Simple User Experience

A website is a business tool, a means to achieving ends including lead generation, new product launches, and providing support to end users. Therefore the primary goal is not a “pretty” site, but a “useful” site. Design elements like colors, textures, and fonts should support the business goals, not detract from them. Navigation should mimic how your target audience interacts with your products or service, and should funnel them towards taking the action you desire (purchasing a product, filling out a request for proposal, etc).

Let’s compare and contrast the user experience of two electronics manufacturers: Hitron and Himax.

“The Do’s of Simple UI”

The “Dont’s” of UI

Blue Riot Labs are a gaggle of WordPress Web Designers who build creative WordPress Web Development solutions for Ecommerce, Local Marketing, and Mobile.

Not Ready
Your customers may not be ready to commit. What do you do about it? You can try to entice them with a better deal. Auto popup windows that offer a discount on their purchase or free shipping seem to work well. Entice the customer to buy and he probably will.

High Shipping Prices
Your customers may be ready to make their purchases, but the cost of shipping may stop them from committing. If after checking your site’s analytics you feel that high shipping prices are costing you sales, consider other options to help save your customers money.

Comparison Shopping
If your customers are bouncing because they want to see if a competitor is cheaper, beat them to the punch. It’s easy to put a comparison chart on your site showing that your website offers the best deals. Of course, your website will have to actually offer the best deals for this to be effective.

Saving for Later
If your customers are abandoning their carts early, they may be biding their time. They may not be ready to commit later, but they may want to save those items in their cart for when they are ready to buy. This is where follow up becomes very important. Nurture your customers and make it easy to remain in the backs of their minds. When they are ready to buy, let them know that their items will be waiting in their carts when they’re ready to return.

Too Much Information
Some customers abandon their shopping cart because the sales process asks for too much information. Customers these days don’t like it when they feel as though they’re being data mined. Ask for only the basic information you need to complete the transaction and that’s it. You may also want to study competitors’ check-out forms to see what types of questions they’re asking.

Confusing Checkout
Don’t make your customers jump through hoops to buy your products. Your customers should be able to make a purchase with minimal clicks through your site. And make use of breadcrumbs so that your customers can always go back one or more steps in the online shopping process.

The above shopping cart abandonment problems can be avoided by simply focusing on the needs of your customers. Make it easy for your customers to buy from you and try to pass on savings whenever possible. This will decrease shopping cart abandonment issues and increase conversions, guaranteed.

Frequency
Out of all smartphone users surveyed in the ClickFox survey, almost half reported using an app on their smartphone or mobile device more than 10 times per day, more frequently than they spend grooming or eating. This essentially means that, by having a mobile app, you have more chances to engage your audience throughout the day. To put a number on it, apps account for over 600 minutes of face time with smartphone users.

Buying Decisions
According to the survey, 73% of all those surveyed have used a mobile app to make a purchase or to assist with a buying decision. With many businesses now using mobile apps to make their products easier to search for and buy, this one’s a no brainer. With mobile apps, you can make the transition to the mobile web and increase conversion rates in one fell swoop.

Customer Service
The ClickFox survey revealed an interesting trend. 78% of those surveyed preferred mobile apps for customer service purposes and 72% would replace some traditional channels with mobile apps for customer service purposes if given the option. 21% of those surveyed would replace all channels completely with mobile apps. Customer service is one of the key elements when it comes to keeping your customers happy. Let your mobile app do most of the work for you and let your customers’ voices be heard.

If your business has yet to enter the world of mobile apps, don’t worry. There is still time. But the time to get in on this innovative technology is now.

Do you need an idea for a mobile app? Or maybe you have an idea and need someone to help put that idea into motion. Let Blue Riot Labs create the perfect mobile app for your business. Increase conversion rates, customer service and be everywhere your customers are, possibly more than 10 times per day!

Do you have an idea for a mobile app that you’d like to share or do you have examples of cool business apps that have really showed off what this technology can do? Let us know. And if you already use mobile apps for your business, we’d love to hear your stories also.

• Designed a site that tied together products, applications and resources for an intuitive and informative user experience
• Google Adwords Pay-Per-Click: Cost Per Click down 23% while simultaneously raising Click Through Rate 1900% (nope, not a typo)
• Content management system that allows them to efficiently maintain their sizable product catalog and resources database
• 31 keywords in the top 30 of Google and rising
• Creating custom post types specific for their needs, along with “post-to-post” capabilities

Simple Navigation: Your mobile website design should only have a few navigation buttons and they should be easy to click even with a small screen. With touch screen phones, it is really annoying when you have to zoom in because your big finger hits two navigation buttons at once. Keep this in mind and make sure they are spaced far enough apart to avoid frustrating users. Also, if your mobile site is making use of drop down menus, drop them. They don’t work so well on smartphones.

Limit Your Images and Graphics: If your site is loaded with images, it can take a long time for your page to load, especially on a smartphone. Just keep to one or two images to keep things simple and fast.

Say No To Flash: Adobe just killed flash for the mobile device, finally. Don’t do it. Flash on the average mobile phone just leaves a big empty space on the screen.

Prominent Contact Information: Your business’s phone number and/or contact information should be at the very top or very bottom of your mobile site and easy to read.

Keep It Simple: When it comes to copy, videos, images, everything, just keep it simple. Give users what they came for and nothing more. They will appreciate the simplicity.

With these five tips, your customers will easily find you no matter where they are. They will be able to find your location and they will be able to navigate from the home page to the very depths of your mobile site quickly and easily with any sized device.

Does Your Website Have a Mobile Version?

If your website doesn’t have a mobile version, you may be missing out on a prime opportunity to capture more business. How many times have customers tried to access your website from their smartphones only to give up after the navigation doesn’t work so well? And how many of those customers have switched to your competitors because they did in fact have a mobile site? Your customers may be searching for you right now on their Androids, iPhones and iPads. Can they find you? Ask our Denver mobile web design team if a mobile website is the perfect fit for your business.
Does your company use a mobile website? We would love to hear some of your successes or anything else you’d like to add. Let us know in the comments section below.

Colors and Behavior
The following information comes from countless studies on the subject. And web designers everywhere are beginning to learn that certain colors can cause visitors and customers to act and feel in certain ways.

The most popular colors for impacting human behavior include:

Orange: The color that shares the name with the citrus fruit is associated with energetic warmth and ambition. Because orange is such a vibrant color, it is often thought to denote new beginnings, creativity and enthusiasm. (Hint: Pair orange with cooler blue colors to really catch the eye.)

Red: Considered the most emotionally intense of colors, red is often associated with boldness, love and life. Red can also be a sign of warning.

Green: Green is the color of nature and organic materials and it is considered the easiest color on the eyes. Green is often associated with safety, growth, harmony, stress-relief, wealth, luck and optimism.

Blue: One of the most commonly used colors, blue is the color of the sky and is often associated with honor, trust, tranquility and productivity. Blue is also thought to suppress the appetite.

Pink: The color of femininity, love and romance is also thought to produce a calming effect.

Purple: Throughout history, purple has been connected to royalty, power and wealth, but the color can also be associated with spirituality. But be careful. Some people think that purple appears artificial, due to its rarity in nature.

Brown: Considered conventional and sophisticated, brown is the color of dependability and confidence.

Black: The color of power and authority, black is also considered a color of sophistication and elegance. The color is mysterious and can be associated with evil, taboo and gloom.

Grey: Considered more of a conservative color, grey is the color of tradition and seriousness. Shades of the color can also act as a base for bolder colors, such as red and orange.

White: The color of purity, cleanliness and sterility, white is also considered the color of youth. White is perfect for spaces in design, as it is meant to project the absence of color.

While there may be opponents to the research, there is no doubt that marketing and advertising companies have been using strategic colors for many years. So which colors should you use in your web design? Who are my customers? How do you want them to act or feel? Do you want them to trust you and buy from you? Use the right colors in all the right places on the page and you’ll have a much better response from your audience.

7. Everyone Loves a Catchy Headline

Sometimes you can really nail that first impression with something simple and memorable. The site above uses the phrase “contagiously creative.” It’s an alliteration so it rolls off the tongue nicely, it speaks to what the company does and even hints at the idea of viral-style marketing that catches on and spreads quickly. That’s a lot to say in two words…

9. It’s Not All About You

One pitfall that’s really easy to fall into, especially when creating a personal freelance website, is talking all about yourself. This is who I am, here’s what I’m good at, me me me, I I I.

A solid way to grab someone’s attention is to start talking about them. Use language that’s personal and helps communicate the idea that you’ll take the time to create a customized solution that’s perfectly tailored for their needs…

Read this excellent article in its entirety, with 8 other great examples of copywriting.

What Is Magento Go?
Put simply, Magento Go is the easiest and fastest way to create your very own online store. There are no servers to worry about, no software and Magento Go will handle everything for you. And with Blue Riot Labs coordinating everything behind the scenes, you’ll have the best looking, best performing and best selling online store out of all of your competitors. But how does it work?

Magento Go’s API
Blue Riot Labs will create Add-Ons for your Magento Go marketplace. Using Magento Go’s Application Programming Interface (API), Blue Riot Labs will have your online store stocked and ready to go in record time. Our designers, coders and SEO specialists will work with you to determine the best look and feel for the store you have in mind, and you’ll then have full-access from that point on using Magento Go’s user-friendly control panel.

Why Is the Hosted Plan So Great?
Why did Blue Riot Labs partner with Magento Go? Mainly, it’s because we wanted to provide an easy way for our clients to see their products without any coding or technical knowledge required. Magento Go is also safe and secure. The platform is hosted on a premium infrastructure in top-tier US datacenters and uses free shared SSL certification. This provides a risk-free shopping experience for every one of your prospects and customers.

PCI Compliant
Magento Go is PCI compliant. The service supports a large number of credit card processing providers, as well as payment processors, such as PayPal, Authorize.net, OGone and more.

How Much Does Magento Go Cost?
Magento Go is completely affordable! There are several low-cost hosted plans to choose from and you may even qualify for the $1 Million stimulus program, where you will receive credit to your account each month for a specified period of time. And all you have to pay is a low premium each month. There are no processing fees or other hidden costs, which means that you get to keep more of the money you make.

The bottom line is that Magento Go is budget-friendly, safe and secure and it’s incredibly easy to get your online store up and running. And with Blue Riot Labs behind it all, you know that your store will always turn heads and a hefty profit.

We are very excited about this partnership and we look forward to all the great things to come. If you have products to sell and you’re confused about how to get started, Magento Go and Blue Riot Labs are here to help. With our expert design, coding and search engine optimization combined with Magento Go’s security, customization and ease-of-use, it won’t be long before your products are flying off of virtual shelves.

What do you do when a collection of crazy-brilliant economic futurists need a website? Well, you add:

• 70ml of pure user interface
• 175ml of refined WordPress integration
• 45ml of videos, blog posts, and more

Then you pile the mixture into the BRL beaker, spin it at the speed of light, and you get: an uber-smart, geeky-cool site of smart people we are still trying to understand. It will come (we hope).

Check the site out, the latest web design and development creation from the BRL WordPress lab.

The Foreign Policy Association is one of the world’s most lauded policy organizations. Formed in 1918 to support Woodrow Wilson’s effort to achieve a just peace, its “fans” include names like Reagan, Bush, Clinton,  and Kennedy.

The only problem: as far as the website went, FPA “looked their age.”

Checkout the polished, refined website we gave them.

The Foreign Policy Association…yes, we are name dropping.