HippoBird

Time Commitment

This exercise should take between 1-2 hours.

Short on time?  A condensed version of this worksheet can be found here.

Goals

Research states that writing down your goals gives you a significantly higher chance of achieving them. It’s part of Hippobird’s mission in designing your site to help you meet those goals in the best and most effective way we can. In almost every case we hope to either A) reduce costs, B) increase revenue or C) both. Those are the easy three.

Please take a few minutes and explain what you want your website to do for you and your business.

Target Audience

The next thing we would like to discuss is who your website is being designed for. Granted we hope you have all different types of visitors come to your site but who is your primary audience. To get us started please help us understand your audience.

Competition

Unless you’re creating a brand new product or delivering an unheard of service almost everyone has a little competition out there. If we know who you’re competing against we can help you prepare for battle. Who are your competitors?

We hope that one reason you selected Hippobird to develop your website is to set you apart from your competitors. In addition to that, what other things set you and your business apart from your competitors? This is often referred to as your elevator pitch. You have 3 minutes; ready, set, go!

What sets you apart?

Color

Color plays a very important role in the design of your website. Colors elicit emotions; sometimes wild and exciting, sometimes soothing and calm. Selecting your color scheme may be very simple for you, especially if you already have a logo or colors you’re using in other marketing materials. In other cases you may not have anything to go on or you’d just like to start from scratch. Either way we’ll help you get started.

Already know your color scheme? Please provide us with any existing marketing material that shows how color is currently used in your business. These items may include business cards, brochures, signage, etc. Ideally, if you have digital copies, those would be most helpful. If you use a local print or copy shop to do your letterhead or business cards ask them if they have digital copies. They will likely have copies of your letterhead or logo that we could integrate into your website. If you don’t have digital copies please gather any hard copies you have and have them ready for your project representative.

Need to come up with a color scheme? Don’t be afraid. This is a fun process and we’re here to help. First, let’s start with the basics. List a few colors that may help us get started.

Second, open your web browser and go to http://www.designmeltdown.com. If you go to the Classic Design Meltdown site, you will see the Table of Contents. Scroll down to the second heading title COLOR USAGE. Under this heading you will see a list of colors starting with Black, Black & White, etc. By clicking on one of those color names you will be taken to the first page in a gallery of websites using that color. Some galleries have multiple pages. You view those pages by clicking the links in the left-hand menu or by clicking the number link in the Editions box at the top of the page.

If you go to the Design Meltdown 2010 site, find the top navigation menu and hover over the second item, Design Styles. From the list click on Colors and you will see a few posts on color designs.

Take your time and explore. See if you find a few sites you like or dislike. By clicking on one of the website thumbnail images, a new window will be opened and you will be taken to the corresponding website. Please write down the addresses of those sites here:

Would you like to explore a little more? Let’s go to http://kuler.adobe.com. This is a website for true color aficionados. Designers from around the world come up with color schemes for everyone to use and explore. On the left-hand side of the screen you can select from menu items like Newest, Most Popular, Highest Rated, or Random. Or you type a color into the search bar and click the magnifying glass. Just for fun type the word “fish” into the search bar and click the magnifying class.

Immediately you are presented with nearly 500 color combinations that other people have created for you. Did you find one you like? Click on the name of the color combination and you’ll see the color bars on the top of the screen change to match your new color scheme. Now, underneath and to the right of the color combination’s name, click on “More Info”. Once expanded you will see an address that starts with http:// and ends with a number; for example, One Fish Two Fish has an address of http://kuler.adobe.com/#themeID/185556. Please give us the names (One Fish Two Fish) and number (185556) of the color combinations you’re most interested in:

Still haven’t found what’s you’re looking for? If you still haven’t landed on the perfect color or would just like a little extra credit we have one more place for you to visit. Now, point your browser to http://www.colorsontheweb.com/colorwizard.asp#wizard.

By sliding the red, green and blue bars on the top of the wizard to the left and right you’re able to create the exact color of your choosing. Using this method the exact color is identified by a six digit hex code (something like B670C0). By moving the sliders you will not only see the main hex code change but also the hex codes in hue, saturation and tint & shade.

Once you’ve found the perfect color enter its hex value into the box labeled “Enter hex code #” and click Set. Now, by clicking on the suggested color scheme buttons on the bottom of the wizard (Monocromatic, Analogous, Triadic, Tetradic, Complimentary, Split Complimentary) you can see other colors that go well with your selected color. After this you should be able to tell us exactly what you’re looking for.

Style

Just like in the fashion industry design styles are constantly evolving and changing to meet the needs of consumers all over the world. If you look at the stores you like to shop at versus the stores high school kids shop at they are probably very different. Based on your preferences tell us about a few website you really like or dislike. They don’t have to even be related to your industry. For instance, if you like the Sport’s Illustrated website (www.si.com) but your website will be selling clothes that’s perfectly OK. Don’t pay any attention to content, just think about style.

Fortunately there are websites that help us keep up with design trends without spending hours looking through magazines and studying the industry. To broaden your view of style we will now return to http://www.designmeltdown.com.

Before, we were concerned with color, now we’re concerned with style. If you scroll down a bit the left hand menu will change to “DESIGN ELEMENTS & TECHNIQUE”. This is where the fun really starts. Under this heading you will see a list of design styles and techniques. By clicking on one of these you will be taken to the first page in a gallery of websites using that style or technique. Please note that some galleries have multiple pages. You can get to those pages by clicking the links in the left-hand menu or by clicking the number link in the Editions box at the top of the page.

Take your time and explore. See if you find a few sites you like or dislike. By clicking on one of the website thumbnail images a new window will be opened and you will be taken to the corresponding website. Please write down the address to those sites here:

Imagery

Part of what makes any great design is the use of great images. Depending on the type of business you’re in, you may already have a selection of images we could use. These could be of your staff, your building, your product, your projects or just stock photography you’ve used on other marketing collateral.

If you have any images that you know we could use on your website please burn those on a CD or DVD and give them to your project representative. If you have hard-copy photographs that you would like us to scan we can help you with that as well although that may require additional time and charges. The more digital images you can provide the better.

Don’t have any images to speak of? No worries, we’re there for you. There are many stock photography websites that our designers use every day to provide high quality, royalty-free, photos and illustrations that could be used on your website. While this is not a required step you may be able to help us narrow down the thousands of choices that we have -available to use on your new site. One great place to browse for images is a website called iStock Photo (www.istockphoto.com). If you’re interested in assisting us with image selection feel free to search through their catalog and note any interesting photos in below:

Existing Collateral

Alright, you’re almost finished. We talked about it before but it’s worth mentioning again. If you already have marketing collateral for your business we’d love to get copies of that to help us kick-start the design. Some examples of existing collateral include:

• > Logo
• > Corporate colors
• > Font names or styles
• > Style guide
• > Business cards
• > Stationary
• > Envelopes
• > Brochures
• > Signage & posters
• > Annual reports
• > Flyers
• > Personalized Greeting, Thank You or Christmas cards
• > and the list goes on and on…

If you have any or all of these please gather them up and have them ready for your project representative.

Additionally, if you have digital copies please burn them to a CD or DVD for your representative.

No digital copies? Do you work with another designer or a local vendor to print your business cards or stationary? If so they likely have digital copies of a lot of your material.

Please tell us how we can get a hold of them and we’ll take it from there.

You’re Finished

Thank you very much for all the hard work and time you’ve already put into helping create your new website. With your input and our expertise we’re very confident you’ll be happy with the results.

Once we’ve received this document and any supporting materials it usually takes a few weeks to come up with the first design. When it’s ready we’ll call you to schedule an appointment to view the first draft.

If you have any questions or comments, please communicate those to your project representative or note them below.

Thank you,
The Hippobird Team