Yes it’s another rant about poor design in the media. Another one of the glaring eyesores on the design community is that of poor billboard design and their lack of creativity. I generally don’t like billboards anyways as they are more signs of consumerism in our society that pollute scenic views. If you go to Europe, you’ll find very few large signs. Most advertising there is just small signs above the businesses with no commercial billboards cluttering up the roadsides like here in the states. So if it’s blocking my view of the tree-line, you’d hope that it would at least be an attractive design. Not only are they usually hideous, they’re often unreadable especially at 75mph with a semi truck hauling rusty propane canisters in front of me.

Below are a few examples of some typical billboard ads. Notice the small text, poor font usage, no rhythm or reason to it’s layout. Much like web surfers who have notoriously short attention spans you need to grab a drivers attention the same way with clean precise text that gets your message across in seconds. Keep in mind that they’re talking on the cell phone, eating, putting on makeup or balancing their checkbook at the same time. You have to make that initial impression so memorable that your company names remains in their brain…even if they don’t remember the phone number you plastered on the layout or the web address just getting that brand recognition is critical so that they might look you up later. A common problem is that a designer will just simply blow up their yellowpage ad to 500% and feel that’s good enough. Well it might work in the yellow pages (that’s a whole other topic) but on a larger scale format it’s not the same way of viewing. The reader is certainly not up that close and if they were it’s probably because they hit it with the car trying to read it. “If you can read this then you’re too close”

Let’s have a look at some poor implementations…

Come to Lavender Court..where you too can push old people on swings. Yup that’s about sums it up. Can’t really read the amenities and is that text “Elegant Living” or “Elephant Lying?” Not a good font choice for readability when you’re going down the highway. How about saying 6 homes starting at $664,000 for a bold headline, if that’s their major selling point make that standout along with maybe 3 of the most critical amenities. Those logos along the bottom serve no purpose along with the tiny photos of the interior.

Never use tiny photos of the things you’re trying to sell on a billboard. Make those images stand out and make that text work with it. This is so dull you could swap it out for a funeral home and no one would know the difference. “All our coffins must go! We’re clearing out the old dead to make room for the new!” This is a British billboard by the way, but is everything there really this dull?

But font sizes don’t matter. It’s not just that that the small text is so unreadable, it’s that the whole design is so dull. Remember you can still get your information across and provide it in an attractive manner instead of beating your design with an ugly stick. Try some strong font combination and colors that make your brand apparent. That poor quality photo of their entrance-way probably serves the purpose of you recognizing it quickly but I sure don’t get any warm fuzzies about going there and the ad certainly won’t stand out visually. If I’m bleeding and driving I’d definitely miss this sign and probably just pass out near a Taco Bell.

Whose billboard is it anyways? These guys really are hilarious on TV but on this billboard it makes them look like suspects in an Amber Alert. Difficult to read text that’s kerned way out of control, poor font usage and the obligatory star burst. Yes it’s blue and yellow text on a red starburst (eyes still burning), that goes out to you color blind folk out there. By far the worse example I found.

Now finally here’s some great billboard designs. you’ll notice some consistent themes of large imagery that strengthens branding, clear text that’s concise but more importantly it’s eye catching, and often times clever in what it says or how it’s visually presented. Simple, creative, effective. That’s what billboard advertising should be.

I ran across this interesting blog post about a website that has businesses post a price they’re willing to pay for some design work then designers can try to land that project (or cash prize as I like to call it) with their submission of logo designs. Here’s the article if you want to have a quick read through.

Colorful metaphors aside, he makes some valid points even if he did get threatened with a lawsuit (please don’t sue me I’m here merely to observe.) It’s a dangerous scenario when a client posts a couple sentences description about a logo design for the whopping price of $200 and then expects designers to battle it out posting their blindly informed visual concepts for the customer to choose from. It is a dangerous trend and damaging to design community at large in my opinion. It also perpetuates stereotypes that designers are merely there to make something pretty and anyone can do that..a sort of Miss Universe beauty pageant where the contestants aren’t allowed to speak.

In our society of commodization the last stronghold tri-fecta is that of creativity, innovation, and strategy. You simply can’t outsource that or box it into a plastic package for sale in the checkout isle. Sites like the one he mentioned among others with similar business approaches only cheapen what we do into a 5th grade art contest trying to please the judge with the prize of a some cash in our pockets. There is no give and take between a client and the designer, no partnership in the creative process. Designing is a relationship between the client and creative architect where each educates the other resulting in a well thought out final design solution. The designer explains his reasoning for his visual approach to a business problem and client teaches the designer about their business. If we degenerate into a design community of lowest prices goes based on a few short sentences about our client then it’s game over. You might as well just select from some clipart as a customer since that’s the quality you’ll be getting. Think of it as an investment, spend the extra money and get something that is at that professional caliber your business deserves. You’ll be happier, your customers will be impressed and the designer will respect himself in the morning. There are lower cost design services out there that still offer quality work but making it a contest doesn’t do justice for anyone.

“Anyone can perform open heart surgery just give them the right tools”

“Usability Testing Castaway”

We’ve been working closely with MSU Usability Center to conduct testing on a high profile website client. This testing came after the fact we built the site but now I can see the benefit of testing through iterative phases. While not cheap to conduct an organization that truly wishes to make their site focused and effective should definitely consider running their site through this valuable process.

The testing entails a series of questions they ask typical users to run through in finding some information in the web site or to perform a specific task such as purchasing something. The subjects are monitored on video and they’re encouraged to verbally talk about their process as they decide where to go as well as offer up suggestions that would improve their experience. Meanwhile we as developers watch the testing in another room and can’t seem to yell loud enough through the wall “click on the link that says e-commerce!!” all the while they were just looking for a link that says “Buy this item here.” I think we as web developers and designers often forget that we’re not the typical average user. We often fall into traps of using jargon and terminologies in our sites that an avergage user wouldn’t understand. Many times this is the verbage coming from the organization but they too aren’t the typical user. They come from the perspective of how their business runs and already have their own biases in using internal terminologies that can further confuse a user. If you want to make a happy customer they need to achieve the goals of your site, enjoy the experience and come back. A effective useable website will provide them answers quickly and be presented in a logical layout that strengthens your branding but more importantly accomplishes helping your user find what they need. A happy customer means a happy website owner.

Often during the study we noticed a simple thing of how something is labeled would confound and confused users even if it made complete sense to us. Simply adjusting the verbage to something more simple and clear to the customer and not to expectations of the organization or developer increases click through rate immediately and drives them to the answer they were looking for to begin with. We should always be conscious of how the site is reading right down to how we verbalize the links or the sub headlines. User center design starts and ends with the users and the sooner we can have them involved the better the site will be.