Green-Coloured Glasses: Vol 2

It’s no secret that ‘green is the new black’ – which is a good thing. Our society is beginning to make strides in our purchasing behaviour, all for the sake of environmental preservation. The masses are slowly starting to recognize the value of something other than comfort and convenience. But unfortunately there is an abundance of brands looking to get a piece of the eco-pie for all the wrong reasons. Whether it’s to squeeze out an extra buck from naïve consumers, or to mask the nasty truth of their operation, some companies have gone to sordid lengths to appear green.

In July 2007, GM used its best-selling Chevrolet line to launch its multi-million dollar ‘Gas-Friendly to Gas-Free’ advertising campaign. The campaign boasts the steps they’ve taken to increase fuel efficiency; produce vehicles that can run on E85 ethanol; and develop hybrids and fuel cells. Since the launch, Chevy’s website, commercials and print ads contain green-friendly images that suggest its’ support of the environment.



What is misleading about GM’s efforts is the extent to which the company is advertising its green technologies, while they’re still the leading producer in gas-guzzling vehicles. What is worse, the company claimed to be a fuel solutions leader, while working behind the scenes to derail attempts to increase fuel economy standards.

Another example of greenwashing comes from Fiji. This brand of bottled water has recently developed a website called www.fijigreen.com, a slick-looking device positioning Fiji as an environmentally conscious brand that is taking action to become ‘carbon negative’. It’s clean design and hopeful copy outlines all the steps they’re taking to save the rainforests and reduce their carbon footprint.

In a seemingly transparent effort to involve themselves and consumers in the quest for sustainability, Fiji has invited outraged eco-activists to label the brand ‘the poster child for greenwashing’. This accusation was made because bottled water, by nature, is not an environmentally sustainable industry. Not only do the vast majority of North Americans throw water bottles in the garbage, but also every one of their bottles is shipped all the way from Fiji, making it difficult to see how they are helping reduce carbon emissions. However, with a big enough budget, Fiji has produced an alarmingly convincing website that is no doubt luring naive consumers as I write this.

The above examples were chosen for their obvious and audacious nature, but unfortunately there are thousands of companies that fall into the grey area of greenwashing. With so many different ways to be green, it’s almost impossible to claim you’re green for one effort without contradicting yourself in another. This creates a laundry list of brands that leave themselves vulnerable to the greenwash label, just by declaring themselves environmentally friendly. Check out the last installment that explores a new consumer crusade to catch brands green-handed.

Web Design Best Practices (part 5): Improving your site through iterations

More and more websites run on content management systems (CMS), enabling companies and organizations to update content and navigation internally, while they turn to their agencies to provide guidance and design for brand-sensitive or tech-heavy updates.

How can an organization best decide what content should be added, changed or removed? And how can an organization ensure that the changes they make are done with end users in mind so as not to fall in the trap of turning a website's content into org-speak? Learn from the big players like Dell, Ebay, and Amazon. They constantly make iterative changes to their sites to improve usability and to drive better returns.

Let's call the principle "change by iteration based on solid metrics". Combining small changes with measurable results can be a powerful tool to improve your website's performance and to help ensure that updates are done in the most user friendly manner possible.

To begin, your site should incorporate snippets of code to enable measurability using a tool such as Google Analytics. This will assist you in seeing what content, pages and text work in your site.

Second, you should consider what constitutes success. For instance, you may hope that one half of all site visitors should go directly to your products section, and once there, they should spend at least two minutes reading and interacting with content.

Third, break down your goals into discrete elements: the pathway from the landing page to the products section is one element; the amout of time spent in the products section is another.

If you find that your visitation levels are falling short, look closely at the path users are following, and then look critically at content on their path. Then make changes by iteration. For instance, you might try changing the language on a call to action, and then seeing if your statistics improve. If so, good, if not, try including a compelling image or offer with your product call to action.

If you find users aren't spending enough time in your products section, put yourself in the shoes of an end user. We know that site visitors don't read much on the page, so you're unlikely to hook them with more text. What do you like to see when you're visiting another site? Do you spend time viewing videos? Do you like to interact with graphics? Are you interested in reading what other users think of the product? As a principle, it is safer to try iterations, that is, change one thing at a time. Add a video and check the stats. Present testimonials from customers, and test. Incorporate a call for end-user input into the product, and test. And so on.

You needn't stop at page level content. The principle of change by iteration can be applied more broadly than the examples I have shared so far. Main navigation items, the addition of micro-sites to delve deeply into certain site information, and the incorporation of widgets to increase the frequency of visits are some elements that bear iterations well.

Green-Coloured Glasses: Vol I

Today we live in a world of choice. We choose what brands we want to buy, what sites we wish to visit, and which causes to support. And as we enter into an age insistent on environmental responsibility, consumers are faced with choices that hold far more weight than which toothpaste gets your teeth whiter. More and more, people are feeling compelled to look twice at everything from household cleaners and cars to shampoos and packaging. With so many brands under scrutiny, brand trust is becoming the ever-elusive holy grail of marketing. Consumers are becoming more skeptical than ever and communicating a company’s good intentions can be a challenge, especially when surrounded by wolves in sheep’s clothing.

There is no shortage of companies trying to cast a positive light on their otherwise questionable operations, and with the looming future of our planet becoming an increasingly pressing matter, ‘greenwashing’ is now common practice for many brands.

Greenwash – the act of misleading purchasers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service.

Greenwashing was first identified in the late 1980’s after members of the hotel industry placed cards in each room, encouraging guests to ‘save the environment’ and reuse their towels. It was later revealed that most of these hotels were putting little to no effort towards recycling, or any other environmental practices, and the suggestive cards were purely profit driven. Since this discovery, activists have established the Six Sins of Greenwashing to help illuminate the various ways companies deceive their consumers.

Sin of Fibbing – most despicably, some manufacturers claim to meet environmental standards when in fact they do not.

Sin of No Proof – any claim that cannot be substantiated by easily accessible supporting information or by a third-party certification.

Sin of Irrelevance – some manufacturers make claims that may be truthful but are unimportant and unhelpful for consumers.

Sin of the Hidden Trade-Off – certain companies boldly focus on one single environmental attribute, sweeping other negative attributes under the rug.

Sin of Vagueness – many consumers are fooled by companies making broad, poorly defined claims like ‘100% natural’, when some natural substances are actually harmful for the environment.

Sin of Relativism – a product may be able to claim it’s environmentally preferable for its class, but shouldn’t necessarily be considered in the first place as an eco-friendly solution.

Check out our next installment when we look at some examples of greenwashing at its worst.

Web Design Best Practices (part 4): Web 2.0

In some quarters, there is a backlash against the incorporation of widgets, Web 2.0 elements, and related content (or cross-promotions) in websites. Some recent studies have shown that users are not all that interested in exploring related content. Users, it has been shown, get to the site, they find what they're looking for, and they leave. Additionally, they are frustrated by the load times that come with complex web pages.

"People want sites to get to the point, they have very little patience," stated Jakob Nielsen in a recent interview with the BBC. He claims users are "hot potato" driven, and want to get specific tasks completed.

What does this mean for site design? Do we throw out everything we've been learning and preaching over the past couple of years? My sense is, no. There is a time and a place for widgets, but they must be incorporated intelligently. Web developers should be careful about how much cross promotion is placed on each page. As is the case with French cuisine, less is sometimes much more.

Sadly, this is not always the case.

I would place some of the blame for overburdened web pages on marketing studies that claim boosts to sales through "widgetry". I see a lot of "studies" like these: "Video in websites boosts online sales by 50%"; the next day another study claiming: "Bigger "buy now" buttons deliver better returns"; and the next day: "Flash movies of cute furry pets deliver a volume increase of 25%".

You can imagine a small business owner who has built their business around online sales trying all three tactics at once. Heck, you don't need to imagine it, sites like that are everywhere.

There are excellent implementations of Web 2.0 tools that add enormously to a user's experience on a website and ultimately deliver better returns, for sales, for the brand or the community. Implementations can be done that are also very respectful of the user's time and bandwidth issues.

I am thinking here of a site BSL is developing for an organization that supports health care and capacity building in a number of less-developed partner countries. The site includes videos that really help people here to see the challenges and successes in countries that are very far away and different. The videos are hosted in the site in such a way that low-bandwidth users can see a synopsis and video stills. The videos are only launched on demand. The site achieves what it set out to, through judicious and respectful use of Web 2.0 content.

I remind readers of intentions, which I talked about in my first post in this series. When designing sites, you need to think very carefully about what you really want users to achieve at your site, and to test what you put on the site against real-world experience (e.g. common sense). If, for example, you really believe users will click a link to buy a product after reading product information, do you need to put "buy now" on non-product pages? After reading the Neilsen interview, and after struggling through sites that promise everything everywhere, I would conclude: no.

A Giving Business Model

Asking for money ain't easy....

And anyone who has ever tried raising funds for charity will say the same. Whether it's $5 or $500 - it takes great time and energy to raise money for the most worthwhile of causes.

Giveness, a company that was first established in October 2006, overcomes this barrier by enabling users to make purchases online at Giveness.com for everyday items, while concurrently donating to the charity of their choice - without any added cost to them. Buyers can shop, buy, and give creating a win-win (and win!) situation for the merchant, the nonprofit and the supporter.

Waldvogel and Werling, the Founders of Giveness, formed a sub-affiliate network partnership with both eBay and Amazon.com to enable this model to work. They have also developed relationships with over 30 major retailers (including Gap, Apple Store and Macy's), and when online shoppers make their purchase from any one of them through the Giveness site, a percentage - anywhere from 4 to 30 % - goes to one of the nonprofits registered with the site - as pre-selected by the purchaser before they made the purchase.

There's no membership fee or registration required for purchasers, and Giveness also provides an online community where users can engage with message boards, and post photos and other information about themselves. Nonprofits and individuals can register for this community, which currently hosts over 500 members.

Nonprofits interested in registering are carefully screened, and so far 164 charities and nonprofits have signed up.

Spreading the Word with Widgets
Nonprofits and individual members of the online Giveness community can take advantage of Flash-based "widgets" on the site. The Fundraising Widget Application allows nonprofits to create their own widget to post on their own web page (or Facebook profile, blog, etc). The widget makes it easy for site visitors to shop and benefit their organization directly. The widget can even feature content (ie/ product recommendations) that suit the nonprofit organization's mission and interests.

Giveness.com won 2nd place in the Philanthropy category of the seomoz.org 2008 Web 2.0 awards, and I can see why. The website makes great use of web 2.0 concepts, and are the depiction of a well-designed, friendly, usable site. When I made a selection to shop at a store through the site, the first thing I was asked for was the charity I'd like to donate to. I selected one randomly and immediately received a 'Thank You' message on the screen, before it moved me through to the store.



The quasi-personalization the site is enabled to perform continues to build a relationship with the user. After my first 'purchase', every time I visit pages on Giveness.com it recognizes me and it the top right, there it is again "Thank you for supporting...".



I'm always keen on learning of sites like this that are out there - of nonprofits who are using the power and efficiencies of the web to do things better. Because as we all know, fundraising ain't easy.

Ambiguous animation painted on public walls

Amazing stop-motion animation done in Buenos Aires and in Baden by Blu.

Web Design Best Practices (part 3): Navigation

I'm not a graphic designer, but that doesn't mean I don't know where to find nacho chips at the supermarket.

Before you start thinking I've lost my marbles by putting these two seemingly incongruous elements together in a sentence, let me explain myself. Navigating through a website is a lot like making your way through a supermarket. Supermarkets and websites share many characteristics which we can consider through the concept of "affordances", or "action possibilities which are readily perceivable by an actor" (definition from Wikipedia).

At a supermarket, these expectations are broadly related to 1)store layout, 2)product placement, and 3) cross-promotion. On a website, these expectations are related to 1) homepage layout, 2) product placement, and 3) cross-promotions. Similar, no?

At the supermarket, you arrive at the entrance, get your shopping cart, and make your way through the sliding doors. You know with your eyes closed that the first food you're likely to see are fruits and vegetables, then bread, then meat. (Supermarkets, at least the big ones, also tend to promote "green" products at the entrance now too - for public relations purposes).

On a website, you have come to expect that the website homepage will give you a thorough, if high-level, overview of everything that's in the site, starting with the "reason" for the company's presence, the products or services the company offers, and the company's actions (through news, events, and public relations).

Second of all, without knowing why, you have a pretty good sense of where you'll find, let's say, nacho chips. Even if you've never been to the specific supermarket before, you are pretty confident that nacho chips will be found a few rows to the left of the vegetables, probably in the aisle adjacent to dairy products. Your knowledge of the placement of a product supermarket is pretty astonishing, isn't it? It's because of intuition based on past experience, habits, and the practicality of gathering this product as part of experience of fulfilling tasks in a more or less linear way associated with your household economy. In other words, nacho chips are a treat, but while you are picking up required items such as butter or milk, they sure are nice to have.

Similarly on a website, you have a pretty good sense where you might find the "search" box: on the top right of the screen. Websites often use this space on the screen for search because it is habitual, and practical, to place a site-wide tool in a highly visible location without limiting space for core business.

The third element of navigation has to do with cross-promotion. You know that you are likely to find salsa at eye-level beside the nacho chips. While logically salsa shares more qualities with tomato sauce or barbecue sauce, its application is directly related to nacho chips (and subsequently related to watching a football match on TV). What if supermarkets also placed avocados, garlic and lemons beside the chips? Would people eat more guacamole?

Similarly on websites, when you're on, say, a product page, you are likely to find information about product support, a sign-up for a product newsletter, and options to contact a sales-person.

How do you take this information on intuition, placement and affordances and turn it into a better user experience? Some of the answer comes down to following best practices, seeing what your competition is doing, studying websites you admire or dislike, and working with a user experience specialist to put best practice into practice. And some of the answer comes from learning about affordances. Frankly there is no better way than to sit beside a real-world user of your website and watch closely to see what they find, how they move through the site, and whether they do what you want them to do.

You may also benefit from a fact-finding trip to the supermarket, and then put your metaphorical avocados at metaphorical eye-level, beside the metaphorical nacho chips.

ABC3D

I Love it! - Available at Amazon.

Web Design Best Practices (part 2): Accessibility

In addition to acknowledging that users have developed habits of interaction over the years, every well designed site should be accessible to the largest (target) audience possible. But accessibility goes farther than that.

Websites are a tool as well as communication channel, we must consider not only the demographic and psychographic profiles of our market, we must also think of very nuts and bolts things such as disabilities (visual impairment, dyslexia, deafness, colour blindness) and constraints (high-speed versus dial-up access, screen size, operating systems, and so on).

Accessibility features refer to various standards and commonalities that assist users by giving them what they expect, and what they need, to make their interaction successful and efficient. For more information on technical aspects of accessibility, please visit the World Wide Web Consortium Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0.

One way of looking at the issue of accessibility is to think that websites should be easily read. The concept of readability captures the speed and efficiency with which information is consumed and processed. It can refer to navigability, various types of visual information (graphics, imagery, rich media, and to alternatives to rich media) in addition to written words.

Of course, some traditional graphical design issues are at work when designing a page. But online, there are far more rigorous constraints than there are on the printed page. One recent study by Jakob Nielsen suggests that there on a web page there should be no more than 28% of the content one would view on the printed page. According to this study, users spend an average of 4.4 seconds per 100 words.

What should this mean for a well-designed website? First, put your content creation machine on a strict diet. Say more with fewer words, use small graphics, bullet-points and bolded text to enhance the readability of the page. House your content in a navigation schema that makes it easy for text readers to explore.

Web Design Best Practices (part 1)

Clients often ask - heck, I often ask myself - what best practices should be followed when designing a website. I'm sorry to inform you that there is no formula for the perfect website. In fact, it could be argued that every website is as unique as the organization behind it.

That doesn't mean there aren't principles that should be adhered to (or at least acknowledged). I'll share some insights that should help as you consider what should be on your site, and how it should be designed: page layout; navigation; user-centred design; accessibility; how to improve your site through iterations; and features that should be included. I'm going to start with the complicated question of intentions.

When designing a website, people consider what they want to include in the site before they consider why elements are included. This is a mistake. The first, and most important feature of a well-designed website, is the user-friendly way in which the consistency of the organization’s business and communication objectives meet with the designed end-result. Put another way for the sake of clarity, this means that every element – from content, design, navigation and interactive features – must be considered in light of the organization’s intentions. Only those items that advance your goals should be included.

With the advent of social media, users have come to expect a broader range of tools available to them on websites. Many sites incorporate sound and video into their sites, and provide sophisticated feedback mechanisms, planning tools, easy-to-fill contact forms, enabling saving and forwarding page-level information, and access to tools such as live chatting. It is important to remember that interactive tools should always be used in response to an organization’s objectives. For example, where video and sound files may help one company sell more products, another organization may find a calendar tool is very valuable to respond to end users’ needs to form communities around common events.

This does not mean that every website is radically different from every other website. End users have developed expectations for how they interact with sites over the past decade of website usage. In terms employed by the user experience community, these are often referred to as “affordances”. For example, users expect there to be a “contact us” page on every website and that usually "contact us" is included in the site's header.

If there is one formula for a well-designed site, it would be: your communication and business intentions + your users' intentions = success. In other words, provide what you need to further your goals in a way that is easily grasped by your valuable and time-pressed end users.