What is your websites target audience?
This discussion learned me a lot of things. Some of the comments which have been posted there are of a great value to me, because they are well argued and well considered. You should check it out…;)
The discussion also made me conclude that you, as a webdesigner, need to determine what the target audience to a given site is, before you start designing. Often, webdesigners design a website from the content of the site. If it’s a website for baby-clothes, most designers would design in “baby-colors”, right?
Instead, why not build a site of elements, which all in some way relates to the target audience (in this case the parents)? I don’t know if it will work, I haven’t tried it yet, but if it works you’ll ensure that your clients get the best overall experience of your business, and that’s what you’re heading for! If you give your clients a nice service and a good overall impression, the word about your business will spread!
E.g.:
- You’ve sold a targeted site to a client, the client gets a lot of deals from it
= good experience - You’ve sold a untargeted site to a client, the client gets a few deals from it
= bad experience.
Therefore it is very important to know what works and what doesn’t, in different audiences. I’m not an expert in this field (deciding what works for different audiences), but I don’t think it’s that difficult.
The only thing you have to do is research. I think it would be a clever idea to find a person (or two) in your network who represents the target audience more or less. Ask what the person finds interesting about the design of a website, what does he/she like about websites in general etc.
You could also look at statistics of other sites. Which sites does people find confusing? which sites is the most visited? by what audience? There a lot of questions you could ask, and it all ends up in questions about your target audience, hmm…
Following this method, I believe that you’ll be able to create a more useful website than if you were without the knowledge about the target audience. As said I haven’t tried it out yet, but I think it could be interesting…
This is an experiment, if you try it, please let me know how it goes… 
TouchGraph; maps I like!
TouchGraph is an awsome tool if you want to know how sites on the internet (sites from Googles databases) relate to eachother! If you don’t need it, you should at least waste some time on it. I was fascinated of how the tool shows where your site is visible on the internet. It really gives you the chance to follow your sites development, and by that analyze and increase the rank, the amount of visitors etc. Check it out 
Suspended? Why?
The blog has been offline the last couple of days because this post draw too many visitors to the site. I hope for your understanding, and I apprecaite your patience
Have a nice day!
The Market Thoughts… [#4]
Well… I think this might be the last market thought (it all started here…) this year :)…And again, it is about how you represent and market your product to the world around you. When I stood, selling my fruits all day long, I thought of many unforgetable things. I mean, when you’re standing there, watching all these people walk by, your brain starts to ponder. Luckily
Anyway, as I served more and more customers, I discovered that they examined the blurred bags that we put the fruit in. Almost every customer who got a blurred bag looked in the bag to see if the content was “good enough”, none of them wanted to buy anything they hadn’t seen.
As a matter of fact, people want to see what they buy. Dependent on what your product is, don’t try to hide it. Show your prodcut as it is, reveal the secret (if there is any?). By this you avoid further complaints, and your customers will be satisfied because they know what they’ve just bought, nobody gets cheatet here…
THE END
5 Great Firefox Add-ons
From time to time, I really have to post something concrete and useful here
Therefore I want to inform you about 5 Firefox add-ons, which I find very useful!
The 5 add-ons has been choosed due care. In the early days I used to have huge amounts of plugins, add-ons, bars etc. but I got very tired of all that shitty crap, and now I got 1 bar (StumbleUpon) and 5 add-ons which make my day much easier Quite minimalistic actually? 
Anyway…I want to share those 5 add-ons with you, here they are:
- GooglePreview 2.1.5
This add-on inserts preview images (thumbnails) of web sites and Amazon products into the Google and Yahoo search results pages. By using this you don’t have to visit the site if you want to know what it looks like, it has saved me a lot of time, maybe it’ll do that to you too? - IE Tab 1.3.3
This add-on is great, especially if you’re a webdesigner, it lets you easily (by one click) see how a website looks like in Internet Explore. Very useful and time-saving in the development of a crossbrowser-able website - Tab Mix Plus 0.3.6
Tabbed browsing is brilliant, it creates fast navigation through sites, and gives you a structured overview. Because I use tabbed browsing that much (I’m surfing a lot!), I need to have some options in this field. The only add-on (I’ve found) which gives me sufficient options, is Tabbed Mix Plus. It is as simple as that - Session Manager 0.5.3
In old days I used GreenBrowser (don’t know if it exists anymore?). One of the greatest features about GreenBrowser was that it restored the pages if you closed your browser. Not only if the browser crashed, but also when you just closed it. By that I could explore some sites one day, and continue the next. I’ve waited for this feature to join FireFox for decades, and now it surely has - Web Developer 1.1.4
I use this add-on to harvest knowledge on how webdesigners build websites. When I come by a site which looks great and is well designed, it’s nice to have an option which allows me to look “behind the scenes”. The Webdeveloper add-on carries a lot of features, and you are able to know almost everything about a given site.
Hope you found some of them interesting…Cheers!
Take ideas to the next step!
If someone stole your idea, what would you do?
Personally, I would feel sad…feel sad because I wasn’t quick enough, I wasn’t the first to get it online, published, produced whatever. I missed a chance 
. Most people would probably feel like so?
Anyway, I think there is hope. Some days ago I spoke to a friend about the new iPhone.
We checked it out and we were both amazed about the design, the functionality, the price etc. It is a very cool product, I don’t think many would disagree on that.
Though the iPhone holds a lot of functions, they’re all functions which have been invented or thought of before.
It says on apples page:
“iPhone combines three amazing products — a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet communications device with desktop-class email, web browsing, maps, and searching — into one small and lightweight handheld device. “
All these features (a combined cellphone, mp3-player and internet connection) has already been invented. Apple just took it to the next level. They enclosed all the functions in their own unique design, added usability, nice graphics and touchscreen. That’s it (roughly speaking).
So? You’ve probably figured out the point…If you can see that a product, a website or a service can be done much better by you, why not do it? People always wants what’s best (compared to their needs), nobody buys a service, if there is another one, of same kind, which is better? (unless the price is a limiting factor).
Of cause, the ultimate goal is to invent and come up with something totally new and innovative, but…people have been trying this for ages, and only a small percentage have succeeded…Therefore this method (to analyze, relfect and produce) could be an alternative, give it a thought…I did…
Cheers!
Creative ads!
Some of you have probably seen a couple of these before. But everytime I see them, I wish that ads like these were expressed in my environments (Denmark)…unfortunately they are not
This is very innovative thinking, and I think some of these ads are very inspiring in the way they use their surroundings. It just shows us that remarkable ads (ad-types we haven’t seen before) get noticed!
Enjoy!
Denver Water - Use only what you need
Pepsi - Pepsi Light (made in photoshop though)
Kill Bill - Ad on floor
KAIZEN - Creative media solutions
Red Cross - Do you know first aid?
Plasma HQ - 100% brighter that regular headlights
Personal stamp ad - Works as an entrance-stamp at a discoteque
Folgers - Wake up
Cingular - Hate dropped calls?
Bastop - Look your best
Another thing… some time ago, there was an ad-war between a couple of vehicle brands. The war was between BMW, AUDI, SUBARU and BENTLEY.
BMW started the shole thing, a quite provocative message.
AUDI answered BMWs ad.
For some reason, SUBARU wanted to join the battle.
BENTLEY ended the war, and made the other ones look like fools…
Inspiration? Well… have a nice day
Boost your creativity! 5 suggestions…
One of my big interests is SELF-IMPROVEMENT. It involves a lot of things, i.a. social- and personal skills and development. Because of self-improvement being such a huge interest of mine, I’ve read quite a lot of material about it (websites as well as books), and I’ve tested a lot of the methods I’ve read about.
I’ve picked 5 (in my opinion) great methods, of which you’ll be able to develope and expand your creativity.
- Brainstorm
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This is a classic example of idea-development. THE BRAINSTORM. It works so great (at least for me) that it’s a must on this list.
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Gather a few (distinctly different) people, think, innovate and discuss a determined subject, product or method, find the 10 best ideas (e.g. through idea-validation) and let them pass a SWOT-analysis. Now, you should have a great idea to work from
Of cause…the brainstorm should be done in its original form. NO LIMITS!
- Pen + Paper
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It is important to write all your ideas down on a sheet of paper. By that you’re not taking the risk to forget them, and furthermore you free up space in your brain for new ideas! Many of the ideas which you’re going to write down are unuseful, probably 80% or so, but it’s the last 10-20% you’ll neew
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Now and then, the book work as a source to inspiration and new ideas, maybe you’ll be able to develop old ideas in combination with new knowledge on a specified field. - Environments
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One of the greatest ways to get new ideas, inspiration, and inputs is, concerning myself, when you take a walk in your environments. Whether it’s a city, it’s nature or something else, it gives you free space and capability to think! A change of atmosphere, and the fact that you do a little gentle exercise ( => fresh air) helps your brain think clearly! Use it…
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If you want to be inspired by the elements of nature, Ross Lovegrove is definitely a role model, he’s called “Captain Organic”! Read more here - Books
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If you want to come up with great useful ideas, you have to know how society and other people think. You have to understand other peoples thoughts and perspectives if you want to communicate to them in some way.
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One of the methods you can use to understand what other people think, is by reading books! Books are fantastic because you read about a subject, (often) seen from anothers point of view, and thereby you’ll automatically discover things you (probably) haven’t thought of yourself. You’ll be able to make creative connnections between things, exactly that helps you develop!
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Furthermore, to read is a good exercise for your braincells! Keep them busy
- People
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People is always a good way to find and develop ideas from. Do you have an idea? Have you discussed and reviewed it with other people? You should…
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Sometimes you get absorbed by your idea which makes you blind to potential problems and issues. Therefore it’s a good idea to request some constructive criticism (read my post on this here) from a familymember, a friend, or a complete stranger. It really sets things in perspective, and that’s what you need if you really want to develop your idea!
I hope you find some of my advices useful, I have…Happy thinking!
Sir Ken Robinson: Do Schools Kill Creativity?
This talk by Sir Ken Robinson, an author and knight from Great Britain, is about the essence of modern education. He talks about how modern education teaches us not to be creative, and how education-systems across the world are limiting the development of the human being.
He’s a brilliant speaker, and I think this talk really shows how important it is to make your talk/lecture fun and interesting. He uses jokes and personal experiences to tell and explain his interesting theory, which makes this talk one of the greatest I’ve ever seen.
Have a look!
Most Unfortunate Logos
When I saw this post at “Oddee - Quality Entertainment”, I can’t imagine what the designers of those logos have been thinking? Have they been blind? or? Is it on purpose?… I really don’t know but it just tells me that my vision of making the world a better place to live (seen from a graphical perspective), is definitely needed
Check em’ out!
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