BlogmyQuery – BMQ

Let’s assess the situation. WordPress is an extremely popular, flexible, easy to use and open-source blogging and CMS system. More and more mobile devices are flooding the market every day, changing the way people use the Internet. And the need is growing for more beautifully designed and coded WordPress themes that work well across all of these devices. So, what are we waiting for? Let’s get to work!

At first, the idea of designing and developing a fully responsive, mobile-ready WordPress theme might be overwhelming. You might be thinking, “How do I handle a responsive design with all of this flexible content that a WordPress theme has? What should I consider when designing for touch devices? And do I really have to get rid of drop-down menus and other hover elements on mobile devices?�

But after doing some research and looking more closely at some of the responsive WordPress themes and theme frameworks out there, you will probably wrap your head around the idea pretty quickly, and the evolving world of WordPress theme design will sound like a huge opportunity that you can’t wait to get started on.

It’s All About Preparation

Having a detailed design concept is even more important for a responsive WordPress theme than for a static-width theme. At this stage, you haven’t decided anything, so nothing will get in your way of creating a clever and practical layout that adapts smoothly to different screens.

First, consider what you want to achieve with your WordPress theme, which user group you are targeting, and what their needs are. With these considerations, you can create a list of useful elements for your layout.

Creating the Theme’s Concept

Using this list, you can plan your theme by sketching the layout at various screen sizes.

When sketching, be aware that the layout widths you choose are only rough reference points to represent the common screen sizes of today’s smartphones, tablets and desktop computers. Your goal should always be to create a responsive design that adapts smoothly to a wide diversity of screen sizes.

Ethan Marcotte, author of Responsive Web Design, described his approach to responsive Web design in a recent interview, explaining:

I’m a big, big believer of matching breakpoints to the design, not to individual devices. If we’re after more future-proof responsive designs, we should stop thinking in terms of “320px,â€� “480px,â€� “768px,â€� or whatever — the Web’s so much more flexible than that, and those pixels are a snapshot of the Web as we know it today. Instead, we should focus on breakpoints tailored to the design we’re working on.

While working on your concept sketches, also think about which layout options to offer in the theme (such as header and sidebar options or multiple widget areas) and how they will adapt to different screen sizes as well.

An optional sidebar element in a responsive layout.

Tools for Concept Sketching

Which tool you use to develop the theme’s concept is not important. Just choose one that allows you to work quickly and that doesn’t interrupt your workflow.

If you feel most comfortable sketching on a piece of paper or in a notebook, go for it. You could also try sketching on an iPad using a popular app such as Paper by FiftyThree or Bamboo Paper, together with a digital pen like Wacom’s Bamboo Stylus. Working directly on a tablet will make sharing your ideas later with the developer a lot easier. One of my all-time favorite articles is Mike Rohde’s “Sketching: The Visual Thinking Power Tool,� which promotes sketching as a simple visual tool for thinking.

Use your tablet a simple fast sketching tool.

A Good Concept Saves Time

If you develop the concept precisely at the beginning of the project, you will save a lot of time and effort later in the design process. The layout will adapt to different screen sizes more intelligently if you have thought a lot about the design’s behavior before even opening Photoshop (or your software of choice).

Theme-Specific Challenges to Consider

Because designing a WordPress theme with very flexible content is quite a different challenge than designing a static website, at this early stage of the process you should find solutions to the following theme-specific problems:

1. WordPress’ Navigation Menu

Until responsive Web design found its way into WordPress theme designs, most themes seemed to rely on good old-fashioned drop-down menus to give users multi-level navigation. But because drop-down menus rely on mouse hovering, they don’t work well on touch devices.

We already have some smart solutions for developing responsive, touch device-ready navigation. Brad Frost has a very helpful resource comparing common solutions for responsive menus in his post “Responsive Navigation Patterns.�

2. Responsive Layout Options

Most themes offer users at least some layout options, such as left or right sidebar, header widget and footer elements. To offer this kind of flexibility in a responsive theme, you will have to consider how all of the layout elements will behave on different screen sizes. For instance, if you want to offer a left sidebar option, consider that the content of this sidebar would appear above the main content area on mobile devices. In most cases, this wouldn’t be the best solution because mobile users want to read the most important content first (such as the latest blog post) without having to scroll down a sidebar.

3. Flexible Widget Areas

Widget areas are another challenge for responsive designers. After all, designing one is not easy if you don’t know what kind of content the user will put in it. So, you need to make sure that the design works no matter which and how many widgets are used in the widget areas.

Enough Headaches. Let’s Get To The Fun.

Because you are creating a responsive website, designing the entire website pixel by pixel in Photoshop and then just handing it over to the developer would result in too static a design and too time-consuming a process.

Working With Reference Points

Instead, the design process should be used to figure out the general look and feel of the theme. At this stage, you should also work more intensively on the challenges mentioned, such as responsive navigation, layout variations and flexible widget areas.

How you prepare the design for further development will depend partly on the nature of the project and how closely you will work with the developer. In general, showing your design in the three layout versions is a good starting point: smartphone, tablet and desktop. These “screenshots� can then be used as reference points for development.

A responsive layout in three variations.

Designing in the Browser

Design details such as font sizes, white space and button styles can be defined later directly in the browser. Because browsers often treat these elements differently, designing and testing them directly in their final environments is way more efficient.

Designing for Touch Devices

Because your design will also be used on touch devices, you have to consider the special requirements of these devices. Using a finger to navigate a website is entirely different than using a precise mouse cursor.

This is why buttons and form input fields need to be at the right size. Font sizes and white space should also be applied more generously, so that users can navigate easily and read content comfortably.

Exercise Your Communication Skills

Staying in constant communication with the developer during the entire process is very important (i.e. if you are not the developer yourself). Especially in a responsive design process, incorporating the developer’s knowledge into your decisions will keep you from having to change things later on.

Development

After wrapping up the design process, the first decision to make is whether to code the theme from scratch or to use a blank or starter theme (such as Automattic’s Toolbox or the newer _s theme).

If you want to work with one of the popular responsive frameworks such as Twitter’s Bootstrap or ZURB’s Foundation, then you could use a starter theme that already includes the framework, such as BootstrapWP or WordPress Foundation. Another popular starter theme is Bones, which uses 320 and Up as a mobile-first boilerplate.

Of course, the way you start a theme will always depend on the project and your personal preferences. But if you’re still learning, then a blank theme would serve as a solid foundation for development.

Go Mobile First

A smart approach is to design and develop for the smallest layout first (i.e. smartphones) and then work your way up to tablet and desktop screen sizes. To get further insight into the mobile-first approach to Web design, read the book Mobile First by Luke Wroblewski.

Design and develop your WordPress theme starting with the smallest size first.

Supporting Media Queries in Old Browsers

With the smartphone layout as your default, you will need to rely on a JavaScript solution such as Respond.js to support media queries in old browsers (such as Internet Explorer 7 and 8).

Alternatively, you could add CSS classes for old IE browsers through conditional comments, and then add CSS styles to set a maximum width for old IE browsers outside of your media queries. You can find a detailed explanation of this method in the article “Leaving Old Internet Explorer Behind.�

Images in a Responsive Theme

With the release of high-pixel-density devices such as the new iPad and new MacBook Pro, you will also need to reconsider the images in your theme.

Alternatives to images would be to use a CSS solution or use icon fonts. Fewer images will also result in a much more lightweight theme, which will speed up performance on slow mobile Internet connections. Trent Walton shares his reflections on the Retina-optimization of Web design in his article “In Flux.�

Test, Test, Test

Particularly when developing a responsive theme, testing your work live as soon and as often as possible is critical. This way, you can quickly correct styles during development as necessary. Also, test whether fonts are easy to read and whether images, gallery sliders and embedded elements such as video work correctly on different devices.

How to Test on Mobile Devices

Of course, checking your theme on one of the many screen-resolution-testing tools, such as Screenfly, during development is very helpful, too.

The mobile version of United Pixelworkers’s website tested with Screenfly.

But because of the different behavior of mobile browsers, touchscreens and high-density screens, constantly testing your theme on actual devices is important.

Unless you work for a big company, finding ways to test your theme during the development process can be quite a challenge. Of course, you won’t be able to test on all of the devices out there, but besides the devices that you own, you could ask friends, family, other freelancers and coworkers to help you test. You can also visit your local electronics store to test on the devices there.

Test your WordPress theme on various devices as often as you can.

A helpful post with a lot of testing advice is part 5 of the recent “Build a Responsive Site in a Week� tutorial series on .NET magazine.

Responsive Theme Vs. Mobile Plugin

A mobile theme plugin such as the popular WPtouch plugin can be a great temporary solution to give mobile users a better experience on an existing website. In most cases, offering visitors an optimized mobile experience with the help of a plugin is probably better than not optimizing at all.

But in the long term, a fully responsive theme has many advantages to a plugin:

• The website can maintain its unique branding across all devices.
• Users will get the same experience on all devices and thus have less trouble navigating the website.
• The website will be easier to maintain (the administrator won’t need to install and update the plugin).

A responsive WordPress theme on the left, and a mobile plugin at work on the right.

Conclusion

Responsive Web design is often still described as a trend. And some might quietly hope that the trend will pass sooner or later. But responsive Web design is so much more than a trend: it’s a new mindset, as has been said:

It’s such a shame that Responsive design is often degraded to being a ‘Web design trend’. It isn’t. It’s a new mindset.

In a multiple-device world, where the Internet seems to be available everywhere, responsive Web design feels so much more like a natural process that is just starting to show its potential.

So, what should our job as theme designers and developers be? Because responsive WordPress themes are still so new and in constant development, we must not be afraid to start from scratch, search for improvements and continue learning. And let’s share our knowledge and experience with each other along the way.

(al)

© Ellen Bauer for Smashing Magazine, 2012.

Let’s assess the situation. WordPress is an extremely popular, flexible, easy to use and open-source blogging and CMS system. More and more mobile devices are flooding the market every day, changing the way people use the Internet. And the need is growing for more beautifully designed and coded WordPress themes that work well across all of these devices. So, what are we waiting for? Let’s get to work!

At first, the idea of designing and developing a fully responsive, mobile-ready WordPress theme might be overwhelming. You might be thinking, “How do I handle a responsive design with all of this flexible content that a WordPress theme has? What should I consider when designing for touch devices? And do I really have to get rid of drop-down menus and other hover elements on mobile devices?�

But after doing some research and looking more closely at some of the responsive WordPress themes and theme frameworks out there, you will probably wrap your head around the idea pretty quickly, and the evolving world of WordPress theme design will sound like a huge opportunity that you can’t wait to get started on.

It’s All About Preparation

Having a detailed design concept is even more important for a responsive WordPress theme than for a static-width theme. At this stage, you haven’t decided anything, so nothing will get in your way of creating a clever and practical layout that adapts smoothly to different screens.

First, consider what you want to achieve with your WordPress theme, which user group you are targeting, and what their needs are. With these considerations, you can create a list of useful elements for your layout.

Creating the Theme’s Concept

Using this list, you can plan your theme by sketching the layout at various screen sizes.

When sketching, be aware that the layout widths you choose are only rough reference points to represent the common screen sizes of today’s smartphones, tablets and desktop computers. Your goal should always be to create a responsive design that adapts smoothly to a wide diversity of screen sizes.

Ethan Marcotte, author of Responsive Web Design, described his approach to responsive Web design in a recent interview, explaining:

I’m a big, big believer of matching breakpoints to the design, not to individual devices. If we’re after more future-proof responsive designs, we should stop thinking in terms of “320px,â€� “480px,â€� “768px,â€� or whatever — the Web’s so much more flexible than that, and those pixels are a snapshot of the Web as we know it today. Instead, we should focus on breakpoints tailored to the design we’re working on.

While working on your concept sketches, also think about which layout options to offer in the theme (such as header and sidebar options or multiple widget areas) and how they will adapt to different screen sizes as well.

An optional sidebar element in a responsive layout.

Tools for Concept Sketching

Which tool you use to develop the theme’s concept is not important. Just choose one that allows you to work quickly and that doesn’t interrupt your workflow.

If you feel most comfortable sketching on a piece of paper or in a notebook, go for it. You could also try sketching on an iPad using a popular app such as Paper by FiftyThree or Bamboo Paper, together with a digital pen like Wacom’s Bamboo Stylus. Working directly on a tablet will make sharing your ideas later with the developer a lot easier. One of my all-time favorite articles is Mike Rohde’s “Sketching: The Visual Thinking Power Tool,� which promotes sketching as a simple visual tool for thinking.

Use your tablet a simple fast sketching tool.

A Good Concept Saves Time

If you develop the concept precisely at the beginning of the project, you will save a lot of time and effort later in the design process. The layout will adapt to different screen sizes more intelligently if you have thought a lot about the design’s behavior before even opening Photoshop (or your software of choice).

Theme-Specific Challenges to Consider

Because designing a WordPress theme with very flexible content is quite a different challenge than designing a static website, at this early stage of the process you should find solutions to the following theme-specific problems:

1. WordPress’ Navigation Menu

Until responsive Web design found its way into WordPress theme designs, most themes seemed to rely on good old-fashioned drop-down menus to give users multi-level navigation. But because drop-down menus rely on mouse hovering, they don’t work well on touch devices.

We already have some smart solutions for developing responsive, touch device-ready navigation. Brad Frost has a very helpful resource comparing common solutions for responsive menus in his post “Responsive Navigation Patterns.�

2. Responsive Layout Options

Most themes offer users at least some layout options, such as left or right sidebar, header widget and footer elements. To offer this kind of flexibility in a responsive theme, you will have to consider how all of the layout elements will behave on different screen sizes. For instance, if you want to offer a left sidebar option, consider that the content of this sidebar would appear above the main content area on mobile devices. In most cases, this wouldn’t be the best solution because mobile users want to read the most important content first (such as the latest blog post) without having to scroll down a sidebar.

3. Flexible Widget Areas

Widget areas are another challenge for responsive designers. After all, designing one is not easy if you don’t know what kind of content the user will put in it. So, you need to make sure that the design works no matter which and how many widgets are used in the widget areas.

Enough Headaches. Let’s Get To The Fun.

Because you are creating a responsive website, designing the entire website pixel by pixel in Photoshop and then just handing it over to the developer would result in too static a design and too time-consuming a process.

Working With Reference Points

Instead, the design process should be used to figure out the general look and feel of the theme. At this stage, you should also work more intensively on the challenges mentioned, such as responsive navigation, layout variations and flexible widget areas.

How you prepare the design for further development will depend partly on the nature of the project and how closely you will work with the developer. In general, showing your design in the three layout versions is a good starting point: smartphone, tablet and desktop. These “screenshots� can then be used as reference points for development.

A responsive layout in three variations.

Designing in the Browser

Design details such as font sizes, white space and button styles can be defined later directly in the browser. Because browsers often treat these elements differently, designing and testing them directly in their final environments is way more efficient.

Designing for Touch Devices

Because your design will also be used on touch devices, you have to consider the special requirements of these devices. Using a finger to navigate a website is entirely different than using a precise mouse cursor.

This is why buttons and form input fields need to be at the right size. Font sizes and white space should also be applied more generously, so that users can navigate easily and read content comfortably.

Exercise Your Communication Skills

Staying in constant communication with the developer during the entire process is very important (i.e. if you are not the developer yourself). Especially in a responsive design process, incorporating the developer’s knowledge into your decisions will keep you from having to change things later on.

Development

After wrapping up the design process, the first decision to make is whether to code the theme from scratch or to use a blank or starter theme (such as Automattic’s Toolbox or the newer _s theme).

If you want to work with one of the popular responsive frameworks such as Twitter’s Bootstrap or ZURB’s Foundation, then you could use a starter theme that already includes the framework, such as BootstrapWP or WordPress Foundation. Another popular starter theme is Bones, which uses 320 and Up as a mobile-first boilerplate.

Of course, the way you start a theme will always depend on the project and your personal preferences. But if you’re still learning, then a blank theme would serve as a solid foundation for development.

Go Mobile First

A smart approach is to design and develop for the smallest layout first (i.e. smartphones) and then work your way up to tablet and desktop screen sizes. To get further insight into the mobile-first approach to Web design, read the book Mobile First by Luke Wroblewski.

Design and develop your WordPress theme starting with the smallest size first.

Supporting Media Queries in Old Browsers

With the smartphone layout as your default, you will need to rely on a JavaScript solution such as Respond.js to support media queries in old browsers (such as Internet Explorer 7 and 8).

Alternatively, you could add CSS classes for old IE browsers through conditional comments, and then add CSS styles to set a maximum width for old IE browsers outside of your media queries. You can find a detailed explanation of this method in the article “Leaving Old Internet Explorer Behind.�

Images in a Responsive Theme

With the release of high-pixel-density devices such as the new iPad and new MacBook Pro, you will also need to reconsider the images in your theme.

Alternatives to images would be to use a CSS solution or use icon fonts. Fewer images will also result in a much more lightweight theme, which will speed up performance on slow mobile Internet connections. Trent Walton shares his reflections on the Retina-optimization of Web design in his article “In Flux.�

Test, Test, Test

Particularly when developing a responsive theme, testing your work live as soon and as often as possible is critical. This way, you can quickly correct styles during development as necessary. Also, test whether fonts are easy to read and whether images, gallery sliders and embedded elements such as video work correctly on different devices.

How to Test on Mobile Devices

Of course, checking your theme on one of the many screen-resolution-testing tools, such as Screenfly, during development is very helpful, too.

The mobile version of United Pixelworkers’s website tested with Screenfly.

But because of the different behavior of mobile browsers, touchscreens and high-density screens, constantly testing your theme on actual devices is important.

Unless you work for a big company, finding ways to test your theme during the development process can be quite a challenge. Of course, you won’t be able to test on all of the devices out there, but besides the devices that you own, you could ask friends, family, other freelancers and coworkers to help you test. You can also visit your local electronics store to test on the devices there.

Test your WordPress theme on various devices as often as you can.

A helpful post with a lot of testing advice is part 5 of the recent “Build a Responsive Site in a Week� tutorial series on .NET magazine.

Responsive Theme Vs. Mobile Plugin

A mobile theme plugin such as the popular WPtouch plugin can be a great temporary solution to give mobile users a better experience on an existing website. In most cases, offering visitors an optimized mobile experience with the help of a plugin is probably better than not optimizing at all.

But in the long term, a fully responsive theme has many advantages to a plugin:

• The website can maintain its unique branding across all devices.
• Users will get the same experience on all devices and thus have less trouble navigating the website.
• The website will be easier to maintain (the administrator won’t need to install and update the plugin).

A responsive WordPress theme on the left, and a mobile plugin at work on the right.

Conclusion

Responsive Web design is often still described as a trend. And some might quietly hope that the trend will pass sooner or later. But responsive Web design is so much more than a trend: it’s a new mindset, as has been said:

It’s such a shame that Responsive design is often degraded to being a ‘Web design trend’. It isn’t. It’s a new mindset.

In a multiple-device world, where the Internet seems to be available everywhere, responsive Web design feels so much more like a natural process that is just starting to show its potential.

So, what should our job as theme designers and developers be? Because responsive WordPress themes are still so new and in constant development, we must not be afraid to start from scratch, search for improvements and continue learning. And let’s share our knowledge and experience with each other along the way.

(al)

© Ellen Bauer for Smashing Magazine, 2012.

Due to big changes in the SEO landscape, designers, photographers, videographers and writers have new opportunities to build their reputation, expand brand awareness and generate more leads. This post describes five important developments that content creators should be aware of, and then we’ll outline several ways to capitalize on them.

Five SEO Developments That Favor Content Producers

Thanks to self-publishing and social networks, the world is drowning in content. Google’s response: make it easy for searchers to drill down to exactly what they are looking for. Today, we can perform a search and look at the results all together in one big chunk, or we can carve off just a piece. We can look at search results from complete strangers, from people we know or from both.

In the past, search results simply connected keywords to websites. Today, in pursuit of an easier way to drill down, Google also connects keywords to social networks, user behavior and authors. Here are five ways this is playing out, and why it’s all great news for content creators.

1. Personalized Search

While search engine users are accustomed to getting objective results on search engine results pages (SERPs), Google now serves up “subjective� results as well. When logged into Google and with personalized search turned on, you will see SERPs that include results based on your Web browsing history, as well as content authored or endorsed by your social connections.

Personalization can radically change what you see in regular searches and image searches. Here is a Google image search that demonstrates the difference. My search for “how to use twitter� with personalization turned off yields the following:

Image search without personalization.

With personalization turned on, the results look like this:

Image search with personalization.

Notice that the first two rows of images are completely different. At the top of my personalized search, I see 10 images associated with my Google+ connections. With personalized search turned on, I also have the option to view only my personal results.

This is intriguing. Google is doing everything it can to encourage personalized search. It has a selfish interest in doing so: it wants as many people as possible to be logged into Google for as long as possible, using Google products, providing Google with data and being exposed to personalized Google ads. As personalized search gains traction with users, content creators will be able to gain a lot of search visibility in three ways:

1. Creators become visible to their direct connections.
   Content associated with a particular creator will get top position in personalized searches conducted by people who have circled them. Imagine what would happen if a creator tripled the number of circles they were in, or if Google began to incorporate Twitter and Pinterest follows into its personalized search results.
2. Creators become visible to their indirect connections.
   If a creator’s content is endorsed by someone in the Google+ network, the content could appear in the personalized results of searches conducted by that person’s connections. The ripple effect can extend a considerable distance.
3. Creators become visible to people who visit their website.
   If someone frequents a creator’s website, Google will serve that creator’s content in their personalized searches.

The trend: As time goes on, expect Google to get smarter about how it ranks personalized content, and for Google to cast a wider net across social networks to retrieve it.

Quick tip for creatives: Strengthen and broaden your social connections to give your work more exposure on search engines. Keep looking for better ways to bring new visitors to your website, and to keep them coming back.

2. The Importance of Social Shares

One factor that Google considers in evaluating a page of content is its social shares. Google sees likes, +1s, tweets and other types of shares as indicators of content quality and trustworthiness. This is reasonable enough: a blog post with 1500 retweets has more clearly established value than a comparable post with five.

Social sharing is more important than ever.

At the moment, how much value Google accords to social shares is still unclear, which is fair enough because many questions remain unanswered. Is a tweet more or less valuable than a like? How do you evaluate the authority of the person doing the sharing? How are people gaming the system to inflate the number of shares?

Nevertheless, we should expect social sharing to grow in importance for SEO. First, there is demand: people would love to consider social endorsements for certain types of searches, provided they have confidence in the data. Secondly, there is self-interest: Google is committed to its social network, Google+, and isn’t about to ignore it on its own search engine.

The trend: Social sharing now has its biggest impact on standard search results. Expect Google to ratchet up the presence of share-influenced links in personalized results as well. For instance, we could start to see a variety of segmented search options that display content shared by a defined subset of your connections.

Quick tip for creatives: Make social-sharing buttons prominent to make it easy for people to share content on your website; actively engage in social media; and publish your content on websites where content is widely shared.

3. The Rise Of Search Segmentation

In the old days, there weren’t too many ways to slice and dice search results. Today, there are scores. Tomorrow, there will be hundreds.

Multiple search options create opportunities.

More segmentation means more opportunity for freelance authors to improve their search visibility based on the nature of their content. When results are lumped together in one big mass, it’s challenging for a small enterprise to stand out. However, if creatives focus their content efforts on, for example, standing out in a particular segment, then they could capture a larger share of segmented searches. (An example of how to go about this appears in the “Reading Level� segment in the next section.)

Note, too, that segmented search offers a “personalized� option, where, again, users can zero in on content based on their browsing history and social connections.

The trend: Google will continue to categorize content to help users drill down to search results that are precisely relevant to their intent, rather than broadly relevant to their keywords. In particular, segmented search options for images and video will become much more sophisticated, in response to our insatiable appetite for visual content.

Quick tip for creatives: Stay current on how Google segments content, and shape yours to stand out in segments that are natural homes for your work.

4. More Emphasis on Quality and More Transparency

For years, creatives have complained that “black hatâ€� SEO tactics pollute rankings, pushing high-quality content down the page. However, as Google’s algorithm grows more sophisticated, it gets better at combatting black-hat practices — more great news for content producers.

Google is sending clearer SEO signals.

Google fights content spam by emphasizing quality in its algorithm and by being transparent in how quality is calculated. Quality has always been a focus; the current level of transparency is something new.

Google’s Panda update, released in 2011, was a declaration of war against content manipulators. A primary goal of this algorithm change — and of many that followed — was to decisively penalize worthless content and to reward highly relevant, meaningful and trustworthy content.

In addition to the algorithmic measures, Google is taking the smoke and mirrors out of search by more openly communicating algorithm changes to SEOs and the general public.

Why? In some cases, black-hat tactics were inadvertent, caused by website administrators using outdated techniques or misinterpreting Google’s algorithmic intent. Furthermore, a good deal of high-quality content gets lost in the search shuffle because creators simply ignore SEO. More than ever, Google wants every website to be optimized and optimized properly. The more high-caliber content Google can serve up to users in SERPs, the more business it will do.

The trend: Google will push hard in this direction, devising more accurate methods of evaluating the relevance, substance and trustworthiness of content. It will get better at interpreting both the inherent quality of the work itself and the social-sharing data associated with it.

Quick tip for creatives: Stay up to date on how to communicate the quality of your text, images and video to Google. (Links to step-by-step tutorials on how to do this are provided at the end of this post.)

5. Google+ and the rel=author Link

Google enthusiasts see the Google+ social network as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Most everybody else thinks Google+ is less useful for marketing than sliced bread. But whether or not you like Google+, the network cannot be ignored for SEO. Content creators ought to take note of two particular aspects of the network.

The rel=author link builds a creator’s brand and search visibility.

First, Google+ content gets indexed and ranked. In fact, when you publish original content on Google+, not only is it indexed and ranked, but it is given prime positioning in personalized SERPs. Images and video that are stored on Google or associated with personal pages on Google+ also receive greater exposure in search, as demonstrated earlier in the screen captures for image search.

Secondly, the rel=author link associates a page of Web content with its author’s personal Google+ profile. This is a technical mouthful, but it’s a big deal for creatives. Google has begun to link content to its creators as well as its publishers. “Authorship markup,â€� or “author rank,â€� is being developed at a furious rate because people sometimes want the option of searching for content by a particular creator or want results ranked according to the authority or expertise of the creators.

The trend: High-authority creators will see their content become more visible in search results, and for that reason, publishers will need to seek out high-authority creators to boost traffic to their websites.

Quick tip for creatives: Set up a personal Google+ profile and incorporate the rel=author link into your published content. (Instructions on how to do this are provided in the next section.)

How To Capitalize On The New SEO

Given these recent developments, let’s look at how authors can manage their content to increase its visibility and obtain all of the benefits that go along with that. Some of the following suggestions are technical in nature, while others are creative techniques that are not always thought of as aspects of SEO. However, with Google getting better at evaluating the quality of content, people are now less able to inflate the ranking of inferior content through technical manipulation and must instead treat the quality of their content itself as the linchpin of their SEO program.

Create Highly Sharable Content

SEO is no longer a game of mechanical keyword placement. In fact, SEO has moved even beyond a game of relevance and substance. For content to succeed in search today, it must be relevant, substantive and sharable. Content creators can use a variety of stylistic and marketing techniques to enhance social interest in their content, including the following:

1. Convert dry text into visually engaging content to generate immediate interest;
2. Provide consistently informative, well-researched and enlightening content that generates long-term interest;
3. Develop a unique voice and style;
4. Take a provocative stance or add humor when appropriate and compatible with the corporate style;
5. Provide detailed content on a topic that has not been widely covered (scarcity of information increases demand);
6. Attribute information to factual sources (trustworthy content is more confidently shared);
7. Link generously (encourage sharing by setting a good example);
8. Title content creatively to spark curiosity;
9. Use Web design and typographic best practices to optimize readability and scannability;
10. Embed video in blog posts and Web pages;
11. Display attractive and intuitive social-sharing buttons;
12. Give users an incentive to share.

Set-Up Methods and Benefits: Use The rel=author Link

Here’s a basic outline of how to set up rel=author links for your content. Google has a more thorough rundown.

1. Create a personal Google+ profile page with a high-quality headshot;
2. Validate your email address;
3. In the byline of any content that you create, set the anchor text to be your name as it appears in your Google+ profile, and link to your profile with a URL that looks like this: https://plus.google.com/102318046680468697385?rel=author.
4. When your content is published, link back to its URL from the “Contributor to� section of your Google+ profile.

Once your content is indexed, your Google+ profile picture and name, along with the publication date, title and description, will (sometimes) appear in SERPs, in both standard and personalized results. This gives you more exposure, and it instills trust in users that the content has a human author, and that the author is reputable. This adds up to higher ranking and more people clicking through to your content.

Please note: Author attribution is still in the early stages of development. Google frequently changes both the procedures for setting up links and the presentation of author information in SERPs. The instructional link above should be up to date whenever you are ready to dive in.

How to set up different types of content:

• Guest blog posts
  Set up a rel=author link somewhere in your content. The most sensible place to do this is either in the byline or in the bio area. If the blog doesn’t accommodate such placement, then a rel=author link in the body of the post would work, too.
• Infographics
  If you create an infographic, add a blurb below the image saying, “Infographic by [your name],â€� with a rel=author link.
• Video
  Follow the same procedure as described above for infographics.
• Dual authorship
  What if an article is coauthored or the author wants to credit a photographer? The best practice is to use only one rel=author link per page. If more than one link appears on a page, the first that appears in the markup will be the one whose name and image are featured in SERPs.

Bring Back Blog Marketing

Blogs are back. In terms of social sharing, blog posts are far more likely to be shared than standard Web pages. In terms of segmentation, blog posts figure prominently in search segments such as news, time ranges and, of course, blogs. Here are some blogging techniques that fit especially well in today’s SEO environment:

• Incorporate the rel=author link into the byline of every post in your archive.
  This establishes you as the author and gives all of your existing content an SEO boost. Several WordPress plugins are available to automatically set up the links for single- and multi-author blogs. If you are using another CMS, check with the developer to see whether and how it supports rel=author linking.
• Ramp up guest blogging efforts.
  Getting published on highly authoritative, highly shared blogs has always been useful, and adding the rel=author link to your guest posts delivers even more value.
• Blog directly on Google+.
  Earlier, we mentioned that Google indexes and ranks original Google+ posts. To take advantage of this, some “plussers� are actually writing lengthy original posts on the network. This strategy could be well worth testing, especially if you already have an active presence on the network. And it could work particularly well for photographers, designers and videographers, who can surround their visual content with keyword-optimized text.

Consider the Reading Level When Composing

Let’s consider an example of creating targeted content to capitalize on Google’s segmented search.

Depending on the topic, writing at a particular reading level could be quite advantageous for SEO. For instance, here is how Google categorizes content that matches a search for “social media marketing�:

If you wrote a post about social media marketing at an advanced reading level, Google would probably rank it very low in its fully aggregated SERPs. Because the vast majority of content (82%) is written at an intermediate level, Google assumes that is what searchers are looking for.

However, for segmented searches, it’s a different story. Writing an advanced article would probably make you highly visible to people drilling down to that reading level. And even though it’s a small group (2%), it could include people with a lot of interest and ready to take action.

Another possibility is to write a basic article about social media marketing. Here again, there is less search competition (16%), and there is a good chance that people who are new to social media will want to drill down to basic articles.

Google does not clearly explain how it defines these three reading levels. But its model, according to Google’s Daniel M. Russell, is based primarily on input from teachers who have classified various pages of text. You can read more about Google’s reading level model on Russell’s personal blog.

The New SEO Formula: Relevance + Substance + Shares = Visibility

At one time, SEO was a fairly straightforward exercise in shaping content on a particular domain to rank highly on basically one flavor of SERPs for a given set of queries.

But as we’ve seen, Google now considers who created the content in addition to where the content lives, and query options have expanded thanks to the segmentation of search options. On top of all this, personalized search options enable users to view results based on the online behavior of themselves and their social media connections.

While technical expertise still matters tremendously in SEO, authorship is gaining ground, and quickly. Google is attempting to cut out the SEO middleman and make search a matter of directly connecting great content creators (as defined by the inherent quality of their work and their popularity) with searchers who will find great value in their content. This explains why Google is being more forthcoming about its algorithm: the maneuver levels the technical playing field and forces SEO practitioners to differentiate themselves through the content itself. What more could content creators ask for?

Resources

Below are resources containing detailed information on content-related SEO techniques that should be of interest to creatives who market themselves and their work.

• “Author Information in Search Results,â€� Google Webmaster Tools
  Instructions on setting up rel=author links.
• “Google Evaluates Reading Level?!?,â€� Pure Visibility
  How Google evaluates reading levels and why it matters to writers.
• “Webmaster Guidelines: Quality Guidelines,â€� Google Webmaster Tools
  Best practices for content quality.
• “Image Publishing Guidelines,â€� Google Webmaster Tools
• “Video Best Practices,â€� Google Webmaster Tools
• “Search by Image,â€� Google
  How image search works.
• “Facebook + Twitter’s Influence on Google’s Search Rankings,â€� Rand Fishkin, The Daily SEO Blog

Note: All images used for this post have exclusively been created by Straight North.

(al) (il)

© Brad Shorr for Smashing Magazine, 2012.

Due to big changes in the SEO landscape, designers, photographers, videographers and writers have new opportunities to build their reputation, expand brand awareness and generate more leads. This post describes five important developments that content creators should be aware of, and then we’ll outline several ways to capitalize on them.

Five SEO Developments That Favor Content Producers

Thanks to self-publishing and social networks, the world is drowning in content. Google’s response: make it easy for searchers to drill down to exactly what they are looking for. Today, we can perform a search and look at the results all together in one big chunk, or we can carve off just a piece. We can look at search results from complete strangers, from people we know or from both.

In the past, search results simply connected keywords to websites. Today, in pursuit of an easier way to drill down, Google also connects keywords to social networks, user behavior and authors. Here are five ways this is playing out, and why it’s all great news for content creators.

1. Personalized Search

While search engine users are accustomed to getting objective results on search engine results pages (SERPs), Google now serves up “subjective� results as well. When logged into Google and with personalized search turned on, you will see SERPs that include results based on your Web browsing history, as well as content authored or endorsed by your social connections.

Personalization can radically change what you see in regular searches and image searches. Here is a Google image search that demonstrates the difference. My search for “how to use twitter� with personalization turned off yields the following:

Image search without personalization.

With personalization turned on, the results look like this:

Image search with personalization.

Notice that the first two rows of images are completely different. At the top of my personalized search, I see 10 images associated with my Google+ connections. With personalized search turned on, I also have the option to view only my personal results.

This is intriguing. Google is doing everything it can to encourage personalized search. It has a selfish interest in doing so: it wants as many people as possible to be logged into Google for as long as possible, using Google products, providing Google with data and being exposed to personalized Google ads. As personalized search gains traction with users, content creators will be able to gain a lot of search visibility in three ways:

1. Creators become visible to their direct connections.
   Content associated with a particular creator will get top position in personalized searches conducted by people who have circled them. Imagine what would happen if a creator tripled the number of circles they were in, or if Google began to incorporate Twitter and Pinterest follows into its personalized search results.
2. Creators become visible to their indirect connections.
   If a creator’s content is endorsed by someone in the Google+ network, the content could appear in the personalized results of searches conducted by that person’s connections. The ripple effect can extend a considerable distance.
3. Creators become visible to people who visit their website.
   If someone frequents a creator’s website, Google will serve that creator’s content in their personalized searches.

The trend: As time goes on, expect Google to get smarter about how it ranks personalized content, and for Google to cast a wider net across social networks to retrieve it.

Quick tip for creatives: Strengthen and broaden your social connections to give your work more exposure on search engines. Keep looking for better ways to bring new visitors to your website, and to keep them coming back.

2. The Importance of Social Shares

One factor that Google considers in evaluating a page of content is its social shares. Google sees likes, +1s, tweets and other types of shares as indicators of content quality and trustworthiness. This is reasonable enough: a blog post with 1500 retweets has more clearly established value than a comparable post with five.

Social sharing is more important than ever.

At the moment, how much value Google accords to social shares is still unclear, which is fair enough because many questions remain unanswered. Is a tweet more or less valuable than a like? How do you evaluate the authority of the person doing the sharing? How are people gaming the system to inflate the number of shares?

Nevertheless, we should expect social sharing to grow in importance for SEO. First, there is demand: people would love to consider social endorsements for certain types of searches, provided they have confidence in the data. Secondly, there is self-interest: Google is committed to its social network, Google+, and isn’t about to ignore it on its own search engine.

The trend: Social sharing now has its biggest impact on standard search results. Expect Google to ratchet up the presence of share-influenced links in personalized results as well. For instance, we could start to see a variety of segmented search options that display content shared by a defined subset of your connections.

Quick tip for creatives: Make social-sharing buttons prominent to make it easy for people to share content on your website; actively engage in social media; and publish your content on websites where content is widely shared.

3. The Rise Of Search Segmentation

In the old days, there weren’t too many ways to slice and dice search results. Today, there are scores. Tomorrow, there will be hundreds.

Multiple search options create opportunities.

More segmentation means more opportunity for freelance authors to improve their search visibility based on the nature of their content. When results are lumped together in one big mass, it’s challenging for a small enterprise to stand out. However, if creatives focus their content efforts on, for example, standing out in a particular segment, then they could capture a larger share of segmented searches. (An example of how to go about this appears in the “Reading Level� segment in the next section.)

Note, too, that segmented search offers a “personalized� option, where, again, users can zero in on content based on their browsing history and social connections.

The trend: Google will continue to categorize content to help users drill down to search results that are precisely relevant to their intent, rather than broadly relevant to their keywords. In particular, segmented search options for images and video will become much more sophisticated, in response to our insatiable appetite for visual content.

Quick tip for creatives: Stay current on how Google segments content, and shape yours to stand out in segments that are natural homes for your work.

4. More Emphasis on Quality and More Transparency

For years, creatives have complained that “black hatâ€� SEO tactics pollute rankings, pushing high-quality content down the page. However, as Google’s algorithm grows more sophisticated, it gets better at combatting black-hat practices — more great news for content producers.

Google is sending clearer SEO signals.

Google fights content spam by emphasizing quality in its algorithm and by being transparent in how quality is calculated. Quality has always been a focus; the current level of transparency is something new.

Google’s Panda update, released in 2011, was a declaration of war against content manipulators. A primary goal of this algorithm change — and of many that followed — was to decisively penalize worthless content and to reward highly relevant, meaningful and trustworthy content.

In addition to the algorithmic measures, Google is taking the smoke and mirrors out of search by more openly communicating algorithm changes to SEOs and the general public.

Why? In some cases, black-hat tactics were inadvertent, caused by website administrators using outdated techniques or misinterpreting Google’s algorithmic intent. Furthermore, a good deal of high-quality content gets lost in the search shuffle because creators simply ignore SEO. More than ever, Google wants every website to be optimized and optimized properly. The more high-caliber content Google can serve up to users in SERPs, the more business it will do.

The trend: Google will push hard in this direction, devising more accurate methods of evaluating the relevance, substance and trustworthiness of content. It will get better at interpreting both the inherent quality of the work itself and the social-sharing data associated with it.

Quick tip for creatives: Stay up to date on how to communicate the quality of your text, images and video to Google. (Links to step-by-step tutorials on how to do this are provided at the end of this post.)

5. Google+ and the rel=author Link

Google enthusiasts see the Google+ social network as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Most everybody else thinks Google+ is less useful for marketing than sliced bread. But whether or not you like Google+, the network cannot be ignored for SEO. Content creators ought to take note of two particular aspects of the network.

The rel=author link builds a creator’s brand and search visibility.

First, Google+ content gets indexed and ranked. In fact, when you publish original content on Google+, not only is it indexed and ranked, but it is given prime positioning in personalized SERPs. Images and video that are stored on Google or associated with personal pages on Google+ also receive greater exposure in search, as demonstrated earlier in the screen captures for image search.

Secondly, the rel=author link associates a page of Web content with its author’s personal Google+ profile. This is a technical mouthful, but it’s a big deal for creatives. Google has begun to link content to its creators as well as its publishers. “Authorship markup,â€� or “author rank,â€� is being developed at a furious rate because people sometimes want the option of searching for content by a particular creator or want results ranked according to the authority or expertise of the creators.

The trend: High-authority creators will see their content become more visible in search results, and for that reason, publishers will need to seek out high-authority creators to boost traffic to their websites.

Quick tip for creatives: Set up a personal Google+ profile and incorporate the rel=author link into your published content. (Instructions on how to do this are provided in the next section.)

How To Capitalize On The New SEO

Given these recent developments, let’s look at how authors can manage their content to increase its visibility and obtain all of the benefits that go along with that. Some of the following suggestions are technical in nature, while others are creative techniques that are not always thought of as aspects of SEO. However, with Google getting better at evaluating the quality of content, people are now less able to inflate the ranking of inferior content through technical manipulation and must instead treat the quality of their content itself as the linchpin of their SEO program.

Create Highly Sharable Content

SEO is no longer a game of mechanical keyword placement. In fact, SEO has moved even beyond a game of relevance and substance. For content to succeed in search today, it must be relevant, substantive and sharable. Content creators can use a variety of stylistic and marketing techniques to enhance social interest in their content, including the following:

1. Convert dry text into visually engaging content to generate immediate interest;
2. Provide consistently informative, well-researched and enlightening content that generates long-term interest;
3. Develop a unique voice and style;
4. Take a provocative stance or add humor when appropriate and compatible with the corporate style;
5. Provide detailed content on a topic that has not been widely covered (scarcity of information increases demand);
6. Attribute information to factual sources (trustworthy content is more confidently shared);
7. Link generously (encourage sharing by setting a good example);
8. Title content creatively to spark curiosity;
9. Use Web design and typographic best practices to optimize readability and scannability;
10. Embed video in blog posts and Web pages;
11. Display attractive and intuitive social-sharing buttons;
12. Give users an incentive to share.

Set-Up Methods and Benefits: Use The rel=author Link

Here’s a basic outline of how to set up rel=author links for your content. Google has a more thorough rundown.

1. Create a personal Google+ profile page with a high-quality headshot;
2. Validate your email address;
3. In the byline of any content that you create, set the anchor text to be your name as it appears in your Google+ profile, and link to your profile with a URL that looks like this: https://plus.google.com/102318046680468697385?rel=author.
4. When your content is published, link back to its URL from the “Contributor to� section of your Google+ profile.

Once your content is indexed, your Google+ profile picture and name, along with the publication date, title and description, will (sometimes) appear in SERPs, in both standard and personalized results. This gives you more exposure, and it instills trust in users that the content has a human author, and that the author is reputable. This adds up to higher ranking and more people clicking through to your content.

Please note: Author attribution is still in the early stages of development. Google frequently changes both the procedures for setting up links and the presentation of author information in SERPs. The instructional link above should be up to date whenever you are ready to dive in.

How to set up different types of content:

• Guest blog posts
  Set up a rel=author link somewhere in your content. The most sensible place to do this is either in the byline or in the bio area. If the blog doesn’t accommodate such placement, then a rel=author link in the body of the post would work, too.
• Infographics
  If you create an infographic, add a blurb below the image saying, “Infographic by [your name],â€� with a rel=author link.
• Video
  Follow the same procedure as described above for infographics.
• Dual authorship
  What if an article is coauthored or the author wants to credit a photographer? The best practice is to use only one rel=author link per page. If more than one link appears on a page, the first that appears in the markup will be the one whose name and image are featured in SERPs.

Bring Back Blog Marketing

Blogs are back. In terms of social sharing, blog posts are far more likely to be shared than standard Web pages. In terms of segmentation, blog posts figure prominently in search segments such as news, time ranges and, of course, blogs. Here are some blogging techniques that fit especially well in today’s SEO environment:

• Incorporate the rel=author link into the byline of every post in your archive.
  This establishes you as the author and gives all of your existing content an SEO boost. Several WordPress plugins are available to automatically set up the links for single- and multi-author blogs. If you are using another CMS, check with the developer to see whether and how it supports rel=author linking.
• Ramp up guest blogging efforts.
  Getting published on highly authoritative, highly shared blogs has always been useful, and adding the rel=author link to your guest posts delivers even more value.
• Blog directly on Google+.
  Earlier, we mentioned that Google indexes and ranks original Google+ posts. To take advantage of this, some “plussers� are actually writing lengthy original posts on the network. This strategy could be well worth testing, especially if you already have an active presence on the network. And it could work particularly well for photographers, designers and videographers, who can surround their visual content with keyword-optimized text.

Consider the Reading Level When Composing

Let’s consider an example of creating targeted content to capitalize on Google’s segmented search.

Depending on the topic, writing at a particular reading level could be quite advantageous for SEO. For instance, here is how Google categorizes content that matches a search for “social media marketing�:

If you wrote a post about social media marketing at an advanced reading level, Google would probably rank it very low in its fully aggregated SERPs. Because the vast majority of content (82%) is written at an intermediate level, Google assumes that is what searchers are looking for.

However, for segmented searches, it’s a different story. Writing an advanced article would probably make you highly visible to people drilling down to that reading level. And even though it’s a small group (2%), it could include people with a lot of interest and ready to take action.

Another possibility is to write a basic article about social media marketing. Here again, there is less search competition (16%), and there is a good chance that people who are new to social media will want to drill down to basic articles.

Google does not clearly explain how it defines these three reading levels. But its model, according to Google’s Daniel M. Russell, is based primarily on input from teachers who have classified various pages of text. You can read more about Google’s reading level model on Russell’s personal blog.

The New SEO Formula: Relevance + Substance + Shares = Visibility

At one time, SEO was a fairly straightforward exercise in shaping content on a particular domain to rank highly on basically one flavor of SERPs for a given set of queries.

But as we’ve seen, Google now considers who created the content in addition to where the content lives, and query options have expanded thanks to the segmentation of search options. On top of all this, personalized search options enable users to view results based on the online behavior of themselves and their social media connections.

While technical expertise still matters tremendously in SEO, authorship is gaining ground, and quickly. Google is attempting to cut out the SEO middleman and make search a matter of directly connecting great content creators (as defined by the inherent quality of their work and their popularity) with searchers who will find great value in their content. This explains why Google is being more forthcoming about its algorithm: the maneuver levels the technical playing field and forces SEO practitioners to differentiate themselves through the content itself. What more could content creators ask for?

Resources

Below are resources containing detailed information on content-related SEO techniques that should be of interest to creatives who market themselves and their work.

• “Author Information in Search Results,â€� Google Webmaster Tools
  Instructions on setting up rel=author links.
• “Google Evaluates Reading Level?!?,â€� Pure Visibility
  How Google evaluates reading levels and why it matters to writers.
• “Webmaster Guidelines: Quality Guidelines,â€� Google Webmaster Tools
  Best practices for content quality.
• “Image Publishing Guidelines,â€� Google Webmaster Tools
• “Video Best Practices,â€� Google Webmaster Tools
• “Search by Image,â€� Google
  How image search works.
• “Facebook + Twitter’s Influence on Google’s Search Rankings,â€� Rand Fishkin, The Daily SEO Blog

Note: All images used for this post have exclusively been created by Straight North.

(al) (il)

© Brad Shorr for Smashing Magazine, 2012.

Error pages for form-field validation are dreadful. You’ve just filled out 20 form fields, yet you get the same bloated page thrown back in your face because a single field failed to validate.

I clearly recall the often loud sighs of despair during our last usability study each time a test subject encountered a validation error page.

We also noticed that test subjects who had been exposed to validation errors began to take preventive actions to avoid them in subsequent steps, by writing things such as “N/A� in the “Company name� field if in doubt about whether the field was optional.

When getting the exact same page but with an error message, the user will feel they have made little or no progress, despite having typed 90% of the form fields correctly. (Image: Blue Nile)

Some of the frustration with validation error pages likely stems from the user being returned to the same page they came from. Being returned to the exact same page is problematic for a couple of reasons:

1. With all form fields still displayed (valid or not), the user might have difficulty identifying the few erroneous fields among the many valid ones.
2. More critically, seeing the same page twice makes it seem like the user has made no progress, despite having just filled in numerous form fields correctly.

At Baymard Institute, we reflected on this problem and got an idea that we call “error fields onlyâ€� — which is exactly what this article is about. Before exploring this idea, let’s look at three traditional types of validation techniques: “same page reload,â€� “optimized same page reloadâ€� and “live inline validation.â€�

1. The Traditional Way: Same Page Reload

Here’s a typical validation error page from Staples’ checkout process:

The current error page for Staples’ checkout process. Besides having a subpar indication of errors, Staples also breaks a handful of checkout usability guidelines.

When the user first submits the page, the entire page is reloaded, but with indications of validation errors. A message at the top of the page tells the user they have made an error and describes what the error is; further down the page, the label for the erroneous field is in bold and red.

This is significantly better than the sad practice some websites adopt of only highlighting the erroneous field in red or bold (without any description) and letting the user guess what went wrong. But the implementation could be much more thorough. Let’s look at how Staples’ page could be improved.

2. Same Page Reload: Optimized

To have a fairer baseline for comparison, we’ve made three changes to substantially improve Staples’ error page:

A simple mockup of an optimized version of Staples’ error page. Notice the anchor link at the top and the tailored description near the erroneous fields.

The three changes are:

1. The error description at the top indicates the number of errors (if there’s more than one) and lists them.
2. These listed errors are links that take the user directly to the corresponding field (especially important in long forms).
3. A tailored message for each erroneous field shows either an example of correctly formatted data (for example, john@example.com) or a tip on what might be wrong with the data (for example, “Looks like the ending in the email address you provided is missing (.com, .org, etc.),â€� instead of just “Email wrong — please correct.â€�

Now, in addition to being able to locate the erroneous fields and spot multiple errors more easily, the user actually has guidance on how to correct their data. Some input errors are plain cases of mistyping or obvious details being forgotten, which most users will spot immediately; but if the user lacks clues and can’t instantly see why the data is invalid and has to guess in order to proceed, then they will likely abandon the process.

While better, this second implementation (and the first) still result in a poor experience. The user still gets the whole page with all 31 form fields thrown back at them, despite having inputted 90% of the fields correctly. The signal-to-noise ratio is still high (two errors among all valid fields). The user will likely scroll up and down the form to make sure all errors have been fixed and, finally, scroll down to click that “Continue� button once again. This diminishes the user’s sense of accomplishment and makes their effort to resolve the errors unnecessarily cumbersome.

3. Live Inline Validation

A very effective technique that resolves some of the issues with the last method is “live inline validation.�

Here, each form field is validated separately as the user types. The error handling is most often instant, with the user being told that their data doesn’t match the expected format (although the user can scroll past and try to submit the form anyway). Luke Wroblewski has done some excellent usability research on the inline validation techniques that work best.

Inline validation alleviates the aforementioned issues by indicating progress and by pointing out the erroneous fields (since the page does not reload). This makes the technique useful for forms in which the fields can be validated independently. In other cases, the data isn’t as simple as a user name, password and email address; sometimes the data needing validation is an array or a set of data. In the realm of e-commerce, one might need an address or credit card to be validated.

To live validate a credit card, you could perform a Luhn check to verify the format of the number, and you could verify the expiration date and security code (or “card verification valueâ€�) for the correct number and type of characters. However, the validation could still fail if the data doesn’t all match up when the payment vendor tries to authorize the card or if the card is declined. With live inline validation, the user would be first presented with a green checkmark as they input data in each field, and then they would see an error message after submitting the form if any of the fields didn’t check out. Alternatively, live inline validation could be disabled for just those fields for which the data has to be checked remotely. However, this has the drawback of an inconsistent UI, whereby some fields are validated live while others aren’t.

For address validators, the format of the inputted data could be correct, but the address itself could still fail validation (for example, if the address doesn’t exist). Again, live inline validation would begin here with checkmarks indicating to the user that the inputted data is correct, but then, when the user submits the address form, the website would (confusingly) change its mind and tell the user that it doesn’t recognize the address after all.

Our suggested approach, the fourth and last validation technique, tackles these problems.

4. Error Fields Only Approach

As we’ve seen, there are different ways to display error messages, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Based on these observations, we thought of a validation technique better suited to complex data. What if we removed all validated fields on the error page that reloads? What if we displayed only those fields that failed validation? So, instead of reloading the entire page and showing all 20 fields of the form when only the “Phone� and “Email� fields have errors, you would simply show a page with those two fields and the corresponding messages.

With this approach, the picture is quite different. The user now gets a new page, or an overlay, with just a couple of error fields. A summary of the validated data would also be displayed, along with an “Edit� link in case the user spots something they want to correct. Staples’ error page would then look something like this:

A simple mockup of what Staples’ error page would look like with this fourth approach. Only erroneous fields would be shown, and all validated data would be summarized below with an “Edit� link.

This approach makes the error page much more digestible than the traditional technique, and it makes abundantly clear which fields are the problem, which is particularly helpful in long forms.

Now, the user simply has to fix the fields shown and hit “Continueâ€� — no scrolling, no having to pick out erroneous fields from valid ones, no repetition of the same page, just a simple page explaining exactly what to fix and how to proceed.

When To Use Each Validation Technique

Compared to the two traditional reloading techniques (i.e. 1 and 2), the “live inline validation� and “error fields only� techniques both offer the user a sense of progression and a clear distinction between erroneous and valid fields.

The “error fields only� approach is usually best when inline validation wouldn’t quite work. In April 2012, we benchmarked the top 100 e-commerce websites in the world and found that only 8% use live inline validation during checkout (likely due to having to validate both postal addresses and credit cards). In general, the longer the form and the more complex the inputted data and its dependencies, the more likely the error-fields-only approach is the best choice.

Inline validation is effective for simpler forms. When the data is an array or set, such as with postal addresses and credit cards, then the method becomes problematic. In this case, the UI would be illogical (the user would see each field validated individually and then suddenly fail collectively) or inconsistent (only some fields would validate as the user types). Of course, this technique would still require the page to be reloaded as a fallback, in case the user submits the form regardless of inline error messages (or if they have disabled JavaScript); therefore, the page reload techniques (the traditional and newer versions) might be best even for simple forms.

On smartphones, the error-fields-only approach has an advantage over the same-page-reload technique, because users typically lack an overview and context of the form due to the small screen. In such cases, displaying only the erroneous fields would help the user focus on the task at hand.

Rethinking Validation Error Pages

The error-field-only approach is merely a concept, and it needs both refinement and testing. An even better solution to these user experience problems most likely exists. Maybe having a traditional (although optimized) error page with green checkmarks next to the validated fields on the error page (to indicate the user’s progress) would be a better solution; or perhaps applying a slight fade to validated fields, making the erroneous ones stand out, while maintaining the context of the page.

The error-fields-only approach is more an attempt to inspire and a call to action to rethink how we handle validation errors and thus provide a better user experience.

While we can agree that validation pages aren’t the sexiest part of Web design, we should give them attention because their quality will determine whether the user comes to a screeching halt or feels a small bump on the road.

Got your own examples, mockups and ideas for validation errors? Share them in the comments!

(al)

© Christian Holst for Smashing Magazine, 2012.