Blue Mouse Monkey Blog

Blue Mouse Monkey is pleased to announce the launch of a new artist website.
Jacqueline Ehlis is a Portland artist who works with abstraction, light, and architectural space in a way that borders on illusion. Her website is designed to reflect the minimal yet architectural aesthetic of her work. With a custom-built content management system created especially for artists, plus a matching blog, Jacqueline can update her site without needing to know any code.

By Randall Munroe of xkcd.com

One of the things I try to get clients to understand is: Your website is not for you. It’s for your audiences.

Why the 2 months of silence? Blue Mouse Monkey has been very busy with several new projects, and we are thrilled to be working with a collection of clients in the world of funders and non-profits.

I’ve also been invited by the National Science Foundation to be participate in a panel to choose the winning proposal for a major online resource in Ethics in Science, Engineering, and Mathematics. It’s an honor to be invited, and it’s fascinating to read these proposals for such a ambitious and worthy project. However, the proposals are long, dense, and detailed, and reading them with the closeness required to make an informed comparison is time-consuming . . . but more about that later. For this post I wanted to write about our current website projects:

OTREC, the Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium, is one of the national UTCs (I didn’t know what that meant before this either). As such they disburse federal dollars to research projects in transportation at four Oregon Universities. OTREC’s themes (each UTC is different) are 1. Innovations in Sustainable Transportation through Advanced Technology, 2. Integration of Land Use and Transportation, and 3. Healthy Communities. What’s not to love?

The new Blue Mouse Monkey OTREC website will be launched in early September.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Spirit Mountain Community Fund is the philanthropic arm of the Confederated Tribes of the Grande Ronde. The fund gives millions from the Tribe’s casino to Oregon non-profits. They also operate a fellowship program to send Native American youth to serve with Congressional Offices in Washington, D.C., and a tribal grant program to benefit development projects in other Oregon tribes.

Here’s something I didn’t know till I met the good folks at SMCF: “The Tribe” as it’s known is made up of the descendants of the many Oregon tribes that lived in the Willamette Valley and the Columbia Gorge until they were evicted by the US government in the winter of 1857. They were forcibly marched to a reservation in a move dubbed Oregon’s Trail of Tears. Adding insult to injury, the tribe lost its Federal recognition in 1954 and the reservation was reduced to 7½ acres. The tribe’s status was restored in 1983. Since then the Tribe has gotten back on its feet through an ambitious economic development program to achieve self-sufficiency.

“The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde through the Spirit Mountain Community Fund fulfills their Native tradition of potlatch, a ceremony at which good fortune is distributed. The Spirit Mountain Community Fund’s focus is to improve the quality of life in Northwest Oregon through community investments that provide lasting benefits consistent with the Tribe’s culture and values.”

Coming from New Zealand where post-colonial issues are more top-of-mind with the general population than here, it’s been really interesting for me to meet folks from the Tribe and come to understand something about the journey they have taken as a people and a culture in order to adapt to circumstances that were forced upon them.

The new Blue Mouse Monkey Spirit Mountain Community Fund website will be launched in late September.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

PlayWrite, Inc, is a Portland organization that uses “the power of performance in art to transform the lives of youth at the edge” They go into schools, particularly under-served schools, and do a two-week residency that brings young people together with coaches from the Portland performing arts community. Students work one-on-one with coaches, learning and honing the tools for creating a play.

“Each play in its entirety springs solely from the mind, feelings and heart of the young writer. At the end of the workshop, professional actors perform a staged reading of the plays before a live audience. This performance – the culmination of three weeks’ work – is a collaborative event involving author, actors and audience. The young writers glow with well-deserved pride as they witness their work being brought to life.”

The new Blue Mouse Monkey PlayWrite website, in all it’s dramatic, swirling, plum-colored glory, will roll out in late August.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

TOFCO is the Tobacco Free Coalition of Oregon, a not for profit organization that includes a coalition of businesses, organizations and individuals who advocate for programs and policies to decrease the toll of tobacco-use in Oregon. The new Blue Mouse Monkey version of their website, launching in October, will be a one-stop shop for anyone looking for information about tobacco use in Oregon, including science, policy, and community information, as well as an examination of the ironies inherent in linking tobacco use with being cool.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

We’re excited to be working with these diverse organizations to help them frame their issues, disseminate their value, and strengthen their voice in the community!

Detail of 'Control Center', by Julia Stoops, 2007. Mixed media on panel.

The Blue Mouse Monkey article Is your 24/7 ambassador an embarrassment? was published in the Non-Profit National Resource Directory in April. You can download it as a PDF, or read it below:

_______________________________________________________

THE WAY IT OFTEN GOES

Your organization does awesome work. You want to do good and you want to empower others to do good too. But if your website is anything short of excellent, it won’t be connecting with your audiences. And there’s nothing more disheartening than an aspirational organization with a mediocre website.

Many non-profits have tight budgets, so a humdrum website comes as no surprise. Such sites are created under “bare bones” conditions, either internally, if there’s someone on board who knows HTML, or externally, by an unseasoned web designer willing to create a portfolio piece for a low or no fee.

And once the site is launched, the “It’ll do” mentality kicks in. Your organization’s staff and volunteers are glad to have a site at all, even if it means referring to it in apologetic terms:
“…it’s not particularly exciting…”
“…it wasn’t exactly what we were hoping for…”
“…it’s cluttered, but we didn’t know how to fix that…”
“…but it’ll do for now…”

And so the inadequate site becomes the public face of your organization. And your audiences-the donors, volunteers, clients, applicants, members of the media, elected representatives-they visit the inadequate site. And they find your mission statement, and your address, and they download a form they want, but they’re getting just the basic facts. They can’t see the passion in your work. No stories are told. No surprises are offered. Nothing moves them.
What a wasted opportunity. You and your organization are trying to cause fundamental change for the better, and your website does nothing to move your audiences. And this becomes more than a theoretical issue when you consider your volunteers and donors. If you want to persuade people to part with their time or money, they need to be moved to do so. Your organization’s website should play a key role in that persuasion.

THE 24/7 AMBASSADOR

Look at it this way: your organization’s website is not just a glorified extension of your phone book listing. It’s your 24/7 ambassador. If you had a staff member who was “always on” and available to talk to anyone, anywhere, about your organization, wouldn’t you want them to do more than repeat your mission statement in a flat monotone and hand out business cards and forms? You probably wouldn’t risk letting such a staff member out the door, let alone be out in the world for years at a time.

Instead, you’d want that always-on staff member to be telling stories about your good work in the world. And not just the same story over and over, but different stories to each person who approaches. The staff member would tell them the latest news, with pictures, even video. The staff member would give out tips and resources, point out relationships between your organization and current events, and build a picture of the value of your organization and its successes. Visitors would still pick up that business card or form, but they’d come away with so much more. A sense of “Wow, that was awesome. I want to know more. I want to contribute. Participate. Join them on Facebook. Tell others.” This is the kind of response an ambassador should elicit.

At this point you may be asking, “What makes the difference between a mediocre site and an excellent site?” The answer lies in a combination of factors:

1. INVESTMENT

UNDERSTANDING THE TRUE VALUE OF YOUR WEB PRESENCE

Q: “If our site looks fancy, donors will think we’ve wasted money that could have gone into helping the communities we serve. Remaining plain, even awkward and ‘homespun’ demonstrates that we’re economical.”

A. There are two problems with this argument. Firstly, an excellent website doesn’t need bells and whistles to connect with your audiences. But it does need to be planned and designed well, and it needs to be adaptable as you and your circumstances change.

Secondly, keeping your website in the “It’ll do” mode is a false economy. An excellent website that truly expresses your vision and your stories is not merely a pretty bauble. It is an investment in the growth of your organization and its ability to serve your communities. According to a study reported April 2009 in BizReport, that looked at how website visitors were likely to part with their money or time, “highly satisfied” visitors to non-profit websites are 49% more likely to donate money and 38% are more likely to donate their time, when compared to dissatisfied visitors.
Read the full article >

The real question is not, “what does an excellent website cost?” but rather, “what are the hidden costs and lost opportunities inherent in a mediocre site?”

2. PLANNING AND ORGANIZATION

THE CRUCIAL FIRST STEP

Q. “But what is there to plan? Here’s our mission statement, our contact info, some news articles, and our bios. It just needs to be arranged neatly.”

A. Planning your site should be strategic. It’s about stepping back and looking at your organization and your audiences: where you’ve come from, where you are now, and where you want to go. An audit of your current site, with its strengths and weaknesses, along with the goals learned from the planning process, will inform the information architecture, messaging, and design of the new site. An excellent site is built with adaptability and growth in mind.

3. COPYWRITING/COPYEDITING

TAILORING YOUR MESSAGE TO YOUR AUDIENCES, WHILE KEEPING YOUR AUTHENTIC VOICE

Q. “Why do we need a copywriter? We’d rather do the writing in-house. After all, we know our organization better than anyone.”

A. It is true that your staff knows more about your organization than an external writer. However, organizations’ websites are at risk of being verbose, wonky, dull, repetitive, and inconsistent. A good compromise is a copy editor: someone who will work with you to unify your message, remove stylistic stumbling blocks, and refine your writing in alignment with your voice, your goals, and the needs of your audiences.

Keep in mind that Web visitors:
• don’t read, they skim
• absorb information in a non-linear way, not necessarily in the order you intend
• will leave much of your website unread
• need information categorized under familiar terms and according to a mental schematic they understand
• don’t need to be told that this is your website and in it they will find information about you
• should be asked, outright, to sign up for your newsletter, RSS feed, or to donate
• like to look at pictures and be told stories

Above all, your audiences should get the information they need as quickly and easily as possible. Especially audiences who might give you something, such as money, time, or exposure. NEVER think, “If they really want to know ‘X’, they can call.”

4. DESIGN

NOT JUST CHOICES ABOUT COLORS, FONTS, SYMBOLS, IMAGERY, AND LAYOUT, BUT THE OVERALL INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE AND EXPERIENCE, TOO

Q. “So called ‘good’ design doesn’t make much difference, right? It’s icing on the cake, something most visitors won’t notice-as long as they can access our information, we’re good.”

A. A well-designed website is not only visually pleasing, it anticipates your audience’s needs and questions, and gives them information in a digestible form. An intuitive interface makes fewer demands on the visitor’s brain as they navigate, while a confusing, cluttered website causes frustration and fatigue. The effect may be slight, but cumulatively leads to a less positive experience for the visitor. Thus, they are less likely to make the investment of signing up for your newsletter, volunteering their time, or clicking the Donate button. Design isn’t just about looks, it’s about functionality.

5. TECHNOLOGY

THE SOFTWARE UNDERPINNING THE SITE AND THE ADMIN SYSTEM

Q. “How do we update the website ourselves? Should we go with a web company that will set us up with their own proprietary content management system?”

A. The content management system (CMS), through which your staff edits the website, should be easy for non-techies to use. It should also be browser-based, meaning it’s accessible (with a secure login, of course) from anywhere with an Internet connection.

Ideally, your CMS should be based on a widely available system so that you’re not locked into a contract with one provider. If your website is built on one of the widely available systems, and you want to switch providers, you can do so easily because many technical experts know how to work with those systems. Whereas, if you’re locked into a proprietary system, only people from that one company can understand the inner workings of your website. And if you want to move away from that company, your website will probably have to be rebuilt.

6. INTERACTIVITY AND ANALYTICS

ENGAGING VISITORS AND GATHERING DATA

Q. “It’s all very well to describe our website as an ambassador, but besides being our “always on” public face, what else can this ambassador do? After all, we’re short staffed here and everybody has to wear multiple hats to get the work done.”

A. An excellent website is more than just a passive brochure. It can interact with your audiences, let them interact with each other, and gather data. Visitors can “talk back” on pages that allow commenting. They can talk to each other if you have a forum. You can poll visitors, and use the data in your work. You can showcase your clients, and grow your and their community. An excellent website also facilitates adding visitors to your database and social media outreach.

Behind the scenes your “ambassador” does analytics, noting which sites and search words bring in visitors, which pages they looked at, how long they stayed, and even the age of their browser. You can learn what’s driving traffic to your site, and watch for clues such as pages that visitors consistently leave early: a sure sign that something is confusing them. Analytics helps you refine your messaging and adapt to changing conditions in the client, donor, political, and social landscapes.

SUMMARY

A well-planned, well-designed, powerful web presence will nourish your organization in multiple ways. Your “ambassador” should get you donors, build your database, frame your issues, tell your stories, and spread the word. In short, your website should be connecting you with your audiences, authentically and powerfully.

As the BizReport article says,

…nonprofit websites have long been underestimated and misunderstood, and actually have tremendous power and influence over donor and volunteer behavior.

Your organization is extraordinary. Your website should be, too.

_____________________________________________________

© Julia Stoops, 2010

Stage and film actor David Millstone needed an easy-to-update site that represented his work to producers and directors. We underpinned this site with WordPress, and wrapped it in a custom “skin” created to clarify the range of David’s skills and unify his brand.

Jackie Shannon Hollis is an author whose fiction and essays have appeared in numerous literary journals, including: The Rambler, Rosebud, South Dakota Review, Inkwell, Flashquake, High Desert Journal, and Oregon Literary Review. Her work has been recognized for several awards. Her novel-in-progress, At the Wheat Line, is near completion, and you can read an excerpt on this site.

To create this site a custom “skin” was wrapped around a WordPress content management system, which for Jackie makes updating her site as easy as keeping a blog.

For a long time I avoided mentioning “branding” to my clients. The word is so easily misunderstood, particularly among my target audiences of creative professionals and those in making-the-world-a-better-place fields. And who can blame them? The word conjures up the ephemeral fictions designed by mega-corporations to fuel desire for lifestyles that are destructive to the planet.

But I had to face facts: when I work with a client, I create or refine their brand. Whether they’re organizations, artists, or businesses, my clients don’t just get a website. They get a coherent, unified web presence that aligns with their core values and goals, and articulates these values and goals to their target audiences.

So it’s time to come clean: Blue Mouse Monkey creates brands and websites for changemakers and cultural innovators.

After all, our clients are extraordinary. They do important work. It’s the best job in the world helping them succeed.

So lift yer shirt and don’t flinch.

Audit sketch of an existing website

All websites require planning—that’s so true it’s almost a tautology. But some websites require more planning than others. Blue Mouse Monkey is enjoying an influx of opportunities to overhaul large complex websites, and I’ve been in super-planning mode the last couple of weeks.

As Steve Jobs says, design is often mistakenly ascribed to how something looks, but it’s really about how it works. It’s my job as a web designer to integrate the “how it looks” and the “how it works” according to many factors. There are several useful terms to describe this type of thinking, such as information architecture, interaction design, user experience design, and website architecture.

Historically the term “information architect” is attributed to Richard Saul Wurman, who saw it as the “creating of systemic, structural, and orderly principles to make something work”.

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE is the categorization of information into a coherent structure, preferably one that the most people can understand quickly, if not inherently.

Understanding how a typical user will experience a decision a website asks them to make (e.g. click on link ‘X’ to access information ‘Y’) takes empathy. It’s the ability to put oneself in the user’s shoes — the user being someone who isn’t nearly as familiar with the website’s content or purpose as my client or I are.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

INTERACTION DESIGN attempts to improve the usability and experience of the product, by first researching and understanding certain users’ needs and then designing to meet and exceed them.

The first conversation I have with clients is always begins with, “Who are your audiences, and what do you ideally want them to do on your site?”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

USER EXPERIENCE DESIGN most frequently defines a sequence of interactions between a user (individual person) and a system, virtual or physical, designed to meet or support user needs and goals, primarily, while also satisfying systems requirements and organizational objectives.
Typical outputs include:

• Site Audit (usability study of existing assets)
• Flows and Navigation Maps
• User stories or Scenarios
• Persona (Fictitious users to act out the scenarios)
• Site Maps and Content Inventory
• Wireframes (screen blueprints or storyboards)
• Prototypes (For interactive or in-the-mind simulation)
• Written specifications (describing the behavior or design)
• Graphic mockups (Precise visual of the expected end result)

When I plan a website I do all these things, except the Persona one, because that’s more applicable to game design. However, we bring in a focus group to give feedback on nearly-completed websites, so in a sense we have real users acting out the experience of the site.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

WEBSITE ARCHITECTURE is an approach to the design and planning of websites which, like architecture itself, involves technical, aesthetic and functional criteria. As in traditional architecture, the focus is properly on the user and on user requirements. This requires particular attention to web content, a business plan, usability, interaction design, information architecture and web design. For effective search engine optimization it is necessary to have an appreciation of how a single website relates to the World Wide Web.

Since web content planning, design and management come within the scope of design methods, the traditional vitruvian aims of commodity, firmness and delight can guide the architecture of websites, as they do physical architecture and other design disciplines. Website architecture is coming within the scope of aesthetics and critical theory and this trend may accelerate with the advent of the semantic web and web 2.0. Both ideas emphasise the structural aspects of information. Structuralism is an approach to knowledge which has influenced a number of academic disciplines including aesthetics, critical theory and postmodernism. Web 2.0, because it involves user-generated content, directs the website architect’s attention to the structural aspects of information.

Then there’s the issue of users with different levels of familiarity with the Web. Unlike printed forms of communication such as books, newspapers, magazines and brochures, the Web is not something the majority of the population grew up with. Kids today are “digital natives“, but there are plenty of us still around who are “digital immigrants”.

An analogy is our knowledge of The Book. We all know how to read a book, so much so we barely register it as a type of knowledge. We understand the heirarchy of cover, title, table of contents, parts, chapters, appendices, index. We don’t have to consciously remember where to begin, or in what order to experience the content, because we learned that stuff on our mother’s knee. Well, maybe not appendices and indices, but by the time we’re reading those kinds of books, we have a solid framework to slot those categories into. But the Web? We’ve had to learn that as adults. And it’s so new it’s barely been standardized. No wonder many people find websites (and computers in general) frustrating. Humankind has been tossed into a new way of organizing and accessing information, and our brains, accustomed to one method, have had to adapt to another. Not unlike like the Mediaeval monk who has to be taught how to transition from scrolls to a bound book in this comedy sketch.

Not that I’m complaining. Much like how the invention of the printing press led to the spread of liberalism, the Internet communications revolution challenges many traditional structures of knowledge and information by removing gatekeepers to access and expression.

Time for me to get back planning more website architecture. There’s information to organize!