Website Redesign Tips 3:22 PM

Whether we are working on client or our own site, we are designing something that needs to meet someone else’s goals and below are the tips i have employed to get my projects done.

• Start with a question: what problem are we trying to solve?
• Understanding the problem you are solving begins with research. Research uncovers achievable goals.Being tired of a site is not necessarily a great reason to redesign.
  
• Research makes you a credible partner with stakeholders. Shows you care about business considerations.Build the relationship before you show the design. This sets up collaboration between you and your client instead of a service-based relationship.
• Redesign objectives need to be an integration of user needs & business goals. First part of learning what people need is getting out and talking to them. Research helps you manage changing requirements. Can always return to the real things people really need. Provides you with bulletproof reasons to keep project on track.
• Have a content strategy: know what the actual content on your site will be before you finalize your design. Remind people where you are in the process before you present designs. Outline previous decisions, status, etc.
• Learn to translate: sometimes people say one thing but mean another. Try to look for the actual meaning of people’s comments. Convey the meaning of design so you don’t have to get into arguing the details. Use design to communicate the direction of the project: who is it for and how does the design reflect that?
• Dealing with feedback. When you receive feedback reference the research. Communicate the “why” behind the design. Bring the discussion back to the strategy level and away from the pixel level. Sell ideas not pixels.
• When looking for inspiration, check out what your peers are doing, where you have been, and more.
• Design from the content out and ensure function is part of the design.

WHY PERSUASIVE DESIGN SHOULD BE YOUR NEXT SKILL SET 11:50 PM

Persuasive design is the next practice it will supercharge and embrace, folding its techniques into interaction design.
Have a pleasant reading

WHY PERSUASIVE DESIGN SHOULD BE YOUR NEXT SKILL SET

Web 2.0 Training in Nairobi-Overview of strengths and weaknesses 3:14 AM

I am attending the web2fordev conference in Nairobi hosted by World Agroforestry Center.The Web 2.0 label is now so widespread that it is increasingly difficult to define the boundaries and characteristics of the services it covers. Indeed, the success of Web 2.0 and the extraordinary expansion of users-generated content services, from blogs,wikis, google doc, google maps to the Social Networks as such as Myspace or Facebook, show that we are reaching a major turning point in the use of relational internet.

Web development always contains the community ideal. But the community - whatever it is before or through the digital exchanges between individuals - is usually considered as both voluntary and organised cooperation. In both cases, the cooperation between individuals can be qualified as strong: Common sociability and a set of roles and defined exchange modalities give individuals the feeling that they are part of the community and share a common vision. However, the success of Web 2.0 services shows that its users mobilise much weaker cooperation between individuals. Web 2.0 services allow individual contributors to experience cooperation ex post.

The strength of the weak cooperation comes from the fact that it is not necessary for individuals to have an ex ante cooperative action plan or altruist preoccupation. They discover cooperative opportunities only by making their individual production public, i.e. texts, photos, videos etc. We need to try to understand more why people are not so shy on their practises in social networks where they give a lot of personal information about them and about their tastes and to look at their strategies to have more contacts (or "friends") and to maintain and expand this network of ties.