Welcome to the Leader’s Blog, the official blog of John and Amanda Fildes, where ideas on innovation, exceptional experiences, competitive differentiation, and business management are shared.
Posted: October 23, 2009 | Amanda Fildes
When you hear “conservative website design” mentioned in the title of this article, do you cringe a little? Believe it or not, I actually don’t.
The thing that people don’t necessarily know about web design is like most great art forms there are several guiding principles that dictate how a design approach is brought to life on the web. Some would say that design shouldn’t have “rules” but, more often than not, you’ll find that the most readable and usable sites out there follow some form of basic design principles. Conservative web design doesn’t have to mean boring web design. The sites that really get it right deliver creative and inventive approaches to a brand while applying design principles to meet users’ expectations on where to find information and how to identify clickable links. When you are endeavoring on your next redesign project remember that less is often more when it comes to design. And make sure that your designer “plays by the rules”.
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Posted: October 23, 2009 | John Fildes
Many companies that are leading their competitors in innovation and customer satisfaction have adopted design and development approaches that incorporate rapid prototyping, agile development, and real-time metrics capture and reporting tools. This modern day approach to creating and implementing solutions is enabling companies to more accurately deliver solutions that meet and exceed customer expectations.
The use of rapid prototyping in the design phase enables companies to specify and envision solutions in greater detail in a fraction of the time traditional approaches take. Combined with a real-time metrics capture and reporting solution, companies are able to measure customer engagement and interaction with precision right out of the gates. Using their findings and an agile development environment, companies are able to quickly optimize their solutions and improve the aspects that have low acceptance and engagement.
And as the article suggests, there are added bottom line benefits to adopting this approach. However, perhaps the most powerful outcome for these companies is the fact that their solutions ultimately end up being 100% shaped around the customers behaviors and interests without the customer being directly asked for their input – for the customer, that results in the perception that the company’s brand is most closely aligned to their needs and wants – and that is a best case scenario outcome in a landscape that is growing more competitive by the minute.
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Posted: October 23, 2009 | Amanda Fildes
OpenID is one of those great ideas that makes sense because it simplifies the way users access sites by creating a single login and password for all locations. You could see how consumers would want to turn on their computers in the morning and login to all of their favorite sites with a single action. When I read this I think about my clients and colleagues at large corporations, and the security concerns this could create for them. If OpenID became the industry standard how would that integrate with security principles set by large corporations? Could you imagine being able to access your corporate email with the same credentials you use to login to Facebook? And how can a CIO guarantee the safety of your information on another site when using the same ID? The idea of OpenID has been around for a while and it is not yet clear if this current surge will be temporary blip on the radar or if it will shape the future of online access.
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Posted: October 23, 2009 | John Fildes
Doritos interactive advergame is clever on two fronts. First, the approach is interactive and engaging – it promotes that the audience actively experience the brand during each interaction – additionally, by way of the design, interaction times are going to be much longer then more traditional approaches. Second, Doritos recognizes that their audience is not going to visit a Doritos website daily, so instead of using a push technique, they have opted to integrate the solution into Facebook, where they know their audience will visit much more regularly. Add in the ability to interact directly from the target’s Facebook page – the solution is a sure fire way to generate increased interactions over an extended period of time. Doritos interactive advergame is a very clever and very powerful approach for the chip maker.
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