Photo by Flickr user Xraijs

It feels like it’s on the forefront of everyone’s mind these days – how to engage visitors on your website while they’re using mobile devices. Apps are no longer limited to games, note-taking, to-do lists or email, but are being embraced by more and more companies as a way to communicate with customers while on the go. But, there are other options to consider when looking to go mobile that are not only more economical, but make better sense for the small- to medium-sized company looking to increase brand recognition and awareness.

Apps are king, but are they overkill?

True, as Jakob Nielsen writes, downloadable apps are currently king when it comes to offering the best user experience to your mobile visitors. Functionality is better integrated with the capabilities of the device, and other components (such as the camera) can be integrated into the user experience. However, apps are expensive. They require research and time to make the same experience available to all users. More than that, they require developing the same app in multiple formats to be available to iPhone users, Android users, Blackberry users, etc.

Even further, apps require maintenance. Android alone has multiple “active” versions of their operating system being run by users at the same time, just across current phone models. Testing must be done to ensure the best possible user experience isn’t being hindered by an incompatibility with the majority of users. And, to top it all off, users must be proactive in both downloading (and potentially purchasing) your application and allowing maintenance updates to be installed.

It’s an investment on a completely different level to create a mobile app, and an inappropriate one for most companies looking to just make their content available to mobile users. I tend to agree with this factsheet that apps are best served to companies who need to provide an online tool or service (such as e-commerce) as opposed to every company seeking to optimize their existing web presence.

So, what’s best for the rest of you just looking to “be there” for users browsing the mobile web?

The short answer, from where I sit, is a mobile-optimized website. But still, there are a couple of options to consider before building one.

As is always my suggestion for any website – be it mobile or not – there should be a specific action you want your visitors to take once they are on your site. The content that you put on the site should help users achieve this goal.

Most websites have anywhere from one to a small handful of acceptable actions they want users to take before clicking away or closing their browser window, but do all of those actions translate to the mobile audience? I tend to think not for the average small- to mid-sized company website.

Responsive and adaptive web design are terms being thrown around the industry as the hottest new thing for designers and developers to be able to do. Both of these approaches take your existing website and make it flexible so that the information is better displayed and easier to read on the smaller screens of mobile devices. While this is a fantastic tool in some cases and definitely a neat trick in others (depending on the content of the website), for the small- to mid-sized business it can muddy the waters for the mobile user and make the expected action less clear, particularly if it is the only approach employed to make a site mobile-friendly.

When creating a mobile site for our client, Haddock Collision, we used an automatically-detected mobile version of the site that was then optimized using the adaptive approach to allow additional content to be displayed or hidden at certain screen widths. This way, content would flow better for horizontally- and vertically-oriented devices.

How so? The bottom line is, these companies want customers and potential customers to make contact with them, either through a phone call or by filling out an email form. Regardless of if they also want to capture leads through other means such as whitepapers or by signing up for a newsletter, this is the hands-down end result that many companies we meet with want from their site visitors.

For the mobile audience of these companies with a standard “brochure” website, truncating the content to include basic About information, locations and a clickable phone number is what we tend to recommend as the best means of communicating with the mobile audience.

It’s simple, but effectively makes use of three key components of the mobile device:

1. Small screen real estate
2. The ability to make phone calls
3. GPS or, at the very least, mapping applications installed on the device

Studies have shown that presenting a user with too many options can actually scare them into doing nothing or, at the very least, hinder their ability to make a decision quickly. By limiting the options on the initial mobile homepage, it because abundantly clear to users quickly if they have found what they are looking for and to take action. For those that need more information, the option is always present to view the “full site” on their mobile device, where the same actions are still clearly available to them.

Of course, there is no one-size-fits-all solution that we turn to on the web, and each website’s needs are individually evaluated before we make a cut and dry recommendation. In general, however, the Strategic Insights’ approach to mobile falls in line with what Jakob Nielsen predicts will be the way of the future: a simple, functional mobile website is the way to go.

 Jennifer Soloway [follow me on Twitter] // Senior Art Director // Strategic Insights

Last week, I received an email from Old Navy:

In other words, this email is the last contact I should expect from the company regarding the rewards I have earned. From the date I received this email forward, if I want to cash in my earned $5 I will need to put in the legwork to look up if I have a reward and then print it out before shopping in the store.

The “best part” is, I don’t even log in to the Old Navy website in order to look up my rewards. I’ll need to go through my third-party financial institution and find their statement (since I don’t see the whole bill when I log in to just pay it) – a part of the process they even highlight in their email.

Missed opportunity? Absolutely.

While I’m pleased to see that Old Navy is reducing the number of snail mailings they send out to me in a given year (and all the accompanying paper that goes with those mailings), I don’t understand why – from a marketing perspective – they would want to make it more difficult for me to remember I’m an Old Navy customer. What benefit is a rewards system for the company if it’s not serving to remind customers that they enjoy shopping at your store and enticing them to come back in?

Not to mention, Old Navy in particular has a great potential up-sell opportunity that can be highlighted as a benefit in a quick email reminder (that can double as the coupon itself on customer’s cell phones). In this case, rewards are accepted at any of their “sister” stores as well – all of which are at a higher price-point than Old Navy itself. Meaning, if I take my reward and order a pair of shoes online at Piperlime, I’m definitely going to spend more with the company than I would if I just popped down to Old Navy and grabbed a t-shirt off the rack.

Without the reminders? Yeah, I’m less likely to use the coupon and save a few dollars at the store, but I’m also no longer reminded of a reason I should go into the store in the first place. In the case of ordering a new pair of shoes, I still might end up at Piperlime…or I might end up going to a competitor, particularly if a well-timed email from the competitor alerts me to some kind of credit I’ve earned with my loyalty.

Bottom line is this: Over-saturation of your message can definitely turn a once-loyal customer off, but so can radio silence. If you have reason to communicate with your customers, you should definitely take the time to reach out to them. After all, don’t we have enough on our minds without having to remember where we like to shop?

“Long gone are the days of the set-it-and-forget-it mentality for your online presence.  Your web identity is a living, breathing entity and without regular maintenance, it can wither, atrophy and eventually die.“

The same can be said for continuous learning in a chosen area, even if it’s an area you are an “expert” in already.

With that said, there’s the start of an excellent collection happening right now on my Kindle in terms of books relevant to what we do here at Strategic Insights. Here’s what I can be caught reading around the office these days (when I’m not designing!):

• The Art of Client Service, Revised and Updated Edition: 58 Things Every Advertising & Marketing Professional Should Know by Robert Solomon
  

  Sadly, this is no longer available for the Kindle, so I was lucky to grab it when I did. I’m currently in the midst of reading The Art of Client Service, and I highly recommend it for anyone in the design industry. It is admittedly geared specifically for project and account managers however, we can all benefit from learning as much as we can to see things from the client perspective at every stage of the design process.

  Instead of shrugging our shoulders when we get feedback that doesn’t quite make sense, we can start to understand where to backtrack to to help bring the client through the process with is. After all, we’re all in a project or campaign together.

• Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy by Dev Patnaik
  

  A Kindle “freebie” at the time I downloaded it, this one immediately grabbed my interest as something up my alley. I’ve had an interest in “emotion-based” industries since college (thanks to an internship for a group of hospitals my sophomore year) and was immediately inspired when I saw this title to bring me back to my “roots” with a resource based entirely around creating empathy.

• Marketing in the Moment: The Practical Guide to Using Web 3.0 Marketing to Reach Your Customers First by Michael Tasner
  

  I also grabbed this one while it was free for the Kindle on Amazon, but am still intrigued by it. While I find the title to be cliched (I hate using terms like “Web 3.0 Marketing”), I’m hoping the book will contain either some new pieces of information on the increasingly expanding options available to our clients for spreading their message, or at least offer some nice refreshers and reminders on things to keep in mind.

• Flexible Web Design: Creating Liquid and Elastic Layouts with CSS by Zoe Mickley Gillenwater
  

  This is the newest book to make it on to my Kindle, and probably the one I am most excited to dive into. For those who don’t know, flexible web design is a not-so-new approach to building a site so that it will adapt and self-optimmize for a large variety of viewing options. In other words, it’s the attempt to design for any screen size, resolution or orientation that a user could choose to view your website on. While it does not replace specific-use situations (such as mobile devices) completely, it helps bring a more cohesive experience to a website by understanding that absolute pixel-perfection across all possible circumstances is not the ideal.

  It’s about matching the experience, and not necessarily the layout, to provide the best presentation of information possible.

It’ll take me some time to get through all these, but I’m always on the lookout for more books to add to the list. How about you? Any books you’ve read or are excited to start reading? Share your inspired reading lists in the comments.

Jennifer Soloway [follow me on Twitter] // Senior Art Director // Strategic Insights

Web designers have one audience in mind when beginning a new web project. No, I’m not talking about our clients (sorry, guys).

I mean the end user. The person who will sit on the “other side of the screen,” clicking through the information presented. It’s common sense that the end result should match up with the expectations that user has come to expect from the brand, experiences on similar websites, and experience with the web as a whole.

This does not mean that every website across the internet is expected to perform exactly the same. It is a statement, however, that every website that falls into a certain category (e-commerce, banking, forum, etc.) should function similarly to other sites within the same category. Users would not expect a banking site to behave as a forum, and vice-versa.

The best way to determine what users are expecting out of a website is to research. Research sites with a similar function, competitor sites, and the existing company’s site if the project is a relaunch.

But, what if what we WANT is to change user behavior on a website?

First and foremost, understand that there’s a delicate balance that needs to be achieved when changing user behaviors. Nothing is keeping your users from leaving the site if they become frustrated or don’t understand what actions are expected of them. With that said, it is possible to change user behavior provided there is sound reasoning, obvious visual clues and response mechanisms, and a sense of familiarity left intact.

My favorite go-to inspiration for changing user behavior while remaining sensitive to expectations is product design.

“Green” products are changing consumer behavior. Or, trying to.

There’s no denying that in this day and age, it’s hip to be green. It also goes without saying that “going green” is often associated with making personal sacrifices in daily habits and choices. What, give up my morning Starbucks in favor of making coffee at home? Suddenly, it’s a lot more appealing to leave “being hip” to the hipsters and tree-huggers.

Green-conscious product designers are rising to that challenge by designing reusable products that mimic their disposable counterparts in look and feel. The only differences lie in the materials used to make them (glass and porcelain vs. plastic and paper) and the fact that they don’t get chucked in the bin after only one use. Even better, these newer products are built for the dishwasher, unlike the hard plastic coffee mugs of yore (if you read them, most should be hand-washed for durability; but who does that?).

In other words, they’re putting the effort into the design to make switching to reusable, “greener” choices as easy for the consumer as getting a cup or bottle on the go.

Google made the submit button obsolete.

An on-screen example of a behavior shift is evident in Google’s 2010 redesign. The biggest, yet still subtle, difference the search company made was to remove the need to hit ‘Submit’ in order to show search results. Results are now live-updated as you type, actually eliminating a step previously needed to be performed by the user.

To be honest, I needed the change to be pointed out to me before I realized anything was different. This is exactly what you want in a behavior shift – for users to not even realize it’s happening. Users expect search results to arrive quickly, and the live-updating of results is a logical improvement in functionality.

Make it easy, make it obvious.

In the end, the key to changing user (or consumer) behavior is in making the difference obvious and convenient. Users are not going to change if it requires them to make the extra effort, or is noticeably different from what they are used to.

It is possible to change user behavior, while keeping them happy by meeting their expectations. It’s all about researching the audience and finding what works naturally.

Jennifer Soloway [follow me on Twitter] // Senior Art Director // Strategic Insights

Sounds great, right? Well, as a designer I know you know that I would have some pretty strong feelings about this debate. It’s not that I disagree with the end goal, just that I feel that what is often mistaken for an absence of design is really near-perfect execution of transparent design.

I highly recommend giving this article illustrating why design can’t be removed from the equation a read >>

Jennifer Soloway [follow me on Twitter] // Senior Art Director // Strategic Insights

Undoubtedly, the Internet at large has at least heard, if not contributed to, the conversation about the appropriateness (or lack thereof) of the November GQ cover. You know the one. It features the actors of high school characters from the show Glee clad in underwear provided by Victoria’s Secret.

The main argument that sent the Internet buzzing a couple weeks ago was the message that the actors of a popular show are sending to kids. As an art director, however, the message that I prefer to examine is that of branding. To me, this cover stands out as a great example of a clash between personal brands and company brands.

Actors, like designers, have a notable personal brand as a result of their work. Unlike designers (most of us, anyway), actors’ personal brands are also made up of charitable donations, PR stunts and often, personal lives (or at least the portions snapped by the paparazzi and published in rag mags or posted online).

Because we have personal brands that we use to propel our own careers, we also  need to make sure that those brands coincide with the companies and projects we associate ourselves with. Be us part of an agency team or independent freelancers, our brands (including bodies of work) are what attract new and repeat business. It’s important that we’re accurately portraying ourselves as we want to be seen.

For example, if a designer works at a relatively conservative design firm notable for branding banks and insurance companies, taking on a high-profile adult entertainment project – even as a freelance designer – could be damaging to the brand of the agency. Even if it simultaneously brings the designer increased exposure. The audiences don’t mix. The same designer could see himself removed from the conservative projects at the agency, and propelled into a much different career. Alternatively, the agency’s existing clients could question their relationship with the agency altogether.

The same can be applied the Glee GQ cover. The audience of the show tune in to watch a story about talented but average high schoolers deal with both adolescence and perfecting their performance every week for glee club competitions. The audience of GQ, given the extreme deviation in messaging both in the subheadings and photography on the cover, likely do not and would not tune in for the same story.

The mere fact that there is such buzz over the cover illustrates that it is an unexpected means of promoting the popular show. While it may work as a stunt to gain immediate exposure to a new audience, unless the brand of the entire show shifted to coincide with the message this new audience will not be won over. They may have a piqued interest in other projects the actors become involved in, but not in the show itself.

And if such a dramatic shift in branding and content were to happen, it would be at the cost of the existing audience.

It’s important to know your company brand, and make sure your work and actions under that heading coincide with the messaging. It is possible to have pieces of your personal brand stay separate from your corporate brand (after all, we don’t necessarily do the same tone of work at every job we have throughout our entire lives), just remember to flaunt them in ways that won’t link to your company brand in an off-messaging way. In the case of the Glee GQ cover, the messaging misses the mark. And the reaction is anything but favorable when the image is headlined under the brand of the show.

Jennifer Soloway [follow me on Twitter] // Senior Art Director // Strategic Insights

But, is the basic function of the clock—you know, to tell time—actually lost in the design? Can you tell what time it is at least as well, or preferably better, than a traditional clock? Or, do you have to think harder to get there?

Good design is seamless, unnoticed, natural. It makes the information you are trying to get at all the more available without the audience even noticing that it’s being presented in a different way.

Don’t make it harder for your audience to absorb the information you want/they need to get. Regardless of how flashy the design is, your audience will not stick around to figure out how to use it in order to get the information they are looking for. Beyond the initial ‘wow’ factor, a design that hinders usability will garner more negative attention (if any attention!) than positive reaction.

Jennifer Soloway [follow me on Twitter] // Art Director // Strategic Insights

What I found led me to tweet the following:

Within the hour, I was getting replied back by the @jasonsdeli account, promising an explanation from their nutritionist. This explanation did come later as an email and included:

1. Why the sandwich was over 900 calories
2. Recommendations for how I could alter my order next time to have a lower-calorie Tuna Melt
3. Suggestions on other more calorie-conscious choices that wouldn’t require me to customize my order at all.

Now, why am I sharing all this with you? Not because I care about sharing my diet decisions (or think you care about my diet decisions), but as a reminder of how negative customer feedback can be turned into a positive experience for the consumer – and have them remain a recurring customer.

We get asked all the time if WE the agency can manage our client’s social media presences on their behalf. Not only is that not a transparent way of using what is intended to be a direct line of contact with the person or company these profiles represent, but how would an advertising exec respond to a complaint about the number of calories in a particular menu item? Would their response have the same level of detail that YOU could provide? Likely not.

Communicating with your customers directly gives you the opportunity to control what is being said about your company – even after negative feedback has been shared. It can act as “damage control,” or help clear up a misunderstanding. It can even point the customer in the direction of what they may ACTUALLY be looking for, but for some reason haven’t discovered just yet. In short, having that direct line of contact helps make the company appear not only human, but appear to be truly interested in meeting their customers’ needs.

Not to mention, customer feedback and dialogue over social media is public domain. In regards to my Tuna Melt of yesterday, my Twitter network AND the Jason’s Deli Twitter network viewed the dialogue I had with Jason’s Deli (up to the email, which contained information I specifically was interested in, but might not appeal to their other customers). It turned my one declaration of fault into a conversation that was two-sided, and showed that the company cared about my concern over calories.

Truth be told, the companies who take the time to respond to a complaint, in addition to those who respond to a praise, are the ones I end up recommending my networks without provocation. It’s a win-win.
Jennifer Soloway [follow me on Twitter] // Art Director // Strategic Insights

While it may slow down the process at the start to make sure every phase of the project is explained thoroughly, it can save a project from going south due to assumptions and misconceptions made when clients need to “fill in the blanks” as to what happens next. Most importantly, communication is an essential tool to make sure we are providing the best experience during the project, and the best solution when it is complete.

So often, those on the designer end of the relationship assume the process is second nature to both ourselves and our clients. Some clients may be ones we have had a long-standing relationship with; some may have recently turned to us after working with another agency; others may be brand-new startups who are new to the process altogether. No matter which category a client fits in, they ALL benefit from clearly outlining each step the project will work through, AND explaining why we are asking the questions we are during each phase.

The next time you feel a client has reduced your roll to pixel pushing, review the communication you’ve had up to that point. Instead of just sighing and obliging, ask questions and get further feedback. Often times, a client’s desire to take over the roll of the designer is because there has been an assumption along the way, instead of an open dialogue.

Jennifer Soloway [follow me on Twitter] // Art Director // Strategic Insights

With everyone from your mother to your boss to your middle school BFF being available on social media these days, it’s getting harder to keep your separate lives, well, separate. Not only is nearly everyone you know IRL (in real life) logging on to connect online as well, but there are several networks you – and they – can belong to. Before you know it, your company’s CEO and your high school sweetheart are tagging each other’s Facebook photo albums.

With transparency and open communication ruling the day, how much do we REALLY want to cross-network between our various social circles? The business side of social media sings the praises of finally connecting as individuals while still representing the companies we work for. Our personalities are recognized as having value inside these circles, and accounts who are run by ghost writers are looked at as being dishonest.

On the flip side, is actual value being created by sharing your weekend hobbies with the people you professionally associate with?

So, where do you draw the line? Take our poll, and please elaborate your thoughts in the comments:

Jennifer Soloway [follow me on Twitter] // Art Director // Strategic Insights