A new Gartner study called “Consumers' Value Perception of the Internet” surveyed 4,779 internet users in 18 countries and presents some significant, actionable, insights… Amongst other findings, it pretty much says that almost all people, across every demographic are using the internet to do the same the things:
 
1. Email
2. Search
3. Online Banking (somewhat surprising)
4. Sharing photos, videos, and files
5. Using geographic navigation services
6. Shopping
 
This behavior holds true for everyone except the 13 – 18 year-olds.  Their online activities are somewhat different…

Email is still #1 but music downloading is #2 (more bad news for the record industry, of course) and IM’ing, social networking, TV watching, blogs, chat rooms, dating, and message boards all follow closely behind.   For these young, early adopters, their internet activities (via computers or mobile devices) are a wholly acceptable companion/substitute/complement to their real-life activities.

Bearing that info in mind, it’s reasonable to presume that the overall evolution in digital applications will be moving in this direction in the years to come, as this demo matures.

Elroy Jopling, research director at Gartner and author of the study explains that “a new 'trickle down' phenomenon, where teenagers lead the evolution of consumer Internet applications, heralds a new era where Internet applications will mimic life -- communicating, entertaining, socializing, informing, transactional, either in a fixed location or on the move." 

You can purchase the whole Gartner report here: http://www.gartner.com/ or read more about it here: http://news.moneycentral.msn.com

- Jon Fox

Ever feel like you are making the right call but the client won’t buy it? Leverage what they have already told you about the target audience.  At Flightpath we do a thorough discovery process for all major engagements. One of the key components of this discovery centers on who the users of the website will be.

So when it comes to how to phrase a question in a registration path, what colors to use in a design, or even where to put a step in the registration process, why go in circles debating it with your partners on the client side from the corporate tower. If you know who the people are, why not just ask them what they think?

We recently used our knowledge of a target audience to poll friends, family, peers and acquaintances who met the target criteria for feedback on mood boards and a preliminary design that will inform the formal design phase.  If you set up a simple enough survey most people will take 5-10 minutes to do it. My guess is it’s a nice change of pace for the average working folk.

To do this, we leveraged a free service at Wufoo.com to post artifacts and ask some open ended questions in a basic survey. There are other free services we have used in the past like surveymonkey.com.  Then we sent out an email to our colleagues to explain the demographic we were looking for and basically said, “Please send this survey link along to people you know who fit into this very specific demographic.”  In just 2 days we had about 45 responses at no extra cost. The whole process of creating the survey  and sending out the email took less than an hour.

We will analyze that survey which includes both qualitative and quantitative data and discuss the results with the client during the design phase.

Many companies choose not to spend money on usability testing. Oftentimes, the costs of formal usability testing at a facility with two way mirrors and recording equipment can be prohibitive. There are times when this very formal usability testing is absolutely necessary. At Flightpath, we have discovered that there is an alternative to spending big bucks on usability to settle key design issues. 

We all know that user-centered design that relies solely on the client's approval (or subjective opinion of what the users really want) will be less successful than a site that actively considered user feedback during design.

So what if the client is willing to pay for design but not usability testing to validate that design with the user? If you have a good user experience designer or information architect, testing can be done with wireframes via a webex session and a conference bridge with a user that meets the demographic profile of the website's target audience.  Our design team has learned valuable information about design, instructional copy, flow, and other unexpected details that only users can point out.

This kind of testing can be done for a fraction of the cost of going to an outside facility. Candidates for the test pool can be recommended by clients. Clients typically know people who meet their demographic footprint who are more than happy to participate in exchange for in-kind product, a simple gift card or even the satisfaction of knowing they've participated in a re-design for a favorite brand.

It is very possible to embed this kind of usability into the design costs of a typical project. This way, “Usability Testing” as a line item doesn’t have to be stricken for budgetary reasons. This protects the client from themselves by allowing the user to clarify what they expect; it can really take the guess work out of a website design without breaking the bank.

We're pleased to report that Flightpath has been engaged by Building with Books to design, build, and deploy a new web presence for them.  BwB is a dynamic not-for-profit organization that engages American youth through in-class and after-school programs in 108 high schools around the U.S. Students also volunteer in their local communities and help build schools in developing countries. BwB has built more than 240 schools in villages worldwide, providing more than 104,000 children and parents with access to education.  

BwB is an amazing organization that is doing exceptional work and we feel privileged to be able to work with them.  Watch this space for details on their new site.  Meanwhile, you can learn more about BwB at their current site at www.buildingwithbooks.org.

- Jon Fox

Back in the day, our general modus operandi was to listen to a client or prospect's wishes and try and deliver a product that met their goals and expectations.  All well and good, but apart from delivering a good-looking, usable web site, we weren't necessarily adding a lot of value.

Nowadays, we try and approach our client engagements asking questions about how we can really provide value and drive business for our customers.  We do our best to use our seasoned,  strategic knowledge of best practices for web design and development to make client sites as successful as possible.  Hopefully, this site, will meet those same kinds of goals for us. 

They may sound like no-brainers in 2008, but this time around, we started with copy, site structure, meta data, and page titles that would be optimal for search.  We integrated Google Analytics for traffic metrics and routed our email sign-up form directly through to Exact Target (our email service provider) via their API.  We utilized open source software (like blogengine.net) to streamline our development process and deliver a best-of-breed feature set. We even shot some video on a shoestring to help get our points across.  Together, each of these steps should contribute to getting the Flightpath message out to the right people as effectively as possible.

I'd like to congratulate all the members of our staff that did such a great job contributing to this web site and welcome anyone who's reading this to Flightpath's new blog.  I hope you'll check back with us regularly and see what we're up to and what we're talking about.

- Jon Fox