The other site is just a click away

Last Friday our creative team were having a project detail chaired by Raj, ourChief Idea Officer. During his details for our latest client he just made a comment and asked us to narrate it in our own words as to what we understood out of it. There were as many narrations of his statement as there were people attending this meeting and I thought it is better not to let it go unrecorded :)
While telling our design teamhe just paused and said "the other site is just a click away" (though this is a very known statement).
People spoke on the following points:
1)Attractiveness: If your site is not attractive enough to keep the visitor for more than 5 seconds then you have a competitor for sure who is doing better than you are !
2)Layout: If the layout is not "user friendly" and is a pain in the neck and to the eyes trying to make out what is where and how and why it is so then no one would even stay back for more than an eye wink on your site !
3)Color: An extension to the layout is the color theme you follow,don't go by your favorite inspiration and just end up copying it...just take the "basics" which make that site your favorite :)
4)Content: Yes, important and relevant,catchy,informative,concise. (do I need to say more on this, I know I don't have to, you got it already !)
5)Theory: Theory? are we having an exam out here?? Well, the question is the answer...Yes, we are having a test of our site every time we have a visitor.Combine all aspects and bind the site matter around the concept of the site.This thing surely goes way beyond the point 4 above.No book,film,advertisement,article,tv show is ever complete without a theory from it's inception to the last thing. The coding has to be on these lines and not the other way round [though I am not touching the programming part for now]
To sum up [this is boringly detailed though :D] you have to have a combination of all things.If your site is very attractive but falls out on the relevance aspect of the nature of your site or, for example, you just started selling your stock online but your product listing is faulty on the site then just imagine the impact on the customer experience out here...in real terms this means just the same old line...

"The other site is just a click away!!!"

What makes your Designs stand out !

Have you ever thought what makes our buildings so strong?
Well my asking this question doesn't imply that I am an architect of buildings but surely I am an architect of websites and find little differences in my job and an architect's job.
A colleague of mine yesterday asked me what I thought makes a good design. I pondered for a while (frankly the basic factors are many and I know a lot of my readers agree to it) and then told her about four basic factors..(a)Layout (b)typography (c) relevant designs & (d) color (yes the simplest always comes at the last)
You might wonder why I marked out only four but sincerely these are the basic factors which I think make a design make or break a site theme/message/purpose.
Now,starting with the first one, Layout is as important as having your maps prepared before you start building your house. You should be clear where you want what features,effects,images etc. (just as you would for your study,living or dining room).Use of "healthy" enough white space makes the site appear lighter and this can be best done utilizing wireframes.
Also, Logo Design goes a long way in establishing your business.Having your company/business logo at the optimum places would assist in making your logo come alive in memories of the visitors coming to your site. If needed have your logo redesigned.
These make your job a bit detailed but this comes a lot handy when you start having the features on your site. Write down as much as you can on the specifics for your details and include these in the wireframes. I mentioned white spaces,why? because they make different sections in your site "different". The visitor should know with considerable ease where he is on the site. The blocks,tables,divisions have to be "clear" for this.
Under Typography would come your selection of fonts and their styles,color etc. If you want people to make it easy going through your site then there is no way your avoiding this essential feature. Here you also have the backgrounds too to work on. Contrasts have to be just correct or else they would make your readers appear like drunk people walking along a busy highway in the night,dazed due to the traffic headlights hitting their eyes...
Now, Relevant Designs come in. I usually come across some really marvelous blogs,sites with equally impressive designs (blogs of teenagers,professionals,artists etc.) I must say I am fanatically inspired by people like them who make their sites so wonderful to keep on gazing at and admire. I love such people. Designs here includes not only placement of images but also of customized fonts with nice colors and some personalized effects like an animation of a pet of the writer (of a blog which I had visited last week) I was so much impressed with this guy's imagination.
Last (and the first too!) is the Color. NO need to have as much or as less of colors out there. Trust me,leave the job to your designer after asking them to produce their "best" color themes. Have sample themes from two and above and I bet you would certainly have an "original" for your site. Yes I stressed on original as this aspect is loosing to the copies going around these days.
I know there are many aspects interlinked and dependent on each other within the above four ones but in my opinion these are merely the startups on which the entire structures of wonderful sites exist.

The most difficult client

All of us work and work on designs day in and out for our clients & contacts for money and at times for friends (for free) :) but really we don't get a chance to come across a difficult client as ourselves when we decide to redesign our own websites.
You know that your site is your brandname and it goes a long way in declaring what you are on the web but this is not the only reason or end to the whole exercise of redesigning for yourself.
To start with,you face one single important question with an equally justified reason which made you start this redesigning task...the question being "from where" should you start doing the changes? You start recalling the time when you had all the buttons,designs,banners put there for "that" impact and reason and now are getting a bit jittery about what would be your redesigned site compared to the present one? You now tell yourself that it is time for change and you want a makeover at any cost as (you had the same site for the last two years,or someone compared your site to a rival's and pointed out some remarkable plus points in your rival's site etc.)
There might be instances of memory recall when you decide NOT to let the font styles and color conflict within the different sections of the site like they had in your current site. You might decide on changing the images section with videos features,inserting networking buttons,features and what not.
You might even think on having a Forum for yourself (though you might know that you would find it very difficult to maintain it). But you still decide on having one because "your rival has it!!"
Asking your friends would amaze you with the imaginative and simple solutions you would get and hints which surely could put your new site ahead of your competitor's if you implemented those suggestions.
You might also like to keep this under wraps and not let anyone know what you are up to.
I know some of my friends getting multiple sites made up with variations as basic as different color themes & Images (in the same layout),three or four layout styles with as many color themes and one (secretly "inspired") sample site from their competitor's !
After all the exercise and deliberations you would come out with two or three "finalists" from which you would select the best one and then would give a second look at your previous site (before changing it for the new one) just as you do while changing your car.
Finally you would feel comfortably seated in your new Virtual Office with all the smell of fresh paint and woodwork which is equally virtual.
You now happy, loving your site just as you do for your latest car :)

Facebook Vs Google !!

Well, I am sure most of you might already be aware of Facebook going the Google way "somewhat".
For those who still don't,let me reintroduce the news to them that Facebook now has it's new Open Graph Search Engine which is talked about a lot in communities and circles that Facebook would gradually and constructively create it as a Google competitor. Let me tell you,people are really observing this and they say that this is one of the potentially "big" things that Facebook could (and for some reasons,only they can) attempt.
The way this would work would be somewhat like the Facebook Ads application where the advertisement is sent to people with the "Like" option. The change this time is that site URLs would be sent for "Like" (or dislike !) and the site which gets the maximum Likes would be the highest ranking in Facebook Open Graph searches.
Despite all the talk discussions and excitement I am a bit apprehensive.I mean how can (and how far can) one take their site to get "Likes" to get their sites up?. It is fine that people work on this but really what would this practice involve and constitute? Would it not contribute to Spamming of sorts?
Would this not be like voting for your favorite TV show icon just to keep them on the show irrespective of the fact that they might not really be "that" good compared to others out there? What about Creativity
Doesn't this sound like a "manipulation promotion action"?
True, I would surely (and I do) participate whenever I get a "Like" invite on Facebook but frankly I am doubtful regarding the veracity of the rankings Facebook would give to its listed sites.
What do you guys think?

Time to go social !!

All said and well read but factually most of us still lag way behind if we compare ourselves to our neighbors school-going kids who have an impressive friend circle ranging in thousands.
I recently came across such a kid who was surprised at my asking "how do you do this!". As a matter of fact this came naturally to him and he got on and along with his school friends and now had a group (rather a crowd) of around 1500 friends with whom he exchanged his social net life every day,seven days a week !!
I was impressed by the natural attitude of this guy innocently asking that "you need friends,don't you?".
I gave him an answer which was sieved and filtered through my knowledge,experience and what not to safeguard my smaller "internet friends circle status" but I knew where I had lacked way behind.
The real issue is that we need existence and people help us creating one for us.
Many professionals fall way behind in this and end up in their smaller worlds,cut out of fresh air of ideas,excitement & adventure.
It would be a waste of time for me to appreciate the advantages internet has given to all of us as I cannot in any way possibly enumerate all of these at one go.But sincerely this immense possibility is the strength internet has and makes the modern world the way it is today.
Let us combine our common interests and create friends,groups,communities with international color,languages and experiences for the simple fact that the world today is smaller than the smallest village you ever knew about and today the true meaning of "international" is "local".
Our international color would be true color and this is happening fast.