Skiilight Blog
Archive for June, 2008
Missed opportunity
Continuing with real world examples of how companies are missing the point of error messages, I offer this example from the Urban Outfitters online store.
This image was posted while the online store was offline. They’re missing a great opportunity to redirect interested parties to other areas of the site.
- Why not send these shoppers to the Urban Outfitters blog where they can get fashion tips and ideas for outfit combinations while they wait to shop?
- Introduce them to new products and tell them why they should care (why they should purchase).
- Why not let them enter their email address for the newsletter?
- Allow them to browse on the site and have an instant message system set up so that they will be alerted when the store is back online.
Never miss an opportunity – there’s no guarantee that they won’t find something similar at an online store that’s not down. Keep them entertained – keep them on your site.
Error messages are important
You may have a perfectly-coded site with no broken links, but you can’t expect every page to stay on your server forever nor can you expect those linking to your site to remember the “l” in “.html”. Someone else’s typo can derail any hopes of word-of-mouth advertising from those who are enthusiasts of your site. Lets look at two examples at random:
Done Well:
Here we see that CNN has wrapped their site with their normal navigation and design so that you always know the site is legitimate and have the opportunity to find the page for which you were looking – or navigate to another area of the site. This keeps their visitor on CNN.com even after his or her initial disappointment in not finding the originally intended page.
Done Poorly:
Here we see the University of Washington’s error page displaying nothing similar to their main pages and offering no navigation. In this situation, the visitor is not as likely to stay on the site – they have been met with a brickwall, courtesy of your site.
The user’s experience should be a fluid as possible. Even when they get a little lost they should feel like you’re looking out for their interests. Hopefully no one that visits your site will ever see your error message, but it’s very important that they’re there just in case.
We practice what we preach! Go ahead, try this broken link to see our error page.
The best way to lose a customer
Abandoning a customer with a full shopping cart is always a good way to do it. Example #8,290 of how support makes or breaks a sale.
Stock photograpy jealousy
Stock photo houses are a good way to get a little creative energy flowing into your veins when you may not know what to do with a project. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an advocate for relying on stock photos for the finished project (photography of real employees is always preferred) but they’re useful as placeholders and to create an overall feeling for what the finished product may look like.
Anyway, if anyone has spent anytime at all searching for stock photos, they’ll know that a lot of the photos from the same photoshoot make their way into the search. So, you’ll see the same people doing different things and doing different poses.
This one caught my eye today:
And no, I wasn’t searching for “over-protective girlfriend.”
Simple Tips for Armchair Marketers.
Like it or not, we at Skiilight accept the fact that certain marketing tasks are going to always be done by the secretary or the owner him or herself. In fact, we fully recognize that when it comes to personal connections, front-line employees are the most important marketers your business could have.
However, when it comes to marketing materials, Seth Godin, marketer extraordinaire, has published a few tips on his blog this week, worthy to pass on to our readers and those within your organization who may have Photoshop or PowerPoint installed.
- If you want professional results, hire a professional.
- Don’t use the built-in fonts that come with your PC. (Type is cheap. Invest.)
- Headlines in sans serif. Body in serif. (Easy tip—headlines are bold and condensed.)
- Black type/Light background. Don’t screw around unless you have some sort of design point to make. (Goth bands, it’s all yours).
- Headlines look great reversed. With two caveats: 1. don’t overdo it. 2. make sure you leave plenty of black around the border.
- TYPE SIZE! Too big is good. Too small is good. Just right might be a problem.
- Line spacing! Use less or more than the automatic. 14 point type probably deserves 15 or 16 point spacing.
We’re the professionals he’s referencing. If you lose your way in the middle of a PowerPoint presentation or an internal newsletter, we’re not above jumping in and righting the ship. We’re here to make you look good whether or not we originally made the file. Have a look at our print and web solutions and if there’s anything we can do, you know how to reach us.