#internet summit

"Live" notes from Internet Summit 2012 in Raleigh, November 7-8, 2012. See all my notes from Internet Summit 2012 by clicking here. Feel free to use these anywhere, but please credit me if you do.

Saya "Sally" Benham. Creative Director, Design 4UX

Designing for the Mobile Mindset

Differences with Desktop People have an emotional connection to their smartphones that they don't have to their desktops.

More interaction. Orientation sensors, direct touch experience for users, etc.

Sequential aspects to interaction: unlock phone, launch app, login to app account, use app, etc. More modal than the desktop – on the desktop you can choose many different paths to accomplish things.

Gathering Data and Understanding your Audience. 

Who is my target market? What's your relationship to the target market as designer? Are you part of it or not?

Personas, user interviews, etc.

Data should help us find the point-of-pain relevant to our App design.

Responsive Web Design vs. Mobile App Design

Responsive Web Design (RWD) is a design approach in which a site is crafted to provide an optimal viewing experience accords a wide range of devices without requiring a separate app. (example: bostonglobe.com)

Benefits: design it once, use it on all devices. No app required, only access from browser:

Drawbacks: Requires clever design and implementation to make it work. If you have limited assets and information, RWD is great. But it typically requires a fast internet connection. Images are scaled by browser, so requires more processing power. Also requires compromises in the design because certain interactions don't map well to the rescaled/reflowed content.

Mobile website design means a website specially designed for access on mobile devices. Involves different design and code than normal websites, but allows use of mobile-optimized images and less processing power.

Benefits: Faster because the code is smaller/less complicated.

Drawbacks: Doesn't typically handle specific tools and processes, especially related to eCommerce.

Mobile App Design.

Benefits: Focus on one task: calendar, to-do list, etc. Can enter and store specific personal information related to the task.

Drawbacks: Must be written specifically for a given device. Users need to actively download and install them to begin using. Cost considerably more to develop than typical mobile web development.

Screen Orientation Considerations

Mobile devices are unique in that they have multiple orientations.

Consider the default orientation. For phones this is portrait, but for Win8 table & Blackberry Playbook it's landscape.

If possible, use a design that is flexible and can adjust to either orientation without losing critical information or features.

Navigation Patterns

Navigation is a critical UX design consideration because it's how we tell users how to go and find information and use it.

In general, put control buttons at the bottom of your app and information at the top.

Several different types of navigation:

Search-based. User signs in or inputs a search term, and then goes to the next screen where results are located.

Listed Item Navigation. Very popular, a list of items that can usually be expanded to show more information in the same page.

Vertical Navigation. Not popular in the mobile platform. Navigation buttons located along the side of the screen rather than at the bottom.

Horizontal or Tab Navigation. 90% of web or mobile sites use this. Fixed permanent navigation bar at bottom and then additional navigation items above as necessary.

Scrolling Horizontal Bar. Like horizontal navigation but you can scroll left and right to uncover more navigations.

Image-based Navigation. Similar to icon-based images, but typically not recommended due to loss of detail in images.

Gesture Design. A new approach to smartphone design. Incorporates non-verbal communication where body actions communicate a particular message: pointing, tapping, pitching sliding are known, but apps & sites are starting to use blowing, shaking, arm movement, etc.

Use of Icons

Icons are a quick & easy way to pass information to the user in a concise & simple way. Carries an emotional, non-verbal message. 

Icons are a visual coding system. They represent an idea, experience, object, or action. Receivers view the icon and "decode" it to get the message.

International vs. Conventional. Flame, for instance, means "fire" – it's international. Other things, like "Statue of Liberty" might mean "Freedom" in the US but won't translate to other countries.

UX, Microcopy, and Input Design

Remember the UI is very small.

44-pixel rule (88 pixels on retina display) -- size of a fingertip per Apple's guidelines.

Notifications & Microcopy. Inform users about the content they care about and is important to them at the moment it arrives. Example: traffic jam information before the user gets in his car in the morning.

Don't interrupt users for Sales offers. Respect their quiet time. Don't bother them. Don't spam them. They'll remove your app.

Let users personalize their notifications as much as possible. Example: ESPN lets users pick a sport, team, kind of alerts, etc.

Consider push notifications as part of your brand. You should care about language, design, and content. They're simple but you can be creative.

"Live" notes from Internet Summit 2012 in Raleigh, November 7-8, 2012. See all my notes from Internet Summit 2012 by clicking here. Feel free to use these anywhere, but please credit me if you do.

Advanced Social Media

1. Operational Integration

SM should be a core part of all operations. Marketing shouldn't be the only people aware of or using social. If sales is doing something different, that's bad.

2. Cross functional teams.

Social strategy should be a combination of marketing, sales, product, customer service, PR, even legal.

3. Centers of excellence

If you have a cross functional team and you've decided your'e going to be leaders in how to approach social media, then you can create an ELITE TEAM who can educate/train others in how to do it.

This group can also be in charge of managing agency relations, etc., so you don't have multiple strategies coming from different parts of the business.

Creates policies & procedures for social media. Lots of companies – even big ones – still don't have these. It's not about what you CAN'T do, it's also about what you DO want to do. Ways your people can help you on their personal and/or corporate accounts.

If you don't have something in place, someone WILL do something you didn't want, and you'll have to deal with it.

4. C-suite visibility

If you have someone in the c suite who's a champion for social media, they will help persuade others. Especially in regulated industries, people are scared of SM. You need to find the right touch points in the C-suite to overcome those fears. Build those relationships.

5. Metrics: What to measure

It doesn't matter how many tweets you send, it matters how many people re=share them or how people engage with them.

Engagement

Reach

Conversions

Sentiment

How many people does your activity bring to your trade shows, etc.? How many contacts translate into real sales?

ASSEMBLY INSTRUCTIONS

How to take this approach and actually build it into your social media. How to show people that social media is ONE THING but it's more powerful when layered into other activities.

Social & mobile. Made for each other.

Post-PC era. 46% of US adults already own a smartphone. 119 million tables sold in 2012. 25 billion mobile apps downloaded by 2015.

Content is made for sharing:VideoNewsletter ArticlesBlogsWhite Papers

Reuse/Repurpose/Recycle

People may not want your newsletter, but do read your blog. People might not want your eBook but might sit through a webinar. You can take the same basic content and distribute it 50 different ways.

PUTTING IT TOGETHER: Social media mixed with Traditional marketing

The way we consume media is changing, but we don't spend ALL our time online. We still go shopping, we still see billboards and read magazines.

Tradition marketing isn't going to go away, but it is going to change.

PUTTING IT TOGETHER: Social & email

Email and social are completely intertwined. By adding social media icons to email, some companies see as much as 60% increase in reach.

Other social in email:employee email signatures, promo messages, welcome messages for signup ("Thanks for signing up, also follow us on Twitter!"). It's really simple to go through and check to see if you're giving people the opportunity to share things. Lots of people aren't doing that.

Crossroads PR’s Kristi and Shawn are excited to attend Startup Summit and Internet Summit on November 6th, 7th and 8th. This is going to be a great time to meet new people, get insight from speakers and check out (first the first time at Internet Summit!) new local startups and entrepreneurs.

Crossroads PR has a special announcement regarding Startup Summit and Internet Summit on Thursday, November 1st – so stay tuned!

We'll be live tweeting from the show so make sure you're following @CrossroadsPR and the hashtag for the event #ISUM12.

I loved the energy and the spirit of the Internet Summit 2011 in Raleigh this week. Lots of great information different market trends affecting our online world, including social media, digital marketing, all sorts of analytics, mobile, eCommerce, you name it. It was great, with the obvious highlight of hearing Internet Superstar Gary Vaynerchuck speak.

I wanted to compile a list of the Internet Summit presentations that were shared online by the speakers after the conference so I could have them all in one place.  Here's the list I have so far, to be updated if I find more (@InternetSummit has promised to post them on their website next week).

Next Level SEO: Social Media Integration - Bill Slawski - President, SEO by the Sea

The Art of Engagement: Why Your 20-Year-Old Intern Probably Isn’t a Community Manager - Angela Connor - Social Media Manager, Capstrat

Integrating Social Media Into Your Search and Mobile Marketing Plan - Phil Buckley, Director of Interactive, Capstrat 

The User Experience is Your Brand - Drew Diskin, M.S. - Digital Engagement Strategist, Inertia

Supercharge Your Social Media Results with Relevant Content - Cara Rousseau, Social Media Manager, Duke University

Emerging Social Media Trends, Technologies and Tools - John Lane  VP, Strategy & Creative, Centerline Digital

Digital Experiences that Build Brand, Loyalty and Sales - Sherry Bastion - Web Creative Director, Lenovo

Web Design as a Strategic Tool - Matthew Muñoz - Co-founder & Chief Design Officer, New Kind

Note: See all my notes from Internet Summit 2011 by clicking here.

Notes from Internet Summit 2011 in Raleigh, 2011-11-16.

An Interactive Fireside Chat with Noah Everett, Founder, Twitpic

Q: Let's talk about TwitPic. How did it start, where did you go?

Noah Everett: It was 2008. It seemed like a good shortcut to share pictures, I stayed late at work with some Red Bull and wrote it over a weekend, and launched it. Then it got picked up by blogs and media, and went from there.

Q: When did you realize it could be a business?

NE: In 2009, one of our users took a picture of the plane in the Hudson and TwitPic'd it and it exploded. We had one server at the time, and it melted. I realized then that TwitPic wasn't just a photo-sharing tool, it was for breaking news, etc. We've been running ads since 2008 and run at about a 70% profit margin, which has allowed us to not take any funding. We have 7 employees counting me and Mom & Dad.

Q: Where do you see the micro-blogging space going? What are some uses for microblogging that people maybe haven't heard of?

NE: I separate it into Facebook (private) vs. Twitter (public). Twitter is just a great way to share openly what you're doing without having to log into Facebook and have that network.

UNICED uses TwitPic a lot because they've found that their tweets get a lot more exposure if they include pictures of people they're helping.

Q: How have you been impacted by Twitter's own photosharing app?

NE: Twitter's a great company. We were blindsided by it and we wish they'd communicated better with their outside developers there. But we haven't really noticed a loss of traffic or growth, so we're happy.

Q: Tell us about Heello.

NE: We really rushed to get it out. It's very much a Twitter clone right now, but next year you'll see it really change. We're working to make it more location-based, so you're seeing information based on your area.

Q: Any advice on how to get a new app noticed, other than waiting for another Hudson plane crash?

NE: First and foremost, build an app that solves an issue for people. For getting exposure, make sure your app can share to Twitter & Facebook, and let your users promote your app. Make the barrier to entry as low as possible for your user.

Q: You get some interesting pics through TwitPic. Any interesting ones?

NE: Ashton tweeted Demi's Moore's butt. The funniest are celebrity ones. We're running a thing for Movember now.

Q: What's your advice to other startups re: taking VC funding versus growing organically?

NE: You'll get approached by VCs as soon as your app gets started. My rule is "If you don't need it, don't take it." We've talked to a lot of them, but we can't figure out what we'd use their money for, so we turn them down. That means we still control the direction of the company.

Q: Give us a sense of the metrics that pass through your servers.

NE: We process about 1 billion requests a day. We try to be really smart and lean with our servers - we have about 50 of them. Amazon S3 is our primary data storage. Somebody from Amazon told us we were accounting for 1% of all Amazon S3 data storage last year.

Q: 5 years from now, where do you think Twitter, Facebook, etc. will be?

NE: The biggest challenge now is curating the data you want to see. Making it more integrated into our daily lives so we can get past the "following too many people" problem.

Q: What problems or successes have you had with Amazon?

NE: There are cheaper solutions out there now, but overall their service is the best and we're happy with them. That said, we built our system to failover in the case of downtime, but that's kind of not a problem anymore.

Q: Are you looking to recreate the old Twitter Developer Love with Helo