The F7 Blog
Figureseven, Inc. has been helping businesses maximize their offline and online marketing efforts for over a decade. This blog provides insight, tips and advice from our experts to help you achieve your marketing goals.
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Figureseven, Inc.
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Fitchburg, MA 01420
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Preparing for Project Meetings – Part II
By Aimee Belair, Creative Director, Figureseven, Inc.
April 2, 2010 in Web Site Design, Information Architecture
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Del.icio.usHere are the rest of my recommendations for proper project meeting preparation.
6. Distill ALL of the expectations, requirements and preferences of ALL of your decision makers into one assessment that the entire group will stand by.
The main point person should compile a document of who likes/doesn't like what about their web site experiences and why. Have them also describe what their current clients like/don't like and why. More times than we can count, we've had projects nearing completion get derailed because the CEO (silent until this time) said he hated the color blue or mentioned a top customer hated Flash navigation.
Preparing for Project Meetings – Part I
By Aimee Belair, Creative Director, Figureseven, Inc.
March 18, 2010 in Web Site Design, Information Architecture
Ah, Spring; the time when new projects that are in low (or no) gear are starting to revive themselves.
As we head into new project Kick-Off Meetings, I present an economical blog post to maximize your time and money: Prior to sitting down with your web development company, have written answers to these requests ready. They don't have to be essays, but all of the project's decision makers at your company must contribute a few sentences. Some may seem foolish and obvious, but you'd be surprised how even some established businesses can't articulate a detailed answer to them.
Oops, Facebook did it again!
By Jeremy Daly, President, Figureseven, Inc.
February 16, 2010 in Web Site Design, Information Architecture, Social Media, Usability
It’s been a few weeks since Facebook launched another major change to their home page, and once again, it wasn’t without some public outcry. Almost a year ago when Facebook changed their site a self-sponsored poll found that over 94% of users disliked it. They eventually caved to user pressure and rolled back some of the changes. I guess people didn’t like the 1997-esque rounded corners on the profile pictures. Similarly, last October, Facebook released another set of design changes that altered the news feed! This even spurred a group called “PLEASE GIVE US OUR OLD NEWS FEED BACK!” that attracted well over half a million supporters.
I’ll admit that I too was frustrated by Facebook’s apparent disconnect with their users, but these previous modifications seemed to simply modify layouts and re-brand some of their features. It was easy for us to dislike those changes because it forced us to relearn something we were already very familiar with. This last update, however, went beyond mere visual and wording changes and actually appears to completely breakdown the site’s usability. Here are a few things that you may not have noticed, but from a usability standpoint, they are key factors in determining successful user experience.
New Olympic Logo Showcases Potential Pitfalls of Placement
By Aimee Belair, Creative Director, Figureseven, Inc.
December 11, 2009 in Web Site Design, Information Architecture, Usability, Branding
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Sometimes Simple Is Better – Avoiding Feature Creep
By Melissa DeLorenzo, VP of Marketing, Figureseven, Inc.
November 9, 2009 in Web Site Design, Information Architecture
Dilbert: "Your requirements call for 4000 features! You realize that no Human would be able to operate a product with this level of complexity?" Scott Adams
Remember how simple coffeemakers used to be? You poured the water into the back, put the coffee grounds in a simple plastic receptacle lined with a simple paper liner, poured in the coffee grounds, closed the receptacle and flipped the on switch. Voilà! Coffee. Those instructions comprised the entire user’s manual. Now take a look at coffeemakers today – there are buttons for setting automatic timers, settings for grinding coffee beans to various levels of fineness or coarseness, buttons for auto-off functionality, buttons for pre-warm settings, self-cleaning, brew strength control. (You may need to take a course to learn how to operate it.) Now I am not saying these features don’t serve a purpose some of the time for some of the people, but what is important is figuring out which bells and whistles are the ones you need. The same goes for your website – what do your clients and potential customers really require?
What's your Call to Action?
By Scott Devlin, Director of Business Development, Figureseven, Inc.
September 28, 2009 in Web Site Design, Web Marketing, Information Architecture, Usability, Marketing
Many companies focus only on content and design when developing their website. I agree that those are very important parts of a successful web strategy, but just as important is your site having a Call to Action. A Call to Action is the action you want your visitors to take when they visit your site. Below are a couple of tips to think about to make your Call to Action more effective.
- Make it Easy to Find: Locate it on your Home Page. It doesn’t matter the type of website you have, if you do not have a Call to Action on your homepage you will miss out on potential business. Many ecommerce websites like Amazon.com will allow you to start buying right on the home page.
- Give an Incentive: The most important thing is that your Call to Action is directed towards your target market. If you can give useful information that helps build brand awareness, that may be the greatest incentive you can give. It needs to be something that makes them want to find out more about you.
- Cleary Define the Action: Having a button that reads “Get a Quote” or "Click Here for a Free SEO Analysis" will be more effective than just a button that says "Contact Us."
- Make them Buy the Cow: If you want to give away proprietary information such as whitepapers or webinars, don't just let them download them for free. Protecting intellectual property with a simple gateway form that requires registration with an email address will help to build up your contact list.
Ultimately, you can use your website to increase business. Following these simple web guidelines will help increase your likelihood for success.
Are you excited about your website?
By Melissa DeLorenzo, VP of Marketing, Figureseven, Inc.
July 9, 2009 in Search Engine Optimization, Web Site Design, Web Site Management, Information Architecture, Usability
If you’re not, can you expect your potential customers to be? Consumers use the web – this is a given. This is where they get their information. From news to what’s going on with their favorite sports teams to where they buy their goods – people find what they want on the Internet. The quality of your site is crucial to the success of your business. Here are five essential elements of good web design that are the most important to viewers.
Visual Appeal
Your site needs to be clean and attractive. A website is a visual medium and, simply put, needs to look good. Don’t let your graphics outshine or clutter your message – keep it clear but eye-catching, making sure your marketing message is at the core of your design.
Do you know your browser vocabulary?
By Aimee Belair, Creative Director, Figureseven, Inc.
May 29, 2009 in Technical Information, Information Architecture
If you had to ask what a browser was, you definitely need to read on!
At a speaking engagement a few weeks ago, I witnessed a coordinator demonstrating how to look up a website by typing into what he said was the browser window's "search box." What he was really typing into was the "address bar" (the search box is something completely different). This afternoon, a telephone troubleshooting session with a client was breaking down over the confusion of what browser she was using. "Entourage," she said. Entourage is not a browser but rather an email client application.
Welcome to the new F7 Blog!
By Jeremy Daly, President, Figureseven, Inc.
April 24, 2009 in Technical Information, Search Engine Optimization, Web Site Design, Web Marketing, Web Hosting, Web Site Management, Information Architecture
Since 1999, Figureseven, Inc. has been developing scalable, secure and reliable web solutions for businesses and organizations throughout the United States. Since we’ve been working with the web for so long, we thought we’d share some of our insights and experiences to help you maximize the value of your web marketing strategies and achieve your online marketing goals.
Over the course of the last ten years, Figureseven, Inc. has developed small sites for local companies like Butler Furniture and Halstead Insurance. We’ve worked with larger organizations like the North Central Massachusetts Chamber of Commerce and Holy Family Passionist Retreat Center to develop content managed, application driven web sites. We’ve worked on sites and built applications for the University of Massachusetts, Fitchburg State and Babson Colleges. We’ve even had the opportunity to develop web-based applications for multi-national organizations like CVS/pharmacy, NBC and Fox Broadcasting.
