Yesterday, I blogged about the need for conversion friendly web design, which was inspired by a news story that was doing the rounds about how online retailers were losing sales because of the way they presented their sites. I thought it would be a good idea to follow it up with some principals that are […]
Category Archives: Abiding Themes
Abiding themes 9 / Power to the People
There is no denying that the increase in the ability of individuals to communicate through social media channels has allowed greater freedom of expression, and given people a stronger voice than they have had before. With Twitter, Facebook, and blogs, the opinion of a single person can be transmitted around the world almost instantly, and […]
Rule #1 / What goes up, must come down…
Ultimately, every great power wanes. Growth gives wealth, wealth creates decadence, decadence builds into stagnation, and stagnation leads to decline. Whether over centuries like the Roman Empire, or in the blink of an eye like MySpace, a position of power is temporary. Sooner or later, someone will come along with something better, be hungrier, and […]
Abiding Themes 8 / Increasing Website Speed
Back in March when it was announced that Larry Page would be taking the reigns at Google as CEO there was an interesting profile about him in Wired Magazine that had a lot of focus on his obsession with measuring things. Google itself has always been fast, eschewing flashy design in favour of functionality, and with […]
Things I like: Greplin
I’ve always believed that in order to be useful, a piece of technology should allow you to spend less time using technology. Things that create more efficiency in your day to day life should be embraced, as they create more free time to enjoy doing the things you want to do. One of the biggest […]
Branding / The Tone of Voice for Blogging
It can be pretty tricky getting the tone of voice right on a company blog. Too formal, and you run the risk of not really engaging with your readers, too informal and you lack credibility… Beyond that, it’s also important to remember that in mind that formality is relative. Being too informal within the insurance […]
Communities / Live Together, or Die Alone
An online community is much the same as an offline community: a connected group of people with a shared interest. This could be a social group, people who like the same music, people who are interested in the same kind of sports, or people who share a passion for a type of product. Why you […]
Abiding Themes 7 / Flexible Identity
My favourite song of all time is Bitter Sweet Symphony by The Verve. It’s more than a decade old now, but it still sounds fresh, and it’s still just as exciting to hear it now as it was when it was first released back in 1997. When it came out, I was about 21, and […]
Abiding Themes 6 / Adding Value
The first question that you need to ask yourself when building a website is: What does this do for users? Not: What does this do for me? The reason for this is that if a website is solely about the publisher, rather than an end user, there is no valid use case for anyone actually […]
Abiding Theme 5 / Measure Everything
Do you know why people call themselves gurus? It’s because they can’t spell charlatan. The hallmark of a lot of social media campaigns is that they fall under the same lack of scrutiny as an off line branding campaign – the benefits are known to be there, but it is accepted that they are often […]