List of DIY Design DO's and DONT's

As a design agency in Houston, TX, we want to help people look and be successful. Here are several helpful tips to establishing and maintaining a successful brand. The first two need a lot of explaining, the rest need little or no explaining. I have included a picture here of everything NOT to do with a design. CLICK THIS LINK TO REVEAL THE MISTAKES!

1. When you can afford it, DO hire a professional to design your marketing materials.

   
   There is a reason why, as designers, we do things a certain way. We design things sometimes, that clients take and try to do on their own, and end up really messing up. The number one thing about your company's marketing goal, is to establish a common, consistent appropriate look. You can consistently design things that are messy and bad form, but bad design form defeats the purpose and efforts of being consistent. The truth is that they are co-dependent. You need to be consistent and have good design form. This is why it's good to hire a professional who knows what they are doing and how to properly implement design styles that best reflect your image and match any existing styles you have. This person or company is often independent of the agent producing your work. If you have been sending your designs to multiple vendors or having multiple vendors create your designs, chances are, you've been self-appointed as brand manager, and your marketing approach is very scattered, sub-par, and inconsistent. Why? because designing isn't your job. Your job is to run your business, not design.
   

2. DO develop your brand standards before creating anything.

   
   I can't imagine what it would be like if the manager of every McDonalds in the country ran their business the way they wanted to and not how McDonalds corporate headquarters wanted. Many bad things would result. Bad inconsistent customer service, loss in business revenue due to poor planning, and ultimately a bad business model. Whether your a big fry or small potatoes, you need to treat your brand and marketing materials much like McDonalds approaches it's business and marketing - with a process and with consist delivery. Before you design up your flyers, business cards, banners, website make sure you establish standards so, whether you design things yourself or have someone else do it for you, at least everyone knows how your brand should be treated. Some questions to guide you in establishing your key brand standards are:
• What are my exact official colors? Include PMS, RGB, HTML, and CMYK values.
• What is the font of my logo? - Install it in your system so you have it.
• How big should my logo be in relation to other elements in the design?
• What are the hierarchy of placement to optimize my brands visibility (1. top right, middle, bottom left, etc.)
• What is the minimum space that should be around my logo when placed on a document so things don't crowd it?
• How should my logo look on a white background, colored background, grey background, and black background?
• What colors best compliment my logo?
• How should my logo look as a one color version?
• How do I treat marketing slogans or additional company divisions in relation to my logo?
• In marketing materials, what font, style and color should I use for ALL my titles?
• In marketing materials, what font, style and color should use for ALL of my sub titles?
• In marketing materials, what font, style and color should I use for all my paragraph text?

3. DON'T use more than 2 font faces when designing a document.

4. DON'T use fonts that aren't in your brand standards, even if it looks cool.

5. DON'T use colors outside your brand standards.

6. DO leave lots of room (AKA "white space") in your design.

7. DO NOT let things run into the edge of the page.

8. DO put equal spaces between items.

9. DO NOT say everything. DO say only what is necessary.

10. DO NOT stretch things out of proportion.

Refer a Website and We'll Send You a $100 Bill

Siteboxpro Website Referral Rewards

We recognize and appreciate that, often times, the best customers come through word of mouth and through referrals. Siteboxpro's story is no different. As a Houston area, Sugar Land based web design and marketing company since 2009, we have seen the majority of our business happen because our customers tell other people about us. When you offer great customer service and a superior product, customers will come back to you and tell their friends about you.

We believe that those who refer should share in the reward of a new or repeat happy customer. Siteboxpro is offering to send you a $100 bill every time you refer a client to us that signs up for a new website. We don't have any catches or limits. The offer is simple. You refer, clients sign up, we send you a $100 bill. Just think - you could get rich just for helping your friends, family and coworkers improve or introduce themselves to the world wide web.

We've even made it easy for you. Fill out the form on this page and we'll contact your referral for you. Referrals are great. Getting paid for giving referrals is even better. Start Referring Today!

5-Point Website Redesign Checklist

Ready for a redesign? Maybe your website needs a complete overhaul, or perhaps you’re only going to perform a little spruce-up. Regardless, users have become far savvier than we were only a few short years ago, so it’s important to provide a top-notch experience. There are a few turn-offs that even sophisticated Web designers employ too frequently. Here are suggestions of things to keep in mind as you design or redesign your space.

1. Your site should be easy to read. In our fast-paced (and increasingly mobile) world, your content should be able to be skimmed. Many of your users are likely reading your site on a mobile device and they aren't slowing down to absorb every word you've written. In fact, studies have shown that we only read 28 percent of the copy on most webpages. Along those lines, keep your content easy to understand and pleasant to read.

• Be concise! Get to the point and eliminate anything unnecessary.
• Think like a journalist: Easy-to-understand language; short, common words and phrases; use the inverted pyramid (most newsworthy on top, followed by supporting details and then related information last).
• Use bullets, numbered lists and appropriate text formatting.
• Make your hyperlinks effective. Show the user what has already been viewed using the :visited CSS selector, and use the title attribute to provide additional context.
• Test your site’s readability with the Readability Test Tool.

2. You do want to give the user a unique Web experience while visiting your site, but not at the risk of confusing the conventions with which he or she's accustomed. Research has shown that a user will respond most positively to blue links. Yes, it’s what’s expected, but for the sake of usability, tried-and-true is best. Your user wants to navigate the site as fast as possible to get the information or product he or she needs. If he’s forced to figure out your site conventions, it could waste time which might make him more likely to ditch out and find another site.

3. What about search boxes? Is there an ideal size for a search box? Why, yes, there is! Jakob Nielsen, an expert on webpage usability, conducted numerous studies on what makes a webpage usable. Among them, he evaluated the best size for a search box, which turns out to be 27 characters. The average is 18 characters wide, but a 27-character box would accommodate 90 percent of queries. Generally, a search box’s width is better to err on the side of too wide, rather than too narrow. If the search box is wide enough, the user can review, verify and submit a query with little extra effort.

4. Alert! Alert! Graphics abuse ahead! Have you ever felt this way? Like your eyeballs are being assaulted by flashing lights, too-bright colors or design elements and graphics that practically jump off the screen? We’ve all had a “whoa” moment when we’ve navigated to a website that has way too much going on – don’t be that website. Don’t design or redesign a website simply to decorate it: Use your design elements to enhance your content, but not to slap the user’s face with it.

From a usability perspective, less is more when it comes to graphics. This includes avoiding overuse of JavaScript and Flash. If you have more JavaScript and Flash than your site can comfortably handle, it’s going to slow down page loading, which in turn will repel site traffic, rather than attract it (not to mention being just plain annoying). Also, if the user doesn't have a Flash plugin, then he or she either can’t view that portion of the site or has to enable or install the plugin before he or she can proceed. Not only that, but Flash won’t work on iOS devices (and only sometimes on Android), so the chances of your user’s being able to get the full experience of your site become much slimmer. As well, you need to be mindful of the capabilities of your Web hosting provider; the amount of Java and Flash that you need to use may determine how you choose your host.

5. The reason why you have a website is because you want the user to navigate to whatever it is you’re selling or promoting, right? Then make it easy for him to do so by avoiding misleading UI controls. User Interface (UI) controls are webpage elements, components and widget that are there for the user’s interaction (like buttons or drop-menus). Avoid designing an element that looks like a button but isn’t – that will frustrate the user and likely encourage him or her to navigate away from your page more quickly.

If  users click on what they believes to be a link, but it isn’t (or if the link is broken), your site loses credibility. Your UI controls need to be consistent: When the user clicks, the action created should be what the user expected.

Do you remember what you learned about the Golden Rule? One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself. Try applying this principle to your website: Think about how you, as a user, interact with Web space and make your site as appealing and user-friendly as the sites you like best. Avoid colors, fonts, spacing and layouts that would be too busy or detract from your content. Your users are visiting your site for a purpose; make it easy for them to find what they want without added distraction. If you can avoid these common website turn-offs, then you’re halfway to creating a great presence on the Web. The other half, of course, is creating fabulous content… that’s the hard part!

Ready to redesign your site? Contact Siteboxpro Web Design

About the Author
Amy Johnson is a long-time writer and community Coordinator for green hosting provider, A Small Orange. Their vision is simple: perfecting hosting while maintaining a homegrown feel with a focus on people - customers, employees, and the community. Amy enjoys reading and learning about online businesses as well as sharing her expertise and interests in green technology, all things website related, and running a successful online business.

Siteboxpro Video Portfolio

We were playing around with Animoto this afternoon and put together a quick portfolio video...
Siteboxpro Video Portfolio

Name, rank and serial number - How do you get people to fill out your online forms

I am sure you have seen some war movie in which the captured soldier is asked about the secret plans, and even under torturous conditions he will only provide his name, rank and serial number.

Your website visitors feel the same way when you hold information "hostage". They are going to clam up, and all you'll get out of them is limited info, or worse - nothing at all!

• Keep it simple and necessary - Can you get away with only the name and phone number? If your visitor is serious, they will provide real information. Any additional information you require can be collected with a followup phone call or email.

• Tell them what comes next - your visitors should know what is going to happen after they fill out the form. Will they have to check their email for a link, will something start to download or redirect them to the content they are requesting.

• Send a confirmation message - While this has nothing to do with them filling out the form, it has everything to do with marketing. What if they stumbled onto your site and accidentally closed their browser? Now, they have an email confirmation page with a link back to your site! Smart move.

Your site visitors came to your site to make a purchase or engage your services, don't make it hard for them to get the process started online. Online forms are a vital part of your website (or at least it should be), make the most of them.

Must have iPhone apps for web designers

If you are like me you know that the iPhone is more than just a cool toy, it can be a valuable tool and resource. And, if like me, you are a web designer who not only creates websites, but is involved with maintaining, tracking, enhancing and almost anything a clients asks to have done - you know how important it is to be "connected" at all times.

Now with all that said, here are my most used apps - these aren't just apps i saw on some other list page, but rather apps i used weekly, if not daily (and i will keep it brief by just giving the app name, the usage and why you need it.)

Analytics - This app is by AnalyticsApp.com and it is a complete Google Analytics application. You can get your Google stats instantly and you can track a huge number of sites.

FTPOnTheGo - Wow, this has come in very handy. This FTP client allows you to download files, like HTML, JSP, PHP or really anything and edit them in a text editor and send them back to the server.

GoDaddy - I have purchased tons of domains for clients on my iPhone.

CC Terminal - I can get paid anywhere anytime. this credit card app is easy to use and connects to your authorize.net account.

SEO Ranking - Add your domain, enter your keywords and find out where your site ranks. this app also keeps a graphical history so you can track your SEO successes (or slips).

That's it. I have a couple others dedicated to just web stuff, but I don't use them as much. Oh, the names that used above are how they appear on the phone, so if you search the App Store they should come up. They aren't all free either, but Analytics and FTPOnTheGo are worth the price.

Click here, click here!

I was recently involved in a discussion regarding website usability with a few fellow web designers. It was during this conversation that I thought about the word "designer" in our titles. Most would say a web designers job is to make a website look good, and the siteboxpro team and myself would not argue with that - but there is more to it.

My REAL job is to ensure that our clients get a great website AND their clients get a great web experience. A great web experience is one in which the user is able to find information, navigate the site, and get what they expect. Plain and simple, the site should be easy to use. I've put together a very short list of things that help make any (your) website more user-friendly:

• Click here! - if this phrase or hyperlink appears on your site, remove it. Instead, let the description be the hyperlink - example: "Click here to register" or better put "Register".
• Going Home - your logo (which should appear at the top of your page) should be clickable and return the user to the homepage of your site.
• PDFs and hyperlinks - open PDFs in a new window. All other hyperlinks should be in the same (parent) window - unless you are sending the user to a different website entirely.
• No underlining - underlined text should be reserved for hyperlinks - use other typographical elements such as bold or italics to emphasise.
• What's the status? - hyperlinks should have 3 states - not visited, visited and active - make sure you are using colors and decoration to let your visitors know where they have been and even more importantly where they haven't!

Simple things go a long way. It is the part of every web design to ensure a website is functional, easy to use and - of course - looks good.