Latest Articles

Emphasis On a Website Does Not Have To Be Loud

In a loud room you may be able to hear the person with the loudest voice. However, that voice will still be muddled and probably hard to hear over the clamor. If you have a quiet room, even a small voice can be heard clearly. If you are in the same quiet room and someone is yelling, it would probably get on your nerves and you wouldn’t listen to what he or she said. Most likely you’d be wondering how to shut them up.  Same scenario can be applied to web design and creating emphasis.

The most effective way to create emphasis is not by adding elements, but by consolidating and removing elements. The more space around an object, the more importance and visual attention the object receives. Eyes are not just drawn to bright colors, green circles, and dark boxes. These type of ‘attention grabbers’ actually translate to the visitor and ‘the greedy salesman.’ They don’t resonate as honest and informational, but as pushy and intrusive. Commercials on the television have a captive audience since they want to see the rest of their show. Your web audience does not have any outside incentive to say on your website. If you provide elements that look like commercials, or seem loud and obtrusive then they can leave for a better, softer, more approachable site.

Case Study: Buy Rolls ‘Today’s Specials’

The most obtrusive elements on Buy Rolls’ website is the green ball advertising ‘Save 5%’ with a coupon code. And on the left a sad, dated slideshow (that looks more like an animated gif used in the 90’s for rotating images) featuring different products for only three seconds. Not enough time to read any information or understand what each slide is presenting. Both are mainly distractions, clutter up the site, and do not serve their purpose.

The image with the title ‘Warehouses Nationwide’ does not need such a large block or the image. People will understand with simply the slogan and usually don’t care about where the warehouses are. Therefore it could be omitted entirely.  Products in the light blue and dark blue are both ‘Featured Products,’ yet only one (the light blue) has a label. These need to be consolidated and set up as table below the fold. The number of products featured in on the homepage is somewhat excessive. The web user most likely overlooks these small images anyway. The most popular products should feature in the slideshow with a link. The slideshow also needs to be enlarged and controllable. The visitor should have the capability to move manually from one slide to the next, and stop the animation.

The green ball is simply a designer’s nightmare. First it’s green when the whole site is blue and white. The color might make the ball stand out, but doesn’t go with the flow of the design, and therefore looks intrusive. Secondly, the ball is circular when the rest of the design is straight edge and boxy. Again, this conflicts with the rest of the website. This message could lay as a banner below the slideshow or on placed on the right column.

Conclusion:

A professional web design is cohesive, simplified, and clean, and gets the message across clearly. Professional design needs to embody subtly and ‘softness.’ Studies have shown that a bold and obtrusive website sends visitors away, while a softer site will hold their attention longer. Remember, drawing attention to specific elements is easier in a quiet environment.  Limiting items initially on the homepage allows the visitor to focus on the few that you feature. Everyone’s heard the quote, “less is more.” This is the mantra for good design. If you want to emphasize, choose wisely and allow for space, not more items.

The Importance of Interpersonal Skills to Managing a Company

A distribution retail business, such as Buy Rolls.com, buys a product from a producer and then sells it, for a profit, to a consumer. To be able to run a business such as this successfully one must have efficient managerial skills. Meaning, a manager of a distribution retail business must have exemplary interpersonal abilities and the ability to manage one’s environment while still getting the job done.

Because nothing is more important to the survival of a company than the relationship between its workers and its manager, it is of uttermost importance that a business finds a manager who has the ability to be an excellent communicator, make friends easily, delegate tasks efficiently and has no trouble making decisions. “Interpersonal skills [like these] are the ‘Master Key’ to [the] success of any organization” and so a business would do well to find a woman who can manage all these things well. A female often makes a successful manager because she is biologically prepared to excel in these areas.

The key to being a good manager is good listening skills. One cannot delegate, lead or form solid relationships if one does not pay attention to all forms of communication. One must pay attention to both verbal, as in tone of voice, word choice and responsiveness, as well as non-verbal communication. Non-verbal conversation can be anything from gestures to body positioning to facial expressions. Women use both sides of their brain for language and communication. Because of this, they have the potential to be very skilful managers. Because women’s brains dedicate a large portion of their focus to communication, they have the propensity to make others feel that they are tuned in to what they are saying and that they are being heard. If people feel they are being heard they are more likely to trust and respect the person listening to them. Good communication provides a basis for mutual respect from which both men and women can work.

Because women are admirable listeners and communicators they would certainly be in tune with the needs of their employees. When managers start with a base of mutual respect it is easier to manage the needs of their employees. If employees feel that their needs are being looked after, the relationship between manager and employee can only be strengthened. And, as many studies have suggested, a women’s first intention is to build relationships with those around them. If all these parts work together – interpersonal skills, managing employees needs and mutual respect – a company has a much better chance of success.

A Marketing Challenge: Marketing for an “Umbrella” Company

Finding the Specific Customers for a Narrow Niche within Your Wide Product Selection

Companies that are “umbrella” sellers—meaning that they strive to provide all or many possible solutions within one very specific but large category—face unique marketing challenges. Some examples of such a company might be one that sells doors, regardless of brand name, in a variety of shapes and sizes, for the home or business, etc. They’re the door guys. Another example might be a company that sells printer ink, again regardless of brand name, and including cartridges for large poster printers, industrial printers, home printers, etc. They’re the printer ink guys. This business model posed a unique marketing challenge because rather than reaching out to a specific customer with a specific need (or even a few), your market it anyone anywhere who uses any kind of printer ink or needs a door to any kind of building.

Clearly in this situation it is impossible to use many of the traditional marketing channels to market to your entire potential customer base. For example, if you intended to reach even a small minority of the nation’s ink and door users via print advertising, you would find yourself spending an exorbitant amount on print ads, while also being able to get very little feedback in terms of which ad placements were working and which ones were not. If you took the opposite approach and tried to tackle customer outreach by niche (people who print academic posters for conferences, print media designers who require custom colors or sheens, newspaper printers that require specific ink), you would again quickly find yourself overwhelmed by the number of different applications which fit under your umbrella. Tradeshows are another idea, but you are again dealing with either attending tradeshows that are relevant to only a small section of your umbrella, or the existing few that target your particular product and where competition is going to be very strong. Despite these challenges, though, you as a marketer still need cost-effective ways to generate leads that will reach as much of your client base as possible. One of the most cost effective but broad-reaching mediums for marketing this umbrella-type organization is web marketing.

Web marketing provides two specific benefits over other marketing media for organizations that have a “umbrella category” model:

  • Web use is not divided by customer type. You may find that general contractors and interior decorators read different magazines and watch different TV channels, but it is highly likely that they both use the internet and a search engine such a Google.
  • Web marketing allows you to target your campaigns by keyword. Unlike an exhaustive print ad or television ad campaign that attempts to target your entire very broad customer base, web marketing allows you to target words related to your product, not just a specific group of customers that may need it. The benefit? An exhaustive, well developed keyword list for even a large umbrella market is a lot cheaper for the same or better return than print or TV advertising.

Strategically, therefore, companies with this type of model should strive to actively market online, while perhaps also targeting a few of their biggest customer segments (say general contractors in the case of doors) using other marketing and advertising media.

Dana Martin
Marketing Professional

Using a Monochromatic Color Scheme

Introduction to Monochromatic Color Schemes:

The meaning of the word ‘monochromatic’ comes from the two words, mono (meaning ‘one’) and chromatic (meaning relating to color or colors). Put the terms together and you get ‘one color.’ A monochromatic color scheme derives from a single color adjusted by different shades and tints.

A monochromatic color palette for the color green with a HEX value of #638F3F can look like this:



Creating a Monochromatic Color Scheme

There are many ways to put together a monochromatic color scheme for your website. First thing to remember when putting together a color scheme is the rule of contrast. The rule is use at least one dark color, one medium/dark color, one medium color, one medium/light color, and one light color.

Next choose your color. In this case we will use a blue with a HEX value #003296.

The easiest way to create a monochromatic color scheme is to use the color with different tones of gray or brown.

You can also base it on the different values of the same color.

An Example of a Monochromatic Website

For my example I used Buyrolls.com: Thermal Paper Rolls, POS Paper & Credit Card Paper. Notice at first glance that Buyrolls.com does not appear to be a monochrome website. A huge Save 5% green ball sticks out that like sore thumb against the otherwise all blue & white website. However, using Red Alt’s I Like Your Colors online tool (http://redalt.com/Tools/I+Like+Your+Colors) I am able to analyze exactly what colors where coded in the CSS. The results turned out that only white, gray, light blue and blue were coded for this site. Notice how a single color site accentuates the colors of images. The green off the calculator and green ball jump off the page.

The color scheme for BuyRolls.com looks like this:

Advantages to monochromatic color schemes

The main advantage to using a monochromatic color schemes is ease of use. It is easy to create the palette because you don’t have to worry about color combinations clashing. There are less HEX codes to look up. The designer can easily pin point the different values of each swatch, which makes it easier to determine contrast and readability. Another advantage is that the simplicity of the website allows images and content to stand out. The final result is a clean, legible website. The single color will set the mood of the site, so choose your color wisely!

Conclusion

Monochrome websites are not the most popular color schemes among web designers. Truth be told, it can be boring to only use one color. However there is always the debate on attractive design versus functionality. Most of the time a website needs to be easy to navigate, look at, and read. Getting too far down the rabbit hole of creative design may cause your website to miss this target. I find monochromatic colors schemes are most helpful for photography sites, some online stores selling a lot of product, and any other site that either features images or a lot of content.

Works Cited

Chapman, Cameron. “Color Theory for Designer, Part 3: Creating Your Own Color Palettes – Smashing Magazine.” Smashing Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 May 2011. <http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/02/08/color-theory-for-designer-part-3-creating-your-own-color-palettes/>.

“I Like Your Colors – Red Alt.” Home Page – Red Alt. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 May 2011. <http://redalt.com/Tools/I+Like+Your+Colors>.

“Thermal Paper Rolls, POS Paper & Credit Card Paper @ Buyrolls.com.” Thermal Paper Rolls, POS Paper & Credit Card Paper @ Buyrolls.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 May 2011. <http://www.buyrolls.com/>.

ISO 14001 Accreditation

ISO 14001 is one of the group of sixteen ISO 14000 standards, which have been developed by the International Organisation for Standardization (ISO). ISO is a network comprised of national standards institutes and describes itself as being ‘the world’s largest developer and publisher of International Standards’. It has developed more than 18,500 international standards and publishes around 1,100 new standards each year.

The ISO 14000 group of standards is concerned with companies’ environmental management processes. The first environmental management standard in the world, BS 7750, was produced by the British Standards Institute and was issued in 1992, the same year as the Rio Earth Summit. This standard provided a template for the ISO 14000 series. ISO 14001 was first published in 1996; a revised edition was issued in 2004. The standard is now being used in more than 159 countries and, according to ISO’s latest figures, more than 223,000 companies and organisations have been certified. Environmental standards are intended to help companies minimise the impact of their business activities upon the environment by improving performance over time.

Adoption of ISO 14001 is voluntary, but in many countries government agencies favour companies that are accredited when conducting procurement processes. The standard is not prescriptive. It allows companies to set their own objectives and goals. It is primarily concerned with the process by which these objectives and goals are met and the methods for monitoring progress. ISO 14001 divides the environmental management process into four stages.

Preliminary to the creation of an environmental management system (EMS) is the adoption of an environmental policy. This establishes the company’s commitment to improving its environmental performance through the adoption of an environmental management system . Once such a policy has been adopted, the company should begin to plan its EMS strategy. To be able to do so, the company needs to identify the impact that its activities and products have on the environment at that moment in time. This provides a baseline against which progress can be measured. It should also identify any current or incoming legal requirements that the organisation needs to or will need to meet. Having understood its baseline position and the mandatory requirements that it faces, company should set goals and objectives for its EMS and develop programmes to enable them to be achieved.

Having put these plans in place, a company should begin to implement its programmes. This implementation process is likely to require employee education programmes to ensure that employees have the skills needed to enable them to change their work practices in order to allow the company to grow. The third stage of the process is to monitor the progress of programmes towards the goals and objectives that have been set in place. The final stage is to revise the plan that has been created by taking into account the progress that has been achieved and the changes to the company’s business and regulatory environment that have had to been made. By following these steps, companies can work to ensure that their business model becomes more sustainable over time.

For more information on ISO 14001, please see the ISO website (www.iso.org).

Reducing Energy Usage of New Developments
Reducing Water Usage of New Developments
Encouraging Biodiversity on New Developments
Reducing Construction Waste
Becoming a Sustainable Business
You Are Here ISO 14001 Accreditation