Recently in Design Category

I don't remember when I found Wordle but as soon as I did, I bookmarked it thinking it would be fun to play with. As many bookmarks do, it sat there for a while, untouched, until I thought I would dump some content in there and see what came out. The results were actually pretty interesting.

Wordle allows you to dump a body of text into it and then pulls out the most common terms from the data. For example, we had a ton of user feedback about GotVMail's website and service--over 4000 submissions organized into 'promoter' and 'detractor' categories. When I dumped those two sets of data into Wordle, I was able to see which terms appeared with the most frequency. The bigger the term is in the Wordle "cloud," the more it appeared in the data. This allowed me to see quickly what the two data sets had both in common and what they didn't.

Below see a quick Wordle image I created from a draft document for new user help content. As I expected the word "extension(s)" was the largest, followed by "greeting" and "edit." Think about the text data you have that would benefit from being inserted into Wordle--what patterns do you identify and do you find it useful?

At GotVMail, we love testing and optimizing our website. A small investment of time generates significant returns in conversions and revenue. We also learn a lot about our customers and how they interact with the site.

Recently, for one of our test plans, we wanted to optimize our site's sales funnel (each step of the main website navigation). Starting with the first step, the How it Works page, we decided to test the flash video. For the past few years, we've used the video to educate visitors how our service works. It took months to develop, had a custom soundtrack, narration, graphics, the works - and cost a lot of money to make. The two minute video got great feedback in terms of branding. Everyone loved it.

We tested the video we had come to love against a very simple graphic that explained the service in three easy steps: One number - multiple extensions - tons of free advanced features.

The test ran for two weeks with half of the visitors seeing the video and the other half seeing the image. We quickly saw some significant results. The simple image resulted in a 10% increase in visitors getting to the next step of the sales funnel and yielded an 18% higher conversion than the video. So, less work, lower cost, more orders. Not a bad concept.

Do you have a multi-step sales funnel on your site? Ask yourself how you can educate visitors faster and quickly get them to the next step.

I've written a number of blog posts about our culture and core ideologies. Most recently, I wrote about how to keep these values top of mind and visible, and this graphic came to mind. Trying to visually represent all of these important concepts, link them with our longer term goals ('big hairy audacious goal' or 'BHAG' for short) and to ultimately show how interconnected it all is wasn't an easy task.

In order to take such an abstract concept and make it concrete, we worked with our graphic facilitator to create an interesting graphic that we've since used in company communications, a goals worksheet, and our wiki.

Starting from the left, the core purpose is the first concept, then we integrated all the core values around an apple core to give it some visual appeal (apple core, core values--get it?). Each core value has a few actions or notes next to it remind us exactly what it is.

Our brand promise is next and highlights the four concepts that are most important to us as a company. Finally, tying it all together is our long term goal, or "BHAG" as Jim Collins called it, one million influential entrepreneurs as customers. This creates a very powerful graphic with visual appeal while still communicating very important concepts which are at the core of what we do.

I recently discovered a great website called Moo. Moo prints business cards in all shapes and sizes, sticker books, postcards, and sells other cool items like mosaic frames. What I like most about Moo is that everything is fully customizable; you can even print different designs on cards within the same set! Genius. Here's what they have to offer (and no, I don't get kick backs from Moo--I just love this site):

• They have mini cards and other items to help you stand out. If you're looking for a job right now (and sadly, many are), why not stand out from everybody else? Get a mini card instead of the "regulation size" business or "calling cards" everyone else hands out. If you can swing it, why not also create and send a follow-up postcard (printed by Moo) to say thanks for the opportunity to interview with a company/speak to a connection/etc.? No one sends anything in the mail these days, so why not take advantage of that and send a written thank you? In this job market, try anything.
• Import photos from social networks into Moo. Obviously, this wouldn't work out for those with incriminating photos on Facebook, but if you share photos of family or friends on any of these sites, you can easily bring them over to Moo for printing things like stickers and postcards. Your friend's new baby's face will look great on a sticker!
• Ease of use. I can't emphasize this enough. Sure, there are tons of companies on the internet that print business cards or make stickers, but Moo does it better. It also doesn't hurt that every card can have a custom image on it--what printer does that?
• The feel of personalized service. Moo makes it feel like you're working with a printer on an individual basis when you're really not (they're based out of London, but ship anywhere in the world). Their little checkout "bot" sends you emails to update you on your order status regularly, and even though it's a machine, it just feels like you have your own stationery butler.
• Not creative? Not a problem--the designers at Moo are. You can select from a bunch of very cool designs for holiday cards, personal greetings, etc.

Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery
by Garr Reynolds

Death by PowerPoint is a hyperbolic title for an all too real phenomenon in both academia (primarily business schools) and enterprise: mind-numbingly boring and useless PowerPoint presentations. Garr has some great sample processes and thoughts about how to change PowerPoint presentations to make them effective and useful. Super easy read, lots of pictures, examples, graphics, and quotes. If you want a quick overview watch the Authors@Google video where he talks and gives examples.

Key takeaways:

• Tell a story in your PowerPoint presentations
• Don't worry-- it's a process and takes time to perfect
• You don't need to be a designer
• Less is more
• Use vivid graphics

The comic below from Dueling Analogs was sent to me this morning, and it was a good laugh. Two of the characters featured are from the television commercials Apple produced in which PC's are depicted as arcane and institutional machines, and Macs as the undeniably cool and anti-establishment computer of choice. The third character is something Apple never added to the official commercials: the Linux operating system personified. Linux is an open source operating system that in many circles is considered superior to Mac or PC operating systems (full disclosure: Mac's OS is loosely based on some of Linux). Why? Because Linux allows individuals everywhere to collaborate on it using the knowledge of groups to produce an operating system that has been refined an infinite amount of times, and by different brains. Obviously this system would be perceived as a threat to Mac and PC operating systems if they were personified, and of course, let loose in a white-walled room with no windows (like the Apple commercials). Anyway, a funny little bit of geek humor for you today.