Simone Quentin de Manson

Well its been a long hard road, but we have launched our first ecommerce shop at LeftClick. Many things we will be doing differently next time and thanks to Tantek and the microformats (a review coming soon, still writing it!) workshop I think the programmer guru is converted to helping create nicer HTML markup… ALSO thanks to LeftClick’s business plan we do get to change the website and work on it to improve it for the next year at least.

I got to be a very girlie web designer for this site. With lots of pretty things. Check it out www.floozy.co.nz the handbags are pretty gorgeous, mind you I have looked at them so much I feel slightly “over” them. But one can still appreciate good design.

This will probably be posted everywhere today, it deserves it! This guy HAND PAINTED the wallpaper for his kitchen. The paper pattern found in an old 1950’s wallpaper sample book. So beautiful. Posted in Apartment Therapy

The jugs and containers make me squirm in delight! The colours shapes and patterns just wonderful.

In the computer geek world Google is said to be the coolest place to work and the best company to work for. The link has been circulated around our office of the latest album of images of their offices in Zurich.

This image here has gotta be my favourite space, alothough the slide down to the cafe and the pods were coming in as a close second. Work space is so important to me and this image is like a wee dream… If it was somewhere I worked, every time I walked into it, I would smile.

The latest plot or project might just be some wee curtains and pot plants in my studio….

I love to think of what the office would be like if Google had some open in Christchurch. I like to think it would have a cool New Zealand style. Showing not only the native/unique design stuff, but the wonderful mixture of Asian and European cultures aswell. I mean really, how could you NOT be creative working in a place like this?

I have recently developed a website for a local Apaca Farm, I got this job because my mum saw an alpaca farm sign on a main road outside of christchurch saying “Styx River Farm, Alpacas and Alpaca Products” so she took me along with her to investigate. We found a fabulous couple, had a cuppa tea and left with some bags of carded fleece for us to start spinning with (we had just started together, since then i am still spinning my first batch and mum has gotten on to her 5th I think?) and a website job.

When I went to their place again to finalise some website bits n bobs I asked to see their alpacas and new babies. Here are some of those!

Alpaca Yarn is so soft and and wonderful to knit and spin. The next planned project is to dye some merino (managed to pick up about 1kg for only $25!) out of this I want to get some white alpaca and start dying that and seeing how I go combining it. Here are some links that have inspired my spinning, dying and knitting.

Apaca with a Twist

Craft Sanity Podcast interview with the pluckfluff creator Lexi Boeger

HOW exciting.

The Problem

I have a client I am designing a website for that will have many different types of users coming to his site. He has a brick and mortar store and is getting us to create a website for him, one that creates a multi channel experience. The way a person finds a product has to be as easy as talking to the sales person in the shop. In other words, The customer asks “I need something for this“, or “my favourite brand is this” or “I have always had these, I want some more please“. Not only does the category navigation and search have to help the journey it also has to be simple. As a result I have decided to do some research, the problem being our client wants something that in my gut I think is FAR to complicated, so it is my mission to come up with an alternative solution and sell it to him.

Solution?

Its a combination of a simple advanced search plus a way for the user to narrow down their products with a few simple drop downs. This is of course the first solution, the wonderful benefit of working at LeftClick is we look after the client and new website for a decent amount of time and if something is not working or being used we get to change it! Wooo hooo!

Since this research has been so helpful to me, I thought I should share it here, giving kudose to the websites I found the helpful info on.

Documentation

1. First there was this very helpful documentation I found on e-consultancy that 37signals wrote, this pointed me to some sites that worked well. It also has some helpful hints on in-site search requirements.

Websites

2. Then there are the actual sites that I liked the search on:
-Lands End
-Nordstrom

Now all I have to do is make this “persuasive” (another kettle of worms all together). Then the coding gurus need to make sure the search engine works intuitively keyword wise, which will come later…

I am starting a new line of research and “knowledge development”. This complements my web design day job and feeds my often bored brain. I am going to learn about “persuasive design” this is an area developing in web design that is what it says. Design that persuades people into doing whatever it is the design is trying to get them to do. Like buying that really cool book. This website says:

“People don’t just visit your website, they experience it.”

Hear hear!

To start with I have two books. “Submit Now” By Andrew Chak and “Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?: “Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing” By Bryan Eisenberg, Jeffrey Eisenberg, Lisa T. Davis.

I am also hugely interested in online communities and the new online village I see happening. Perhaps I can wiggle this in there as part of the research. I have had research in my brain for awhile, but my boss recently decided to mention that he thinks this would be good. So instead of being called a “Web Designer” I would be called an “Experience Architect” I’m not really the sort of person that cares about a name, but this does sound better to the outside world, from a business owners perspective.

I will also be working out how to show this on the blog. Currently its a bit of a mish mash of topics. I feel the need to organised. So you may see some changes coming soon!

I have been sitting on an idea for awhile now, but have hesitated saying anything about it because I am far from being a techy expert. BUT I am online all the time, it comes with my profession (Web Designer) . This idea is to write about tools and cool stuff I find out in the world wide web. Be it a useful website, a tool to help you browse the internet or anything thats just got that, “thing” about it. This will be aimed at everyone, not just the techy geeks that find computers absorbing enough to voluntarily spend hours behind them. Ideas on posts is TOTALLY welcome.

Google Pages

I want to start with google pages. If you have gmail, you might have stumbled across this. Its a way of putting up a webpage for nothing, thats not a blog. You can put text and images in there, use it to advertise what you do or sell, have a CV for people to access, advertise your new litter of puppies you will be selling etc without having to commit to blogging. It doesnt have to stay up forever either. Keep it “published” while you are looking for a job for example. The only kicker is the URL has to end with “googlepages” eg. http://simoneqdm.googlepages.com and the designs are templates, you also need to sign up. Here is a link to an example site I set up in 20 minutes

Preview of Website Pages Editor and the Individual Page Editor

A few things to make sure your new site navigates well

• Keep your pages using the same template to avoid confusion.
• Keep your links to other pages on your website in the same place and looking the same.
• Name your pages to reflect the content.
• Keep it simple! Stay focused on its purpose and stick to it.
• Have fun!

For those of you who have a website and ever wonder if you can get some STATS that really rock. (nb “STATS” mean: shows how many website visits you get, from where on what dates, from what part of the world and how long they stayed on the website etc….)  There is Google Analytics. I have only just added the code to my site and have started playing. Its free and there is so much to it that I have decided to do some further research. You might get a more detailed report once I have read some help material.