User experience has to be at the heart of any website. So, are you keeping up?

For organisations that need to engage with their audiences online, the pace of change can be daunting. Websites designed just two or three years ago can already look tired and worse still, can frustrate time-poor users into giving up and clicking elsewhere. Dated typography and colour palettes, poor or overly complex site navigation and a lack of social media integration or interactivity are just some of the signs that a website has had its day. If this sounds familiar, then it’s time for a re-think.

I CAN’s commitment to continued improvements

Remedy has been working with I CAN, the children’s communication charity, on their Adopt a Word campaign since it’s launch in 2008. The online fundraising site www.adoptaword.com allows users to adopt their favourite words for a year, and has generated over £100k for the charity. The success of the site can be partly attributed to the client’s commitment to continued improvements, resulting in several functionality updates and front-end facelifts over the past three years. Along with social media integration, this has ensured that site visitors keep coming back, spread the word amongst their networks and re-adopt their words.

Trafalgar Leasing gets a website upgrade

Recently, vehicle leasing specialists, Trafalgar Leasing, asked us to bring their website up to date. We designed their original website back in 2004 and were delighted to have the opportunity to work with them again.

The Trafalgar brand identity, also created by Remedy in 2004, had stood the test of time, so the new site was designed to complement the existing logo and colour palette. As part of the re-design, the entire site was moved onto the WordPress platform, providing the client with far more editorial control and a more user-friendly interface.

Trafalgar Leasing website design – before and after

Managing Director David Gould admitted some initial reluctance to updating the website, but after its re-launch was delighted with the results.

“… looking at my new website, it is light years away from the original one. I can now proudly direct others to my site as evidence of what can be achieved.”

So whether you feel your existing website has kept pace or not, there is one thing for certain – the web is going to continue to evolve, as will user expectations. Websites that keep up, will ultimately be more successful in attracting visitors and hanging onto them.

Here’s part 3 of Remedy’s presentation delivered at the Not For Profit Technology Show last November. To get up to speed, see part 1, preparing a website design brief and part 2, choosing the right design agency

So, you’ve gone through the pitch process and chosen the ideal agency to design your website, but how do you make sure your project stays on track? Stick to these steps and you shouldn’t go too far wrong:

1) Agree a realistic project schedule
“As soon as possible”. That’s the answer we invariably get when asking the question, “When do you want your new site to go live?”. That’s all well and good, but bearing in mind you will have to be part of the process, you need to take into account your own workloads and timescales. How quickly can you collate draft copy? How quickly will you and your team be able to agree and sign-off the various design stages? A website schedule has to be workable both ways, so try to avoid setting unreasonable deadlines that will put unnecessary pressure on you or your agency.

2) Get the site architecture right
Get the site map and functional spec right and don’t proceed with the design process until you are 100% sure everyone has agreed what your new site is going to do, it’s overall structure and how the user is expected to navigate their way around. Although not always totally practical, one simple rule that will make your site user-friendly is if you are never more than two clicks away from where you want to be. Once the architecture is agreed, then you’re into the design concept stage.

3) Insist on choice
Unless your design agency has to stick rigidly to an existing page template or hard-and-fast design guidelines, you should insist on a choice of design routes (budgets permitting of course). For the initial concept stage, a Home page and one other page should be enough to base your decision on.

4) Allow room for creativity
You will most likely have seen websites that you admire. By all means, share these with your design agency, but try to avoid being so prescriptive that you stifle the designer’s own creativity. Try to remain open-minded at the concept stage and try not to force a design aesthetic on your agency that leaves no room for experimentation and means you end up with a website that looks like everyone else’s.

5) Judge creative work against the brief
You have gone to the trouble of agreeing a great creative brief (see part 1 for details), make sure it is at hand when judging the design concepts. It’s at this point that personal likes and dislikes can get in the way of rational thinking. If the design concept answers the brief, then it probably isn’t far wrong. Of course, you and other key stakeholders need to be happy with the design, but as soon as the decision process starts to get tricky (which it often does when there is more than one person involved), the brief will add clarity.

6) If you don’t like it, say so
You will have to live with your website for quite a while. All of your clients/supporters/service users/staff/volunteers/competitors will look at it and have an opinion. It will probably be one of the most important elements in your marketing mix, so you’ve got to be happy with it. If there’s something you don’t like, make sure you say so at the concept stage, but equally, you need to say why. Is it a personal dislike, is it inappropriate for your brand’s personality, is there a lack of visual focus…? Whatever your objections, talk them through with the design agency so that they can understand your issues and find a better solution.

7) Ask for other opinions
Even if you are very single-minded and are convinced the design concepts are spot-on, it doesn’t hurt to get other opinions. Whoever you wish to confer with, before they give you their ha’penny’s worth, make sure they understand the brief. The website design should be judged with a proper understanding of what you are trying to achieve and who you are talking to.

By this stage, you should have a website design that meets the basic criteria of the brief and that you are happy with. If you’re not completely there yet, it may be a case of tweaking one of the design concepts. But all of the preliminary work in getting the brief right and choosing the most suitable design agency should have made getting to this point as smooth as possible.

With a couple of pages designed to everyone’s satisfaction, your agency will now need to design other page templates that can be applied across the whole site. Oh, and by the way, have you supplied all of the copy and other content yet? If not, this is the point where the schedule can grind to a halt.

So, now we go from the design stage to the build. Definitely not the time to take your eye off the ball. There are some simple guidelines that you can follow, but that will have to wait for another blog post.

In the meantime, please let us know if you have found this series of posts useful and of course, if you have any tips to add that will help anyone through the website design and build process, we’d love to hear from you.

It’s Friday 13th, everybody’s favourite scary day. So to take the edge off, Remedy are giving you the chance to face your fears and visit Phobia Land home of the UK’s top phobias.

Significant policy changes in their sector, along with Pepenbury’s ambitions for growth, mean that there is an increased need to raise funding for major service developments planned for the next five years. This includes building an outside gym for adults and adjoining play area for children, extending their art studios and developing training services to market to other organisations.

Pepenbury’s annual report presented a great opportunity to not only provide a financial update for their supporters, but with the right content and design approach, it was felt that they could achieve much more from a marketing perspective.

We helped them devise a new design and structure that would stimulate greater engagement with key stakeholders. These include new and existing supporters, major donors, trustees, strategic partners, corporate sponsors and volunteers. Our role in producing the new-look annual report entailed advising on content and structure, graphic design, copywriting and commissioning new photography.

Pepenbury’s annual report will be used as a powerful marketing tool throughout the year.

And it looks like 2012 is going to continue to be busy for Pepenbury and Remedy, with 19 new leaflets and brochures already in the studio, so watch this space.

People blog for many reasons; the majority just to get something off their chest, but what about the business case for blogging? In a survey of 4,114 bloggers, carried out by Penn Schoen Berland, from September 13-October 4, 2011, of all bloggers, 8% were corporates (blogging full-time as part of their job or contracted to blog full-time for a company) and 13% were entrepreneurs (blogging for a company or organisation they own). So that’s 1 in 4 using blogging as a business tool. In other words over 45 million business blogs and counting.

According to Technorati’s ‘State of the Blogosphere 2011’ report, 64% of corporate bloggers have found that blogging has given them greater visibility in their industry. In his article, How to: Create a Successful Company Blog Mark Suster says “I believe that blogging in your business is vital to creating a public personae and making your company more accessible.”

Blogging is also an invaluable tool to improve Google rankings. All other SEO techniques aside, the best way to increase web traffic is through continually updated, well-written, keyword-rich content. On their blog, NetLZ Consulting state that “Blogging is in all likelihood the most worthwhile and cost effective thing that you can do in order to improve your SEO.”

It’s pretty straightforward, search engines love new content and effective keywords. An active blog incorporated into your website will provide both.

Has blogging helped your organisation? Please let us know and post a link below.

Now I’ve been in some places with what you might call moody lighting, but imagine a restaurant so dark that you literally can’t see your hand in front of your face. No, neither could we, but we were intrigued.

So we arrived and were greeted in a lit reception area where we chose from four menu options – green (vegetarian), red (meat), blue (fish) and white (surprise me!). In reality, what ever you order, it’s going to be a surprise, within basic dietary parameters, but that just adds to the fun.

After cocktails we were led, crocodile-fashion, into the restaurant by our waiter, a blind viola player called Takashi.

The Remedy team pose for the camera

The highlights: accidentally sticking my nose in my food trying to smell it, pouring drinks, clinking glasses to make a Christmas toast, Sam being silent for several minutes trying to freak everyone out, guessing what on earth we were eating, having to put total trust in our waiter, getting a ‘glimpse’ of a very different reality… The experience was quite bizarre and we all had a fantastic time.

Seriously, if you ever want to try something completely and utterly different for your office Christmas do, I couldn’t recommend it highly enough. You can find out more here

This got us cogitating about the power of a name. A name is pretty important right? Something you will potentially have to live with forever.

Now, most bands, even the greats, have rubbish names. Many of them may have weaved some incredible folklore around the origin of their name (see below), but the names themselves, well, what about ‘Limp Bizkit’ or ‘Prefab Sprout’ for example.

Coming up with a cool name isn’t easy. In fact, even if you come up with the best band name ever, but your music sucks, then the name is sadly irrelevant. Paradoxically, a great band can call itself pretty much anything it wants. Having said that, when you’re starting out, the name seems massively important. This is your chance to make headlines, to sum up the mood of a generation, to imprint your band’s name on the collective minds of millions of record-buying fans. So where do you start?

I’ve been in bands with names that have ticked every box from ‘so cool it almost hurts’: Deeptank; to ‘so bad it really does hurt’: Psycophagus.

Many bands have some great stories behind their names, often more than one version. How many of these stories have any foundation in reality, is anyone’s guess, but here are a few I particularly like.

BEASTIE BOYS
An acronym for ‘Boys Entering Anarchistic States Toward Internal Excellence’. Alternatively, in a booklet that came with their album, The Sounds of Science, the band said that they simply wanted a stupid sounding name that was a bit like American punk band, Angry Samoans.

CHUMBAWAMBA
Apparently, one of the band members had a dream, wherein a public toilet had ‘Chumba’ and ‘Wamba’ on the doors instead of ‘Men’ and ‘Women’. Another story says that the band is named after a slang term for the roll of fat on the back of a bald man’s head. Both stories are so much better than the official line: ‘Chumbawamba doesn’t mean anything…  We just wanted a name that wouldn’t date.’ Guess what, it dated!

EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL
One story goes that the name is taken from an ad for a clothing store that would sell you ‘Everything but the Girl’. However, I much prefer the version I was told; a record company exec heard the band’s demo tape and wanted to sign them. Unfortunately he liked ‘Everything but the girl’.

Now here’s my favourite:

RADIOHEAD
The simple story is that the band was named after a Talking Heads song called, strangely enough, ‘Radio Head’. But the alternative theory is so much better. One of the band members’ mothers had brain surgery as a child and the surgeon had to put a metal plate in her head. In later life, the plate interfered with radio signals, so she earned the nickname ‘Radiohead’. And the rest is history. Probably.

A trawl of a few geeky blog sites unearths a variety of ‘The best band names ever’. Of course, everyone will have a totally different list, but here is my personal top 5:

1) The The
2) Pop will eat itself
3) Kiss
4) Public Enemy
5) The Skints

I‘d love to hear yours. Maybe between us we can compile
‘The Ultimate, Not to be Argued With, Definitive Bestest Ever Band Names in the World Ever List’.

It’s been tough; the jaunts, the jibes, the toast crumbs left dangling precariously for all to see, but overall it’s been fun.

And more to the point, at the last count, we’ve raised £345 for a very good cause, so thank you to everyone who has made our hirsute pursuits worth it.

If you would like to help us tip the £350 mark, you can still sponsor Team Remedy at:

http://mobro.co/remedycreative

There’s creative inspiration everywhere. Graphic design, photography, typography, editorial design, packaging…

If we like it, it gets pinned up on the Remedy wall of inspiration.

On this month’s wall: Andy Warhol and David Hockney rub shoulders with Converse sneakers and Costa Coffee.

You can see our last wall here

And as ever, if something grabs your eye and you think it should be on the next wall, give us a shout:

The Wall,
Remedy Creative
17, Mount Ephraim,
Tunbridge Wells
Kent
TN4 8AE

The first part was about preparing a website design brief, this part is about choosing your design agency and the third part (blog post to follow) is about getting the design right.

Choosing the right design agency

1) Who’s work do you like?
Boutique web design specialist? Integrated design agency? Award winning, West End hot shop? A freelancer that a friend recommends? Whoever you shortlist and however you come across them, the first filter you need to apply is “do I like their work?” If there is a design sensibility or aesthetic that you admire in their portfolio, then that’s a great start. Also, it’s good to keep an open mind – just because the agency doesn’t have experience in your specific sector, doesn’t mean they can’t create a fantastic website for you.

2) Understand who you’ll be working with
It’s all very well meeting the Creative Director, Managing Director and Head of Online Strategy, but will they actually be looking after your web project? If not, it certainly wouldn’t be unreasonable to know the calibre of the team that will be designing and writing your website and who you will be dealing with on a day-to-day basis.

3) Understand their processes
Every agency will have it’s own ways of working. Some will be a comfortable fit and some will drive you up the wall. One marketing director we recently met described working with his previous agency as being like “pulling teeth”. Websites don’t happen over night, so you will, by default, have to build a relationship with your design agency; so make sure it’s one that will work.

4) What do they expect from you?
From day one, right up until your new website is launched, you will have to be part of the process. Make sure from the outset just how involved your agency will expect you to be and what they will need from you, and when. Will they want to work with you to determine site architecture? Will they want draft copy at the outset? Will they want a face-to-face meeting every week? To help things to run smoothly, insist on a project schedule that is realistic for both you and the agency.

5) Ask for references
You’ve met the team. They’re charming, eloquent and have some great work in their portfolio. If they’re really as good as they say they are, they will have left a trail of very happy clients in their wake, so don’t be afraid to ask for a couple of references. It could well save a lot of heartache.

6) Choose people you get on with
Yes, it sounds obvious, but this is just as important as choosing a design agency who’s work you love. If they’re creative geniuses, they could also be prima donnas with egos the size of Ben Nevis. So, here’s a simple formula – a great portfolio + nice people = at least half way to choosing your design agency.

7) What does the estimate include?
Websites are complex, with lots of elements to consider, and all adding to the cost. Architecture, wire-framing, front-end design, content management system and CMS training, copywriting, Search Engine Optimisation, imagery, hosting… Make sure that you know what is included in the price. If there is a lack of clarity in the estimate, ask the agency to spell it out in black and white. Remember, a seemingly simple functionality change could have significant cost implications, so agree the functionality spec. at the start.

8) Licensed CMS?
Sometimes, a bespoke content management system is the best solution, often an open source system will work just as well. Think long and hard before you choose an agency that insists, come what may, on using their licensed, bespoke content management system. However, if your new website requires functionality that means a bespoke CMS is the most practical option, it is important to understand what happens if, at some point in the future, you want to move your site.

9) You get what you pay for
‘Websites from £500′ shouts the poster in the agency window. Now, let’s stop a moment before getting our cheque books out. Even if the agency only charges £50 an hour, can they really plan, design, build and optimise a website that will help move your business forward, in 10 hours?

A website is more often than not, an organisation’s most powerful marketing tool. If your website is going to be your shop window; a key way to communicate with members, clients or supporters; or the first port of call when anyone wants to find out about you, don’t make cost the most important factor when choosing your design agency.

If you are putting together a shortlist of agencies (three is the magic number), we recommend that you read our previous post on preparing a website design brief

You can download all of this presentation in PDF format including slides from James Higgott at www.ioftech.org.uk/resources