Ante Meridiem Design Blog

There is never one clear reason why design by committee fails. Usually it is a combination of factors that plague the project from the start. If you haven’t read Matthew Inman’s How a Web Design Goes Straight to Hell, it is the one of the most entertaining portrayals of design-by-committee-gone-wrong to date, along with Stop Sign Designed by Committee. Gary Hartley at The Floating Frog describes a typical design by committee outcome:

• Susan loves it
• Clive hates it
• Malcolm gives his thoughts 2 weeks later that contradicts his original changes
• Mike wants it how it originally was
• Clive’s wife adds her two cents
• Two members of the committee fail to give feedback

Sound familiar? Most committees end up in this kind of circular, unproductive feedback loop because the group operates on many or all of these principles:

• Lack of a clearly stated objective
• Suggestions based on individual opinions
• Absence of a strong leader
• Disorganized feedback process
• Personal or political agendas

Despite the obvious pitfalls of design by committee, there are effective strategies for navigating the process that can produce positive outcomes. When done right, the product of a well-run design committee will satisfy all parties involved and produce a better design than if just one person were in control.

via
sixrevisions.com

The list of websites that are ditching Flash in favor of Web standards is growing every day. Even if these decisions are driven by the iPad and iPhone’s lack of Flash, they’ll soon reap the other benefits that Web standards bring.

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We have just launched celestemichelle.com, a site featuring jewelry from a New York City based studio. A clean, simple layout highlights the bold designs that draw inspiration from world travels.

Marketing Is More Important Than You Think

It’s about how your business connects in a world where everybody is connected. It’s also about how your messages are created and spread. We no longer have the luxury of communicating to consumers as we see fit (mostly through the muscle of mass media), because now there are many online channels where thousands (actually millions… actually billions) of people are connected (and chatting) about your business or the industry you serve.
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Hold Off On Twitter - Fix Your Website First

All of the attention you think you should be spending on online marketing in the many digital channels and platforms will bring your company zero return if you don’t have a website that is not only nice and easy-to-use, but findable through all of the search engines (yes, that includes Google, Microsoft and Yahoo!)
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The Canadian team showed volunteers glimpses of websites, lasting for only 50 milliseconds. The volunteers then had to rate the websites in terms of their aesthetic appeal.

Researchers found that the brain makes decisions in just a 20th of a second of viewing a web page. The judgments were being formed almost as quickly as the eye can take in information.

The researchers also believe that these quickly formed first impressions last because of what is known to psychologists as the “halo effect”.

If people believe a website looks good, then this positive quality will spread to other areas, such as the website’s content.

Dr Lindgaard of Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, and lead researcher of the paper concluded that: “Unless the first impression is favourable, visitors will be out of your site before they even know that you might be offering more than your competitors.”

via bbc news