My Web Development Philosophy
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As a freshman in college, I wanted to use my university’s indoor pool. However, I had never been before and didn’t know anything about the protocol, availability, rules, or procedures. I was afraid of nothing in particular but because I had never been, I didn’t know what to expect and so it was easy to talk myself out of going. Would someone ask me questions about why I was there? What if the pool was restricted during certain hours? Could I get in trouble for trespassing? How many people would be there? Would I make a complete fool of myself? In my mind, the unknowns were too great and the courage too little. I made up excuses for more than a month until one very ordinary day when I resolved to get on the bus and go. My first experience, good or bad, was irrelevant. Soon I was going regularly, three times a week.
Anxiety accompanies ignorance.
I’ve been building websites long enough to realize that most people don’t have a clue about the process. They don’t know what they need, what questions to ask, who to trust, or where to start. You might be afraid of it being ugly. You might be afraid of it being expensive. You might be afraid of it adding no value to your business. Just like the fears I experienced in my story, your fears could be greatly lessened by having a trustworthy tutor.
“I need help with my website” is often the only expression my clients know when they first approach me. I love what I do because so few people understand this stuff and I enjoy equipping others with knowledge to help them generate a high return on their website investment.
Good intentions don’t equate expertise.
I know websites. I know web strategy. I know when a website isn’t meeting its full potential, and I know when a person or business can benefit (or not) from having a professional website. I invite you to start a conversation about all of these things as they relate to your situation. This consultation is free of charge and obligation.
I am available to answer questions, to explain the steps of a project, to assess your current website, and to set the record straight for any misconceptions you have. I advocate web standards, which means is that I am committed in my profession to seeing good websites replace bad ones. I do not sell websites–in fact, many of my would-be clients decide not to proceed with a project following our initial conversation. And that is great because I am a busy man. If you and I have a conversation and you decide to let me build you a website, I get paid. Cool. But if you don’t want me to build you a website, I get just a little more free time in my week to do other things. That’s the beauty of being a part-time independent contractor — in the end, you will have a better understanding of the process and your company’s needs, and I am helping a person determine their best strategic move for marketing to an online audience.
Traditional Marketing Hurts Your Brand
Think about the kinds of companies you deal with regularly and don’t trust. Who are they? Do they offer these services?
- Cable & Internet
- Credit Cards
- Insurance
- Car Service
- Government
Now think about the kinds of companies that regularly send you letters in the mail. Who are they? Are they on this list?
- Cable companies
- Internet providers
- Credit card companies
- Insurance companies
- Government agencies
- College
Is it absurd to think that there is a link between the two? While many organizations are resisting transition to digital marketing, which offers many advantages over traditional marketing, they may be inadvertently affecting their brand image negatively in their customers’ subconscious.
When was the last time you actually called a phone number you saw on a billboard? Those ads are expensive and they offer no method of accurately tracking ROI. Sure, you can ask customers how they heard about you, but only a few will actually trace their interest back to your 36-foot wallpaper advertisement.
In contrast, how often do you make fun of billboards you see? Now if you are the marketing strategist for a brand, why would you want to take that kind of risk with absolutely no measurable return?
Buy an ad on Google Adwords and voila, you know exactly how many people see it, exactly how many people click it, and exactly how many people make a purchase that is traceable back to that investment (aka “conversion”). The percentages will look low (typical conversion rate in my company is less than 3%) but think about your billboard: on a metropolitan freeway it probably boasts more than 1 million viewers in a day. So your exposure is huge and if you get a dozen people to say “I saw your billboard” in a month, well… do the math and your conversion rate is approximately 0.00004%. It would take 900,000 customers saying “I saw your billboard” to match my 3% ROI from a single, targeted Adwords campaign. Does 900k sound realistic?
Let’s use another example. Say you put an ad in the local newspaper. It’s relatively cheap, and with a single new customer it’s more than paid for itself. For example’s sake let’s say you get three new customers that confirm they saw your ad, and you make $200 from each. Still though, a newspaper in a medium-sized city might circulate to 100,000 people. So three new customers is only 0.003% of your exposure. Invest in digital marketing, set your exposure level to 100,000 (because yes, you can do that — you can even define gender, region, age), and if you get a 0.8% return (low-end), that’s 800 new customers. Business is suddenly booming, isn’t it?
Traditional marketing is not worth the money so don’t risk your brand on it.
Evolution…. Sorry, But No.
I believe in the Big Bang Theory. I just believe that God orchestrated it. Without an intelligent Creator, you’re telling me that every living thing on Earth evolved from the bacteria that survived the Big Bang?
Fast forward a few million milleniums — if humans evolved from primates, why do primates still exist? Natural selection would suggest that the unadapted monkeys should be dying out. And since the theory of evolution suggest that we evolved over hundreds of thousands of years, and both humans and monkeys now co-exist, why are there no partially-evolved species? Some Homo sapien males have a lot of back hair, but I would never suggest that this makes them less evolved.
Anyone feeling compelled to leave controversial comments, please be advised I have no intentions of responding – I am just expressing my instincts, not inviting a debate.
New Years Resolutions for Designers
From 10 New Year’s resolutions for designers
“We have more processing power, affordable tools, and combined intelligence right this very minute than at any point in the history of design. We are using it to build shit. It’s time to aim higher. Let’s find problems to solve that actually improve people’s lives. Whether it’s figuring out a better way to access medical records, figuring out how 14 year olds can stop carrying forty pounds of textbooks back and forth to school every day, or a reservation system for the communal rooftop farm in your building, there has got to be something more beneficial to society than the next Facebook clone.”
“How horrible for a client to have gone out and found a good designer and then get handed work that looks like something they would have done. Clients deserve your best work, not their best work. Really good clients, the ones I want you to work with, would rather be challenged than pandered to.”
Google Voice User Interface Design Proposal
User interface design that favors simplicity and portability [w/ images]
I have been using Google Voice for a couple of years. I’ve been disappointed with the user friendliness of the web interface and mobile app for quite some time, and even after a recent facelift thanks to the Google rebrand, many of the same UX design problems remain. So it occurred to me: why not mock up an interface that addresses the issues? An explanation of my proposal follows and the design concepts are in PNG files.
Shortcomings of the current interface
- Conversations are clustered somewhat unpredictably according to whether a user replies to an existing message or composes a new one. There also appears to be a passage-of-time component that creates further inconsistency.
- Friends often have multiple conversations over a short period of time and clicking/tapping into individual conversations is cumbersome if searching for a specific message in one’s history.
- If a user replies to an old conversation (perhaps accidentally), that conversation is moved out of the natural flow of the timeline to the very top of Google Voice.
- When expanding a collapsed conversation, the most recent messages appear at the bottom and usually require scrolling to view.
- Refreshing the page collapses all the conversations and since new messages sometimes require a refresh to appear, this becomes a nuisance.
- Voicemail transcripts and call history are all located in separate places/conversations.
Current Interface (click to enlarge)
Benefits of the proposed interface
- Conversation history is organized by contact and consolidated for easy browsing.
- The list of contacts is sorted by the most recent conversation.
- In this example, the user’s most recent conversation happened with Ashley Atkins. The user has clicked into his conversation history with Jerin Raj.
- Conversations are reliably and consistently delineated by day and the user can star or check any day in the conversation.
- The most recent messages in the conversation appear at the top, ensuring that no scrolling is required since the conversation is always expanded (no more clicking to reveal a full conversation).
- Phone calls (incoming, missed, received) and voicemail transcripts fall directly into the timeline where appropriate.
- The default blue hyperlink text for Call, Text, and More has been replaced with buttons that match the new Google brand and appear only once in the conversation for a more efficient layout.
Proposed Interface (click to enlarge)
Conclusion
There is a lot more to this design than what I have denoted here. But since I’m not making a presentation to the bosses, I’m just a guy posting on the forums, I do not feel that full disclosure is necessary. The advantages of this proposed interface design would greatly improve the user experience, and this new design would translate beautifully/easily to mobile. I would love to hear feedback from other Google Voice users about any of the issues or improvements I have presented. Please post your comments or questions.