Monthly Archives: May 2009

Web Designs in Twitter Times

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And in fact, we ourselves would recommend at least signing up for a Twitter account. It’s a great way to keep in touch with your customers, a small segment of the marketplace who is genuinely interested in what you have to say. I follow a ton of local businesses, from grocery stores to restaurants to other design studios, and I feel much more connected to them. I also know when they’re going to be closed for the day, when they’re having specials, or when they just have inspiration to share with the rest of the world.

There is still a place, however, for the humble web designer. If you are a restaurant, for example, you might enjoy the “ambient intimacy” of Twitter, or like passing along photos of your customers on Flickr, but what if you want to convey just a bit of the atmosphere of your business, or keep an updated copy of your menu for folks to read, or share your thoughts with a bit more depth, uninterrupted by blinking ads on the sides of the page?

Why, that’s where Needmore comes in.

For years we’ve built every website with some sort of content management system, to allow all of our customers to easily update their websites. But that is no longer enough for many of our projects. The future of web design is becoming more and more social, which means that your website will need to be “social” as well. It will need to play well with Twitter, and Flickr, and lots of other such websites.

And that’s where we’ll be. That’s where a lot of great designers will be, embracing all those technologies as they come along!

Twittering for the Office

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So we decided to set up a website for the building’s tenants to discuss things, make plans, share projects, offer work or things for sale… whatever seemed relevant. The logical choice was to set up forum software and make it look somewhat attractive, which we did. The problem is that there is a non-trivial number of steps actually required to get people to use a resource like that.

First, you have to hear about it. This wasn’t too hard, since the domain name was simple enough, but many people just didn’t notice. Then you have to get an account, a process that takes longer than it should, and requires checking your email, clicking a link, remembering a password, and all the other mental overhead that goes along with registering for a website.

All this is very discouraging for people who might be tempted to participate. And it starts with a “blank slate,” so it’s kind of like you’re talking to yourself. And you have to set up “topics” and “sections” and all that, forcing people to think about what “topic” or “section” their message might be relevant to.

Long story short: after well over one year, we had not much more than a dozen users. It was pretty much a dead zone. I stopped telling people about it; I even stopped checking it myself. I started feeling like I was just waiting around for spammers to stumble across it and give me an excuse to delete it. Pretty depressing.

About a week ago, I decided it was time to scrap that site and start from scratch. Instead of complex and feature-rich and robust… what is the simplest possible thing that would work?

The answer: Twitter. Last week I hung two signs at either end of the building suggesting that tenants post a message on Twitter containing the #omcc “hash tag.” In order to see all messages with that tag, all one has do do is search Twitter. In fact, I made the old website simply redirect to Twitter’s search results page.

Did it work? In one week’s time, we’ve had about fifty people post just such a message, and some lively discussions and ideas have already come about. We’re hosting a party in our office this afternoon, and we’re spreading the word by Twitter alone. When someone has something to sell or give away, they send a tweet. When they need help or just want to chat about the building, they send a tweet.

It’s not perfect, but its strength is definitely its simplicity. A lot of folks were already on Twitter, so this was second nature to them. A few joined just to chat in a group. It’s so fast and simple I find myself checking the group messages before coming in to work, and after leaving for the day.

You never know when that awesome parking space will open up.

Work it Out

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We set about designing a website that would portray the vibrance and energy of the folks we met at Recreate Fitness. We could do this best by making way for vibrant photographs of members working out at the gym. The photographs of members enjoying their workouts are like no other gym we’ve visited; they almost make us want to start working out again.

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Next, we tackled the abiltiy to easily update the site. We focused on updataeble informational pages as well as the portions of the site that would be changing often, such as the blog and member forums. Looking through their daily workout posts on the blog, one can almost smell the sweat and determination of Recreate’s members. This bunch cares about their workouts. The folks at Recreate wanted to take the community a leap forward and so the member forums were born.

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We do hope you enjoy.

May Showers, May Flowers

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A quick hello and thanks to everyone who wrote us over the past month with kind thoughts about Zoë! We’re back in the studio now and eager to share our newest projects, a handful of which are launching in the next month or so.