Main menu:

 

July 2010
M T W T F S S
« Jan    
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031  

Categories

Meta

What is it like to redesign a cinema site?

It’s relatively easy to point out the disadvantages of an old design, when you’re about to do the new one. But how to develop a completely new design, especially when it comes to a site of a cinema?

It has to be dynamic, but not heavy – easy to load in the browser. It has to be informative, but not a movie site. It should represent the cinema brand, to emphasize the unique movie experience in this cinema.

We went through all these considerations while we were working on the website of Arena cinemas – the biggest cinema chain in Bulgaria with over 60 cinema halls in 6 Bulgarian cities.

In September 2009 we took up Arena’s website, which development was far behind the business development of the cinema. The website was completely static, heavy info update procedure and old fashioned design.

We changed the whole design – the menu has been restructured for better navigation; the current information has started being pointed out on the homepage, where it should be; the content has been enriched with different formats – .avi files, images, text. We put flash banner positions.

We updated the CMS with the functionalities of the redesign.

The new site stats show that the visitor’s loyalty grows and the site has regular visitors – an evidence for the positive user’s experience. The site has over 30 000 visits per week and we are currently exploring some exciting advertising models.
Have we missed the point? If there is a cinema website that you are in love – please let us know which feature does it for you and why.

Posted: January 19th, 2010 under Development.
Comments: none

Mobile design guidelines

With the number of people using the web through their mobiles continuously rising, also increases the need of good sites which are optimized and built specifically for mobile devices. In this post you will find valuable information about ways to design your web site for the mobile audience and ensure that users receive a satisfactory experience while browsing. The basic guidelines that should be followed are provided below:

1. Find out the right screen size The common phones available can be roughly categorized in several categories based on their screen size:

  • 128 x 160 pixels
  • 176 x 220 pixels
  • 240 x 320 pixels
  • 320 x 480 pixels

If you stick to these screen sizes you can guarantee that many people will be able to view your site. Maybe the most important thing here is to make sure the content is organized vertically, as the viewport has very limited space. Another good point to mention – just use compliant xHTML and not WML, unless your target group is the old rigid Nokia 1100 :) .

2. Choose your markup language Continuing with the latter, you have to make a decision on what markup you’ll be using. So is it going to be WML or xHTML? WML(Wireless Markup Language) was used primarily in the early days of mobile web devices and is now considered old and obsolete. Hand by hand with the WAP protocol it was the only way to access the Internet through mobile devices. Conversely xHTML is a modern “language” accepted everywhere and being approved as a standard. Most new devices understand it and can render xHTML pages similarly to your favourite desktop browser.

3. Validate your web site Why is web site validation necessary? Firstly, because erroneous markup is removed and this guarantees user agents won’t receive input they won’t understand. For example if you miss to provide a valid mobile document type definition like this one -

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD XHTML Mobile 1.0//EN"
"http://www.wapforum.org/DTD/xhtml-mobile10.dtd">

, many browsers will fail to process the document properly and produce unexpected results. You might provide a valid DTD, but you need to write your markup according to the definition. Basically there are subtle differences between the various DTD’s, here’s a list for the interested, of the most popular ones to choose from:

  • XHTML Mobile Profile 1.0
  • XHTML Mobile Profile 1.1
  • XHTML Mobile Profile 1.2
  • XHTML Basic 1.0
  • XHTML Basic 1.1

As for the validation locations, there are two places, the first one is of course w3c – http://validator.w3.org/mobile/ , with their mobile validation checker and the second one – http://www.ready.mobi , they have built a really nice validation engine which provides detailed reports on areas which seem to be problematic or cause errors.

4. Use short domain names. As we all know typing is not as easy on mobiles as it is on a desktop machine. Less typing for the user actually means less frustration here. Wouldn’t it be easier to write mysite.mobi instead of mygorgeousmobilewebsite.mobi ? Of course yes, and a good thing to do to avoid the inconsistencies in names between the normal version and the mobile version Is to use a subdomain – example.com and mobi.example.com suits our purpose just fine.

5. Keep your page size small Limited bandwidth and processor power is something that distinguishes mobile computers from regular ones. If you make a request for a heavy spiced up web page and the packet sizes that you receive by the mobile operator are small ones – the only thing that you’ll guarantee for the visitor is the slow browsing and annoying, painful interactions. Do not use too much images, prefer repeated backgrounds where necessary or just plain colours – this could greatly reduce the overall size and increase download time by the client. In conclusion we can say that if you pay proper attention to the guidelines provided above during your development, you’ll know your visitors won’t run away from your mobile site disappointed.

Posted: April 22nd, 2009 under Development.
Comments: 2

Another look at usability

This is the first of a series of articles where we’ll look at website (and web software) usability as part of the more general concept of “quality”.

More and more companies are offering what they call “usability assessment” of websites and software.

What is usability?

Usability entails the general ease of use of all site components and features. Web usability is the general ease of use of all web site components.

A frequently used definition of usability (ISO 9241-11) covers ‘effectiveness’ (how easy different tasks are completed on the web site), ‘efficiency’ (how much effort it takes to complete a task) and ‘satisfaction’ (all positive attitudes toward the product and freedom from discomfort).

Others prefer to assess usability of the basis of how comfortable, intuitive, consistent and trustworthy experience it creates.

Often, for software applications usability components such as learnability (how easy is the system to learn), memorability (If someone returns to the system, how easily can they remember how to use it?), errors (how often errors are provoked) and satisfaction (Do people like using it) are used.

There are several usability-related methods, and procedures that require careful consideration when designing and developing Web site (some useful usability guideline could be found here). Each of these techniques has its own benefits and could be used in relation to the particular project.

Although there is no common quality standard, every company should decide on its own which usability method to use. No matter what technique is used, usability should be an integrated as part of website (software) development.

Why the incorporation of usability techniques is important to your website?

-    Will lower the development time and will reduce the development costs due to fewer usability related changes after the project launch

-    Will increase the number of retained customers

-    Will give you a competitive advantage over websites that are more difficult to use

Applying usability techniques during the development process saves you money, increases the product quality, number of the loyal customers, reduces the production time and gives you competitive advantage.

Usability techniques could be used in the early stages of website and software development using sketches, wire frames and prototypes and that will ensure that problems are seen and dealt with on time, before they are built into a design. At Stoy Solutions, we like using OmniGraffle. The same usability techniques could be used for evaluation of existing websites as a first step to redesign.

Designers and developers should consider a full range of user-interface issues, and work to create a Web site that enables the best and the easiest possible user performance.

Measuring usability could be made on the basis of comparison with an alternative design or a competitor’s website which will help visualising a more complete picture and better understanding of design issues.

next post comming soon…

Posted: April 11th, 2009 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 5

Recent developments at Stoy

We are very excited to announce that we now have one, and soon a second Zend Certified Engineer. For those who are unaware, Zend is the PHP company supporting much of the community and the main accreditation body.

In times of financial worries and unclear future for a lot of companies, we are confident that professional development, organisational knowledge and continuous improvement will be what differentiated good software houses from secondary players. With only 230 certified developers in the UK, we have proven again that we are not just innovating the way we work, but also conforming to the highest industry standards.

Having said that, we’ve also recently announced partnership with two very well known payment gateways: Protx and Nochex. Having worked for while with Protx on www.freightsearch.com, we have the benefit to our customers from our close relationship with payment gateway. We are currently in talks with Barclaycard, who can offer either an end-to-end solution, or going through Protx / Nochex.

A little bit of internal information from the Stoy Kitchen:

we are researching ways of easily deploying social networks. Interesting topics are scalability and inter-connection of micro social web communities (let’s say of around 100 people) i.e openID, etc.
we will also looking into the world of usability and web site perception. We will be able to offer free quality review of your websites, as part of our proposals. The general feeling is that there quite a lot of focus on “usability” as the only measure of website quality (combined with functionality and design). There are, however a few other aspects, without which we wouldn’t have a complete picture. A few post on this topic coming soon…

Posted: April 11th, 2009 under Uncategorized.
Comments: none

Risks of CRM systems implementation

A customer relationship management system may increase your business’s productivity by 500%. This sounds great, but often such initiatives fail with unclear reasons. Here are some of the critical points in CRM design and implementation:
Database structure: as the database will be central to all activity, poor planning can lead to an unusable system. Even though it is impossible to predict the exact number of client records and their relationships, database architecture should be flexible and allow for expansion.
Purpose: Know what to expect from a CRM system. Most importantly, a CRM should:
•    Deliver superior customer value by personalizing the interaction between the customer and the company
•    Demonstrate the company’s trustworthiness and reliability to the customer.
•    Tighten connections with the customer.
•    Achieve coordination of complex organizational capabilities around the customer.

It is clear that you know what type of CRM system you need…
•    Strategic CRM – focusing on customer value, competitive differentiation, market segmentation and strategic positioning.  These systems provide a CEO-level view of customers and typically answers questions about loyalty and profitability per customer.
•    Operational CRM – focusing on customer service, data capture, database, relationships. Such a system will provide more accurate mail shots and access to complete customer information to call centres. This enables web sites to remember dispatch and payment information requirements and ease future transactions.
•    Analytical CRM – providing infrastructure for customer knowledge. These include transactions, customer contacts, descriptive information and response to marketing stimuli. At his point you  could start measuring Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) and see the benefit of a particular customer over time.

Posted: February 25th, 2009 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 1

About blogging

Blogging is a direct way to communicate with your customers. I felt one of the first posts in our blog should be about blogs themselves, as I’m often asked how good they are for the business, SEO and the image of the business…

Apart from simply telling an interesting story it will help you build loyalty and connect with your audience. You may also generate instant feedback and spark fruitful discussions.
One of the main benefits is that your blog will be visible to search engines, making it easier to spot you.
Most people feel that blogs are trustworthy compared standard web pages, because they directly represent someone’s opinion.
As you have already seen, online marketing is now a lot more than banner ads design to attract people’s attention. It is about understanding your customers through knowing the keywords that they use and then drive users to the pages related to their particular interests, needs and problems. Your content is king, and it needs to be useful. If readers are happy, they will return again and again, and this is key to success, thus you will not only sell products or services, but also build strong relationships with your customers, increase their trust, etc, etc.
Because people read blogs to find unbiased information, you should make it a sales pitch – instead, try to add knowledge in your domain that they will appreciate. As usual – the more targeted your blog is, the better.
Some practical tips:
Your blog’s name and tagline are important to search engines – choose them carefully.
Help your blog’s “importance” by linking it to your company website.
Add social media tags for services like del.icio.us, digg, etc.
RSS – it is a way of allowing other people to “subscribe” to your blog and reading the articles without even being on your website. All blogs should provide you with this functionality.
Be careful when giving contact information – while it’s very important, spammers can detect email address easily and cause nuisence. To avoid this, write emails in human readable, but not computer  readable. Here is ours: hello (at) stoysolutions (dot) com .
Cross-referencing will help you too, so do include links or RSS feed from other blogs and sites. This will automatically update your blog, which sends a positive message to search engines.
Cross-reference within your blog as well – navigation will help users reduce the number of clicks and search engines will enjoy the easier structure and reward you for it. This also means that it is good to keep posts short.
Don’t be disappointed if you don’t receive any comments or even visitors on your website after the first posts. It will take some time for people and search engines to notice you. You can help that by adding a link on your website, newsletters, or even email signatures.
Most importantly: clients will find your blog when searching for information or solution to their problems. However, in order to ensure that your customer will find you, it is crucial to post on topics that will be interesting to your (potential) customers and will add value to services that you provide. Use tools like wordtracker.com and google’s adwords tool .
Interact! Post comments on other people’s blogs. If you build a good relationship with influential bloggers (you will find those on de.licio.us etc). You could recommend your blog, and eventually, services.
Where to start?
Start by reading blogs in your industry. See if you can spot what they do to be successful. Start by posting comments there see if you can engage other people. Finally, when you feel comfortable, you can start your own blog.

Posted: February 25th, 2009 under Uncategorized.
Comments: none

Google Maps Project

This project helps DHL users to check their parcels statuses.
In project we use Google Maps Api (more info GoogleMapsApi)

Each one moment from the status of parcel, DHL makes XML-document, witch we use to take the information about time,date,the parcel status and the location of the parcel.After that we use these data to draw road, the markers and to represent data.

Posted: June 16th, 2008 under Google Maps.
Comments: none