dotone » Web-Design

The bigger the client the cheaper the process

Saleh Esmaeili — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:31:08 +0000

At d&l we’ve had 91% of business coming from references and the rest from only networking, directories, n’ search engines. So what I hear most of the time is hey bro, we ain’t as big as company X that referred you, so be gentle with invoices “you know what I mean”. It is not shocking anymore to me, but I keep on getting this assumption from prospects n’ clients that Agencies n’ Design Boutiques quote/invoice based on the size of their clients’ pockets n’ not the size of the job. But the Irony lies in the fact that it is cheaper to work with bigger clients.

You usually do less “unbilled” work for Bigger clients.

Bigger clients mean bigger personnel count and departments which also means lots o’ hands that could brief you and get you most of your needs and answers on a timely manner, thus saving your schedules from tangling up.

Department, not a one-man marketer. You get lots o’ input and more questions and the more you interact the clearer the goal and creative needs are.

Bigger clients usually have their branding done professionally.

That means you come to receive a proper Branding guidelines that help you understand the visual/feel of the brand. Print marketing collateral to give you insight of what has been working for the client offline. And, that could be a good platform to start understanding what the client has been approving and liking from the work done for them on traditional medium.

While with smaller ones, you gotta’ first find where the source of that Logo is or you might end up scanning and redrawing the logo not understanding a damn thing about the concept behind it, nor how it’s supposed to be used. And then comes content, smaller companies usually expect to receive copy writing for free, imagery, and the whole thing for free. While at bigger clients you have these mostly ready with little adjustments and tweaking to fit with the concept of the website, need you some more copy, they’re ready to pay.

Big sharks know how to take care of smaller fishes, they grow’em

Yes, irony, but that’s true. Bigger clients tend to be a little more with moralities regarding treating a bunch of young kids doing some artwork for their brand online. Because they usually know how important their opinions are and how effective they could be. While at smaller companies the stress is on squeezing the budget-spent and crunching those kids for some extra saving.

Sure at bigger organizations the amount of work might be a lot more and the expectations are higher as they hold a bigger stake in the market. And yes, the work is usually required faster and with really sharper presentations and prompt feedback, which translate in more resources to allocate to their projects, which means more cost. But from bottom up, it is cheaper to work with bigger clients thus more profiting than working with smaller ones, because:

Smaller clients expect you to do it all from A-Z as in even their part
Usually have no offline collateral and branding guidelines
Unbilled work means collaboration for them
Consultancy? You can’t bill that!
You keep on hearing can you let my daughter give you a design idea? She’s graduating this year
Website is a one time thing

The point, I don’t know how accounting goes right when pricing is different for bigger & smaller companies, I mean how would the product pricing be on the books? Crazy! You just don’t bill some stuff to smaller clients because they won’t understand it nor pay it but you do it just for the ethics of the business? Is that it?

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What’s with du? It’s so dunt!

dotblack — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:19:09 +0000

The buzz around Music on Demand by du, “yeah du’s got some new service for downloading music”, “why iTunes ain’t opening the shop for Music in UAE, du did that, and Nokia too”. All this got me to visit du’s website. I’m there and looking for a link to “Music on Demand”. Can’t find it any where on the homepage.

Being a web-head, first thing I did was typing www.du.ae/musicondemand, no luck. Tried musicondemand.du.ae, no. So I went back to du.ae’s homepage. Ah I get lucky there’s a 3,4 second rolling banner that I have to be lucky to see before it shows the next slide. So I clicked on it, it redirected me to a press release for “Music on Demand”, you joking? I’m a user, not a reporter. So I had to read the press release to find the link somewhere in the article. The worst part is the link looked exactly like this: www.du.ae/MyWorld. But anyways I clicked on it.

You want to show me a service you take me to its press release page? Just, why?

This is so not “du”. That was my first impression on the service before even thinkin’ of using it. Because everything done on the page was unprofessional. Back in the last two years I used to give example of du’s website for information architecture and how usable it was, and most remarkably how it connected the brand and went online with it, all intact.

This portal? Not du to me, that’s dunt. I’ll tell ya why! First let me explain something out here. If all this was seen on a start-up’s page, some guys in a garage or workin’ from home, that’d be forgivable because they can go wrong given they’re resources might be tight and limited. du though, can’t go wrong. No excuse! du ain’t a 10K-capital company, that’s why! So if I was du, I’d be ashamed, because if I was du I could afford professionals.

Here’s some.

Branding

This is the part that shows it’s a team that cannot relate to anything design. Why? I can bet on it, the designer didn’t have a look at du’s Branding Guidelines at all. Reason? None of the type-faces used are correct, nor the style of type used. The only things used out of du’s brand is the Logo, and the color pallete, and that’s it. It doesn’t feel du. While I’m not a du insider nor ever worked on Brand du, creatively du is one of my favorite brands that were born in UAE, that’s why it feels odd when you find it going down the toilet with such an awful artwork/development.

Identity Crisis

They call the service “Music on Demand”. Though you don’t see that name anywhere on the page! No where! Literally no where! Check these awkward details.

Page title(what appears on top of the tab & browser window) is “du” and only clean “du”.
Subdomain is “content”.
Website Logo is “du”.

How am I supposed to know what this is called or get this programmed in my mind? How are you working on the awareness? How would anyone identify this other than being a du service which doesn’t feel like it?

This website doesn’t only drift from du’s brand, but this service has identity crisis too. The page doesn’t know what this service is called.

On top of the page, they called it “My World Beta”. Get your act together. Decide, is it “My World” or “Music on Demand”. With all the ads and branding activities couldn’t du invest in a brand for its new service? I don’t know, personally, I’m disappointed at du.

And the cheap part is how skewed, pixelated, and how badly images are resized. I mean they are artists and musicians, get some good photos or resize them well. Man! Such a cheap work.

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Social and Community with one button

dotblack — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:42:55 +0000

It amazes me how I get this question popping at every web-app meeting. Can we just go social & add up a community? It’s so easy, add that button that shares the page with other apps and web-portals. So simple?

As much as most of us hate Social Software, the title that is, it is often tossed as the end-solution for every portal’s misery. Just add that button and we’re set.

What got my attention back to this is:

It’s more to social than just a badge, a button, or a Facebook group. And sure is more than a Weyak. I’d like to call that the “Online Viral Model”

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Domains of Branding

dotblack — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:24:08 +0000

How much could your brand suffer if it didn’t own the domain name that reads its name? Obviously the number is out of reach. What brought my attention back to this issue is by dialing Showtime.com. It’s a domain name with an automated landing page at Network Solutions. I’ve never dialed Showtime, I’ve always been taken by a link to apparently Showtime Arabia instead.

A quick look at the whois records of the domain name, it reads that Showtime Tours Incorporated, a company in GB owns the domain name since 2003. But then again this website is down.

Now the interesting part, the website showtime.com has a ranking of 157,224 on Alexa and according to Compete Rank it has 64,427 U.S visitors a month. Now you might think 64K ain’t that a big deal? Okay, how about 64K showtime seekers/followers who have to either click/search/type elsewhere and get frustrated till they find the domain name that actually takes them to their beloved cable network Showtime?

Now I wouldn’t say Showtime couldn’t effort the price, that’d be underestimating their size, uninformed marketers? That wouldn’t be true either, in all the cases, that’s a miss!

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Navigate or Search?

dotblack — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 12:40:30 +0000

Menus or Inputs? Keyboard or Mouse? Whether to use a horizontal or vertical navigation or just the easiest question that pops, why not just search?

While designing interfaces for websites, there’s a pay-per-view kind of fight of Search vs. Navigation whether to use a bigger Search box or keep more space for the Navigation. Every website is different. How do we decide that?

Simple websites would have the generic about, services/products, contact us, kind of navigation with straight forward content structure, usually the corporate websites that could be categorized under Business Card Websites or Company Profile online. Bigger ones would have more pages to show, more information to show thus more navigational links whether horizontal or vertical or even including search.

Interactive websites and the ones with dynamic updates and an active team behind the content of the Website usually tend to get its navigation working all around; inline with content, horizontal, vertical, search, tag clouds, end-links, and some even interactively hand over links based on user behavior.

Now the question again, Search vs. Navigation, which, when, and how dominant each should be?

There are three factors that decide that:

Type of Users(searching users, navigating users)
Type of Content
Website Size in terms of content & pages

Type of Users

How are the users using the website? The reasons we’re using the present tense is the fact that mostly this gets asked after the design finalization and website launches, and of course for not being able to find out the user segments. So how do we find out the user/visitor segments?

Logging the visitors and segmenting them by those who land in the homepage and start using the Search and those who land and start using the Navigation. This could be a dynamic blend of people who are used to search vs. those who are used to clicking links. Based on this we could decide how big a search box be, or how to utilize the Navigation space and its visibility, it’s all relative to the results.

There’s an exception to this case, and that’s the rereness of the content of a website which forces users to use the website based on the websites design, this is where we toss the Behavior Injection term where the users get adopted to a series of interactivity habits forced by the rare and yet needed websites. A perfect example in the Arabia would be the forums, users have become accustomed to the use and the navigational structures of the Forums that they would want every other website to be made like a Forum, Categories and endless Threats all in a vertical form where the Global Navigation gets unnoticed most of the times.

Type of Content & Size

Content is King, Navigation is the Messenger. User is the Conqueror?

Based on the type of the content, whether an e-commerce website, or a socially interactive or just static informational content, it has to be navigated, after all it’s the Markup model. This can be again related to Users, but not the user type, but the user’s anticipation and use of the website. A corporate profile website would have simple linear information that is often easy to grasp and understand, copy/information, easy, it doesn’t make one think. For those websites, a set of links(navigation) whether inline, horizontal/vertical, search wouldn’t be as important, obvious.

For those complex content models with dynamically changing items/articles the decision is often hard to make. Content is there to please the user/reader. So how do we make’em happy? We could say well, again, based on the user segmentation we could decide how to make’em navigate or find information?

The problem, content is often driven by a business model that makes either a product/service/ad spaces sold, so some part of the work is done on Semi Injecting the content navigation and structure. Some would sell keywords on Search queries, some would sell a category sponsorship, so both models of navigation could come in handy in generating revenue. For that reason, depending on how important is the Business Model’s effect on the content and website’s/business performance the Navigation/Search could be combined relative to that.

Size of the content and its variety is another important element in this game, how many levels of categorization/sections/tagging could be done? Given that mostly old websites with unspecialized content go through such a stiff problem(simple solution, make smaller websites under one bigger umbrella) which is usually hard to do when the theme of a website is a niche that if broken down loses its wealth. So that’s where search becomes a secondary tool for the needle to be found in the hay stack.

An argument in such cases is, well, how about the Homepage as a visual Sitemap or simply a linear sitemap that would map the content. In our processes and analysis we call homepage as the “Grand” navigation, we could tell that when a homepage is structured in a planned manner with a good understanding of the business model and the users segments, it’s usually a Navigation initiator, where the homepage makes the user familiar with how items get organized in a website and how they are categorized. Our analysis have proved one major point, website that have bad navigation or minimal search functionality create a “Click Back” button actions to reach the homepage to start over the navigation process.

To sum this up, it’s an interestingly debatable topic whether to enlarge the Search box or make room for more Navigation Tabs or avoiding some of each. It’s all user & content related, steered by the business model and the point of Sales of a website.

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Microsites, what kind?

dotblack — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 22:53:37 +0000

Microsite debates have always been going on and never stopped. Be it between Designers and Developers or Media Planners and Clients or even the poor web-masters in the background.

John W Eliss, a seasoned online ads consultant, denies the need for microsites, he adds:

The Microsite, at least the original definition, is dead. Creating multiple, smaller websites for segments of the same brand only confused the customer and extended the purchasing process.

John continues the debate and adds a little +ve points too:

An advantage of microsite was search engine dominance. By creating multiple sites, a brand was able to dominate natural search rankings. No matter where the customer clicked, it was still the same company

There have been two types of microsites as of my observations, those that melt within a big site contents, and those that stand alone.

Excluding John, online marketers and for this case even the folks at online agencies would prefer to go with standalone microsites, because they’d want to have a clear shot, they often don’t want to mingle with existing websites and their Information Architecture & interactivity.

Clients on the other side don’t like to have their base website or corporate brand website touched by every campaign or product launch given that every campaign/project would have a different winner(agencies), think about conflict in style & message.

On the contrary, bigger picture believers, and those who give power to online agencies or perhaps have a big online department do go with microsites within their websites, name changes there, it becomes a section or a product page instead!

Good examples of inner microsites are the beloved Sony Ericsson and Nokia websites.

That’s right, I’m with John, Microsites are dead, but when it comes to cars? Bigger projects/products that are not daily consumer accessory, information that should not be confused with other information?

Every movie gets its own microsite, so? Should we put every Sony Pictures movie in one huge website that includes all the Sony movies?

I take my word back, it ain’t dead. It’s a relative thought, depends on three ends:

Advertisers’ website & decisions
Online Agencies or In House Department involvement
Type of Product and Advertisers’ business & consumer habits injected over years of feeding.

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Online/Web related News, yet no link?

dotblack — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 06:41:13 +0000

Now I’ve seen this many times, just to share my latest read, the News article starts speaking of a new website somewhere that is going to serve X, Y, and Z and is as good as A, B, and C. The News brief is over, where’s that website? A link? Nop! Google it ’till you find it.

And here’s my latest linkless read:

The Amman Stock Exchange has launched a new program on its website to foster disclosure and transparency in the Jordan capital market, reported Jordan Times. The Market Watch Live program will enable investors to follow their investments live and view updates such as the top 5 buy and sell orders, latest 20 executed orders, and 10 best and worst performing companies in terms of stock price. Source: AMEInfo.

Now end your misery and Google it, or search the Jordan Times for it. I wouldn’t blame AMEInfo’s editor either, even the Original article at Jordan Times does not have the link. Go figure.

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No XL for me, I’m good with Medium

dotblack — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 05:47:50 +0000

Ladies might think of something, stop it already, I’m talkin’ about websites, not 38C, though 34A is my type. Why is it that small websites try to make’em look big, even though the amount of information is not much they tend to make it look like a directory?

Got some to offer? Well, then you got a reason, done? Made it all through and got your word out? That’s it, stop it, do not elaborate more. Keep it simple. The number of pages in your website, or the number of links on your Global Navigation is not a measure for credibility. Nor the amount of photos you buy to stick on your pages are eye catchers.

It’s really obvious, many talk about it, and most of us try do implement it, but it fails when a small business looks up to a big business’ website, and wanna’ portray the same image. Well, ah?

Do it like Etisalat, ahm, we’d like to have a campaign like Barkley’s Bank but online.

The like xyz fever

Uneducated marketers get you rolling around yourself after their first five words, when the start is like: “We want a website that looks like Etisalat’s website” or “We want to have a website that makes people say it’s nice or make our partners happy”.

Ah c’mon, it’s about Why you need the website and how you wanna’ use it. Spend a couple of days takin her out for lunches and dinners so that you get the idea in her head and tell her this is a serious medium, you gotta have an aim for it! So you get that blond convinced, then comes the judgment and deciding on the creative.

This looks like a small website, we’re a big company, it should look big, cover the whole screen and have no empty spaces, come on use that space, they say. I let the rest for you, it’s fun going around and finally getting the message home with these kinds of clients, one day over, ten more idiots learn more about online, and we lose tens of hours that we could instead produce some deliverables. Live at startup online agencies!

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Understanding the Context, Common Sense

dotblack — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 14:50:28 +0000

Visual Design in general is all about common sense and solving a communication problem, simply, communicating and getting the message home. Some do it in extraordinary ways, some keep it simple, and it all depends on the subject and the audience. But wait! Designing websites that are to be serving points and an interface to a worldly organization can’t be done with having the home page full of flashy animation fading photos chosen(not taken) from a photo stock CD/Website. It’s about serving the visitor with information.

Having my design hat on, looking at Saudi’s World Trade Centre, to my amazement, a multi level menu system for you to find your way, instead of using the homepage as your index to the whole site. In short: no IA design.

Okay, hold on, that’s a rip alarm screaming!

We strive, your business thrives

Rings the bells?

It’s not about showing how good you can pickup photos, or how good you can rip slogans. It’s about communicating a purpose and that purpose is not “Showing that you can design”, it’s “Getting the message home!”.

Enough ranting for today.

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dots and lines is Hiring

dotblack — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 10:09:33 +0000

It’s only five days away from celebrating our sixth month of operations at dots and lines. As a young and lively web-agency we’re expanding at our Abu Dhabi office and are in search for energetic, young, and challenging individuals who’d fight to “create” trends and lead in the web arena.

Web Producer

That’s right, a “web producer”, dots and lines is looking for a young web specialist who’s been having his/her hands dirty with:

Information Architecture
User Interface Design
Site Build (XHTML/CSS/Javascript)
Cross Browser/Platform Testing

We’d love to hire a Web Producer who’s in love with webly trends and everything digital. We ain’t raising the 2.0 tag out here. We ain’t asking for skills in certain software packages, we expect our web-producer to be out there and able to lead and make new ways of doing things, a free person.

If you are down with the drill and got your mind on your skills and your skills on your mind then send out your portfolio URL to jobs at dotsandlines dot com

If you know someone who you think is down for it, kindly inform, we’ll be extremely happy.

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