Analytics Data

Posted on December 24, 2011 by Luke Wakeford

So when I launched RSVP I embeded some google analytics code to track the usage over the test period. one of google analytics new features id a good flow diagram that shows how users arrived at the site, navigated to other pages and also dropped off. below is a screenshot of the diagram, it is interesting to reflect on pages that users dropped off at and re-think how these pages could be positioned differently within the site to prevent early dropoffs.

as you can see a very large number of people dropped off after landing on the homepage. This will be down to the site being under test, and after asking people to have a look at the site they may have just rounded the home page and then backed up. obviously as the site is under test and the SEO rankings will not be very high at this stage this data is not overly useful. however it is a useful tool to consider when maintaining a website.

Social Media marketing

Posted on December 23, 2011 by Luke Wakeford

Social Media Marketing is the process of providing new social avenues for customers to communicate with your company. some social media marketing tools include the following.

Social Media Monitoring
Social Aggregation
Social Book Marking and Tagging
Social Analytics and Reporting
Blog Marketing

I think that this description of social marketing includes more of the social applications compared to the concepts behind marketing in social environments. it is useful to look at both and investigate how to use social applications to infiltrate social environments.

Secrets of Marketing in a Web 2.0 World
you can find a great article about the world of internet marketing in a time of mass social networking and e-commerce at the link below.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122884677205091919.html

The article discusses how companies approach using web 2.0 functionality to engage with users during the development and after the development of their products.

Speed of communication
Community Spirit and Rewards/Insentives
Honest opinions positives and negatives
Cheaper than the cost of focus groups and face time

Print Style Sheets

Posted on December 10, 2011 by Luke Wakeford

Recently my work has included re-writing stylesheets for pages that display a list of data, there are some obvious plus sides to using these stylesheets, they enable very easy printing of information, and they remove the need for some PDF printing scripts. It makes the process very fast as it is just re-styling the information to fit and print nicely.

I found some great information on using print stylesheets on webdesignerdepot.com not used the site before but after a quick google they came up trumps. to see their post on print stylesheets go here > http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2010/01/10-tips-for-better-print-style-sheets/

The next step to integrate this into a button on a website will be to find out how to trigger a browsers print function, similar to the keyboard shortcut CTRL + P / CMD + P / File > Print.

Print a PDF with PHP

Posted on December 2, 2011 by Luke Wakeford

An essential part of my product was to try and bridge the Digital Analogue dived when it comes to sending invites to friends, we love the physicalness of receiving a card through the post but we are also lazy and would much prefer to RSVP to an event online in a coupe of clicks.

I started looking at how to generate PDFs on the fly using PHP, I came across a couple of solutions which were the following.

PDFlib – www.pdflib.com

A solid pdf building platform that runs on your php installation, this solution is rather bulky to install and for the purposes of my development was going to take to long to learn how to use.

FPDF – www.fpdf.com

A smaller PHP class solution that i managed to pick up and use out of the box, I just included the .php file in my includes and got to work integrating my guest variables.

These few lines of code were essentially all it took to spit out my tokens in to a very simple pdf structure that can be printed and or saved to your computer.

The while loop, says that whilst there are results in the array (which i previously pulled from the database) to spit out a MultiCell item with the RSVP link and the relevant $token and $name variable.

A pretty simple install and a few hours of work, but with a huge effect on how users can use the product.

Logo Sheet

Posted on December 1, 2011 by Luke Wakeford

The basics behind the idea of the RSVP Circle logo are that it needs to have the words RSVP CIRCLE and or Derivative ‘RSVP’ and combine the image of the circle in some form to represent the circles feature that the product sells.

This is the original logo that I have used for development and produced at the start of my project, however I do not have enough background or reasoning for choosing this logo. Apart from the basics of having a circle and the correct text within, this logo may not be generating the correct attention and or create a lasting representation of the product.

To overcome this issue, I have had a look at different design styles and logos used by other companies, in order to discover how they are using text, icons and shapes to produce effective logos.

Case Study Logo Examples

mailchimp.com I have looked at this company’s site before, they have a great use of clean cut modern design, their logo is very effective in that it is simply text. they have a large chimp as its companion however. they’re use of colours is a great contrast, White text on bright vibrant, blues, oranges, reds and purples.

mailchimp logo

moo.com has been a company that I have aspired to for a while now, they have a brilliant service that prints a multitude of media. and the whole process is managed by their great looking site and team. they have fun automated emails and excellent social strategies, their logo is a combination of a droplet (which possibly references ink) with ‘moo’ inside and then their tag line / slogan next to it. There is an interesting use of gradients around the edge of the logo, this might be something that I look t when developing my circle logo further.

moo logo

facebook.com Thought I might as well look at the one and only social networking site that is driving the social web today. their logo is simply text, they pop this little string in many applications but the simplest of all being in their menu bar, takes up no space at all but holds down their brand identity.

facebook logo

One thing I am noticing whilst looking at these websites is that they do favour content space over their logos, I think RSVP may need to learn a lesson from this as currently one of the sites has a very overbearing logo that is always on the page.

RSVP logo Sheet

Logo Sheet

Explained

Fonts. I have used the original font “Arial” and another font found on googles font API called “Raleway”. The two are very different in that “Arial” is much bolder and has more solid edges and structures. “Raleway” although does have a solid structure is more like a wireframe, it has a much thinner weight and feels more airy and light. I have produced a combination of Upper and Lower case ideas.

Design. I have played with the design elements of the shapes and icons, moving the circles around so they do not contain the hole text, but also moving the text around to cut off the edges of the circles. some of these make much better use of the space they are provided with, where others almost create their own, and of course that are some ideas that are very minimalist, that pull they users eye to the center of the logo where the text is.

Questionnaire Questions

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Luke Wakeford

In order to collet data for my investigate study I am going to conduct testing and questionnaires using the two versions of the RSVP product. The following is a draft list of the questions that I am going to be asking.

What age category do you fall under? (please circle)
16-18 – 19-29 – 30-39 – 40-49 – 50+
What level of computer knowledge would you say you have? (please circle)
basic – intermediate – advanced – professional
Roughly how many times do you access the internet every day?

Assuming that you were looking for a web based solution to manage an events RSVPS, based on your first reaction of each sites design, look and feel, Please answer the following questions. (please tick one)
Which site did you find the most user friendly.
Which site did you find the most social.
Which site did you find the most aesthetically pleasing.
Which site would you feel happy using to manage your event. (taking in to account that friends and family would need to use the site in order to RSVP to your event)
Which site would you prefer to use personally.

Reasons behind the questions.
- I will need to find out the age of the test users so that I can put the results in to categories, and then for the final product determine the target audience.
- I want to know the level of computer knowledge people think they have in order to determine how they are thinking when they view the website, some people will know exactly how to navigate a site like this, but others will find it more difficult, this will help when adding instructions/tutorials to the actual site and interface.
- knowing how many times the user will access the internet per day gives me again a rough idea of how serious a internet/computer user they are, but is also useful as a statistic within my investigative study.
- The rest of the questions are based around the users reaction to the website and they are only given the two options (site 1 and site 2). These questions will be useful again when writing up a report for this project and when building the final product, however they do help me determine (based on age group) who the target audience is and if the site is appealing. One of the last questions involves asking wether the user thinks the site is friendly enough for their friends and family to use, this could be a killer answer, but is very useful to know if the site is up to its job, that people will know how to RSVP.
- I will probbaly end the questionaire with a comments box, so users can have theyr say, if they have any comments on the design or

Luke Wakeford

BA Digital Media Production – AUCB

Category Archives: Specialist Project

Analytics Data

Social Media marketing

Print Style Sheets

Print a PDF with PHP

Logo Sheet

Questionnaire Questions