content archives
“It’s harder to give money away than it is to spend money buying stuff.”According to Jakob Nielsen, it’s harder for people to donate to charity online than it is to make a purchase. Sad! According to his study, the top priority for non-profits should be presenting information more clearly—not focusing on trendy (but secondary) things such as social media.
“There’s a common misconception that visual design’s role is only to provide a pleasing veneer on the page. In fact, visual design’s big role is to boost overall communication.”From Jared Spool’s recent article on the interplay between good visual design, IA, and content design. He also argues that to really succeed, it is better to have people who are strong in all three areas, not just specialists who are good at just one of them. I think I agree.
“The content that sits inside of our design framework is often the final arbiter of success, yet we sometimes diminish its importance and separate ourselves from it. The more we separate our design activities from content development, the greater the risk of design failure.”Christopher Detzi writes about The Content Conundrum, a very nice and well thought out article covering a problem every web designer must face
Interesting Alertbox from Jakob Nielsen finding that “non-profits would collect much more from their websites if only they’d clearly state what they are about and how they use donations. ... Sadly, only 43% of the sites we studied answered the first question on their homepage. Further, only a ridiculously low 4% answered the second question on the homepage.” In other words, content usability and message design are as important as functional usability, especially if you are asking for money!