I have a friend that just became an officially licensed Crossfit affiliate. He launched a website and now we’re working to make it the best it can be. One of the things I always need to do is learn about the target audience and find out what they’re looking for, their visual interests, etc. All I know about the Crossfit audience is of the Crossfit practitioners that I’m friends with. I can make some educated guesses, but I really needed to learn about their visual interests. This is where Pinterest comes in. To learn about the Crossfit target audience I first found boards titled Crossfit. From there, I could look at other boards from the authors and see what kind of food they like, what kind of architecture they like, what their fashion preferences are, and much more. From there, I can find the common elements and develop design concepts.
Design
Simple Innovation
Sometimes you see something so simple, yet so far from the norms that all you can do is sit there, mesmerized. That’s what happened when I visited a website for the new Nissan Note. The site is in Japanese, but words aren’t necessary to be awestruck. Go take a look for yourself.
Alphabet Blocks
I was playing blocks with my son today for the umpteenth time and decided to “cure” my boredom. You can tell by the change of colors on occasion that he decided he didn’t like what Mommy was doing. Each photograph was the first way I thought of to create each letter. Read More
Think of the Users
Many businesses fall into a simple trap on their websites: they load up the front page with paragraphs and paragraphs of information important to the company. “What’s wrong with that?”, you might ask. Simply put: your visitors don’t care.
Your front page should focus on what’s most important to your site’s visitors, not what’s important to you. Get rid of the splash page of friendly, smiling stock photos. Get rid of the paragraphs of “About” text that no one will read past the first sentence (yes, your story is compelling; you can tell it to your customer in person after you’ve delivered a quality product/service).
Give your website a purpose. Give customers a reason to visit it, and help them find it immediately when they arrive.