Creative-Dynamics Blog

How good design can make users effective

by Stephen Turbek on 2011/04/20 for boxesandarrows.com

It is an honest question: how smart are your users? The answer may surprise you: it doesn’t matter. They can be geniuses or morons, but if you don’t engage their intelligence, you can’t depend on their brain power.

Something to think about when you are showing your latest design to your client

Question: MAYBE  YOU ARE STUPID?

S = Stressed

T = Tired

U =Untrained

p =Passive

I = Independent

D = Distracted.

To get the larger lowdown of each category click here.  To see full article

bye bye Groupon!!

Check out this website!

http://www.generateit.net/css-corner/index.htm

Great job for saving time on all the ‘spring cleaning’ jobs in website design.

Found this on my travels in London Underground!

WTF!!  Is there a hand holding the train??

Nope just a bacon sandwich!! hehe

As great as Google is, Google places isn’t that user friendly with virtually no support.

Have a Google places account but recently moved?

Can’t change the country in the google places address.

Heres how to get around it.

1. Go to the edit address page
2. Delete all the address fields (leaving country)
3. Hit submit
4. An error message will appear with the fields showing in red/pinkish
5. There you have it! You can now change the country and address
6. Just wait 2 weeks for them to verify it!

Good luck!

Useful? Then like us on Facebook or retweet.

Just a short mention to a great online tool I found at http://www.flippingtypical.com that allows you to preview your system fonts for when you need to match something exactly right for your site or documents. Seems like the days are long gone of cycling through Photoshop’s library or previewing it in Word!

Just type in the text and click any font you like the look of to get a bigger preview.

There is even some basic formatting like BOLD, Italic and

underline

If you fancy making your own, you can download the script from here: http://www.lalit.org/lab/javascript-css-font-detect

I had always seen those little toolbars at the bottom some websites with Facebook shares/likes and opportunities to give feedback, however I always disregarded it as ‘abit naff’ and something that users would generally ignore. I saw Wibya and decided to give it a try and how wrong I was!

Firstly installing the toolbar is almost instantaneousness with only a few steps to install (under 2 minutes I reckon). The amount of apps they have is outstanding and can easily be added and taken away at ones will. Of course it has all the usual suspects such as Facebook Likes, Retweets, Digg, Linkedin which are great for spreading your website around.

Recent Posts – when clicked it shows the most recent posts (with auto thumbnails)
Real Time Users – shows readers how many others are online at the time (kinda pointless but still exciting when you see someone else there!)
Real Time Chat – Yes thats right, chat with other users on the same website! COOL!
Digg This - allows readers to digg posts (yaya)
RSS Subscribe – allows readers to subscribe to your RSS feed (yaya)
Smart Share – allows readers to share your posts using what ever platform they wish
Facebook Share/Likes/FanPage - Great for linking to Facebook
Retweet – Retweet your page on Twitter

These are just a few and adding more is very easy also (See image) and kind of reminds me of adding Google gadgets to your homepage or windows desktop apps, probably worth adding that this is also constantly being updated. (check out the 3D CoolIris image gallery!!)

You can also customize the colour of your toolbar to suit your website, whether you want it to stand out or blend in.

There is even a analytics part within your FREE account that allows you to see which element is responding well with users.

This is an absolute must and although some traditionalists (like I was) would may think this is a lazy GUI design it’s just because they haven’t tried it!! I do feel that web designers and SEOers should still have social media buttons within their page as personally I feel it looks more professional and solid design but adding this unobtrusive little toolbar doesn’t harm and lets be honest the majority of website owners care more about the performance of their website than if it looks a little out of place. Too many advantages with very little disadvantages, an absolute MUST! 9/10

Gravatar stands for ‘Globally Recognized Avatar’

It is a very clever tool that allows you to associate an image such as a picture of you and associate it with an email address.   This is very useful especially getting your posts and comments noticed in blogs etc. and beats the hell out of those pointless yellow smiley avatars or even the Yahoo 360 (which even the guys seems to be female?!).

Signup is easy and when you upload an image you are also able to crop it and give it a rating certification.  This is to allow some people that have slightly shall we say ‘riskay’ avatar images not to show on a Fisher Price Forum for example.   This of course is subject to abuse and has been  criticized heavily by other bloggers and users.   Personally, I like that it asks the moral question to do the right thing and rate your image how you see it.  Maybe I am naive but I don’t believe someone would knowingly abuse this free tool knowing that in all likelihood they will be taken down after a few hours.

There is too little trust in the world!

Check out this video, explaining it all.

Wisestamp is a application that can be installed into any browser that allows personalisation of signatures to any email.  It currently supports all the online major players such as Yahoo, Hotmail and Google and will in the future allow Outlook integration.

Wisestamp is a fantastic tool that allows a user to include their latest twitter feed, facebook profile, digg profile, foursquare etc. within the email signature itself.   Any Social media that exists it includes it!  There is even other tools that allows random quotes from famous people like Gandhi that is updated daily, making you sound more intelligent of course.  Why is this an SEO Must?  Well imagine all the emails you send everyday to your clients, Wisestamp for me is also a very powerful viral tool that unobtrusively shoves your latest tweet or Facebook update into the face (as it would) of the user for re-tweeting and CCs (curious clicks).

Wisestamp is not only for emails but also can be used in conjunction with blogposts also that can be customized with different colours, fonts, boxes etc. to the extent of your personal HTML/CSS styling skills

It is very easy to install but personally have only been able to add two types of signatures with a free account is a little stingy without paying.  I suppose you can’t have everything in life!

Highly Recommended

Take a Quick WiseStamp Video Tour:

HelloBar is a floating toolbar that can easily be added to any website across most platforms. It is currently in its BETA phase but after some testing of my own, I was quickly impressed with how easily it was to customize and install (up and running in about 3 minutes!).

Developed by digital-telepathy (authors of Slidedeck), the HelloBar looks very much like the typical Digg bar that has grown to annoy us but with a an option to collapse it without ruining the usability experience of the website. The HelloBar quickly becomes the one of the first aspects of a website when installed which at first.   I didn’t like but quickly realised the power of this blatant but unobtrusive call to action.

In my opinion, The HelloBar really comes to light when used inconjunction with News feeds which also can be linked to a website RSS if need be.

Due to currently being at BETA stage, the customisable aspects are limiting but is a firm and blatant step in the right direction which we want our users to take when visiting our website!!

Well done digital-telepathy!!! (again!)

Register to Creative Dynamics Blog and we will send you an invite for the BETA, be quick though as we only have 5 and cannot guarantee anything!!