BlogmyQuery – BMQ

Do you own a website? Do you want to be number one on Google? Whatever you do, don’t spend money on aggressive search engine optimization (SEO). I know that sounds like an extreme position to take. However, a lot of website owners see search engine optimization as the answer to their search ranking woes, when things are considerably more complex.

The inconvenient truth is that the best person to improve your ranking is you. Unfortunately, that is going to take time and commitment on your part. The answer doesn’t lie in hiring a SEO company to boost your website ranking for Google. The problem starts with the term “search engine optimization” and the misconceptions surrounding it.

What SEO Isn’t

Most website owners perceive SEO as a dark art, shrouded in mystery. They have heard phrases like “gateway pages” and “keyword density”, or have been bamboozled by technobabble about the way websites should be built. All of this has left them feeling that SEO is the purview of experts. This is a misconception reinforced by certain segments of the SEO community.

The problem is that these kinds of complex techniques do work, to a point. It is possible to improve placement through a manipulation of the system. However, although it can have short term benefits, it will not last without continual investment. This is because the objective is wrong. SEO shouldn’t be about getting to the top of Google for particular phrases. In fact, we shouldn’t be optimizing for search engines at all. We should be optimizing for people. After all, that is what Google is trying to do.

Why You Shouldn’t Be Optimizing For Search Engines

Google’s aim is simple: connect its searchers with the most relevant content. If you are more worried about a good ranking than providing relevant content, then you are going to be fighting a losing battle.

If you hire a SEO company to improve your placement and you measure their worth on the basis of how high they get you in the rankings, then you are out of line with what Google is trying to achieve. Your primary objective should be better content, not higher rankings.

Image credit: Search Engine People Blog.

The SEO company can use every trick in the book to get you better rankings, but over the long term they will lose, because Google is constantly changing how it rates websites so it can provide more accurate results.

Remember, you shouldn’t be optimizing for ranking in search engines, you should be optimizing for users.

A Better Way

Google does not make a secret of how to gain a high ranking. It states clearly in its webmaster guidelines:

“Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines.”

So how do you actually do that? Again Google provides the answer:

“Create a useful, information-rich website, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.”

In short, write useful content. This could include (but is not limited to):

• Publishing white papers,
• Writing a blog,
• Sharing research findings,
• Producing detailed case studies,
• Encouraging user-generated content,
• Creating useful applications or tools,
• Running a Q&A section,
• Posting interviews

The list could go on. The key is to produce content people find useful and want to share.

Yes, there are some technical considerations when it comes to search engines. However, any reasonably well-built website will be accessible to Google. You don’t need an expert SEO company for that (at least not if the Web designer does their job right).

As an aside, it is worth noting that if you take accessibility seriously for users with disabilities (such as those with visual impairments), then you will also make a website accessible to Google.

However, setting those technical issues aside, it all comes down to content. If you create great content, people will link to it, and Google will improve your placement. It really is that simple.

The question then becomes, how do you create great content?

The Inconvenient Truth

This is the point where we come to the inconvenient truth. It is hard for an outside contractor to produce the great content that will keep users coming back and encourage them to share. In my experience, this is much better done internally within the organization. The problem is that this doesn’t sit well with most organizations. Its easier to outsource the problem to a SEO company than to tackle an unfamiliar area internally.

Admittedly, a good SEO company will have copywriters on board who can write content for you. However, their knowledge will be limited, as will their ability to really get to know your business. Yes, they can write a few keyword-heavy blog posts that Google will like the look of. However, this won’t fool users, and so the number of links to that content will be low.

The truth is that if you are serious about improving your placement on search engines, it has to be done internally.

This truth is all the more painful, as most organizations are not configured to do this properly.

Organizational Change Required

The more I work with organizations on their digital strategy, the more I realize how few are structured to do business in a digital world. The issue of SEO is an ideal example of the problem.

Responsibility for the website normally lies with the marketing department. Although marketing is well-experienced in producing and writing marketing copy that outlines the products and services the organization provides, they are not best equipped to write content that will be heavily linked to.

It is not surprising that if you search on a term like “call to action,” the top results are almost exclusively informational articles, rather than companies helping with services in this area.

The problem is that marketeers are experts in the product or service being sold, not necessarily the surrounding subject matter. For example, the marketing department of a company selling healthy meals will know everything about the benefits of their product, but will have a limited knowledge of nutrition. Unfortunately, people are more likely to link to a post on healthy eating tips than they are to link to some marketing copy on a particular health product.

What you really need is the nutritional expert who designed the meal to be posting regularly to a blog, talking about what makes a healthy diet. A blog like this would include lots of linkable content, would be able to build a regular readership and would produce keyword-rich copy.

The problem is that this is not how organizations are set up. It is not the nutritional expert’s job to write blog posts; that responsibility belongs in marketing.

The Long-Term Solution

Ultimately organizations need to change so that online marketing is a more distributed role with everybody taking responsibility for aspects of it. I am not suggesting that the central marketing function has no role in digital, but rather recognizing that they cannot do it alone. Others will need to have some marketing responsibilities as part of their role.

For example a company selling healthy meals should allocate one afternoon each week for their nutritional experts and chefs to share their expertise online. It would become the marketing department’s responsibility to support these bloggers by providing training, editorial support and technical advice.

Unfortunately, these experts are often the most valuable resource within a business, and so their time is incredibly valuable. The idea of “distracting” them from their core role is too much for many companies to swallow.

However, in the short term there is still much that can be done.

A Short-Term Solution

As we wait for companies to wake up and change the way they are organized, there are ways of working within the system.

If you haven’t already, consider hiring an employee dedicated to creating content for your website. You can partially finance it with the money you save by getting rid of your SEO company.

If that is beyond your budget, consider hiring a short-term contractor or a part-time staff member. You could even use an existing member of your staff as long as they have time set aside to prevent the Web being pushed down the priority list. Although this person won’t have the knowledge to write all the content themselves, by being situated inside of the business it will be much easier for them to get access to those within the organization who do.

Arrange meetings with these experts and talk to them about their role. Identify various subjects based on their knowledge and then either record a video interview or write up a blog post based on what they share. Also ask these experts what news sources they read or which people within the industry they follow. Monitor these sources and ask your expert to comment on what is shared. These comments can be turned into posts that add to the wealth of content on your website.

Finally, you may find that the experts within the business are already producing a wealth of content that can act as source material for content that users will find interesting.

For example, our fictional nutritional expert probably already has documentation on the health benefits of certain food types or how certain conditions can be helped through healthy eating. Admittedly this kind of material might be too dry or academic, but with some editing and rewriting it would probably make great online content.

The content you post does not have to be long, it just has to be link-worthy. The key is to share the opinion of your expert and provide content of value to your audience.

As that audience grows, start asking questions. Maybe even get some of your readers to share their experiences or knowledge. Over time you will discover that not only will your readers want to contribute, so will your experts. As they see the value in posting content regularly to the website, they will start blogging themselves. All you will have to do is suggest topics and edit their output.

I know what you are thinking: it just isn’t that simple.

No More Excuses

I realize this is a big cultural shift for many organizations. Marketing teams will feel they are losing control, the person responsible for blogging will feel out of their depth and the experts may resent being asked lots of questions. However, what is the alternative?

For better or worse, Google demands good content in return for high rankings. Pretending that SEO companies can magically find a shortcut that allows you to avoid this tradeoff just isn’t going to cut it.

If you care about how you rank, it is time to take responsibility for your website’s content. Once you overcome the initial hurdle, you will find that producing quality content on an ongoing basis becomes second nature.

Update (17.12.2012)

After a heated discussion in comments to this article, in social channels and via Skype, Paul clarified his position in the article How I See The Role of SEO in his blog. We are republishing the article for the sake of making his arguments clear and unambiguous — of course, with Paul’s permission.—Ed.

There seems to be the perception that I want to see an end to the SEO sector. Although I have issues with the name, I do believe they have a role.

Last week I once again expressed my concerns about website owner’s obsession with SEO in a post for Smashing Magazine.

My message can be boiled down to the following points:

• Website owners are unhealthily obsessed with their rankings on Google.
• We should be creating primarily for people and not search engines.
• The best way to improve your ranking is to produce great content that people link to.
• That great content is better produced in-house, rather than being outsourced to an agency.
• A good web designer can take you a long way in making your site accessible to search engines.
• Before you spend money on an SEO company, make sure you have the basics in place first.

An unfortunate response

Unfortunately this caused a massive and aggressive reaction in the SEO community. Smashing Magazine was attacked for publishing the post, I was told I was out-of-date and ill informed (which is of course entirely possible), but worst of all there were a shocking number of attacks on me personally.

To be honest this doesn’t entirely surprise me. I have been working with the web long enough to be all too aware of the over reaction it creates in people. However, it is always hurtful when somebody attacks you as a human being, rather than your opinion.

Of course not everybody was like that. I had great conversations with Bill Slawski and Joost De Valk, both of who attempted to put me straight personally and on their blogs. I very much appreciate them taking the time and they have helped to soften my views.

SEO companies do have a role

I think it is important to stress that I do believe SEO companies have a role. The problem is they are often brought in when there is still much work that could be done internally within the organisation.

To me its about return on investment. Why spend money improving your search engine rankings when you could spend the same money improving rankings and producing more engaging content? Or why not spend money on improving your rankings and building a more accessible website?

There are two exceptions to that general rule of thumb.

Content strategy

First, the SEO industry is changing. They are increasingly helping clients with content and that is great. However, if that is the role they are going to take then they need to stop saying they are about “search engine optimisation.” Creating great content is not primarily an SEO job. They have a branding issue there.

Also, although I am happy for an SEO company to help educate clients about content they shouldn’t be writing copy for them week and week out for them. Take the approach of a content strategist who trains up the client, provides them a strategy and then encourages them to take on the role themselves. Isn’t that better for the client?

Cleaning up after bad web designers

The second exception is where the web designer has built an inaccessible website. As Joost De Valk said in his response to my post, it falls to the SEO company to clean up the mess.

This is obviously an issue that needs addressing in the web development community and why we need people like Joost speaking at web design conferences.

However, I wouldn’t expect a web developer to provide all of the technical subtleties of an SEO company. That is probably too specialist for most web designers to do.

I don’t doubt that these subtleties are important and do make a difference to rankings. However, once again it is important that we have the basics in place first:

• Great content.
• A solidly built website.

Setting the right priorities

Hopefully that helps clarify my position slightly. I am not for a minute trying to destroy the SEO sector (as I was accused of repeatedly). What I am trying to do is set priorities straight.

I guess in short it is the phase “search engine optimisation” I have a problem with. It implies we should be accommodating the idiosyncrasies of search engines above the needs of users.

That is something I will never compromise over and I am sure something the vast majority of SEO companies would agree with.

(cp)

© Paul Boag for Smashing Magazine, 2012.

Which category does your organization’s Web presence fall into? Over- or under-managed? When it comes to the Web, few organizations have found the Goldilocks zone. Their online activities are either under-managed with minimal policies and procedures, or dogged by bureaucracy and internal politics.

Those that fall into the former category are vulnerable to legal threats, internal disputes and knee-jerk management where the website lurches from one crisis to the next. Those in the latter are crippled by indecision and fail to respond to the fast-changing nature of the Web.

How then can an organization’s Web presence receive the oversight it requires, while remaining flexible enough to allow rapid iteration and change? The answer lies in solid Web governance; in particular responsibilities and policies. For example, who is responsible for what?

Responsibilities

Responsibilities for websites are often poorly defined. Either the issue hasn’t been considered, or it has been sidestepped by forming a committee or steering group. In either case, lines of reporting are blurred, responsibilities are ill-defined and priorities on the website are often dictated by who shouts the loudest.

If your website is to be a success, it needs strong leadership, clearly defined roles and people to take responsibility for its success. This can be at least partially achieved using a responsibility assignment matrix.

I know what you are thinking: a responsibility assignment matrix doesn’t sound sexy. I can’t argue with that. However, if you manage to get one signed off, it is going to make life a lot easier. A responsibility assignment matrix is a list of tasks, deliverables and responsibilities related to the running of your website, with individuals assigned to items in one of a number of roles.

A responsibility assignment matrix contains a list of tasks and those individuals involved in completing them.

Take, for example, design sign off. This task could be assigned to two people: one who is responsible for sign off, and another who is consulted before a decision is made. By assigning different roles, you clearly define responsibilities and minimize committee decision making. This is crucial for a number of reasons.

• Committees significantly slow down the decision-making process.
• Despite what people think, committees are not democratic. They are often dominated by one or two individuals.
• Committees inevitably lead to compromise as people try to reach a consensus. This results in insipid design that offends nobody but fails to excite anybody.
• Committee decision making is often more about internal politics than user needs or the success of the project.

Not only will role assignment reduce committee decision making, it will also identify who is responsible for decisions. This will reduce the likelihood of important tasks slipping between the gaps. There are various approaches to the responsibility assignment matrix, but most include at least four roles.

Responsible

Those responsible for a task are those who do the work and make the task happen. For example, in the case of design sign off, this would be the designer. This person could be a part of an internal team or an outside contractor.

Those people assigned the role “responsible” are those who actually do the work. In some cases they are the person accountable for the task, but it may also be somebody else (typically a subordinate).

Accountable

Every task should have a single person who is accountable for its successful completion. This is the person with whom the buck stops and who signs off the task as complete. In the case of design sign-off, this is typically the project manager or client.

There can only be a single person accountable for a task’s success. Otherwise, a task can fall between the gaps. It is also worth noting that a responsibility assignment matrix is useful for identifying gaps in your staffing. These can be overcome through outsourcing or recruitment.

Consulted

You consult those whose opinion is required before a task can be signed off. These are typically the people with an expertise relating to the task or a stake in a successful outcome.

Although a wider circle of people can be consulted on tasks, this should still be limited to those with a related expertise.

Informed

These are people who need to be kept informed about the task, but do not contribute to its completion. It may be that they are only informed when the task is completed, or they might be updated at various points throughout the process.

Typically those who are informed make up the largest group. It can easily include entire departments.

Minimize the number of people consulted, move them instead into the informed group. Those consulted should be limited to those with a real understanding of the task, or a valuable contribution to make. For example, if the task relates to technical infrastructure, only those with an understanding of technology should be consulted.

More controversially, the same should be true for design sign off. Only those who have a design background or who are responsible for corporate branding should be involved in this decision. After years of working with clients to implement technical projects and agree on design, I can testify that this approach will improve the quality of decision making.

It will also minimize the time required to make decisions, and reduce the staff hours wasted attending meetings where individuals have little to contribute. The challenge is dealing with people who wish to be consulted when they should only be informed. In my experience, the trick here is to agree upfront on the criteria involved in being a consultant before assigning specific people to the task.

For example, you could agree that all tasks should have no more than six people who are consulted. These people should be chosen based on experience relating to the task, or how greatly the outcome impacts them. Once this ‘policy’ is agreed on, the decision making about who should be consulted becomes much less contentious, because it is less personal.

If somebody isn’t included, it isn’t a personal slight, but an application of the policy. Obviously, this won’t keep everybody happy, and sometimes you may be forced to include individuals you would prefer not to. However, this is better than a large committee making decisions on everything.

Also it better defines people’s roles. Those who are consulted aren’t those making the final decision and they will know that going in. Equally those who have been assigned responsibility for a task will be under no illusions that the buck stops with them. Although defining responsibilities and roles will go a long way to improving the structure that supports your digital presence, there is still more that can be done. You can also establish policies.

Establishing Policies

A lot of decisions about digital strategy are knee-jerk reactions. One day, the CEO gets it into their head you need an iPhone app, and so that becomes the number one priority. Another day, a blind user complains that your website doesn’t work with screen readers, and accessibility jumps to the top of the agenda. This approach is ineffective, dangerous and can lead to bad decisions being made in the heat of the moment. It can also result in something being ignored entirely.

So where should you begin, what policies should you establish first? There are a huge variety of areas that can benefit from having policies in place. However, I recommend starting with three:

• Business objectives & key performance indicators (KPIs),
• Content management, and
• Development roadmap.

Let’s look at each in turn.

Business Objectives & KPIs

It shocks me how many organizations do not have clearly defined objectives for their website, and no way of measuring its success. Having an agreed-upon set of objectives and KPIs provides focus to your website. It also acts as a measure against which to resolve disagreements and judge the value of new features.

For example, if it has been agreed that your website’s primary business objective is to generate quality leads, it is easier to argue against suggestions that undermine this. For example, forcing users to hand over their email addresses before being able to access certain content (such as product demonstrations). Although this may generate more leads, it does not meet the quality criteria as most users will not be ready to buy.

So what should these business objectives look like? They don’t need to be complex or take a long time to write. Normally, half a dozen objectives is more than enough. For example Smashing Magazine’s business objectives might be:

• Generate quality content that encourages users to return regularly to the website;
• Display relevant advertising in a way that will attract users’ attention, without being annoying;
• Encourage users to subscribe to email or RSS updates;
• Generate revenue through the sale of quality books that meet users’ needs; and
• Encourage users to engage with Smashing Magazine through comments and social networks.

Having a list of objectives is not enough. You also need to prioritize them. If objectives are not prioritized, they will conflict. The result of this is that arguments will arise internally about what should be most prominent on the homepage or what should appear in the website’s navigation.

Finally, monitoring KPIs provides objective evidence about what is working on the website and what is not. This can be invaluable if you need justification for removing content.

Removing Content and Content Management

Content management systems have transformed the way we manage the content of our websites, but they do bring with them some drawbacks. They allow large numbers of people to add content, and this creates challenges around keeping content up-to-date, on-message and relevant. Many organizations suffer from content bloat, where content is constantly added to their website and never removed. Having a policy for managing content is important when more than one or two people are updating the website.

Your policy should answer questions such as these.

• Who is responsible for ensuring the accuracy of the website’s content?
• Who is responsible for maintaining the website’s tone of voice?
• How is content going to be checked for accuracy?
• Whose approval is required before content can be posted online?
• How is out-of-date or legacy content going to be managed?

One of the biggest challenges associated with content management is dealing with out-of-date content. This content clogs up websites, making it harder for users to find what is truly useful. Although the logical choice is to remove obsolete content, this can prove harder than it would appear. Many content owners become possessive about their content, arguing that somebody might find it useful. Suggestions of removing content can often be perceived as a personal attack on the content provider.

Having a predefined policy takes a lot of the contentiousness out of removing content. Instead of it being a personal attack, it is simply implementing policy. For example, you could have a policy that says if a page hasn’t be updated for a certain amount of time, it is automatically removed. Or you could specify that if a page falls below a certain threshold of visitors, it is removed from the website’s navigation or search. Whatever your policy, the key is to have something that can be implemented without endless discussion and debate.

Development Roadmap

The final policy that all organizations should definitely have is a development roadmap. This provides two benefits:

• It prevents knee-jerk decision making about the next thing to implement.
• It encourages management to think about ongoing development of their website, rather than occasional redesigns.

When talking about the fast moving world of digital development, it is not realistic to have a long-term, detailed roadmap. However, it should be possible to outline a list of ideas for future features, and prioritize those ideas based on your business objectives. Your roadmap should also outline a process for cyclic, ongoing improvements to the website. These aren’t necessarily new features, but rather usability enhancements based on monitoring of analytics and regular usability testing.

In his book “Rocket Surgery Made Easy,” Steve Krug recommends monthly lightweight usability testing to ensure that your website remains as usable as possible. This is very important, especially if your website is regularly having new content and features added. I understand that a post about roles, responsibilities and policies isn’t the most exciting topic. I get that most of us would prefer to play with the latest new jQuery plugin or responsive design technique.

The problem is that if we don’t start encouraging our clients and managers to think about these issues, the beautiful websites we create will quickly become bloated, neglected and ineffective. I am sure you do not consider this a part of your job, but if not you, then who? Personally, I am fed up with seeing websites I have created fall into disrepair and I will do whatever it takes to stop this from happening again. I hope you will join me.

(cp)

© Paul Boag for Smashing Magazine, 2012.

Are we cheating our clients when it comes to mobile? More precisely, are we allowing our desire for mobile work to get in the way of providing our clients with the best solution for their business needs? This is the uncomfortable question we asked ourselves recently when redesigning our agency’s website, and we want to discuss it with the broader Web community: You, dear reader.

When redesigning our own website, we were forced to challenge our reasons for putting so much emphasis on mobile development.

We are not for a minute suggesting that either we or anyone else is intentionally taking advantage of the current excitement about mobile to “conâ€� our clients. However, we do wonder whether our clients’ excitement and our own desires are hindering our ability to make rational business decisions — decisions that would lead to the best solution for our clients.

Jumping On The Band Wagon

By now, we all know that mobile is the next big thing. Not only do we realize it, but our clients know it, too. The growth in smartphone usage and the availability of fast mobile Internet connections are driving an explosion in mobile Web access. Organizations of all shapes and sizes need to start taking mobile seriously or else suffer in the near future.

There can be little doubt that mobile is becoming a major way to access the Web. Image source: Econsultancy.com.

For us, mobile is new and exciting and spells the future for our industry and careers. Unsurprisingly, we want to be a part of that. This scenario is not dissimilar to the one that many print designers found themselves in, all those years ago. When the Internet arrived and everybody was desperate to get their first website, the print design world skilled up and got building. Many websites were built in those early days that were never visited by an actual user. For many, the excitement got ahead of the demand.

Nothing is wrong with us as a community wanting to move into new areas. Nevertheless, we need to ensure that we do not push solutions onto our clients that they do not yet need, simply to boost our portfolio.

Do Our Clients Need To Think Mobile Yet?

Timing is everything. For businesses that are trying to turn a profit, their return on investment (ROI) matters.

Although mobile is important, it still amounts to a very small percentage of the overall traffic for many organizations. So, quite often, optimization for mobile lands at the bottom of the design debt list — the list of issues that have to be addressed by the design team. Business considerations, particular features and technical issues in the shop often have a higher priority, especially if the client’s company is relatively small.

While investing in the future is, of course, important to the client, if they do so too early, they run the risk of investing their money in areas that don’t have an immediate result and that might become out of date just at the moment when the areas become relevant to the client. Helping them work through this timing issue is important for us, as service providers.

Wait a second! If we build our websites mobile-first, surely they won’t go out of date, right? I am not so convinced. Certainly, best practice in responsive design are not the same as they were a year ago. We are learning more all of the time, and best practices continue to evolve. Can you honestly claim that the code and design solutions you came up with a year ago are as good as the code you are writing today? Responsive design patterns emerge and change, CSS and JavaScript techniques evolve, and some solutions don’t stick around for a long time.

For many websites, the percentage of mobile traffic is still relatively low.

It’s difficult because many clients are just as excited as us about mobile. They want to build a mobile app or website because they love playing with their shiny new device. They know that mobile is the future and, so, convince themselves that now is the right time to invest. But it might not be right for their circumstances. Mobile might not yet be worth spending their budget on. Timing is everything when considering ROI.

The Cost Of Native

Among shiny things, native apps are the shiniest of all. Whatever arguments you may have against building native apps, if you put your bias aside (we all have bias), it is difficult to argue — at least to our clients — that native is not cool, slick and shiny.

In my experience, when most clients think mobile, they think apps. You don’t see TV advertisements promoting mobile websites, but a lot of ads promote app stores and native applications. Clients might not know the difference between native and hybrid — and our responsibility is to explain the difference to them — but when they think “apps,â€� they want “cool, shiny and in the app store.â€� They want a native app.

However, such apps are expensive. You need developers with a specialized skill set. It might sound obvious, but building apps is very different from building websites. Apps are software. Software projects need more rigorous planning and longer testing cycles, and so they take longer to complete.

And then you have to consider multiple platforms. If you go the native app route, then each time you roll out an app to a new platform (Windows, iOS, Android, BlackBerry), you have to do a lot of the work again. Usually little can be reused. Also, operating systems are updated a couple of times a year, and there will be at least one new device each year, too. These changes usually require apps to be updated as well. Of course, when dealing with Apple at least, there is no guarantee that your app will be approved and added to the store for customers to download.

You can reduce the costs involved by using hybrid app solutions and HTML5. The hybrid and native approach each has its pros and cons and its own place, but the bottom line is that app development is an expensive business.

The Hidden Costs Of Responsive Design

There may well come a time when we need to build bespoke versions of websites for mobile devices. As users replace laptops with tablets and many others access the Web only on their phones, such a move would be a worthwhile investment for some organizations. In the meantime, for everyone else, responsive design is a good solution. Because it applies a new style sheet to the client’s existing HTML implementation, it need not be costly to implement.

At least that is the theory. In reality, things are more complicated. We all claim that responsive design is a cheap solution, but that depends on how far we take it. At the most basic level, responsive design just requires some changes to the CSS. However, we all know in practice that that is not always the case. Making an existing website responsive can be incredibly time-consuming, especially if you have to deal with legacy HTML code that can’t be easily changed.

The Special Cases

Responsive design is not as simple as linearizing the content. Many elements need special attention. The most obvious is navigation, which often scales poorly across devices. However, it is not the only element. Maps, video, slideshows, graphics and tables all need special attention. Also, third-party “widgets� that embed content on a website aren’t always configured to be responsive.

Navigation does not always translate easily to mobile devices.

The Cost of Imagery

Then there is the biggest challenge of all: images. Many Web designers are rightly suggesting that delivering desktop-sized images to mobile devices is unadvisable due to bandwidth limitations. We also now need to consider devices with high-pixel-density displays, which require even larger images. However, optimizing images for different platforms and creating a mechanism to deliver these further increases the cost of responsive design. At some point, you have to consider client-side and/or server-side optimizations to address this and other issues, such as reducing the load of elements that won’t be displayed on mobile devices.

There is even talk now of the need to optimize typography so that it scales for different devices. Again, the idea has a lot of merit, but a price tag comes with it. The problem is that we as Web designers want to be seen by our peers as producing websites that use the absolute latest best practices. God forbid that we are seen coding with last year’s techniques!

Now, screens are changing not just in size, but also in pixel density. Oliver Reichenstein suggests that we do not just need responsive layouts, we also need responsive typefaces. He has launched iA’s new website with responsive typography with a custom-built responsive typeface.

Of course, our desires are not what matters. What matters is that we provide our clients with solutions that make sense for them. This often entails providing a solution that we consider to be inferior. Not every client needs a Rolls-Royce — some will be happy with a Skoda.

The question is how do you know which solution best fits a client.

Picking The Right Solution

As I have already suggested, ROI should be the primary criterion in determining the right approach. If a client has a large audience that is willing to pay good money for an app, then you can go to town and build a Rolls-Royce. But if the project is more speculative, then starting simple would be best.

But money should not be the only deciding factor. The choice between a native app and a responsive website, for example, is not really a budgetary one. After all, a responsive website could cost more than some native apps.

In some cases, the decision will come down to what the app will do. If the client’s primary requirement is to deliver content to the user, then a responsive website is probably more appropriate. In my experience, the kinds of native apps that users download and continue to use are task-oriented. If your client wants to enable users to complete certain tasks quickly, then a native app might be the answer. Otherwise, use the Web.

The only exception is when the client needs to access features on mobile devices that are inaccessible to the browser. Typical examples are things such as the camera and the accelerometer.

If you conclude that a Web-based solution is the right approach, then it becomes an issue of budget and timing. If the client is happy with their existing website and doesn’t wish to change it, then you could consider building a mobile website that targets particular devices. This might not be your preferred approach, but it could be the most cost-effective until the client undertakes a redesign.

If the client’s budget is tight, then you might choose to use media queries to target certain ranges of screen resolutions, rather than going fully responsive. This will make development slightly easier, thus keeping costs down. Similarly, you would have to leave image optimization to the carrier, rather than optimize images on the server.

The message here is simple. Whether talking about native apps, responsive websites or anything in between, we need to put aside our personal desires and even the desires of the client, focusing instead on what the client really needs: a mobile solution that generates the best return for their business.

(Image credits on the front page go to Information Architects.)

(jc) (al) (il)

© Paul Boag for Smashing Magazine, 2012.

We love to tell users that they have done something wrong. We have error messages for everything from poorly formatted telephone numbers to incorrect logins. But what about our user’s successes, do we celebrate them? Do we tell them they are doing something right?

It is as important to tell users that they are doing things right, as it is to inform them when they make a mistake. This kind of positive reinforcement is key to a pleasurable user experience. In this post, I want to explain why positive feedback matters, suggest when it is appropriate and how to integrate it into your website.

We begin by asking why positive reinforcement matters.

Why Positive Reinforcement Matters

Have you ever considered why a majority of us may dislike virtual keyboards? One of the primary reasons is that a virtual keyboard cannot provide the same level of feedback as a physical one.

Virtual keyboard manufacturers have worked hard to provide positive reinforcement using sound and the pop-up keys (such as the ones found on the iPad). However, these do not match the positive feedback one gets from using a physical keyboard. The sounds are annoyingly artificial and virtual keyboards are unable to replicate the tactile feedback of using a physical key.

We tend to dislike virtual keyboards because they cannot provide the same level of feedback as a physical one.

The example of a virtual keyboard illustrates how important it is to provide positive reinforcement for users of our websites. As with virtual keyboards, the lack of positive feedback leaves the user with a less pleasurable experience.

Many users lack confidence (either in their own abilities, or in the reliability of your website). They worry about whether they had done something wrong or whether the website has understood what it was that they wanted to achieve. In many cases this is because they don’t really understand how websites and computers work. The result is that they blame themselves when something goes wrong, presuming that their ignorance has led them to make a mistake.

By providing positive reinforcement we reduce these worries and give the user confidence that everything is going smoothly. This is particularly important for users who lack confidence in their own abilities (for example, the elderly). These users are often perfectly competent. However, because they lack confidence they second guess their decisions, which significantly undermines their experience.

Positive reinforcement does not just give the user confidence that they are doing something right, it also eliminates doubt about whether something has gone wrong. This can prevent a user from undoing something that they have done correctly.

A good example of this is an e-commerce transaction. Have you ever submitted an order to an e-commerce website and been left wondering whether the transaction is being processed because the page was taking longer to load than you expected?

A simple piece of positive reinforcement (such as an update telling the user that the order is still being processed) would resolve this problem, and prevents people from hitting the back button.

By keeping the user up-to-date you reduce their anxiety that something has gone wrong.

All of this doubt and confusion significantly slows the user down. They find themselves re-entering data, re-submitting forms and constantly using the back button. A small amount of positive reinforcement will significantly increase the speed with which they complete tasks.

With the benefits of positive feedback clear, when should we use it? When does the user need encouragement that they aren’t making mistakes and that the website is doing what they expect?

When Positive Reinforcement Is Required

The most obvious place to provide positive reinforcement is when a user is entering data. Whether registering, logging in, making a purchase, posting a comment, updating a status, or interacting with a Web application, data entry accounts for a large proportion of our interactions online.

It also represents the greatest likelihood of error, and users know this. As a result they often lack confidence in their data entry skills, and need some reassurance. This is especially true when entering data such as email addresses, passwords and postal codes.

Graze speeds up the process of completing their signup form by showing a tick when you complete a field correctly.

Data entry is not the only (or even most common) form of user interaction—users interact with your website every time they click on a link. It surprises me how many websites fail to show the user that they have successfully clicked on a link, yet instead, rely on the browser to provide feedback.

Smashing Magazine leaves the user with no doubt that a link has been successfully clicked (screenshot of Monthly Desktop Wallpapers).

Relying on the browser to provide positive feedback can be problematic as the user may miss it. This is because the browser shows that it is loading a page using the address bar, while the user’s attention is on the link that they have just clicked. This can lead to the user clicking on the same link again.

If the user is looking at a link, they may miss updates in the address bar.

The problem of feedback and attention being in two different places extends beyond links. There are many situations when a user’s interaction results in something changing elsewhere on the page. These kinds of changes are easily missed and some more obvious feedback is often required.

A common example of this would be adding an item to a shopping basket. Because the user’s focus is on the item they are adding, it can be easy for them to miss the basket updating. In such situations it is necessary to update the item itself to show it has been added.

When an item is being added into the basket on the Wiltshire Farm Foods’ website, the appearance of the product changes significantly.

Not that this is just an issue of distance between focus and the change on the page, it is also one of subtly. For example, a basket updating could be as subtle as a number incrementing from one item to two. This is easy to miss, even if the user’s attention is in the right place.

When a user’s interaction triggers a subtle page update, it is often necessary to provide some stronger feedback to reassure the user that their action has had the desired result.

How you provide that positive reinforcement will vary from website to website. There are a number of different approaches you may wish to consider…

Ways To Implement Positive Reinforcement

When a user makes a mistake, we normally inform them by displaying a textual error message. It is therefore unsurprising, that when we think of providing positive feedback, we also turn to textual messaging.

However, I believe we should be careful when providing positive feedback in a textual form. The problem with this approach is that text forces the user to shift their attention and read the message. This slows down the completion of their task rather than encouraging them to move forward.

That said, there are occasions when text can be effective for providing positive reinforcement. For example, if the user has just clicked an “add to basket” button, it may be appropriate to re-label the button to read “add another”. By changing the text you make it clear that one item has already been added, and encourages the user to move on to the next task. The other benefit to this approach is that the user is seeing a change where they are currently looking (the button that they have just clicked) rather than elsewhere on the screen (such as the basket, which they might miss).

Changing the labelling on an add to basket button can bring clarity to a user’s interaction.

Visual Feedback

If we are going to limit the use of text as a method of positive feedback, a better alternative is to use design signals. These could include changes in imagery, styling, color, or size.

Examples may include altering the color of a link when clicked, adding a tick after a field that has been correctly completed, or highlighting an updated portion of the page.

An important example of this kind of positive design feedback would be the cursor state. Users have come to expect the cursor to change into a hand when they rollover an interactive element (such as a link or a button). When it fails to do so, the absence of this positive feedback causes confusion. Yet, despite this well known behavior, too many interactive elements on websites do not demonstrate this behavior.

Without this cursor state, a user may be unsure whether they can click this box.

Feedback Using Animation

Another visual way to provide positive feedback is through animation. There are some great examples of how subtle animation can draw a user’s attention to an error (like the slight vibration you see if you enter the wrong log-in details for WordPress). These same principles can be applied to positive feedback, as well.

A common example of using animation to provide positive feedback would be when users click on an anchor link. By default this jumps the user down the page which can be a very disconcerting experience. However, a smooth scrolling animation combined with a highlighting of the destination can make it clear that what the user had expected has actually happened.

Animation can also be used on e-commerce websites to indicate an item has been added to a basket. Whether it is the basket expanding (to show the new item) or the product physically ‘flying’ towards the basket, these animations reassure the user that their intended action has been completed.

Animation can be a useful tool to show that an action has been completed.

I believe animation is an under-utilized way of providing positive feedback and is something we should be exploring further on our websites. However, it is not the only method that is under-utilized—there is also the use of audio.

Audio Feedback

Do you wait for that “whoosh” noise when you send an email? That is an audible signal that the email has sent successfully. What about those little pings, beeps and twerps that notify you that something has happened on your computer or mobile device? Whether we realize it or not, most of us are reliant on this kind of audio feedback that reassures us that an action has happened.

When sending an email we are very reliant on the audible feedback to ensure us that it has been sent.

Why then do we shy away from using audio on our websites? Audio is an excellent tool for providing positive feedback and yet few websites use it.

Maybe our reluctance is because audio can be annoying. The history of the Web is littered with examples of annoying audio loops or background music that you cannot mute. However, you could equally argue that the Web is littered with bad design and animation (but still, that doesn’t stop us from using these tools).

Others may argue that audio is not appropriate in a work environment. Although I would generally agree, the audio we are talking about using here is no different to the audio notifications used by a plethora of desktop applications that are common in an office environment.

An audible click is a great way to tell a user they have clicked on a link. A “cha-ching” would be the perfect way of letting a customer know they have added something to a shopping cart. Audio is a powerful tool that we are currently under-utilizing.

Much To Learn And Discuss

Whether you use audio, design, animation, or text, we should be providing users with more positive feedback for their actions. It gives a user confidence that in turn increases the speed in which they move through your website (and their level of satisfaction). We have still have much to learn about how to provide positive feedback for users, and we would be especially interested to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

• Is audio a good tool for feedback?
• What examples of positive feedback have inspired you?
• Do you perceive dangers in providing too much feedback to users?

Let us know your thoughts!

(jvb) (il)

Image used on front page is owned by opensourceway.

© Paul Boag for Smashing Magazine, 2012.

Working as a Web designer can suck sometimes. This is especially true when you don’t get to work alongside the client. Unfortunately this scenario is more common than you would think. Many organizations have been carefully structured to keep the Web designer and the client apart. But is that really sensible? Would projects run much smoother without your account manager or boss acting as the middleman?

This issue came to my attention following the release of my latest book “Client Centric Web Design.â€� In this book I provide advice about how to work more effectively with clients. However, I had made an assumption in the approach I presented, an assumption which turned out not always to be true. It assumed that the Web designer and client can work collaboratively together. Following the book’s release I realized that for many Web designers that this is not the case.

Image credits go to Brett Jordan.

Whether working in house for a large organization or as part of a Web design agency, many Web designers never get to interact directly with their clients. Instead, the client’s requirements and comments are filtered through a middleman who manages the project.

In this post I examine why I believe this is damaging to projects and what can be done to rectify the problem. However, before we can answer these questions, we must understand why this way of working has become common in the first place.

Why We Have Account Managers

I want to make it clear that I believe that both project and account managers play a valuable role. There are good reasons why they are part of the Web design process and I am not suggesting they should be removed.

It is the role of account managers to provide outstanding customer service. This is a vital (if often overlooked) role of any Web design agency—we are not here just to build websites, we are here to provide a service to our clients. That means making our clients happy by communicating well, meeting deadlines and delivering within the budget. Our project managers regularly receive gifts from our clients thanking them for a job well done. This is how close the relationship between client and account manager can become. By lifting the responsibility for customer service from the Web designer, account managers allow us to focus on the job of actually designing and building websites—a luxury that many freelancers envy.

The account manager also deals with the plethora of organizational tasks which keep a project running smoothly, not to mention protecting us from the endless comments and questions from the client. I have had the misfortune of working on many projects where we have been drip-fed feedback from multiple stakeholders almost continually throughout the project. If it wasn’t for the account manager, I would have very quickly lost control of what needed to be done on the website. Lets face it, they also protect the client from us, as we sometimes have an overwhelming urge to rant at them uncontrollably (or perhaps that is just me). They also act as interpreters, taking our technobabble and translating it into a language that the client can understand.

In short, a good account manager ensures the client is happy and that the project remains profitable. Those are valuable roles and one that a designer would struggle to do on top of their other responsibilities. Just ask the average overworked freelancer.

If then the account manger is so valuable, where is the problem?

So Where Is The Problem?

Although having an account manager is incredibly useful, things often get out of hand. The role of account manager transforms from being a part of the project team to the sole conduit between client and designer. Instead of facilitating a smooth running project they become the bottleneck through which all communication must pass. This funnelled approach to communication prevents collaboration between the client and the Web designer. This kind of collaboration is essential to ensuring a happy client and a successful website.

Without collaboration, educating the client is difficult. Unsurprisingly most clients don’t know much about the Web design process. However, by working alongside the client throughout the project, the client learns the best practice for Web design and why certain design decisions are made. This educational process works both ways. The client will learn a lot about the Web design process, but the designer will also learn a lot about the client and his business. When the Web designer understands the nuances of the project, business and client, they produce better websites. Without that understanding they are much more likely to go down the wrong road by wasting time and money, while frustrating the client.

This isn’t just limited to designers either. Like many Web design agencies, we excluded developers from client meetings for a long time. Their time was precious and we didn’t want to waste it in meetings. However, we eventually discovered that when the developer understands the details of a project, they produce more elegant solutions and often suggest directions which nobody else had considered. When all communication has to pass through a middleman, the chances of misunderstanding and mistakes are further increased. Like a game of chinese whispers, what is said by the client or designer can be distorted by the time it has passed through an account manager.

I remember experiencing this regularly when I worked for an agency in the late nineties. A passing comment made by a client would become a dictate from the account manager that I had to follow. Instead of being a designer who could bring my experience to bear on a project, I became a pixel pusher. Because I wasn’t hearing directly from the client, I could not judge the strength of their feelings and so had no opportunity to challenge them over issues I felt passionately about.

Finally (and probably most importantly), without the client and designer working together on a project the client feels no sense of ownership over the design. The projects that inevitably go wrong at my agency are those where the final decision-maker is not actively involved in the design process. If a client has been involved in the design process, commenting and working with the designer at every stage, they are less likely to reject the final design—they will feel the design is as much their creation as that of the designer’s. However, if their feedback was through an account manager, they won’t have that sense of hands on involvement.

Fortunately, we can have the best of both worlds. We can have the benefits of an account manager, while still allowing the designer to work closely with the client.

The Best Of Both Worlds

At Headscape the role of the account manager is not to control all of the client communications, but to act as a facilitator for those communications. This provides all of the benefits of having an account manager and none of the drawbacks.

For a start, the Web designer and developer always attends project kickoffs, so they meet the client at the beginning of a project. This also ensures that they get all of the background on the project firsthand, rather than via the account manager. The Web designer also works directly with the client discussing ideas and presenting design. This gives the designer the opportunity to present their work in their own words and hear the feedback directly from the client. They can also work collaboratively with the client on some aspects of the design, such as wireframing, to help increase the client’s feeling of ownership and engagement. This also has the added benefit of allowing the designer to question and challenge the feedback they receive, engaging in a much richer discussion with the client.

The account manager is still very much a part of the process. He is still the client’s primary point of contact and remains responsible for ensuring the project stays on time and within budget. Also, whenever possible, he should be involved in discussions between the designer and client, to ensure he is fully aware of everything agreed upon. Where conversations take place without his involvement, the Web designer should report back to the account manager on the content of those discussions.

This all sounds great in theory. However, in the real world of company politics and long-held working practices, you may meet resistance when implementing this approach. In such situations it is important to proceed carefully.

Getting The Support Of Your Account Manager

None of us like change, especially when it involves others telling us how to do our job. It is therefore hardly surprising that you may well meet resistance from your account manager if you suggest the approach that I have outlined in this article.

The key is to not to get frustrated if you meet resistance. Look at it from their point of view: how would you feel if they came along and told you to design websites in a different way, or worst still, suggested they should be more heavily involved in the design of client websites?! No doubt you would be horrified, so take the time to empathize with your account manager and seek ways to make the transition easier.

I occasionally encountered designers who complain to me that they have tried to implement my approach and had been shot down by their account managers. Inevitably the reason behind this failure has been because they have tried to rush the transition. If you go in all guns blazing, the idea will be rejected. Instead, start small and build up over time.

One starting point that has worked for others I have spoken to is to sit in on key meetings. For example, if you are not normally part of the kickoff meeting, start with that. Or if you don’t get to hear the client’s feedback firsthand, ask to be involved in that call. Reassure the account manager that all you want to do is sit in so you can hear what was said. That way they won’t worry about what you might say in front of the client. Once you are involved in those meetings regularly it becomes easier for you to start slipping in the odd comment.

I also recommend thinking carefully about how you present this approach to your account manager. It would be easy to focus on why you want to do it. However, you will have much more success if you present the benefits the approach provides for them. Remember, their primary concern is to ensure that the project is delivered on time and within budget. Therefore, when suggesting your heavier involvement with the client, explain that this will reduce the chance of misunderstandings, leading to a faster sign-off. This in turn will mean less iterations and higher profits on the project—all music to the ears of your average account manager.

Finally, point out that if you work directly with the client it will ultimately mean less work for them. Everybody loves the sound of less work! If you present the idea of direct collaboration with the client as having benefits for the project (and for the account manager personally), the chances are you will meet a lot less resistance.

I confidently believe that allowing the Web designer to work with the client ultimately leads to better websites, happier clients and a greater sense of job satisfaction for the designer. However, I am also aware it has its challenges. I would therefore like to see more discussion about how to best get this collaborative relationship working with organizations that traditionally keep these two parties apart. Perhaps the comments are the place to kick start the conversation.

(jvb) (jc)

© Paul Boag for Smashing Magazine, 2012.