visitor [or potential customer] visit my site, what am I saying in my posts that would encourage them to bookmark/link/revisit? Do this before you hit the big purple ‘Publish’ button!

Following on from that is the search engine rating opportunities of having more dynamic content.  Internal links to parts of your website (new services, new documents uploaded) are a big thumbs up, as well as inserting as many links as you can to other sites on the website in your posts.

Boooooring Blogs?

The golden rule is to realise you are writing for the web… not an essay, not an article.   You are also not writing for yourself… but I guess you are, as it is your own personality and style that helps makes an engaging blog.

Top Tips

These top tips are from Problogger’s blog, written in 2005.  These are as true today as they were in 2005… simple, short and clear.

Make your opinion known

Link like crazy

Write less

250 Words is enough

Make Headlines snappy

Write with passion

Include Bullet point lists

Edit your post

Make your posts easy to scan

Be consistent with your style

Litter the post with keywords

1. Make your opinion known
People like blogs, they like blogs because they are written by people and not corporations. People want to know what people think, crazy as it sounds they want to know what you think. Tell them exactly what you think using the least amount of words possible.

2. Link like crazy.
Support your post with links to other web pages that are contextual to your post.

3. Write Less
Give the maximum amount of information with the least amount of words. Time is finite and people are infinitely busy. Blast your knowledge into the reader at the speed of sound.

4. 250 is enough
A long post is easier to forget and harder to get into. A short post is the opposite.

5. Make Headlines snappy
Contain your whole argument in your headline. Check out National newspapers to see how they do it.

6. Include bullet point lists
We all love lists, it structures the info in an easily digestible format.

7. Make your posts easy to scan
Every few paragraphs insert a sub heading. Make sentences and headlines short and to the point.

8. Be consistent with your style
People like to know what to expect, once you have settled on a style for your audience stick to it.

9. Litter the post with Keywords.
Think about what keywords people would use to search for your post and include them in the body text and headers. make sure the keyword placement is natural and does not seem out of place.

10. Edit your post
Good writing is in the editing. Before you hit the submit button, re-read your post and cut out the stuff that you don’t need.

A good starting list which can apply across almost any blog.

I’d add a few things.

• Images often help illustrate points and add some visual interest to ‘wordy’ posts… just ensure that the image is apt to your subject.  Don’t insert images for images’ sake, but Google is your friend!
• Have an objective in mind when you post.  Keep what you want to get across in your mind and see you’ve done it before you publish
• Frequency of posting is vital.  If visitor sees that the latest post is months old then you dont have much to say.  “Ticking the box” of having a blog can do more brand harm if the flurry of initial posts tail off into stagnation.  Set time aside each week/fortnight/month.  I often have a little text file sat on my desktop that I drop links and notes into which helps flesh monthly/bi-monthly posts.  Conversly, Blogging isnt like Twitter, overload people and you will bore then, so have clear ideas, put them together in a short punchy, engaging way… and give it a meaty title.
• Have fun.   Enjoy blogging, encourage people to contribute and add comments if you want.   Get it into the routine and have the blog work for you and your business!

More useful links (open in new windows)

How to craft good blog titles – Problogger

What makes for a good blog – 43folder

Good blog writing style – Blogoscoped

Spin forward a few years and I after nearly a year living in Belgium during college, I came back from putting on parties over there and decided to do something in Coventry.  Incidentally, the title for this post comes from a comment underneath the vid at the bottom.  It mentions the glorious Mirano, Brussel’s premier club at one point, that I went to during my stay.  More happy days.  Anyway, thought it was apt.

I had friends who DJ’d, Dave and Greg both doing warm up slots for the most fantastic Wobble night in Brum.  Ah happy days.  So I started promoting the ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’ nights on a Thursday(?) at Browns in the Lower Precinct.  Nearly broke even, had some good times but quite stressful and hard going standing outside townie clubs at 2am, getting chased, then having hassle on the night of the event when the owner refused to let non-students in.  Yeah thanks for that.

Next move was amsuing looking back on it.  WE moved to setup a new night on Sundays called ‘Loosen Up’, the only Sunday night going in Coventry at that time, we thought we’d have them queuing at the door with cool house music to wind down a weekend.  Sadly the venue had other ideas when a *cough* electrical problem torched the place.  Not mentioning its name!

So from promotion in Coventry, I started doing some nights in L0ndon after I moved down.  The Slug in Fulham Broadway, KIngs Road pubs, parties and a wedding out at Cobham.  All good fun.

From the early decision of taking the stereo, if I had taken the decks… who knows. … So never having lost the enjoyment of playing music, I purchased a Numark mixer last week and using it as a controller, hooked up my Macbook with Traktor software.  Well, so far so good.  I’ve not yet purchased the external soundcard I have my eye on, or the affordable but very nice amp/speaker set… but again, who knows what a moment of weakness will produce.

I am working on some mixes for my own benefit but not releasing them online as I’m sure I could be slapped with a wealth of legal iss-shoows.  Still, people know where I am…  Whether or not I’m out doing anything in public, well unlikely but who knows.

After that ramble I have a few links I’d post up.  Firstly, the place I bought the mixer from has been great.  Dolphin Music are recommended for their prompt service and for generally being good guys.  I think I found them via their ebay links but if anyone is looking for audio equipment online then head their way.

Second link is for Beatport.  Here you can listen to and purchase a massive range of audio tracks, from psy-house, trance to nu beat.  Warning is that any house heads can lose hours here.  Few pennies more than iTunes but obviously more specialised.  Had a few problems with payment set up but that was with my bank I think rather than their systems.  Good guys.

Finally I’ll leave you with a YouTube vid of Aly Us’ ‘Follow Me’.  Glorious 92, I remember playing this to death on an early Strictly Rhythm compliation I had.  The vid is fantastic – cross between a feature slot, music video and home movie.  Ace.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3cfGzuICzA