Raised Eyebrow Blog

I recently redesigned a website for a personal friend and although it wasn’t done under the official umbrella of Raised Eyebrow, I found that the project offered some interesting challenges I’d like to reflect upon briefly.

The friend in question is David Eaves, who has more trouble answering the question, “What do you do?” than just about anyone I know. He’s a prolific writer, public speaker and consultant who works in three areas of interest: public policy, open source, and negotiation. I never imagined those three things could overlap in such interesting ways until I met David & heard him wax poetic on subjects like open-source community management (bringing negotiation skills to online communities) and Government 2.0.

So there you go: You already know what David’s biggest communication challenge on his website is. It’s demonstrating what he does in a way that makes intuitive sense to people reading his popular blog. The previous iteration of his site was a pretty typical personal blog, with a long sidebar filled with links to this & that, and hardly a self-promotional word to be seen. It was a great demonstration of his brilliant mind at work, but a poor sales tool. (It didn’t even have a Contact page. I’m serious.)

Now, David isn’t really a sales-y kind of guy (in case the lack of a Contact page wasn’t your first clue), and he didn’t want his blog to transform overnight into the website equivalent of a flashing “Buy! Buy! Buy!” sign. He simply wanted to pare down the visual clutter, and make it easier for people who might want to hire him to know how to do that.

I took a simple approach: I interviewed David about the kind of work he does & organized it into three categories: public speaking, writing & consulting. The first two merited their own pages, and the third got folded into the About page (since his consulting services are a bit more amorphous & his consulting clients generally come to him via word of mouth). And the rest of the menu bar was filled out with a page of media appearances (since David appears frequently on television & radio as a commentator on current events) and a “What I’m Reading” page that lists some of the writing that’s inspiring his free-flowing pen (or rather, keyboard). (We hooked up the latter with his LibraryThing and Delicious accounts so that they can be kept up to date automatically, saving him the hassle of updating the page by hand.)

The design process posed an interesting challenge: David really liked his old minimalist, low-key blog design and didn’t want too radical a change. He also didn’t want the site to look too “designed,” because he feels that part of his brand is a kind of approachable, do-it-yourself style that doesn’t jive with anything too flashy or trendy. So I had to really rein myself in and keep it quiet, monochromatic, and simple. (I love simple design, but I didn’t allow myself any indulgences on this one.)

The header is very similar to what he had before, but the menu bar was a new addition, making his “sales” pages more prominent. The sidebar got hugely simplified, to focus the visitor’s attention on what’s relevant & important rather than cluttering up the space with superfluous content.

But where I pushed David to be bold was in two areas:

1. The home page now features a single, complete post. This is rather unusual (though not unheard-of) for a blog, but it really allows the visitor to fully absorb one piece of content before moving on to the next. The previous post is highlighted in a box directly below the most recent post, to encourage further exploration of the site.
2. The pre-footer area is large & prominent, and directs traffic to recent posts, popular posts, the “sales” pages and to David’s various social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, etc. etc.).

These two design decisions go hand in hand. If the home page housed five or ten posts, the pre-footer area would be virtually invisible, so it wouldn’t merit special attention. But in this case, once a reader has absorbed the content on the page they are reminded of the various options they have to read further. A lot of websites ignore the footer area, but when your site attracts voracious readers (as David’s does), it pays to reward them by allowing them to navigate the site from the bottom of the page as well as the top.

A lot of bloggers wear multiple hats and have little time to build stand-alone websites for each of their endeavours, and I think David’s site is a good example of a middle ground: he shares information about how to hire him without presuming that’s the goal (or desire) of every visitor, while maintaining a familiar blog interface to those who simply want to read his latest post. If a highly promotional website is outside your comfort zone, this site may hold some lessons for you. In particular, I think I managed to convince David to:

• Stop withholding information about your services from people who want to hire you.
• Always, always, always have a Contact page.
• Consider that bringing in a designer can be helpful even if you don’t want anything “designed.”

A month from now, on Saturday, August 14, I’ll be attending Vancouver’s first NetSquared Camp, a day-long event for people who work at the intersection of social change and technology. The goal of the event is to build skills and capacity through peer learning, and invites the participation of “nonprofits, activists and social entrepreneurs [along] with their friends and allies in the world of technology and communications.”

NetSquared Camp is an unconference, and for those who aren’t familiar with that term, it’s an event where the agenda is entirely driven by the participants. So if you show up and speak up, there’s a very good chance that you’ll learn something that’s relevant to you. (You may also end up teaching others, since the participants also lead & facilitate the sessions.)

The list of suggested session topics is both wide-ranging and highly practical, and the organizers have set up a wiki where you can propose your own session ideas.

Perhaps best of all, the ticket price is by donation, with the suggested donation a very affordable $20. By the look of the RSVP list, interest is high, and as with all unconferences, the event’s success will depend entirely on who shows up — so please mark the date in your calendar and spread the word.

Here at Raised Eyebrow we’re very passionate about sharing what we know and building capacity within the nonprofit sector, so we’re very pleased to be a sponsor of NetSquared Camp Vancouver 2010. I’m looking forward to seeing how the agenda evolves.

What Video Games Are Teaching Me About Motivation and Behaviour

I have a terrifying confession to make: Until very recently, I didn’t play video games.

That may not be particularly appalling to many of you, but for someone in my industry, that’s pretty embarrassing. Game designers are an integral part of the interactive design community, and I’ve always felt an affinity with them, despite not really knowing their territory. In fact, one of my favourite blogs is written by Clint Hocking, a former creative director at Ubisoft (and high school friend of mine). But I have long been more than a little sheepish about publicly admitting to not having a clue about gaming, aside from what I’ve read on Clint’s blog.

That said, it’s always educational to be late on the uptake with a particular technology; as a web designer I feel like it can help me empathize with the people using my designs who might not spend even a fraction of the time I spend online. I’ve learned a few things from my experience that feel particularly relevant to the work we do with our clients.

First, I had valid reasons for not playing video games until now. I didn’t have access to a console; I didn’t feel like spending money on one until its value had been shown to me; I had seen a lot of games that didn’t appeal to my interests and sensibilities; and perhaps most fundamentally, I was so green that even working the controller was daunting to me — that is, the basics of navigation and control felt uncomfortable and clunky. All of these practical resistance points are also true for many website users; even now when those of us in the industry refer to ourselves as “veterans” and to the up-and-coming generation as “digital natives,” there are still huge swaths of people on the planet who simply don’t need to use the internet to get through their days — as my uncle Ken, a farmer & logger in Northern Ontario, reminds me regularly. For those people, the only thing that’s going to make them interested in the technology is for it to become relevant to their lives.

It wasn’t until I discovered a game that I truly fell in love with (more on that in a moment) that I became invested enough to want to work through my painful awkwardness with the controller and my hesitations about the financial investment. (I haven’t touched on the time investment required, which is significant — this was another fear I had about games, and one that proved well-founded as I have found myself losing all track of time while immersed in the gaming experience.) But once I found a game I connected with, the obstacles fell away and my desire to interact with the game overcame all resistance. Us web designers are fond of parroting the maxim that “Content is king,” but we haven’t always been good at practicing what we preach — this has been a good reminder to me that what’s inside really is what counts. And just as all websites aren’t created with equal amounts of attention to content, neither are all video games.

The game that stole my heart is Assassin’s Creed II, an action-adventure game set in Renaissance Italy. Your character is a young assassin from a noble family who is avenging a betrayal of his family — but it’s actually far more complicated than that. You’re actually a modern-day guy who’s been projected back into the body of this 15th-century assassin, and you’re trying to solve a mystery involving the Knights Templar that traverses centuries. In the process, you travel through the gorgeously-rendered streets of Florence, Venice, and points in between, running over rooftops, climbing church towers, dodging guards, exploring secret tombs, hiding in crowds, stealing treasure, and oh yes — hanging out with Leonardo da Vinci. There are puzzles to solve, swordfights, thieving missions, and even some economic development to manage in a small town where your uncle’s villa is located.

The premise itself appeals to me more than some other games, but the real genius of Assassin’s Creed II lies in its execution. Game designers clearly put an enormous amount of thought into human motivation, and there’s something in this game for just about anyone. The rewards that you earn over the course of the game are a mix of financial (good old-fashioned cash), status (your armour and weapons get progressively better — and pricier — as you progress), relational (you meet new characters & gain access to allies) and intellectual (solving puzzles). It’s been interesting to observe my responses to the various types of rewards and see how they correspond with my real-life predilections. I think the real hook for me has been the mystery-solving part, because it lends an over-arching mission and urgency to the game that I have only ever felt when reading a complex and layered page-turner of a novel.

I honestly never imagined that a video game could make me feel so immersed, and provide such a strong emotional connection. Now that I’ve had this experience I’m far more likely to explore the rest of the gaming world and see what else is out there. But it’s also got me thinking about the factors that shift behaviour and that motivate us — which makes me further resolved to focus my summer reading on those topics. I’ve picked up Switch and Made to Stick (both by Chip & Dan Heath) but I welcome other suggestions.

I spoke today at WordCamp Vancouver – a one-day conference for people who work with WordPress (including developers, designers and users). It was a great event, thanks to the hard work of the organizers. The presenters shared lots of very useful information on design and coding as well as about social media and web culture.

I chose to focus my 25-minute talk on what I think lies below the surface of the work we do as web designers and developers, and that’s a more consultative and strategic role that we can play if we choose to (and if our clients let us).

The session was recorded on video, and I’ll post that video when I get the link that video is posted below, but for now I thought I would at least share my slide deck – particularly for those in attendance who requested it.

Video from the event:

(Many thanks to Justin Carlson for recording & sharing the video.)

A few weeks ago, we moved out of the Flack Block and relocated a mere two blocks away to another beautiful heritage office building on West Pender: The Duncan Building. Much as we’ll miss our neighbours in the Flack Block, we’re excited about the bright & airy space (and the hardwood floors!) that our new office affords.

We’re still settling in, but I wanted to share a few photos to give you a flavour of our workplace. Please pardon the bare walls and the boxes in the corners…

We’re excited to announce a new opportunity at Raised Eyebrow. Our little-web-studio-that-could is growing again, and we’ve got an opening for a Front-End Developer/Themer to help us build awesome websites for fabulous, mission-driven clients.

This is a position for someone with solid technical skills — someone who can rock HTML and CSS, who prides themselves on attention to detail and clean, elegant code. You’ll be turning design comps into themes for Drupal and WordPress sites, so experience with one (or both) of those CMS’s is preferred, but if you’re confident in your coding skills and are new to Drupal & WordPress, don’t let that stop you.

Because we’re a small shop, everyone here tends to wear a few hats, so we’re looking for someone with smarts, adaptability and a serious appetite for learning. We pride ourselves on the quality of our work, our efficiency, and our passion for our clients — and we’re looking for someone whose shares those values.

In our beautiful, heritage Gastown office, you’ll find a friendly team of experts, a ridiculously well-stocked tea cabinet, and abundant opportunities to work on projects that allow you to flex your technical muscles and bring your heart and ideals to work.

Sound like a fit for you (or someone you know)? The job description, with details on how to apply, is right here.

We’re often asked for recommendations on image editing software that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. Photoshop is fantastic, but the price tag is steep, and in fact, its strengths can also be weaknesses in that it’s actually such a powerful program that it can overwhelm the novice or intermediate user.

So, where do you turn if your needs are relatively straightforward and your budget is limited? I would recommend one of the following tools:

Picnik

Picnik is a powerful online application that allows you to upload & edit images on the fly. There is a free version but the options are rather limited; however, it might do the trick for what your client needs. The premium version starts at $2.08/month. Picnik even integrates with Flickr, Picasa & Facebook, so if your client uses those tools that might come in handy. I find it a little slow, compared to Photoshop (mostly because of the time required to upload & download files), but it’s a very good tool for people with no/little budget.

Photoshop Elements

This is a stripped-down version of Photoshop that’s perfect for what most of our clients need, which is basic photo & image editing tools for web use. It’s under $100 and provides a good chunk of the core Photoshop functionality — in some ways I would recommend it over Photoshop for basic-level users, because with fewer options it’s less confusing.

Photoshop.com

Adobe’s answer to Picnik is an online editing toolset that you can use for free; the only limitation is file storage. The free accounts comes with 2 GB of storage space for your files, and beyond that you pay an annual subscription fee that varies (anywhere from $20-$500 USD) based on the amount of storage you need.

I’m writing this from Austin, TX, where I’m participating in one of the geek world’s biggest and best-loved festivals, South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi for short). Yesterday afternoon, I had the great pleasure of co-facilitating a session with Leif Utne, VP of Community at Zanby, that was a group discussion on how design & tech geeks can make the world a better place while making a living.

When we were planning the session, Leif suggested we use a format I wasn’t familiar with — the Samoan Circle, a modified fishbowl process that encourages listening and made room for many of the attendees to come forward and speak. The chairs in the room were arranged in the round, and we pulled four chairs into the middle of the room, facing each other, so that everyone could see and hear the folks who were talking.

The theme of the session was “Socially Conscious Geek: making money while doing good,” and we provided some framing questions, but we knew that whoever showed up would have their own questions and goals for the discussion, so we tried to move quickly beyond our introductions and dive into the conversation proper.

I’m so glad we did, because as soon as we opened it up to the room, the conversation went in very interesting directions. Some of the themes that emerged were:

• Recruiting challenges for nonprofits: Someone asked how nonprofits can attract staff when the salaries are generally lower than they are in the corporate sector. Some great responses to this question emerged, including:
  • Explore what gets geeks interested, and offer up incentives that matter to them
  • Sell the lifestyle & “sleep better at night” benefits
  • Offer other benefits that provide competitive advantage with corporate positions, e.g. keep work hours reasonable, paid volunteer time, etc.
  • Someone mentioned that in the US, if you work for nonprofit organizations for 10 years after college, your outstanding student loans are forgiven. Given the size of the average student loan these days, that could provide a tangible financial benefit in the tens, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.
  • Recognize that nonprofits can offer more opportunities for leadership & effecting change within the organization, because nonprofits often have leaner & more democratic structures. (I want to point out that this is definitely not always the case, though I do think it’s a valid point. However, I’ve seen some highly inefficient nonprofit organizations in my time.)
• There was some great discussion of how our definitions of sustainability must include financial sustainability; this is true for both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. We need to both make money and do good; neither can be sacrificed. Some models put forward for this included:
  • Businesses can build charitable giving into their modus operandi, i.e. give x% of pre-tax profits to a particular cause or organization.
  • Design & tech agencies can offer discounts to nonprofit clients & stay profitable by engaging high-profit corporate clients.
  • Social enterprise models, e.g. nonprofits creating products & services people are willing to pay for.
  • Seed funding from progressive coalitions
• We also heard a number of people ask how we can collaborate better across movements and sectors – there is a real hunger for cross-pollination of ideas and learning from one another’s successes and failures.
• One women shared her story of working at a large, multinational corporation, feeling somewhat discouraged by said corporation’s lack of a formal social responsibility mandate, and responding by starting interest groups within her company. This has had the effect of both raising the profile of various causes, but also concrete changes in the business such as influencing purchasing decisions.
• Someone said they would love to see a crowdsourcing app that could leverage companies’ internal technical skills & resources and connect & share them with nonprofits who need them.

Those were my notes, but there’s plenty more available on Twitter — attendees tweeted their session notes using the hashtag #scgeek.

Happy 8th March, by lucaNRT on Flickr

Today, as we do every year, we’re closing our doors on March 8 to celebrate International Women’s Day. It isn’t a stat holiday here in Canada, but we like to honour it as a pseudo-stat, for several reasons.

One, we’re proud to be a women-owned business, and in our industry I’m pretty certain that still puts us firmly in the minority. (When we started out 10 years ago, I’m pretty certain we were the only web development shop in town that was women-run, but these days the landscape has thankfully shifted pretty significantly.) Although women are making great strides in the tech arena, we still have a long way to go in terms of achieving equity either in terms of raw numbers or on an economic level. Honouring International Women’s Day is a way for us to bring some visibility to women’s issues.

Two, we’ve always tried to create a work environment at Raised Eyebrow that’s healthy & balanced, and a big part of how we achieve that is by ensuring everyone who works here has a generous amount of time off. March is often a holiday-free zone (except in those years when Easter comes early), so it’s a great time to throw in a long weekend.

And three, taking the day off gives us a chance to celebrate the amazing women in our lives. In Italy, it’s traditional for men to give mimosa branches to their favourite women – here in Vancouver, cherry blossoms are probably easier to find.

We’d love to see more people and businesses in Canada celebrate International Women’s Day in big, visible ways. What are you doing to celebrate? Let us know in the comments.

If you’ve spoken with us recently, or visited the office, you’ll already be aware that my business partner Emira is beginning a new chapter in her life, as a mother. Her baby is due about two weeks from now (and yes, we do have a pool going, so feel free to chime in with your date picks), and Friday was her last day in the office for a while. She’s taking a few months of maternity leave — we’re not yet sure how long she’ll be away, and we’re just going to leave it up to her to decide when she’s ready to come back. (I suspect it won’t be too long before her curiosity gets the better of her and she can’t stand not being up to speed on our clients’ projects any longer… but our hope is that she takes all the time she needs to settle in and enjoy her time with her newborn.)

We’ll miss Emira’s strategic savvy, hyper-efficient planning, and of course her cupcake baking — but we are incredibly excited for her, and can’t wait to meet her wee one when he or she arrives.

In the meantime, I’ll be attempting to fill her shoes on the sales side, and will be stepping up my roles as project manager and strategist. And to make room for all that work, we’ll be getting some help on the design side of things (which is my usual bailiwick) from the stellar Paul Jarvis. Paul has been an admired colleague of ours for many years and we’re delighted to partner with him.

If you’ve got any questions about who’s doing what in Emira’s absence, please don’t hesitate to drop us a line. And meanwhile, please join us in wishing Emira an easy birth and a wonderful nesting time with her babe.

(Oh, and don’t worry – we’ll update you all when the baby gets here!)