I was reading through Walt Mossberg’s review of Sprint’s EVO 4G, which actually seems like a great phone, when I came across the following line that really baffled me:
[...] when using 4G, the EVO’s battery runs down alarmingly fast. In my tests, it didn’t last through a full day with 4G turned on. The carrier, in fact, is thinking of advising users to turn off the 4G network access when they don’t think they need it, to save battery life.
Here’s the thing: I didn’t know that I needed 4G until you provided me with a device capable of utilizing it. I was blissfully unaware of how drastically different the speeds were until you advertised it was “10x faster than 3G”. So now you’ve put this awesome device in my hand but are going to kindly recommend that I put your main selling point on the back burner until I “need” it. The simple fact with most users is that once they have a killer feature, they need it all the time. This is like depositing a million dollars into someone’s bank account with the caveat that they can only withdraw $100 a day. Sure, you’re a millionaire, but at the end of the year you pull down a teacher’s salary.
Now that I know my visitors and their capabilities, it’s time to dive into what they come to my site to see and then begin to build my messaging and branding around that.
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As promised, here is the first of a multi-part series that goes through the process of realigning my site not only to better address my target audience, but to also tackle issues that I’ve noticed or had to work around since the initial launch (over a year and a half ago). These principals could be applied to any type of site you work on, albeit corporate, personal, or otherwise. I hope the method and information you find here proves useful. Read the rest of this entry →
30 April 10 — No Comments
…For neglecting all of you. I’ve been caught up in a bunch of projects and just haven’t had the time I’d like to dedicate to blogging for any length of time. Fear not, though, as I have some big design-related writing plans coming up…
Ah, what the hell, I’ll expand upon them right now: I’m going to thoroughly document, from start to finish, my process of re-designing/re-aligning this site. I checked Google Analytics and found that I somehow get a bunch of monthly traffic despite being so sporadic in my updating (especially the portfolio section, which hasn’t seen a significant update since 2008 (for more reasons than just laziness. hint: NDAs), so I’m rededicating myself to making the site better than ever.
The whole thing will kick off with the most basic of information gathering:
- Establishing a target audience
- Identifying goals
- What message am I trying to convey?
- What is my site currently being found for?
And then move through all of the steps I deem necessary beyond that point, including:
- Branding
- Logo creation
- Sitemapping
- Wireframing
- Design
- Development
- Deployment
- Marketing
I think it’s going to be a great exercise and I’ll try my best to be as thorough as possible. Being a video-oriented designer, you can bet there will be screencasts throughout the entire process and many detailed notes. Look for this to kick off soon!
Other places you can find me in the interim:
26 March 10 — No Comments
As you (hopefully) know, I’m a web developer by trade. Whenever possible, I try to take time to help other aspiring designers and developers get their feet wet when they make the switch to Macs. There’s a refreshing amount of excellent software for Mac that will allow you to dive headlong into web development with a minimal investment on your part. Here’s a list of what I consider the essential software that you can get for free or inexpensively, as well as a few paid alternatives.
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