ANDISITES' THOUGHTS & INSPIRATIONS

Good stuff about designing for readability.

Sun, 08 Jul 2012 11:19:56 -0400

Good stuff about designing for readability.

In this age of mobile devices and table computers, there’s...

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 11:50:00 -0400

In this age of mobile devices and table computers, there’s a question I get a lot: “Should we create a mobile version of our website?” I tend to discourage it for a few reasons:

It means creating two separate websites instead of one, and most clients just can’t afford that.
Research shows that users of the mobile versions of websites they regularly visit (which they’re often directed to automatically from their mobile device) are too stripped-down. They end up clicking the link for the “full” version of the website, anyway…and wasting a little more of their day. I’ve experienced this twice in the last week; once when using my phone to find the latest dropoff location for a popular express delivery service (the mobile site I was automatically redirected to didn’t have latest dropoff, only locations closest to my zip code), and once when trying to search flights on a popular airline (the full site gives me the option to filter results by flight time; the mobile site doesn’t).
The mobile version of a website will invariably be navigated differently from the main site, so your company’s devoted user community will be forced to learn a new way of doing things, probably at a time when they just need some quick information on the road.

You want your site users to be happy, not frustrated. The solution? Create (or redesign) your main website so that it works well and is easily navigable from both desktop computers and mobile devices. Keep it clean, simple, fast-loading, and streamlined. Determine which functions your users are most interested in, and make them easily accessible from your home page. Make less-used functions easy-to-find, but put them further into the site.

Want to read more? Check out this article from Smashing Magazine.

I get flummoxed (and strangely irritated) when a restaurant menu...

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 16:47:57 -0500

I get flummoxed (and strangely irritated) when a restaurant menu has too many choices, and I feel the same way about websites. It’s easy to get overwhelmed, and overwhelmed users tend to leave. Hick’s Law is the design principle that addresses this, and this recent geeky (and I LOVE geeky!) article draws a hearty “hear, hear” from me.

I’m crazy for color. I love how it can tell a story or...

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:50:00 -0500

I’m crazy for color. I love how it can tell a story or change a mood in an instant. And I particularly love the Pantone Color of the Year for 2012…so much so that it’s used liberally on the new AndiSites website. The Pantone press release calls it, “a spirited reddish orange (that) continues to provide the energy boost we need to recharge and move forward.” Yes!

This image was one of the sources of inspiration I gave...

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:42:00 -0500

This image was one of the sources of inspiration I gave watercolor artist Lisa Manley as she was creating the new AndiSites website background. I love the feel of it, and it reminds me of a trip my husband and I took to the mountains in the fall. We ran into a light snow, and the contrast between the autumn leaves and the dusting of snow was beautiful.