How to Lead The Eye in Website Design

In website design now, I always say it’s not only aesthetics but how website designers should communicate their design to the objective(s) of the website or webpage.

Recently, Firebug had a website redesign. From that, I’m taking away and sharing with you my observation; how a subtle design led my eye.

Sunken Arrows

Besides the huge bug and red button, your eyes would naturally fall to the benefit columns. However, before reaching the 1st item of each column there’s a subtle sunken arrow.

These arrows are subconscious pointers to lead your eye to these columns. Instead of boxing content up, the designer gave more free space around the content but used the sunken arrows to make sure you read this content.

Design with Reason

In college and university, designers are asked to prepare rationales of their concepts. Same thing here, almost. Only here, your website design is taken to another level considered how a user will interact with your design.

Web Design Goes Straight to Hell via The Oatmeal

A friend of mine via Twitter shared this finding of a comic strip on The Oatmeal. This is the last part of the strip but should give you a very clear visual of the pangs in website design. Especially, if you’re a website designer.

The Oatmeal comics are drawn by Matthew Inman. Whether he’s related to Shaun Inman, I wouldn’t know. But his comics are random and sure is hell funny.

However, when was the last time you had an abomination happen to you?

E-Commerce Design Mistake to Avoid

I’ve never been a fan of website templates. Half the time they may look good but experience wise, they can be horrible because they lack user experience. If you’ve not heard of user experience, simple to say it’s about designing a good experience for the user.

How do you design an experience?

Well, in short it’s making the user’s life easy and mindless to fulfill the objectives they need to accomplish. By Wikipedia’s definition, user experience is:

User experience design is a subset of the field of experience design that pertains to the creation of the architecture and interaction models that impact a user’s perception of a device or system.

Source: Wikipedia

Shopping Cart is below the line

Whenever you add an item to your shopping cart, you’d like to keep track of it. Therefore, users would expect it to be in the most convenient place it can be referred and access.

That’s why I consider placing it below the line one of the worst e-commerce design mistakes to avoid. Especially if you’ve a lot of clutter in the area it’s positioned.

If there isn’t a shopping cart list, ensure the shopping cart button is clear and by default, should display the:

• Number of items
• Total amount
• Link to view all items
• Checkout link

What other bad e-commerce experiences have you had?

Pimp My Broadband Website Review

I was reading Timothy’s blog and he was speaking about a new website DiGi launched. It’s called; Pimp My Broadband, and yes, it does sound similar to MTV’s Pimp My Ride. But don’t be misled, because you’re not pimping your modem or anything.

It looks more like DiGi is providing an online space for Malaysia Internet users to share their two cents about our country’s broadband “experience”. And you know what that means. It’s time to vent our anger! Plus, they’re rewarding us for it.

In one word, the website is funky. However, even funky needs its minor visual improvements. Here are some which I’d like to note:

• The phrase “Don’t you wish your broadband was better?” should be white.
• Diagonally aligned typewriter typeface can be challenging to read.
• The headings “Top Viewed Videos/Photos” isn’t prominent.
• I don’t get why is there a “Broadband Done Right” section.

And I’m surprised they never told the designer to stick with the white colored heading text with black outlines as he/she did for the “How to Submit” page. The corporates might find it boring, but user experience counts in website design.

I love the idea of the modem metaphors but the simple animation, is a waste of time to me.

Nonetheless, if you want to win some prizes like an Apple MacBook Air or the new MacBook Pro 13″ then it’s a website worth checking out.

I’ve a rough idea on what I’m going to do. Now, all I need is to steal some hours of my life to do it.

P.S.: If you dislike/hate our Internet connection, here’s an opportunity to help you get your message really out there.

Create a Website Within YouTube

I stumbled on this unique idea by an advertising agency; BooneOakley, from the Adverblog. The idea uses the interactive hotspots YouTube now allows you to create within your YouTube video. As I recall, my first time ever seeing this interactive hotspots beind used was in some Street Fighter parody video.

When I saw BooneOakley’s version, they were fully harnessing not only a unique online presence but the power of social media marketing too! Talk about having two birds with one stone – in support against animal cruelty, I didn’t use killing. Well, have a gander at BooneOakley’s website within YouTube.

Now, who would’ve thought? Or, did you think it was too crazy? Well, there’s creative marketing for you. The one thing I’m also truly in love with in my life.

And, if you’re a motion graphics or post-production house located in Malaysia, this is another idea you can keep inside your notebooks.