The Moleskin

SXSW: Design and Social Responsibilty

Kelsey Ruger — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 17:36:09 +0000

We just wrapped up the Design and Social Responsibility panel. If you were present thanks for coming, it was a great turn out and we had a lot of great questions. If you have any additional questions feel free to ask them. I have included linked to the posts that inspired my porition of the panel for background reading.

What is Microsoft Origami?

Kelsey Ruger — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 02:55:47 +0000

Over the last few weeks there has been a lot talk about Microsoft’s Origami. The Origami Project Web site, promises that more information will come this Thursday, March 2. While, Microsoft has remained uncharacteristically quiet on what Origami is a video posted to Your Tube might be shedding a little light on the project. I have to admit the first time I saw the origami web site I thought it might be some sort of social software. An ultramoble device seems to make sense particularly since it is something that Microsoft executives have hinted at before. Personally I would like something that is a little larger than my PDA, but works like my tablet PC (if you have used both you know what I mean). If you are a cautious person, you probably should listen to Microsoft evangelist Robert Scoble who warns that we may be we may be disappointed if we are expecting an earth shattering annoucement. Whatever Origami turns out to be, get ready for a battle, because Microsoft’s annoucement coincides with a big announcement from Apple.

Your Web Site Does Not Belong To You

Kelsey Ruger — Tue, 06 Sep 2005 22:50:10 +0000

Last year I wrote an article called Mistakes People Make with Their Web sites. In it there was a point I brought up about building a site that caters to the wants of the site owner rather than the site visitors. Let’s recap…

Contrary to what you may believe your Web site should not be designed to your own particular tastes. What you think is certainly of interest, but it is more important to build the site for the customer…unless you will be the only one visiting. Almost 50% of a site’s visitors could go elsewhere due to poor navigation, slow downloads or confusing content. This is what I call “selfish marketing�?. Pointless animations and music, unnecessary pop-up windows and annoying Flash pop-over ads block visitors from getting what they really want — to buy something or gather information. Whether you design the site yourself, or outsource the task to a design firm, a well designed, customer focused website will be a successful one. From Mistakes People Make with Their Web sites

Design for the users, not for yourself. Andy Rutledge wrote about this in his post Give Your Website Away. This is an incredibly hard concept for people to grasp when they enter into a web development project. After all this is their baby - their brand. Believe me when I say if you ignore what you users are really looking for, your web projects will fail.