Google | kenn bivins

https://kennbivins.com creative thinker and do-er Mon, 01 Sep 2014 16:39:51 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 Designing For Smartwatches: Tips and Tricks https://kennbivins.com/designing-for-smartwatches/ https://kennbivins.com/designing-for-smartwatches/#respond Mon, 01 Sep 2014 16:39:51 +0000 https://byra.vamtam.com/?p=6748 Wearables present challenges unlike other design projects. Function is a primary concern, as is size with what will be one of the smallest screens designers have ever worked with. The key is creating a design that is visually pleasing but is user-friendly and provides a functional experience. Here are 10 things to consider as you...

The post Designing For Smartwatches: Tips and Tricks first appeared on kenn bivins.

]]>

Wearables present challenges unlike other design projects. Function is a primary concern, as is size with what will be one of the smallest screens designers have ever worked with. The key is creating a design that is visually pleasing but is user-friendly and provides a functional experience. Here are 10 things to consider as you design for a wearable interface (with examples other designers are already imagining).

Think Minimal Design

One of the biggest trends in design in general is perfect for wearables – minimalism. The very same design practices you use for websites or even minimal-style print or packaging design are perfect for wearable and watch-type devices. (Here we are mostly talking about watches because of the visual design element they present.)

Everything from color to typography to imagery should be simple, straightforward and easy to read at small sizes. Use some of the concepts from flat design as well to add to the minimal style, such as bright color, high contrast and elimination of design embellishments.

Use Vibration

Wearables come with features that you may not have designed for in the past. Vibration is one of these. Simple buzz or movements can be an ideal way to design an interaction when it comes to something that a user will have against the skin.

But you need to think carefully about how these interactions work. Vibrations should be soft and happen in a way that is obvious but will not be uncomfortable or scare the user when they happen. Vibration-style interactions also need to happen infrequently. If a watch buzzes every minute, the user will quickly become frustrated and abandon the product.

Voice Controls are Essential

While we have talked about designing for tap and touch interaction for a while because of smartphones, now the conversation will shift to voice activated controls. Think about it this way, with a screen that small, who is going to want to tap it? Voice is easier.

When designing the interactions of your app or website that will appear on a watch-style device, such as the Apple Watch, voice should be a top consideration. Voice is an essential part of the Apple design, for example, with Siri as a native app that activates and waits for a command every time you raise your wrist. This feature provides a convenience factor that you must take into consideration.

Type Needs to be Simple

Repeat after me: Sans serif. When it comes to type on wearable devices, that is all you need to know. It may sound boring, but a simple sans serif with a uniform stroke width is one of the easiest and most readable options.

Avoid typefaces that are ultra light or condensed because the light coming through the watch face may not be enough to ensure readability. Conversely, be careful with super thick, black or bold styles. Stick to a typeface with a moderate stroke with and somewhat wide letterforms. (Helvetica is an ideal, albeit overused, option.)

Colors Need to Have High Contrast

Every color on a small screen needs meaning. Part of this meaning will come in the form of contrast and making elements easier to read.

Colors can be used to represent tappable elements that demand interaction or as a backdrop for a text command. The key is sharp contrast. Consider the environment in which these devices will be used – in sunlight, in dark rooms – and design so that every letter is easy to read in any condition.

Avoid pastels or colors with low saturation. Bright hues and highly saturated colors will work best. Pair these with white or black type for optimum readability.

Make It Easy

Every wearable device will be a little different. Consider the interface and physical components for each as you design. The Apple Watch comes with a “digital crown,” a wheel that can zoom or scroll through information on the screen.

The design should work with all the physical parts that a device includes. It should be easy to look at and more importantly easy to use. Function should be intuitive.

Visuals Should Mirror Design In Other Places

The visual plan for a watch screen should mirror the design interface of other devices. Yes, the screen will be limited and interactions will focus on a single action, but the overall aesthetic should have a similar look and feel.

It goes back to the popularity of minimalistic design. It’s a technique that works on both types of devices. The same is true with many principles of flat design. For this reason, these trends will continue to stick around and become key factors for designers creating for these tiny screens.

Make It Cool and Trendy

This may not sound like a big deal, but wearables are something that users connect to their identities. Not only does the actual device need to have a certain look and feel, but the interface needs to match that style.

The information on the screen has to be as nice as the device itself. With the Apple Watch, the interface is super-simple, has clean lines and very few bells and whistles. The interface for watch apps should use the same model, so that the information on the screen looks like it actually belongs there.

One Visual Thought Per Screen

Every pixel matters in a way that is hard to explain. There just is not enough room on a watch-sized screen to include every element from a desktop or mobile design. So think about what you don’t need.

These screens can range in size from 320 pixels square to 128 pixels square. This is too small to just shrink the design; you have to fully change it for a wearable device. Use this concept: One visual thought per screen.

The post Designing For Smartwatches: Tips and Tricks first appeared on kenn bivins.

]]> https://kennbivins.com/designing-for-smartwatches/feed/ 0 Things to Know for Your Website Redesign https://kennbivins.com/things-to-know-for-your-website-redesign/ https://kennbivins.com/things-to-know-for-your-website-redesign/#respond Fri, 21 Mar 2014 21:52:48 +0000 https://byra.vamtam.com/?p=308 A well-designed website can lead to more conversions. Visitors and potential customers are attracted to websites with a good design that is welcoming. You may look at your website and feel like it is outdated. Your sales may be decreasing and your website design could have something to do with it. Maybe your website just...

The post Things to Know for Your Website Redesign first appeared on kenn bivins.

]]>

A well-designed website can lead to more conversions. Visitors and potential customers are attracted to websites with a good design that is welcoming.

You may look at your website and feel like it is outdated. Your sales may be decreasing and your website design could have something to do with it. Maybe your website just doesn’t function well and the user experience is presenting issues and leading to complaints.

If these things are happening to you, it may be time for a new website redesign.

However, you’re probably thinking that you don’t know where to go. What do you do if your website could use a new, fresh look in a redesign? If you have made the decision to start a redesign process, here are some things to consider:

Before starting the redesign process, consider your competitors. What is their website design like? How can you incorporate elements of their design or strategies they may be using into your own. Competitive analysis is a good opportunity to see ways that you can make your own website better than your competition. You want to redesign your website to be more effective, load faster and have easier navigation.

Outside of comparing your website to competitors, be sure to review your old website. Be critical of your current design and identify what is working for you and what isn’t. If you’re considering a redesign, there are likely things about your current website that are not working or that you don’t like. If you have detailed analytics, you can look at the traffic patterns of visitors and see if certain pages have high bounce rates, or look at heat maps to see visitor behavior.

As you enter into the redesign process, figure out exactly what you want to prioritize, who your target audience is, what is working for your current website, changes that you want to make to the design and new goals you want to achieve. Once you have these things figured out, you can start building a redesign plan for your website.

In trying to create a quality redesign and a quality user experience, you want to make sure the website redesign has strong visual features. This is important because people tend to focus on visuals. Using custom photos is a good way to do this. By using your own photos instead of stock images, you can create more of a response.

You want to use elements that are personal to your brand that represent the tone and voice of your website and the content you produce. Use fonts, colors and images that reflect the identity of your brand. Use colors that contrast and go together well to create more pop on the design.

In addition to the actual design elements, make sure you have a blog to continue to create content and write about topics that can attract traffic to your website and add landing pages that are designed to welcome and convert new visitors into customers.

Once you have completed the design elements of the website, you want to make sure that the website is being optimized properly, and you may consider optimizing the website for voice search as well so that your website is listed among results for people using phones or voice-recognition devices. Also make sure that your website design is optimized for mobile devices so that it is responsive to all mobile users.

A website redesign may sound like a lot, but remember the reasons you are considering a one in the first place. You feel something about your website looks outdated or is not working anymore and you want to change that.

The post Things to Know for Your Website Redesign first appeared on kenn bivins.

]]> https://kennbivins.com/things-to-know-for-your-website-redesign/feed/ 0 5 Must-have Steps When Designing a Website for Conversions https://kennbivins.com/5-must-have-steps-when-designing-a-website/ https://kennbivins.com/5-must-have-steps-when-designing-a-website/#respond Mon, 10 Mar 2014 18:01:52 +0000 https://byra.vamtam.com/?p=306 We help marketers understand the process of website design better, so they can steer their website redesign projects through the right stages. This way they can ensure their website is better able to engage visitors and achieve the desired business goals. One of those key stages are Design and Development. Here is where your idea...

The post 5 Must-have Steps When Designing a Website for Conversions first appeared on kenn bivins.

]]>

We help marketers understand the process of website design better, so they can steer their website redesign projects through the right stages. This way they can ensure their website is better able to engage visitors and achieve the desired business goals.

One of those key stages are Design and Development. Here is where your idea materializes. In this article we’ll dive deeper and explain what are some of the best practices for creating effective and engaging online experience for your prospects.

Step 1: Set the Scene with Information Architecture

The activities related to Information Architecture (IA) help you create the structure of the website, so you can understand what information you need to make available depending on where the user is on your website.

Here are some of the most common Information Architecture deliverables:

Content Inventory and Organization: A detailed and organized list of all the current content on the website, and future content to be introduced with the redesign. Planning and creating your content early in the process enables the design and development teams to create the best possible product.
Site Map: A visual that documents all pages and page types on the website, together with the paths that users must take to reach a certain page. This provides a bird’s eye view of all the pages in the website, and the hierarchy between pages.
User Flows and Scenarios: A visual that shows the steps and actions a user must take in order to achieve a certain goal on the website. These types of deliverables are really useful when dealing with more complex functionalities on your website.

The easier it is for your users to find what they are looking for on your website, the better your IA is. The IA should be perfectly aligned with the mission and purpose of the website, but you also need to consider the goals of the end users. The organization of the content should enable your users to accomplish their goals, and meet their expectations as defined in your user personas earlier.

Step 2: Tell a Story with Wireframes

After you have all the content ready and structured in the right way, it’s time to think about how to arrange all of the information on the pages of the website. The wireframes are the blueprint for the upcoming visual design. The purpose of the wireframes is to bring together the main elements of the website: the content, the navigation, and all the interaction elements such as buttons and forms on each page. The wireframes should not incorporate any visual designs, graphic or branding elements.

Using only text and simple shapes (without any color or style), you can collaborate on the initial layout of each page of the website.

Wireframes are the best way to convey how the information on each page is structured and organized. Also, wireframes are an easy and quick method for you to align all decision makers around the structure of your website and the connections between each page.

Step 3: Explore the visual design with Mockups

Using your wireframes as a foundation, web designers create the full graphic composition (also referred to as “mockups”) for all the pages in the website. The idea of the mockup is to include all visual styles and elements, so that you can agree on how the final website will look and feel.

The mockups show the layout of each page, the typography (fonts), the images and graphics for all elements on each page exactly as they should look on the final working website. Note that similar to wireframes, mockups are static and are not meant to demonstrate any functionality.

Using mockups, the final look and feel is laid out for each page. They include the final fonts, images, colors and visual styles of all elements as they should appear on the actual website.

Step 4: Test the User Experience with Prototypes

Sometimes it’s hard to imagine the final website by looking only at documentation, or even mockups of the final designs. Prototypes are the closest thing you can get to a working website, before actually doing any coding and development.

Unlike the static wireframes and mockups, a prototype is a functional deliverable. This means that a user can interact with a prototype by clicking on the links, buttons and other elements that trigger behaviour on your website.

With interactive (clickable) prototypes, you can easily test the website internally with your team, or even with some of your potential users or customers.

A big benefit of creating prototypes is that you can conduct user tests early in the redesign process. This helps identify flaws and make quick and easy improvements, before any actual development commences.

Step 5: Get Development on Board

An important aspect of development to understand is that there are always multiple solutions for a single problem. Depending on your individual project and the developers you are working with, the approach and solutions will vary. But you can make sure the outcome is what you are looking for, by setting aside sufficient time to explain the business goals and requirements of the project to everyone in the development team, not just the project manager.

If possible, schedule regular meetings with the development team (in person or online) to discuss project details and overall progress.

The more context everyone involved has about the solution they are building, the better the result. For the time of the project, try to include the developers as part of your team. Schedule regular updates (once or twice a week), where you discuss the progress, issues and next steps.

The post 5 Must-have Steps When Designing a Website for Conversions first appeared on kenn bivins.

]]> https://kennbivins.com/5-must-have-steps-when-designing-a-website/feed/ 0 https://kennbivins.com/quote-seth-godin/ https://kennbivins.com/quote-seth-godin/#respond Mon, 24 May 2010 12:15:57 +0000 https://byra.vamtam.com/?p=1794 Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell.

The post first appeared on kenn bivins.

]]> Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell.

The post first appeared on kenn bivins.

]]> https://kennbivins.com/quote-seth-godin/feed/ 0