Insight Article, Internet Strategy, Social Networking, User Research

Improving the Health of the Healthcare Web July 12th, 2010

Healthcare organizations today face many challenges on both the mission and margin side of the house.  While grappling with the implications of the new healthcare legislation, many healthcare providers are trying to understand “meaningful-use” directives regarding Electronic Health Records (EHR) while simultaneously seeking systems that will streamline hospital-physician interactions and promote physician alignment and loyalty. Of course, ever-present are the demands for increasing customer acquisition and revenue generation, along with driving reductions in operating expenses, while providing enhanced levels of service to patients, families, and all levels of caregivers.

While many of the early visions of a fully digital healthcare economy are still to be realized, some health organizations are finding success in pursuing a small set of focused, tactical objectives rather than attempting more comprehensive and ambitious strategies sometimes characterized as “boil the ocean” approaches. The best results seem to follow when new Web-based applications / functionality are deployed carefully and incrementally in phases that are closely tied to the individual organization’s ability to metabolize such change.  This approach will certainly leave some important aspirations pushed out till much later on the timeline. However, it does streamline the crucial process of internal socialization necessary for adequate funding and broad-based institutional acceptance.

There are three Web tactics we see driving significant ROI for healthcare organizations. The first is focusing on demand-generation, or using the Web platform as a customer acquisition tool. The second tactic is focusing on patient retention through access to quality information and self-service convenience tools. And the third tactic focuses on using the Web as a platform to promote physician alignment and loyalty. If the appetite and urgency is sufficiently high, some healthcare organizations will move forward simultaneously with aspects of all three tactics.

Insight Article, User Experience Design, Visual Design

1 Web site + 1 Email = 1 User Experience. June 8th, 2010

Like most digital marketing consultants, I’m concerned with improving the online user experience for users of my clients’ Web sites – arguably the quickest way to provide a positive return on any Web marketing investment.  With few exceptions, upgrading the online experience to meet a marketing objective involves making enhancements to the email marketing program in parallel.  What I’ve noticed, lamentably, is the number of often systemic hurdles that prevent marketers from treating Web sites and emails as one user experience.

Emails, particularly opt-in consumer marketing HTML format emails, basically look and feel like a web page, and invite interaction exactly the way a browser-based Web page would.  And they should – since the goal of non-transactional emails is to “get the click” and deliver a visit to the emailer’s Web site.   So why on earth would marketers allocate budget separately, deploy creative and technical resources inconsistently, and otherwise architect these systems in silos, and thus permit discordant and inferior user experiences to occur?

Information Architecture, Insight Article, Internet Strategy, Social Networking, Technology, Usability, Web Content Management

Digital Consolidation : Growing Urgency to Rationalize the Business Web May 3rd, 2010

When I pose the question “What’s keeping you up at night?” anywhere in the C-Suite these days, the conversation inevitably turns to issues of measuring and managing their extended Web enterprise.  In all sectors of business, not-for-profit organizations, and government agencies, the Web has rapidly and thoroughly become the undisputed platform for communications, commerce, and community building.  But while many execs celebrate the entrepreneurial spirit that has blossomed in their respective organizations around the Web, the proliferation of sites, applications, microsites, tools, widgets, and social media connections has confounded many user segments and placed growing strain on the ability of organizations to manage this distended organism.  Of course, it has also greatly complicated the challenge of extracting meaningful performance metrics from this platform which could indicate how cost effectively (or not) the organization’s business needs are being supported online.

As we dive into the depths of some of these large enterprises, we see symptoms of unplanned and unconstrained organic growth.  The benefits of time-to-market advantage are obvious, but the risks less so. I’m reminded of a comment made to me by Dr. Max Coppes, Head of Oncology at Children’s National Medical Center; he said, “Growth for the sake of growth is the philosophy of a cancer cell.”  That’s hardly the analog we’d hope for when inventorying a business Web enterprise.  But in many offices the idea still prevails that “If I can build it, I should build it.”  So as we watch organizations innovate, add new product lines, and expand their global markets, we see their technologies and business processes proliferate, and any vestiges of coherent discipline seem to vanish in that euphoria of growth.

Insight Article, Web Development

The Emerging Online World: Brave Perhaps, But Not So New April 14th, 2010

At the Shakespeare Association of America’s annual conference two weeks ago, I participated in a workshop called “Shakespeare 2.0″ that attempted to describe the essential methods that Shakespearean scholars use, and how those methods will change because of emerging online technologies. Two questions arose that might be of interest outside this field: first, what is unique about scholars and what they do? Second, what is so special about Shakespearean scholars?

In working to build Web sites, I’ve worked with several different kinds of professionals, and I’ve observed that the three groups that I’ve gotten to know the best – journalists, diplomats, and scholars – work in very similar ways, at least when it comes to publishing things. Their traditional editorial processes usually include these elements:

Application Development, Insight Article, Interaction Design, Technology, Web Development, ASP.NET, ViewState

Dynamic Web Controls in ASP.NET March 16th, 2010

ASP.NET’s ability to populate controls into pages at runtime is a very powerful feature. Instead of knowing exactly what the structure and content of a page is at compile time, webpages can be made to be more programmatic, adjusting to situations on the fly. There are certain amazing things that can be done with CSS, such as controlling the styling and positioning of webpage content, but an ASP.NET programmer can literally add and remove controls on the fly as they see fit.

Insight Article, Interaction Design, Technology, User Experience Design, Visual Design

The Web Typographers Essential Toolkit – 22 Tutorials, Tools, and Resources February 12th, 2010

This collection is for those of you who have already gulped down the typesetters Kool-Aid. You know who you are; the crowd who grimaces at badly kerned movie credits, who get misty-eyed about old motel signs, and who think comic-sans was created by fascists hell-bent on making your Chinese food menu look festive. It goes without saying, in any discipline you have to know the rules before you can break them, yet among young designers there is a perpetual debate revolving around the use of grids and scales. The bottom line is if you’re serious about your craft, these are fundamental tools. As a designer they are as crucial as internalizing the gestalt principles of perception or the basic tenants of color psychology.

Insight Article, Web Development, Business Decisions, CMS, content management, integration

Integrating External Applications: The Hidden Costs January 11th, 2010

So you are at the beginning stages of your new content management system (CMS) implementation project.  You are finally going to get rid of the very painful, homegrown content management system you are currently using.  Your head is filled with dreams of eliminating all of your manual processes and replacing them with fully automated integration points between your shiny new CMS and your entire hodgepodge of legacy systems.

Information Architecture, Insight Article, User Experience Design, Visual Design, Grids

Creative Standardization in Web Site Design September 1st, 2009

Beautiful Solutions

When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.

Buckminster Fuller, architect, designer, and inventor:

Recently, Jeff Applegate, an Art Director in our office gave a presentation explaining the origins and advantages of using grids in Web site designs. He explained that grids are used to create visually harmonious design layouts and that principles of good design are rooted in the Golden Mean, a mathematical proportion that—when followed—produces designs that are aesthetically pleasing to most people.

Information Architecture, Insight Article, Internet Strategy, Usability, User Experience Design, User Research, Visual Design, Web Content Management, Healthcare

7 Principles for Designing a Successful Hospital Web Site August 1st, 2009

With health information Web sites like WebMD setting the standard, hospital Web sites must at a minimum meet basic user expectations. Your hospital Web site is a direct extension of your brand and a poorly designed or outdated Web site will translate in the public’s perception to a poorly run hospital with outdated services.

What are the keys to developing a successful hospital Web site? All of the principles outlined below are rooted in the practice of user-centered design.

Insight Article

CMS Application Development with Web Standards July 1st, 2009

Today’s Web sites and Web applications are getting more and more complex. On the front-end at least, this is largely because interactive features are getting more advanced. There’s been a jump forward in recent years in terms of Web browser capabilities that has enabled sophisticated, almost desktop software quality features. Loading external content, hiding and showing page elements, fixed positioning, animation, drag and drop, and alpha transparent layers have all become commonplace in advanced Web-based experiences.

Insight Article

Rich Animation: Flash vs. jQuery June 1st, 2009

Early Web Animation

At the beginning of the Internet boom there were two ways to create animation. One was by using an animated gif – a very rudimentary web based version of flip cards. An animated gif strings together a number of images that change slightly, creating an illusion of movement when viewing them quickly in order. Not only could the files be very large at times, but they were also highly pixelated and not very smooth.

Insight Article

User Experience: Usability and Aesthetics May 1st, 2009

User centered design is the main tenet of the user experience profession. It has become a mainstream concept that seems simple, but underlying this simplicity are layers of complexity.

Insight Article

Content Migration vs. Site Building March 1st, 2009

Content migration is easy. You take an old page, copy it, and then paste it into a new page. It’s a one to one relationship, no real changes happen, and a couple hundred pages can be done with minimal effort. Most sites designed today could even be done without a CMS, simply using straight HTML.

Insight Article

Web Site Personalization January 1st, 2009

Web site personalization provides customers with information that is relevant to their specific needs, making their online experience more efficient and ultimately more satisfying. Once Web site personalization hits its golden age, the next generation of Technoratis may look back at today’s web technology in the same way we look back at the now archaic sites of Web 1.0. Despite the lack of fundamental information architecture, Web sites were built. This was before user experience design was even a consideration, and well before any thought of personalizing the web was technologically feasible. Just getting a web presence online in those days was an accomplishment.

Insight Article

Let Us Introduce Ourselves: The NavigationArts IA Team November 1st, 2008

The title “information architect” was coined by the innovative architect and designer Richard Saul Wurman in the mid-1970s, but it didn’t emerge as a profession until around 2000. At the height of the first internet frenzy the internet industry needed a title for this skill set. Information architects are experts at organizing information and designing user interfaces. We work at the crossroads of content and technology and use both to create highly usable online experiences.

Insight Article

Content Management Systems and Application Development October 1st, 2008

Content Management Systems are a core component of the web delivery stack for many companies. Using a CMS, companies are able to exert greater control over the branding and presentation of their web properties. The CMS also helps to establish a repeatable and tunable process for creating, testing, approving and deploying content.

Insight Article

Building on Intranet Usability September 1st, 2008

According to a 2007 Nielsen study, intranets are no longer the “impoverished cousins of Web sites,” but rather have success rates that average 33% higher than the Web ¹. A Web search for intranet best practices unofficially corroborates that data—many results address how to incorporate information architecture rather than whether it’s necessary. That’s good news and represents a more mature view of intranets that companies have long lacked.

Insight Article

Creation and Execution of a Successful Web Strategy July 1st, 2008

Web strategy is the determination of how a business or organization’s web presence will manifest its overall business strategy. Whereas a Web site can accommodate the needs of its users and contribute to a company or organization’s bottom line without a pre-defined strategy to follow, informed pre-planning and thoughtful execution of that plan can only increase your odds of success.

Insight Article

Prototyping 101 June 1st, 2008

On most design and development projects, the project sponsors and team want to see some manifestation of the concept well before the final launch, and a prototype may fit the bill. Prototypes can take on drastically different forms, from a paper sketch to a fully functional beta version. For this reason, it is not always simple to plan and set expectations for how a prototype will integrate in your project lifecycle.

Insight Article

Understanding the Customer Experience with User Research May 1st, 2008

The customer experience encompasses what a person experiences on and off of your Web site. As experts in user experience design, we focus all our attention on the Web site to make sure the user’s experience on the site is the best it can be. Remember that the user’s experience with your company doesn’t start the moment they land on your home page and end once they leave your site. It begins with advertising, word of mouth recommendations, or an email campaign announcing an upcoming sale. Nonetheless, a Web site attracts and aggregates many different types of users and serves as an excellent platform for measuring and researching not only how they experience your site, but your brand overall.

Insight Article

Dot Teen: Portrait of a Facebook Generation April 1st, 2008

At age 17, Meghan has several hundred friends on Facebook and MySpace. She shares "vids" and "pics" through YouTube and Flikr and often studies with friends over AIM. Meghan reads Shakespeare on SparkNotes and keeps a blog on her second MySpace account, which she hides from mom and dad. If it’s out there, she StumbledUpon it, Reddit and Digg(ed) it. If it was del.icio.us, she added it to her Super Wall. Meghan Twitters and desperately wants an iPhone. She “hearts” iLike, hates e-mail and loves to "txt."

Meghan is a .teen.

Insight Article

Leveraging Social Networking Sites March 1st, 2008

A social network is a structure comprised of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as values, visions, ideas, affinities, etc. The resulting structures are often complex.

Insight Article

Agile Development: A Management Perspective February 1st, 2008

Agile development refers to a methodology for building software that promotes development iterations throughout a project. Rather than defining a very specific scope during the project’s planning phase, agile development advocates rapid and incremental feature releases to production. The process is highly collaborative and emphasizes working software as the primary measure of progress.

Insight Article

Do I Need User-Generated Content on My Website? January 1st, 2008

Wikis, blogs, comments, questions, reviews, and discussions are threaded throughout the Web, and not just on the usual suspects dedicated to community building and networking. This growth of collaboration and participation is typically included in definitions of "Web 2.0" and is the reason why Time magazine declared you, the user, the person of the year in 2006. It is not surprising that executives and web teams everywhere are now wondering: do I need user-generated content on my site?

Insight Article

2008 Web Predictions December 1st, 2007

1. Social networking glut gets cleaned up.

The pretenders will be separated from the contenders when some social networking sites deliver ROI, and many others do not. This saturated marketplace will contract, but the sites that remain will have staying power.

Insight Article

Five Myths about Content Strategy November 1st, 2007

Consider an upscale boutique for women’s shoes in New York City. In order to attract the right clientele, the boutique needs to build a good reputation and provide a pleasant (or cool, or funky, or exclusive) shopping experience. Thousands of dollars may be spent on interior designers, stylists, and architects who will perfect the boutique’s appearance. Thousands more may be spent on marketing and advertising to attract the crowds. After all this investment in the brand and the infrastructure, the most critical consideration remains. The shop must provide access to incredible shoes – shoes that cannot be found elsewhere. If the boutique does not have shoes the savvy shoppers are seeking, customers will leave empty handed. After all, the shoppers have no shortage of stores to visit and ways to spend their money.

Insight Article

The Rise of Search as Navigation October 1st, 2007

Arthur C. Clarke isn’t credited with creating the first search engine; that honor goes to a student at McGill University during the infancy of the Internet. Clarke, however, certainly had a handle on what we’re still looking for in his HAL 9000 creation—perhaps the most famous example of artificial intelligence of its era. If you’ll pardon the quick trip back in movie history, HAL 9000 was the spaceship Discovery’s paranoid central computer that attempted to kill the crew in the movie classic 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Insight Article

Why most Web sites fail… and how yours can be different October 1st, 2007

Seven common mistakes of corporate Web sites

Considering how important the Web is to most businesses, and how much time, effort, and money most companies spend on their Web channel, it is amazing that so many corporate Web sites serve their sponsoring organizations so poorly. The Internet has been an important tool for business communication for almost a decade, and many corporate Web sites are on their fourth or fifth incarnation, yet most fail to deliver measurable business results. Here now, in no particular order, are the seven common mistakes made by corporate Web sites:

Insight Article

Strategy Tips for Presidential Campaign Web sites June 1st, 2007

Since the late 1990s, political campaign Web sites have lagged behind entertainment, eCommerce, and other Web uses, particularly in the areas of usability and interaction. Indeed, until only a few years ago, campaign Web sites were in a stage of Web site infancy—the electronic brochure. They featured text addressing platform issues, touted accomplishments, and perhaps included a donation process and chat and forum technology. Of marginal importance in a candidate’s strategy for victory, campaign Web sites were not expected to craft a strong image, build a support base, or raise funds.

Insight Article

The Business Case for Web Standards-Based Development April 1st, 2007

When companies create the software behind their Web sites and Web applications, they often fail to develop a proper architecture for the user interface (UI) layer. Many in the software and Web development industries consider the UI layer pitfalls from the 1990s as the norm; they do not realize that a more progressive, structured, and thought-out UI layer is not only possible, but will interact much more effectively with backend software. Simplified connections between the UI and backend software layers are one of the primary benefits of a properly-architected UI layer—one developed using Web standards-based techniques that separate content and structure from presentation and behavior. This article will first introduce persistent UI pitfalls of the 1990s, then outline the benefits of Web standards-based Web site development.

Insight Article

Making CMS Work: Models for Content Governance March 1st, 2007

Why do beautifully architected, well-designed Web sites, especially those with content management systems (CMS), so often fall into disrepair within a year of their launch? CMS projects are enticing and sales pitches are full of promises. A CMS is designed to empower different groups and agents within the organization to manage their own content, remove IT bottlenecks, streamline and formalize workflows, and give business units complete control over what content appears online. So what goes wrong?

Insight Article

ROI from your Mobile Content Deployment: Seven Factors February 1st, 2007

The “mobile Web,” or more appropriately any Web site as viewed on a small screen, is a frequent topic of conversation with our clients. Fueled in part by device consolidation and increasing mobile Web speeds, U.S. mobile Web usage is at twenty percent of mobile users ¹ and climbing, particularly among younger consumers. Content providers, grasping the potential of a mobile audience, are understandably eager to disseminate their text, images, and interactive and multimedia content to this emerging market

Insight Article

Developing Relevant CMS Requirements December 1st, 2006

We’re often asked by our clients to help them get their arms around selecting a content management system (CMS) to fit their needs. After you decide to integrate a CMS for your Web enterprise, understanding your specific needs through the development of Web content management requirements greatly improves the selection process. We commonly hear our clients needing a CMS to resolve the following points of pain: