How is it declared?

The !important declaration is a keyword that can be added at the end of any CSS property/value. For example:

p {margin-left: 5px !important}

or

p {margin: 10px 5px 0 10px !important}

What is its impact?

The CSS assigns a weight to each rule depending on the specificity of its selector and its position in the source. This determines which style is applied to an HTML element.

If 2 rules conflict on a single element then the following principles will be applied:

• Origin of rules – If a rule between an author and a user stylesheet conflicts, the user’s rules will win over the author’s rules.
• Specificity – When 2 or more declarations that apply to the same element set the same property and have the same importance and origin, the declaration with the most specific selector will be applied.
• Source order – When 2 rules have the same weight, the last rule declared in the stylesheet will be applied.

There might be times when it would be useful to change the order of sequence. It’s possible to break that cascading chain by using the !important CSS declaration. When the !important declaration is used on a property/value, that value becomes the most important for that property and overrides any others.

In this example, the second selector is more specific and declared last but the first rule will take precedence because the !important declaration overrides any other value that is set for this element.

p {margin-left: 5px !important}
#id p {margin-left: 10px}

If an !important keyword is appended to a shorthand declaration:

 p {margin: 10px 5px 0 10px !important}

It’s the same as adding it to each property:

p {
margin-top: 10px !important;
margin-right: 5px !important;
margin-bottom: 0 !important;
margin-left: 10px !important
}

When should you use !important ?

Here are some examples when the !important declaration can be used:

Targeting IE 5/6

Internet Explorer 5 and 6 ignore the !important declaration if the same property is declared twice in the same block of styles.

p {margin-left: 5px !important; margin-left:10px}

Internet Explorer 5 and 6 will apply a margin left of 10px to each paragraph while all the other browsers will apply a margin left of 5px.

Overriding inline styles

The !important declaration can be used to override inline styles generated dynamically by WYSIWYG editors in content management systems.

Text formatting defined via a WYSIWYG editor is inserted in the HTML code as inline styles. But those inline styles can be overridden by the !important declaration in the author stylesheet.

For example, a user may want to have a line of text styled in red:

<div id="content"><p style="color:red">Some text</p></div>

But the site’s author can override this declaration by forcing all paragraphs of text within the content area to be styled in black:

#content p {color:black !important}

Print stylesheets

The !important declaration can also be used in a print stylesheets to make sure that the styles will be applied and not overridden by anything else.

What are the downsides?

The only way to override an !important declaration is by using an even more specific !important declaration. This can make the stylesheets quite cluttered and very difficult to maintain.

Good to know

In CSS1, an important declaration in an author stylesheet took precedence over the user’s stylesheet. This order has been reversed in CSS2 to make sure that users can always overwrite an author’s stylesheet if wanted.

Conclusion

The !important declaration if used without much consideration can make CSS files difficult to maintain but if used with forethought, it can save time and effort.

by Brigitte Simard

Article Marketing Template: Reaching Customers Who Need Your Help But Don’t Know It Yet!

If your business is online, this can be a tricky question to answer. If you fall back on your usual answer of what your business is, and you start explaining things using terminology that is unfamiliar to your new friend, you will soon see their eyes glaze over and their mind start to wander. It takes special effort, especially for those of us who have virtual businesses, to explain our businesses to people in the “real world”.

It is helpful to step outside of your usual circle of acquaintances and to try to explain your niche to someone who doesn’t have the first idea what your field is about.

Why would you want to make a connection with someone who doesn’t understand what your product is?

Consider that you might have potential customers who don’t know that they need your services. For example, my usual target market is people who are interested in marketing their websites. Anyone with a website who is already interested in marketing it would be very interested in my answer to the question, “What business are you in?”

But what about business owners as a whole? Many business owners just think it’s enough to have a website and have no earthly idea that they need to market it. I need to educate them about the potential of their website as a marketing tool and also teach them how to market their site.

I call this an untapped target audience – those who need your help but don’t know it yet.

Let me ask you: who is your untapped target audience? Have you thought about writing articles to help spark their interest?

This article template is designed to help you with this. It is very simple:

Step 1: Imagine that you are at a dinner party and someone has asked you “What business are you in?”

Write down (or type up) your reply for this person in your untapped target audience.

Here are some guidelines for you:

• Be very general – remember that you are giving a bird’s eye overview of your topic.

• Avoid niche jargon – use language that your grandmother or neighbor would understand.

• Focus on the needs of this person in your target market rather than on yourself. Your reply should not refer to your business, but rather to your niche.

• Include in your reply what types of people you serve (and remember, you’re talking to someone who is this type of person but who just isn’t aware of it yet).

• How does your niche benefit those in your target market?

• Write as if you’re having a conversation with someone. You might need to do some backward explaining in order to get some of this information in so that it makes sense.

• Your goal is to demonstrate (rather than convince) that the type of work that you do could benefit this new friend of yours. You provide the objective information about your field and who you serve, and the goal is that your new friend makes the connection that he could in fact use your services. Alternatively, your goal could be that your new friend becomes interested in learning more about your niche. Many times it can take a person a while to warm up to the idea of needing new services, and it pays to be patient and accommodating.

Step 2: Now, it’s time to look back over your reply and identify key ideas. These key ideas can then be used as article topics.

What do think “will you try this?”

I have found this article template to be very effective at reframing my thinking and helping me come up with article topics designed to draw readers from my untapped target audience to my business. From using this template just one time, I was able to generate at least 8 laser targeted article topics that I had never thought of before. I hope it works as well for you!

by Steve Shaw

Let’s have some fun and compare a new house and a website in a way that may help put this relationship into perspective.

To succeed most new homeowners know that their (online) home is necessary to compete. Customers are less likely to buy from you if you lack the sophistication of another vendor if their (online) home is up and running while you are homeless.

Having designed custom websites for more than 10 years, and interacted with other web developers in online communities where we share advice to help newcomers to website design, I have discovered some common problems.

The most difficult part of designing a new home is the obligation for interaction between the two parties. As the homeowner, only that owner knows their expectations for the performance of the new house, and that information must be communicated effectively to the contractor. Most designers will ask the right questions to determine the size, number of rooms, and functionality of the appliances in the new home. The complexity of the project will be fairly clear before the actual contractual agreement takes place.

At this point many homeowners only imagine the finished product and overlook their obligation to stay involved during the development and construction of the new home. It would be different if they decided on do-it-yourself, but with someone else taking the lead many drop out and simply look forward to moving day. It’s not that simple, and herein lays the biggest problem.

The contractor is not a mind reader, and it is highly unlikely they are an expert in your niche. The information you internalize and take for granted must be extracted and communicated to your new home designer to ensure the success of your project. Take the time to do this and be prepared to discuss your needs in detail before you commit to a contract.

Analyze 5 key elements to define and document your expectations as follows:

1. layout
2. benefits
3. performance
4. promotion
5. growth

The project cost will depend on your needs. If you specify and pay for a cottage and later you request features for a mansion, expect a price increase from the original contract. This may seem silly, but it happens more often than some people realize. The complexity of your project will affect cost. A simple design takes less effort than a highly interactive design which requires more technology and time to complete.

Unless you specify what you want initially, how it will perform, and the future plans for growth, your finished project may result in disappointment. Any contract to perform is worthless if in the end either party resents the deal.

Let’s drop the website and house analogy now, and focus on a real website for a small business owner. The client should prepare a plan in advance and below are suggestions using the previous 5 item list. For a small business website, each element should be analyzed to make sure you communicate your needs to the website designer.

Layout
A familiar look to match printed materials is important for your website. If your business is brand new, establishing your corporate identity should be done and approved in a logical order with the logo, then a business card, other printed materials, and finally the website. Branding your company requires a consistent look in print and online. You may also want to search and view websites that belong to your competition, and give the web addresses to the designer to better communicate what you like.

Benefits
Your business is unique even if 1000 other companies within 100 miles do exactly what you do. When all things seem equal, the personality and character of you and your staff makes you unique. Prepare a list of the benefits people enjoy doing business with you. Stay focused on positive aspects including quality, price, delivery, and service, and then list these as bullets in a word processor that you can copy and paste into an email to send to your designer. Write 10-20 benefit statements in short phases or sentences to communicate and share what’s stored between your ears.

Performance
Your website allows you to present more information online than can possibly fit on a business card. One page may be fine if your business is local and all you want is the sophistication of a www domain name on your business card. Multiple page static sites are more likely to draw search engine traffic, so be prepared with a larger budget for this information only website. If you require an interactive site with contact forms, client login with passwords, full eCommerce including a shopping cart, or similar advanced features, the price increase will be substantial. Know what you want and tell the designer.

Promotion
If the internet were compared to a forest then your website is just 1 tree among 6 billion pages online. If you want to be noticed, some form of off site promotion will be necessary. Make sure your www domain name is on all printed marketing materials. Add it to your email signature. If your business involves ground travel, have the www domain on your vehicles. For larger or interactive sites that depend on search engine driven traffic, you cannot simply launch a website and expect visitors automatically. Advanced promotion takes time and effort, and although your website designer should be able to make suggestions, be prepared with an ongoing annual budget for promotion.

Growth
As your business grows you may want the website to expand as well. Some small business website owners want a highly interactive website including the ability to add, remove, or change content without the assistance of the original designer. Some will negotiate a rate up front and delegate this service. Regardless, looking ahead in anticipation of future needs for your online presence should be reviewed up front and on a regular basis. If you decide you want to take over managing your website, there are no easy solutions because the learning curve may be steep. The added cost bears consideration, so be prepared to make a decision about what you need versus what you want.

Based on experience, here is some advice to assist small business website owners maximizing the relationship with their designer. Plan ahead using the points already given before you even contact the designer. Being prepared to discuss your expectations is more likely to result in a finished project where neither party resents the deal. If in the course of the project development you decide more features are required, expect to pay accordingly.

Understand what you need. Aside from the website design you need a www domain name registration priced per year, and monthly hosting for storing your site online. As simple as that seems, it is surprising how much can go wrong if these two basic needs are handled poorly. The options are too numerous to detail here, yet if purchasing a domain and hosting is new to you, seek the advice of your designer. Mistakes my clients have made have delayed projects by weeks or months.

For a static site that will not change, the annual cost for the domain and hosting should be less than $100 USD. For an interactive site the design fee may be more, but the annual cost to remain online should still be less than $100 USD. Sites requiring advanced promotion or ongoing maintenance to add, revise, or delete content could add several 1000 dollars to your cost.

Finally, acknowledge emailed progress updates or requests for information from your designer. From experience, clients have ignored or overlooked multiple emailed requests to clarify content needed to continue with the design, and then weeks later questioned why a given page was not done. One example was a simple application form which was not part of the original proposal, required a list of fields for the form, and incurred an additional design fee for the add-on. Failing to respond with timely communications only delays the launch or your website.

by Jim Degerstrom

Creating Your Online Marketing Flow in 3 Simple Steps

Don’t make this same mistake!

There are many, many, different online marketing strategies you can implement to grow your business and attract new subscribers to your list, but the key to making any of them work is consistency and persistence. It simply isn’t good enough to try one for a short time, decide it’s not working, and then move on to the next.

You won’t see the results you’re hoping for.

This is exactly what I’ve seen some of my clients do. They come to me because they’re struggling to attract new subscribers and want me to put in place a system for growing their list. They say they’ve tried article marketing, blogging, social networking, or one of the many other strategies, and none of them are working. The problem is they’re not giving them time, and they haven’t got their system set up so that their marketing plan flows.

Here is my three-step system for creating an online marketing system that flows, grows your list, and turns your prospects into paying clients.

Step One: drive traffic to your website

In this step you will apply techniques such as article marketing, blogging, social networking, podcasting, hosting teleclasses, or any other technique and drive traffic back to your website. They key here is to be effective in your technique so that your target market knows that you are the person to help them solve their problem.

Pick three of the online marketing techniques that are most suited to you and your business and be consistent with them. Work at them on a weekly basis over a three-month period before deciding whether they’re working or not. Don’t just try it for a week … and then decide you’re not seeing results. You need to give it time.

At the end of the three-month period analyze your results to see which strategies were the most effective. Continue with the ones that are working, and then look at implementing a new technique to add to your online marketing toolkit.

Step Two: have a way to capture visitors to your website

Now that you’ve decided on two or three techniques for driving traffic to your website you need to have a way for capturing visitors to your website, and getting them on your list.

To do this you will need to have a sign-up box on every page of your website, and offer a free taste, i.e. a report, audio, ecourse, tip sheet etc. that you can give your visitor in exchange for them giving you their name and email address.

And, most importantly, you need to make this process automated!

To do that you need to be using a list management service. The more popular ones amongst solopreneurs are:

• 1 ShoppingCart
• Aweber
• Constant Contact
• iContact

Although there are many to choose from. By utilizing one of these services you will be able to add a customized sign-up box to your website, and visitors signing up to your list will automatically be added to your database, which is hosted with your list management service.

Don’t let visitors leave your website without giving you their information – otherwise you’ll have lost them for good and all your hard work implementing your techniques will have been in vain.

Step Three: stay in touch with the people on your list and turn them into paying clients

Now that you’ve got your website visitors to sign up to your list it’s crucial that you have a plan in place for staying in touch with them. The absolute best way of doing this is through publishing a regular newsletter (or ezine).

A basic format for your newsletter should look something like:

• A personal note from you
• Promotion of a product/event Feature article (the main part of your newsletter)
• About you section
• You Recommend Section and/or Market Place

A general rule of thumb is that your newsletter should follow the 80/20 guide, i.e. 80% should be useful content, and 20% promotion of your product/service/program.

Send your newsletter out on a regular basis in order to stay in touch with your list and turn your prospects into paying clients.

By following the three steps outlined above you will create a marketing plan that constantly brings in new subscribers, and turns those subscribers into paying clients.

by Tracey Lawton

Introduction to CSS2

This article is not meant to teach you Cascading Style Sheets. In this article you will learn the basics of CSS2 and how it differs from Cascading Style Sheets, level 1.

Cascading Style Sheets, level 2, supports all of the functionality of CSS1. This means that if you create a CSS1 style sheet, it will work in a user agent that understands CSS2. Plus, the way that CSS1 is written, if you write a CSS2 style sheet, and load it in a CSS1-only user agent, that agent will simply ignore the elements and properties that it doesn’t recognize.

Differences Between CSS1 and CSS2

There are some really interesting differences between Cascading Style Sheets level 1 and level 2. CSS2 offers many new options for accessibility and use across various user agents. Positioning in CSS2 is more flexible and offers more options to the designer. Automated content allows developers to force the user agent to display specific content elements as well as the layout, look, and feel. Also there is support for special cursors in CSS2 as well as dynamic outlining.

Accessibility and CSS2

Aural style sheets
With CSS2, there are now style properties to define an aural style sheet for your documents. This means, that if a customer comes to your Web page with a screen reader that is CSS2 enabled, you can define how your page will sound. And this isn’t just useful for blind customers, with aural CSS your documents can be listened to in automobiles, as auditory documentation for training, entertainment, and even for people who simply can’t read.

Paging
CSS1 dealt almost solely with “continuous media” – that is, media like Web pages that would run continuously until the end. Paged media, such as paper, slide shows, or transparencies were not handled. But with CSS2, it is possible to define how pages should be displayed or printed. This means that you can specify the size of the page to be printed, add things like crop marks and register marks, or how the page should layout on double- and single-sided printings.

Media Types
CSS2 media types allow you to specify different style rules depending upon how your document is going to be displayed. There are many different types you can specify, including: aural, braille, handheld, screen, print, and tv (plus others).

International Accessibility Features
CSS2 now offers features such as more list styles for international documents, support for bidirectional text, and language-sensitive quotation marks.

Improved Features over CSS1

Font selection
When choosing which font to use, CSS2 offers both the standard “name matching” system that CSS1 uses, plus three other methods for defining fonts. These are: intelligent font matching, where the user agent uses a font that is the closest match to the requested font. Font synthesis, where the user agent creates a font that matches the metrics of the requested font. And font download, where the user agent retrieves a font over the Web.

Tables
CSS2 recognizes that there might not be a table element (and related elements) in an XML document – but to display tabular data, it is important to have this as a style. So CSS2 allows you to define any element as a table element (and all the related table elements).

Positioning
While CSS1 had some aspects of positioning, CSS2 takes it to the next level. Relative and absolute positioning determine their location based on their placement within the document or based on the user agent. But along with absolute positioning is the concept of fixed positioning. This acts as a sort of “watermark” in continuous media. In paged media, an element with fixed position is repeated on every page. This allows you to create frame-like documents or place a signature on every page of a document.

Cursors
Now you can define how you want your cursor to respond to various actions. For example, you might want the default behavior over a link to be changed over some of the links in your document. With CSS2 you can define how the cursor should look over any element.

There are many other features that are new with CSS2, but these are some of the most exciting ones. There are also elements like text-shadows, new pseudo-classes, the use of system colors, and dynamic outlines. You can find out more about the differences between CSS1 and CSS2 on the W3C Web site.

By Jennifer Kyrnin

Successful SEO Strategies - What Should You Be Tracking?

The reality though is the success criteria will vary depending on each individual business and the aim of the site but without an initial consult with the site owner or business marketing manager this important metric is often overlooked.

For example an informational or charitable site may only want an increase in exposure, the same could apply to a promotional site also. But an e-commerce site may need to see both tangible and non tangible results.

A tangible result in most cases could be a seen or measured return on investment from the SEO campaign by the generation of increased sales activity of either the target product and/or associated products, and non tangible success factors could be an increased public awareness of the business or brand awareness, and additionally lead generation from client capture that could lead to future sales and/or customer referrals.

In reality whilst the success of a campaign can come down to the increased ranking of a particular single target keyword or phrase resulting in increased visitor numbers or increased sales additionally, a successful campaign will also increase the site authority in the search engines as well.

Site authority can be gained from a short term campaign but in reality is often the result of a longer sustained and well planned campaign that not only targets a small keyword basket but also a diverse one.

Typically reporting only measures targeted keyword/phrase results but often a sites biggest boost in performance comes when it starts to develop authority.

So how do you know when your site is getting authority?

Simple, not only will your site rank for primary keywords but you will also start to rank for a whole bunch of keywords and keyword combinations especially if you have good on page optimisation or have had optimised copy written for you.

In addition to this you will also notice when checking your stats that search engines will send you traffic for phrases you have not even promoted and ultimately for phrases that may not even be on the page.

What happens here is the search engines surmise from your link popularity and on page factors that your site will most probably the site (or one of the sites ) most likely to provide the searcher with the answer they are looking for.

Some typical factors that help site authority are the quality, diversity and spread of the links to your site (not only the front page), new discovered link activity, new relevant pages on your site, on page optimisation and internal linking as well as a few other factors.

So in summary not only track your initial targeted keywords carefully to ensure the results are consistent with your success criteria, but also pay close attention to other keyword traffic that the search engines send you. If the search terms are profitable then develop additional optimised content and pages to grow your site organically and further develop your sites authority.

by Dave Talbot

Look Professional

The most obvious reason for having a graphic design business card is to be able to easily provide your contact information to potential clients and employers. You don’t want to be left in a situation where you are promoting your business, and then searching for a scrap of paper to jot down your phone number, email address and website. Having your card on you at all times will insure that you are providing people with clear and accurate information. It is important to look professional and legitimate, and a business card is the first step.

Show Off Your Work

A business card serves as a mini portfolio…the first example of your design work that you are showing potential clients. The design, and message, of the card itself can make it stick in people’s minds and convince them to contact you for their next big project. The card should reflect your own personal style, so people have a tiny glimpse into your work that makes them want to see more. This is not to say a simple card cannot do the trick, but even a basic design can have the small touches that impress your next client.

What to Include

Before working on the actual design of the card, decide what you want to include on it. Most commonly, a graphic design business card will include any of the following:

• Company Name
• Logo
• Slogan
• Your Name (if different from company name)
• Title or Description of Work Provided (i.e. Web and Print Design)
• Phone Number
• Fax Number
• Email Address
• Website Portfolio Address
• Mailing Address

Having all of these content items on your card would most likely be overwhelming and crowded on the small space of a card. Only include what is essential. Along with these items, consider including a message that will speak to your target audience.

Find a Printer

You don’t necessarily need to choose a printer before you design the card. However, it may be helpful in that you can see the size, paper and other printing options early on in the design process. Which printer you choose may be based on their costs or options such as papers and sizes (discussed next). Online printers often offer low-cost options for business card printing. Most will send free samples at your request, so be sure the quality is what you are looking for at your budget. Most will also provide templates for popular graphics software such as Illustrator, making the design process easier.

Choose the Size, Shape & Paper

The standard business card is 2 inches tall by 3.5 inches wide. This is often the best choice, as it will fit in business card holders and match up with other business cards, and will often have the lowest printing cost. Perhaps you have a design in mind that will work best on a square or round card. Most printers do provide a variety of shapes and sizes, as well as custom die-cuts. Just remember that while you may want to make a statement with a fancy shape, a card should be convenient, both for you to carry and for others to take, and hopefully keep. Don’t make the mistake of choosing form over function. Choosing the standard size but with rounded or angled corners can be a nice touch and compromise. At this point, you should also decide if the card will be one or two-sided. With the low costs of online printers, it is possible to get a full-color, two-sided card at a good rate.

Before completing your business card project, you will also have to choose a paper. This decision will often be limited by what your printer of choice provides. Common choices are glossy and matte finish at different weights such as 14pt. Again, getting samples from printers can help with this decision.

Design the Card

Treat this design as you would a project for your top client. Now that you’ve collected your content and determined the document size, move on to some preliminary sketches. Figure out where each element will appear on the card. Do you want one side to be just your logo, with contact information on the back? Do you want a clever marketing message on one side and all company information on the other? Sketch out your ideas to help make these important decisions.

Once you have a concept or two that you like, it’s time to create the actual design. Adobe Illustrator is one of the best software tools for business card design, because of how well it handles type and other design elements. Check with your printer to see what file formats they accept, and use their templates whenever possible to insure the process goes smoothly. Be sure your document layout is properly prepared for printing. Once the design is complete, the files must be delivered to your printer. While there may be an extra cost, it may pay to get a proof of your design, which allows you to see the layout and quality before going ahead with the full print job.

Always Have it On You

Now that you have put all of this time into your business card, be sure you always keep a few on you! Don’t hesitate to hand it out, and then let your hard work and design do the rest.

By Eric Miller

Creating Illustrations Yourself

Of course, creating an illustration yourself is always an option, provided you have the skills to complete the job. The complexity of illustrations can vary greatly, so whether or not you take on the work may depend on what the client is looking for, and what was agreed on. If you don’t consider yourself an “illustrator”, but a project requires a simple shape or icon, you may want to work on it yourself. The most common software for illustration work is Adobe Illustrator, though many programs, including Photoshop, have the tools necessary to complete this type of work. Again, what is used will depend on what you or a client is looking for.

Hiring an Illustrator

If you are not an illustrator, and a project requires a custom illustration, an illustrator can be hired on a project basis. This is often the most expensive option, as you will be paying the illustrator for their time. However, you will end up with something that is created specifically for your needs and never seen before. Because of this, hiring an illustrator is a great option, assuming your budget can handle it.

Purchasing an Existing Illustration

If you will not be creating an illustration yourself or hiring someone, there are many places to purchase existing graphics. Many stock photography sites also offer illustration. The challenge here is searching what is already available to find that perfect image for your project, or perhaps altering your work somewhat to incorporate the best image found. The cost of stock artwork can vary greatly, but many sites offer low-cost solutions. You will often spend time, and sometimes lots of time, searching several stock sites for the right graphic. However, it will probably take less time than creating it yourself and less money than hiring someone to create it for you. Therefore, purchasing an existing illustration can be the least expensive option, provided you find what you are looking for. As with any illustration or element including in a project, be sure to check the rights related to using and reproducing the work.

Illustration Collections

Rather than buy an illustration on a per-project basis, you can purchase a collection of illustrations. CD collections are available that contain thousands, and sometimes hundreds of thousands, of graphics at one cost. The quality of these will vary, but if you find a collection that fits with your style it may be worth it. Be sure to check the rights on such collections, as many will have restrictions including forbidding the resale of products that incorporate the illustrations.

By Eric Miller

Actual Texture

While most elements of design such as color and type are simply seen by the audience, people can actually feel texture. The most common instance of this is with paper. The feel and weight of paper can significantly impact the perception of a design, making the designer’s selection a crucial decision. Business cards or brochures on a heavy weight paper may be seen as more professional than those on a lighter weight. A promotional piece on newsprint may cost less, but also bring about a desired feel of a grassroots campaign. Budget comes into play here as high quality paper can greatly increase the cost of a project, so it is important to find the balance between cost and the image you are trying to achieve.

Texture is also a key element in packaging. The feel and weight of the metal, plastic, glass and other materials that make up packages affect the consumer’s opinion of a product.

Visual Texture

Texture can also be simulated through the style of a design. Layers of text, shapes and lines can bring about the feeling of texture on a page or on screen. Photography, illustration, and fine art combined with graphic elements can also help to achieve the appearance of texture. Commonly, photographs of an actual surface such as paper are used as backgrounds in a design. Modern design software such as Photoshop makes experimenting with layers and visual texture easy.

By Eric Miller

I believe it’s general knowledge that nobody likes filling in web forms. Neither you, nor me. The longer and more complicated the form, the more repellent it is to users. Understandable. Here, I’d like to present a concet which is very interesting to me – adaptive web forms.

For example, I’m a regular blog reader and often comment on them. This means that every time I have to enter my name, e-mail and url before posting a comment. Browsers do help here, however, by remembering data I’ve previously entered, but I still have to fill these fields in. Some blogs don’t even offer this.

Remember my input

You may have noticed that once you comment on any of my blog posts, your data is saved and the next time you visit it has already been filled in. This is a way in which regular readers are enabled to quickly post comments. However, besides saving just data, the whole of user interface can be adapted to provide a different kind of interaction for returning readers.

Here is the case: the idea is to save the data that I’ve entered when I visited a blog for the first time (eg. using a cookie). It is also a good idea to inform visitors that the data is going to be saved for next time. In the example above, the message is next to the title “Add comment”. The data is automatically filled in the next time I visit. However, it can also be hidden. The image below is showing a case of returning to the above blog.

As the data is read from the cookie, it can be saved to a database together with the comment, and almost the whole form (4 fields) can be hidden and replaced with the message “Welcome again”. In this way, I would be not only focused on leaving the comment but it would affect the overall user experience. At least, I think so.

Of course, in case you want to change your data, you can do so at any time by using a link on the right hand side of the welcome message (this message could be more meaningful, but you get it). By clicking that link, the hidden fields would become visible and the welcome message would be hidden.

Potential problems

Adaptive user interfaces in general have one serious problem – learnability. Users must constantly adapt (remember Microsoft Office Adaptive menus, they were discarded). But I don’t see this will be a big problem here. However, there is another potential problem here, and that’s trust ie. privacy. Advanced users understand how this data is kept, but some users would definitely pose a question.

Both these problems have a solution in adding a “Remember my personal details” checkbox instead of a message that data is to be saved. This way, the control is back in the user’s hands, which should be a rule. A short survey, I conducted, confirmed this. Around 76% of users surveyed thought this option as the best one, 20% consider a message to be enough while 4% don’t think this feature is necessary at all. Ok, I know that survey is not the best tool, but it’s still better than nothing.

Conclusion

In the end, I think this is one way web forms could adapt to us instead of us adapting to them. Still, my enthusiasm to shorten the time spent in filling in web forms aside, this should definitely be tested. Do adaptive web forms make sense to you and do you know some other examples?

by jankoatwarpspeed