hFIDO Blog

“Using game theories in areas not otherwise associated with games is often referred to as gamification. This term, however, has gotten a rather negative air recently, because people tend to use it for the wrong purposes. A common issue with gamification is that it is used in marketing with no other goal than to sell products. I don’t think gamification should be used this way — in the long run, it does nothing good for the company trying to sell. Instead, gamification should be used to improve the experience of buying and using a product. In this article, we’ll explore how and when to use gamification to improve the user experience of sites and apps, and also when not to use it.”

Read the full article on Smashing Magazine.

“Over the past few years we’ve noticed a pattern on the corporate websites we’ve worked on:

• Most of the visitors enter through search or referrals. By most I mean 80% to 90%.
• Most visitors will see three or fewer pages. In other words, they will click (or tap) twice.
• Less than 10% of visitors will see the home page, and fewer will start there.

We’ve started calling this the two-click (or tap) rule: Most people will enter in the middle of your site, click (or tap) twice, then leave. Unlike the three-click rule there’s at least some evidence for it.

The two-click rule has important implications for how we think about content and information architecture for corporate websites.”

Read the full article on nForm.

“[T]he importance of visual storytelling is clearly one of the year’s breakout trends. Facebook Timeline, Pinterest, and Instagram are forcing brands to think and act more visually. Couple that with the impact of mobile browsing, and these emerging trends give new meaning to the phrase ‘show, don’t tell.’ In other words, the ‘beautification of the web’ era is upon us. How does this shift toward visual storytelling impact your content marketing plan? Let’s explore some trends that illustrate where we are and where we’re going.”

Read the full article on Mashable.

“Several layout patterns are often recommended to take advantage of how people scan or read through a design. [Three] of the more common are the Gutenberg [D]iagram, the [Z-P]attern layout, and the [F-P]attern layout.

Each offers advice for where to place important information, but…these patterns are often misunderstood and followed without thought to what they really describe.

[Let's] walk through the what and why of each pattern and then offer something else that gives you as a designer more control over where your viewer’s eye moves across your design.”

Read the full article on Van SEO Design.