Last week, we launched the new Thalhimer web site. For those not in Virginia, Morton G. Thalhimer, Inc. is a commercial real estate company based in Richmond, VA with multiple offices across the state. We redesigned and redeveloped their web site.

The process started with a full web site assessment. We analyzed how their target audience used their web site by conducting usability studies and examining web analytics. We used all of this information to complete a full visual redesign of the web site, and we redeveloped the site to make it easier for customers on both traditional screens and on mobile devices to use. The site is also easier to update — they don’t have to involve the IT group to make changes or add content.

The site uses Expression Engine to control most site content, and integrates with internal databases as well.

See the site at thalhimer.com.

When publishing articles online, there are a few guidelines that help people read your site — use bullet points, write in short paragraphs and offer an article summary. CNN’s web site, though, provides the best implementation of article summaries I’ve seen.

While I’ve seen and even recommended the approach of using article summaries before, I think CNN’s article summaries do a few things very well.

• The summary is located in the right place. The headline is large and attracts attention, and the summary is immediately to the right.
• The summary uses short, one-line bullet points
• There’s a small yet noticeable link to the next article in case the current one does not interest you.

I was reading Seth Godin’s blog post a few days ago about “the magic of low-hanging fruit” and was reminded of the power of fixing low-hanging fruit when redesigning your web site.

You see, when we perform web site assessments, the first thing we look for is low-hanging fruit. Often, fixing these small, easily identifiable issues requires little effort and produces a big return.

If you think your web site is fully-optimized, think again. I’ve yet to work on a site that doesn’t have some small issues that can be easily fixed. Understandably, some companies are reluctant to make changes. I’m currently working with a client whose site won some major awards in the early 2000′s (“back in the day”). They conducted rudimentary usability research and had a great site, but they haven’t changed anything but content since.

Now, years later, they’ve hired me to do a web site assessment. They are understandably reluctant to totally overhaul their once award-winning web site. In addition to needing some design updates, this site could benefit from fixing some low-hanging fruit to significantly improve their bottom line.

The most dramatic example I have of fixing low-hanging fruit is an e-commerce client I had about 2 years ago. The product images on his product pages were so large that they took up a normal customer’s entire screen. By shrinking the image and moving all pricing information near his add-to-cart button — all of which took 2 hours to change — site revenue improved over 60%.

I encourage you to contact us — we can identify what changes should be made to your site.

Today, we launched a new web site for an author friend of mine, Charles Jones (I call him “Chip”). Chip is a former Richmond Times-Dispatch staff writer who paid his way to Iraq last June to research this book, entitled Red, White or Yellow? The Media & the Military at War in Iraq.

The site contains a video trailer about the book, which we posted on YouTube, and a slideshow of original photos that Jones took while in Iraq. The book can be pre-ordered from Amazon and will ship in September. Congrats Chip!

Visit RedWhiteorYellow.com

I’m proud to announce the launch of a new project that’s been nearly 8 months in the making (hey, client projects always come first). Recently, we launched a newly re-designed version of the Rick Whittington Consulting web site.

While there are a lot of new features”behind-the-scenes.” I wanted to share a couple that you’ll want to take note of.

• A more integrated, improved blog
  You can now see new blog posts in relevant places on the new site (outside of the blog). You can also sign up to have blog posts e-mailed to you (just look to the right and enter your e-mail address) — a great way to receive new content! If you use an RSS feed reader, you can add our new feed to your list — it’s at http://feeds.feedburner.com/WebSiteEffectivenessBlog. If social bookmarking is your thing, you can also help me promote things I write on the blog.
• An updated portfolio
  I’l be the first to tell you that it’s embarrassing that we hadn’t updated the portfolio in nearly 2 years. I’ve updated the portfolio with new projects to better showcase our design and development capabilities. View the portfolio now.

There are also a few other behind-the-scenes capabilities that allow us to serve content based on where you’re from and how you get here. We’ll be using that soon.

Having dealt with some large organizations and different kinds of personalities in my past work, I thought I would share a tip about how to share feedback effectively with your web design firm. Admittedly, this post is not for the do-it-yourselfer, but the company that hired a web design firm to design their web site.

The design phase of any web design project solicits lots of back-and-forth communication between client and designer. The key to a successful project is to communicate in a meaningful way. Here’s what I mean:

To be effective, the designer should share why they made certain design choices and ask the client specific questions that help the designer compile good feedback. The designer should interpret client feedback and create user-friendly solutions, then document the decisions that were made and why.

The client, on the other hand, should communicate the “big picture” without being too specific. For example, designers don’t usually respond positively when told to design something a certain way. For example, telling your designer to place specific clip art on your web site will probably make your designer mad. Designers like to hear what you want to achieve, then figure out how to best design it. Hint: this probably doesn’t include cute clip art.

I encourage clients to provide a general idea of what they want, and that I reserve the right as an expert to create a few designs that a) solve your problem in the most attractive, user-friendly way and b) solve your problem in a way that I’ll be proud to display in my portfolio (and won’t embarrass your CEO at the next networking event).

Communicating effectively with your web designer and being open-minded to their design concepts will produce a design that works better and is finished quicker. Oh, yeah, and you and your designer will be happy with the end result.