What’s so hot about Pinterest, that it has even the traditionalist internet users, who shy away from trying something new, wanting to try it out? In a web space already cluttered with numerous social networks, and dominated by the BIG TWO, will a new social network really command enough attention?  Only time will tell if Pinterest will have the wherewithal to create its own space in what is increasingly looking like saturated social space on the World Wide Web.

But there is also no doubt that Pinterest has begun luring social media fans with its concept and the features that it has on offer. Let’s take a look at what this social media platform is all about and what we can make of its features.

Here we go.

Pinterest in a Nutshell

Pinterest takes its name from a pinup board. The team behind Pinterest has made a virtual pinup board that helps organize all those inspiring and interesting images that you find on the World Wide Web. As it’s a social media platform, you can even share these images with your friends. In Pinterest parlance these images are called ‘Pins’ that can be added to a ‘Board’ customized and themed to suit your needs and requirements. You can create a ‘board’ on any and every topic that you can think off, without any limitations.

Pinterest can be called a voyage of discovery through the use of images. You can browse the pinboards created by other users who share similar interests and passion as yours, which helps you discover new things about your shared passion.

What you can do with Pinterest?

This is the key question isn’t it? Users no longer are happy just with a presence on a social media platform. What they are looking for is a way to practically use it to improve their lives in some form or the other. And Pinterest does help them do that in many different ways. If you are a photographer, you can build a whole portfolio with the help of Pinterest. If you are an architect, you can create a Board that has pictures of your best work. If you are a housewife, you can create a shopping list of things that you need to buy for your home through the week. The options are literally endless. At the end of the day, if don’t really have any clear purpose in mind, just pinning pictures of the really interesting stuff that you come across, not only on the internet but also in your daily life, is reason enough to use Pinterest.

Using Pinterest

The purpose is all well and good, but is it usable? Two words – It is. Here’s how you can pin stuff in Pinterest. It offers you something called the ‘Pin It Button’, in the form of a ‘drag and drop’ browser extension. So, in your travels through the web, if you come across an image that you like, all you need to do is click on the button and choose the pictures that you want to add to your Board. You will also be able to add some interesting text describing the picture. What’s more, the image doesn’t necessarily have to be from the internet. You can click a picture and use the Pinterest iPhone app to add the image to your Boards.

Taking a cue from the ‘Retweets’, you can even ‘Repin’ images that other users have posted on their boards.

The Social Perspective

Ok, so what’s the social angle to Pinterest? Well, it works on the belief that if you do something together, it is more fun. If you are pinning something on your Pinterest board, you are a Pinner, and you can find different Pinners to comment on their Pins or Repin an image that you like onto your board. You could even follow a board that you find interesting and get any new updates on that board. If you want to follow somebody on Pinterest, you don’t need to take permission of the Pinner, as it’s an open network. Also, as a Pinner, who is also on Twitter and Facebook, you can share your pins with the friends and followers on your respective networks on these two social medial platforms.

It’s not only about Pictures

Yes, the focus is on pictures, but you can pin videos also. You can even buy gifts on Pinterest and it’s also a great way to promote your small business. If you own a small business, it makes perfect sense for you to try out different avenues to ensure better and highly effective branding. Much like other social media platforms, a presence on Pinterest, will help you get in touch with people, who are not only looking for the kind of products and services you are selling, but also share your interests. It’s a win-win situation for your business.

What do some of the biggest and successful organizations have in common, apart from the fact that they are big and successful? The answer is that they have a great logo. Look up any popular organization and you will find a distinct and memorable logo behind it.

The logo can very well be considered the face of your business. So it needs to be original, exclusive, interesting and must be the perfect visual representation of all that your business/company/organization/corporate stands for. It must embody the company’s beliefs, values, mission, purpose and objective. It must be able to inspire trust and prompt instant recall. Yes, a logo does all these things, and a whole lot more.

As can be imagined, it’s going to be quite a task to ensure that your logo is able to improve the awareness of your brand amongst your target audience. But, keeping the tips given below in mind, the task can become a little easier.

Simplicity works Best

Some of the best logos are very simple. Take the case of the Apple logo; what could be simpler than an apple with a bite, the bite was given to ensure that people don’t confuse it with some other fruit. Some of the other logos that are as simple as they are recognizable are Nike, Sony, Yahoo, Google, and Dell amongst various others. Simplicity ensures that the logo can be easily recognized, wherever it’s placed. Such logos, because of the inherent simplicity of their design and purpose are able to make an impression that stays long after the people have seen your logo.

It should impress wherever and whenever it is used

Your logo is going to be used across different channels of communication, and must look good anywhere and everywhere. So, you must identify the various places in which your logo might appear such as brochure, websites, banner etc. and while designing a logo, you must ensure that your logo will look good if and when used in the places that you have identified. At times, you might have to decrease size of the logo, and at other times, you might want to enlarge its size by quite a bit. So, the use of fine lines,  choice of graphic format, fonts, color, texture should be such that it makes the right impression whatever its size and whatever the background on which its used.

The keyword is ‘Unique’

Your logo helps generate awareness about your brand and encourages brand recall. This is why it mustn’t resemble any other logo. It is the uniqueness of your logo that will allow it to create its own space in the minds of the audience. You must do everything you can, to ensure that your logo is different and has its own distinct identity. Here, it’s important not to take the easy way out and download those stocks images from the web and use them in your logo. Do not take a chance. You can take inspiration from various sources, but at the end of the day your logo should be your own creation and must be able to stand out from the crowd.

These are just three tips that should help you choose a logo that is memorable and has the longevity to keep impressing people for a long period of time.

Validation and Testing are an integral part of designing mobile website. This is what will ensure that the website is mobile compliant and will work on the smartphones and tablets available on the market. What’s more, it’s only testing the devices on the various usability parameters that can ensure that its bug free.

The Unforgiving Nature of Mobile Browsers

As compared to desktop browsers, mobile browsers can be quite unforgiving. You misplace a few HTML tags and you have a problem on your hands. More importantly, the fact that mobile browsers are not as powerful as desktop browsers means they can’t handle more code, and therefore the markup for mobile websites must be perfect. With their small footprint in memory and on disk, mobile browsers don’t have the robustness of their desktop counterparts.

So, testing and validation is important.

Initially, you can check the markup that you have been developing for your mobile website using normal desktop browser, by using the same set of tools that you validate traditional sites with, for e.g. W3C validation etc.  Once the validators confirm the accuracy of your markup, you need to take the website through a series of live testing.

Crucial Mistake

One of the cardinal sins of mobile website testing is thinking a web browser or a desktop computer will help perfectly simulate the mobile experience. No doubt you can always test the functionality of the site on a web browser or a desktop browser, but you won’t be able to test your mobile website in a comprehensive manner. You can’t expect to replicate the mobile environment completely on your desktop. There are plenty of other things that need to be considered when it comes to mobile platforms such as the packet sizes of the mobile operation, content mime types, functionalities of the specific devices amongst various others.

So let’s take a look at some of the ways that can help you exhaustively test your mobile website.

• Buy a variety of Phones

Agreed this will be expensive, but not if you just buy a handful of phones that are representative of the mobile brands that your target audience is using. . What this means is that you will need to identify the kind of smartphones that your target audience is using and buy some of them. This idea is usually good for you, if your mobile website is not a one off thing and you will be developing more mobile websites or applications in the future. There are 5 mobile OS that you will need to test your website for, namely iOS, Windows Phone 7, BlackBerry, Android and Symbian. So, purchasing smartphones that are specific to these mobile OS will be a good idea.

• Using Emulators

You don’t have to buy emulators as they are freely available online. What these emulators allow you to do is see images in context and also the general layout of your mobile website. The disadvantage of using emulators is that they are real devices, so you can expect a perfect environment for testing, but the advantage is that they are free, so you shouldn’t avoid testing on them. Think of testing on emulators as the first step towards getting a bug free, mobile website.

• Taking the Help of your Friends

It’s the easiest way of testing your mobile website. You can ask your friends to lend you their mobile devices for some time. Use them to test your website. You might have used your online emulators to test the website thoroughly, but there is no denying the benefits of testing the website on a mobile device. You might like this ‘way’ of testing rather than buying mobile phones, but asking your friends will limit your testing on those phones that your friends have. What if they are only using phones that use the Symbian and Android OS? You will still need to test your website for iOS, Blackberry and Windows Phone 7.

It’s advisable that you use a testing strategy that is a combination of all the three ways listed above, but at the end of the day, it’s your choice. But, whatever the option you choose, it’s important that you keep testing, till you are absolutely satisfied.

Cut back to around ten years or so to a time when usability testing of websites was considered a luxury by businesses. But, back then no website owner was worried about the amount of conversions on their site. As long as their website was up and running, they were happy. But times have changed and it’s not only having a website and attracting traffic that is important, but also the amount of conversions it achieves. Optimizing the rate of conversions is now the focus of attention and online merchants are leaving no stone unturned to ensure that their website can convert as many visitors as possible into their customers.

This is why usability testing is important. The point is very simple. It is only a usable website that can guarantee conversions. Such websites reduce bounce rates and improve sales by offering users a highly satisfying user experience. Basically, usability testing involves, checking the website on various parameters.

Let’s take a look at what these parameters are:

Checking the Design for Credibility

Credibility is the key driving force of a website that ensures a high degree of conversions. If the design does not project credibility, it isn’t going to work for the customers. So, usability testing involves checking it for professionalism and whether it is able to deliver its message with clarity and without confusing the users.

The Navigability Check

Are the websites navigation buttons, easy to use and doing their job properly? Website visitors don’t like wasting their time, trying to understand the navigation of the site. They need to be able to go through website to the pages of their choice conveniently and quickly with effortless ease.  Great navigation turns into an essential time saver and helps visitors optimize their use of the website.

Checking the Response and Intuitiveness of the Website

The design features and functionalities of the website should be responsive to the needs of the user. What this means is that the website must be able to effectively respond to the user’s action. For e.g. in an ecommerce shopping cart, if visitors have chosen the products that they want to purchase and place them in their shopping cart, the payment button should be highlighted as soon as that happens. Doing a thorough testing of the website with respect to its standards of responsiveness and intuitiveness is an important component of usability testing.

Evaluating the Products or Services Page for its Ability to Make an Impression

There are three major components of an impressive products and/or services page – Images, Content and their Presentation. You need to put in place the best product images that are attention grabbing and can help visitors sit up and take notice. Also, you need to add eye catching content that enhances the marketability of the products. More importantly, the website should be able to present the images and content in a way such that they deliver a single, comprehensive and effective marketing message.

Testing Load Time

Designers very often are accused of designing a website for themselves rather than designing it for website visitors. They add a whole array of visuals and animation that makes the website impressive to look at and its creative navigation buttons also ensure the navigation is inventive, but in doing so, they compromise on the most important factor determining website usability – load time of the website. It’s of paramount importance that whatever the internet speed of your target user, the website must be able to load quickly. The visuals, animations, features and functionalities of the website must be such that they do not take a toll on the time taken for the website to load.

Apart from these crucial parameters, there are other parameters like cross browser functionality, help features, next action and call-to action-buttons and various others that are also tested for their feasibility and ability to create the necessary impact in the minds of their website visitors.

The idea behind ensuring website usability is to remove any barrier that the website might have created between itself and the user. This ensures that the website generates more interest, converts better, and improves its profitability.

Website redesign is usually done when businesses or individuals want the ethos of the website, its message, and its overall appeal to remain the same, but also want the design to appear fresh. They want a design that makes use of its existing concept and rework it to address the changing needs and expectations of their website visitors.

But, before the redesign process is actually underway, you will need to consider a few crucial factors that need to be considered before redesigning a custom website.

The Objective

Every purpose needs an objective. When it comes to redesign you need to have a very clear idea as to what you want accomplished. It’s your reasons and motivations that will go a long way in ensuring that the process of redesign has a clear direction. All through the process of redesign, you will need to take some crucial decisions and these can only be taken correctly if you have a clearly underlined goal for redesign.

The Extent of Redesign

You need to clearly define the nature of the redesign as to whether it’s a minor upgrade or you are overhauling the site completely. There is a very thin line between a complete site overhaul and an entirely new site. You need to consider this factor because the cost of the project and the time and effort required to bring it to fruition depend on the scope of the redesign. It’s also important to remember that the amount of changes you make is inversely proportional to the way the new website resembles the older site.

Incorporating features/Elements of Existing Site

Your older website design can offer the designing framework for the new website. So, you will need to work out which aspects of the older website do you want incorporated into the redesigned site. Just make a list of what you like about your current site and ask your re-designers to incorporate the same in the new site.

Ignoring the Non Workable Aspects

There are some aspects that work and some that don’t. Now, there might be a case wherein, you like a feature that has become redundant. Well, it’s important that when it comes to choosing the features of the current design that need to be incorporated into the redesigned site, you need to adopt a mercenary approach. Just ignore something that is non-workable irrespective of whether you like it or not.

Identifying Target Users

Don’t forget your target audience in the proceedings. You are redesigning your website for your target audience and nobody else. So, you will first need to identify them, never mind that you had identified them when you had designed your existing website. You will need to start afresh, as your target audience must have increased in the ensuing years. So, you must identify the user, recognize their needs and try and make sure that the website redesign has kept their needs in mind.

Ensuring User Friendliness

There is a tendency for both designers and the concerned clients to go one up over their existing design when it comes to redesigning it. In doing so, they add certain design complexities to the new website, which have an impact on its user friendliness. This must be avoided at all costs. The website must be user friendly, which in turn encourages a better and more satisfactory user experience.

Determine Design Focus

A website’s design, even if it’s a redesign will highlight certain sections of the website, text or images above others. So, you will need to first determine those parts of the website that need to be emphasized so that they get more user attention. There are many different ways to make this possible, so you need to choose the ways and means that suit your needs and requirements best.

These are just 7 considerations, but there are plenty of others that need to be considered before beginning the process of redesign. This will make sure that the redesign efforts do not go in vain.