Category Archives: Personal

Read the flyer first


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wine
A little story.

I recently ordered a book from Amazon. Actually, it wasn’t recently, it was before Christmas but due to popular demand it sold out and I had to wait till late February. No problem. The book came, and with it a voucher for £40 off Virgin Wines online. I’m sure many other people have received this flyer as well. At first, it sounds nothing out of the ordinary.

Instead of simply throwing it in the bin I decided to visit the website.

Step 1 – I’ve visited the website. Fair enough. That doesn’t have to mean anything.

I decided to go through the instructions on the voucher, register, enter the code and voila! My account has been credited with £40.

Step 2 – I’ve signed up, I’m establishing a level of trust and beginning to lower my guard. I’ve been rewarded for this.

I don’t know the first thing about wine. I enjoy it but wouldn’t know a Shiraz from a Chardonnay. So after a swift perusal of the site, I leave and forget about it.

About a week later I received a polite email from ‘Jay’ at Virgin Wines’. It wasn’t pesonal, although it tried to be, but I didn’t mind, there was still some thought there. Jay kindly explained that because I hadn’t yet bought anything, they weren’t doing a good enough job. So he offered me a deal I couldn’t refuse. Plenty of wine, free glases and a fancy bottle opener for only £48. Considering I already have £40 credit to play with – that would mean spending £8 for a lot of wine. Bargain.

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iTunes support


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I don’t mean to sound like an Apple fanboy but once again they’ve managed to surpass my expectations and slap big fat smile on my face. A couple of nights ago, in the early hours of the morning whilst very tired and in desperate need of sleep for work the next day, I decided to download the iPhone app ‘Bloom’ by Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers. Which, by the way, is fantastic. But somewhere along the line I successfully managed to clear off all the apps on my iPhone, and I was not happy.

I’m not one for customer service emails or calls, I have no faith in that system. If something breaks, I throw it away and buy it again. But I decided to give iTunes the benefit of the doubt. I sent a rather rude, demanding email that was very unlike me and can only be put down to how tired and annoyed I was at the time.

Less than 4 hours later, which didn’t bother me as I was in bed, I received this response:

Dear Nathan,

This is Sasha with iTunes Customer Support. I would first like to thank you for inquiring about the App Store. I understand you are concerned that you lost your App Store purchases. I will be happy to help.

App Store purchases may be downloaded again at no charge, either from your device or using iTunes on your computer. Be sure that you are signed in to the same iTunes Store account that you used to shop from the App Store, and follow the steps to purchase any missing content again. You will be notified that you have already purchased the App and can download each missing item again for free.

For more information, please visit:

App Store FAQ
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/ApplicationsFAQPage

If you have difficulty downloading any applications, please reply to let me know or consult this article:

Troubleshooting applications purchased from the App Store
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1702

Sincerely,

Sasha
iTunes Store Customer Support

Which is fair enough. A straightforward reply in a professional yet friendly and personal tone. I liked that. So I deided to email back and apologise for my initial arsey email, only to receive another response from Sasha only minutes later:

Dear Nathan,

You’re very welcome. No need to apologize. I know how frustrating these kinds of issues can be. I’m just so glad to hear that you were able to get your purchases back.

Nothing makes Apple happier than to hear that we have pleased our customers. I hope that you continue to enjoy the iTunes Store.

Remember, if you have any further questions or concerns please let me know and I will be more than happy to further assist you.

Have a wonderful day!

That really pleased me.

Why is this such a big deal? Because in this fast-paced world where huge companies spare no time for individual customers willing to dish out £1000′s on their products and services, the fact that someone in a service center on the other side of the world took the time out to craft a dedicated, friendly response goes a long way.

And personally, I feel it’s these touches that put Apple ahead of the rest of the game.

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A thought on the recession


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house of cards
Pfff… this crunchy credit’s getting a bit hard to swallow, I might have to cancel my numerous magazine subscriptions and cut back on my capitalist ritualistic Cafe Nero coffee drinking… sure.

You see, in the UK and pretty much around the whole world there’s this ‘recession’ thing. What, you didn’t know about that? I say the whole world, but you can only really have a recession if there was some previous economic growth, so third-world countries – I’m afriad you’re out of the game!

So in the UK there’s a recession, but there isn’t really a recession, but of course there is. Quite why we’re in this ‘current economic climate’ no-one knows, and to be honest absolutely no-one knows. Gordon Brown thinks he knows, he doesn’t know. Whoah I’m getting all political on a web design blog! I’m really sorry, but this is my blog so I retain artistic license.

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1 year down!


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waaay!
I noticed it was a year today that I first posted on Redswish. The site’s come a way since then but hasn’t been anything ground-breaking, not that I intended it to. I’ve tried to put a decent amount of time into the site but it’s not always that easy. Plus over time I discovered the value of quality of quantity (I think)!

Through constantly trying to better myself and the quality of my writing I’ve learnt a lot and hopefully crafted some articles that have helped and inspired people. If not, well I’ve wasted a lot of time then! But I do feel that if you were to read through all the articles mentioned below you’d see how my writing and understanding has matured over the past 12 months…

Anyway, just a quick thank-you to the regular visitors and commenters and even those that have popped in and never returned again. The odd bits of support and kind comments keep me going. Here’s to another year!

A quick summary of some of the more popular articles from the past 12 months:

That’s just a selection. I’ve also write and have guest written for other blogs including the Flame blog and iFoh designs.

Shout Outs

There are a lot of people, designers and companies that have inspired and influenced me over the past year. I’m really sorry if I forget anyone but off the top of my head I’d like to thank David Airey, Jacob Cass, Matt@ifohdesigns, Andy Clarke, Jeffrey Zeldman, Vandelay Design, Smashing Magazine, Adelle Charles, Chris Spooner, Carsonified, Elliot Jay Stocks, Nick La and so many more people…

Working at Flame since last June has been great fun, the people here are great and learning so much. So, here’s to another year!

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Design constraints


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Constraints

Constraint leads to bad design, and good design

Books can teach you how to write HTML, online tutorials can help you craft your Photoshop and Fireworks skills, thousands of hours of hard work and engagement will provide you with a better understanding of the ins and outs of the Internet and the ways in which people interact with it.

Your job title is meaningless.

I am a designer. I work mainly on the web. I use Photoshop and Textmate daily. I build websites.

Does that stop me picking up a paint brush, spray can or scissors, or camera and camcorder and going out onto the street to obtain different forms of media that I feel may be useful in moulding my final output, the end creation?

No?

If it serves as a valuable asset in creating the final experience, there is no need to be restricted by my job title or the equipment on my desk alone. But constraints also allow us to expand creatively. By creating barriers, we know how far we can go – the lengths to which we can stretch and bend the rules to create something new, something that works within it’s medium whilst evolving beyond the competition, beyond the confines of the original brief or spec.

Make clients happy, make users happy. Everyone’s happy, everyone wins!

If there are no rules in the first place, how can we break them?

However, never forget the difference between art and advertising. Art is personal expression. Advertising serves the needs and purposes of the client. It is to promote a brand, a product, a service or opinions. Advertising makes money. Web design is a form of advertising, an increasingly essential and multifunctional branch of advertising and branding that absolutely cannot be overlooked or underestimated.

But advertising is dead, isn’t it?

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What is the purpose of your site?


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Here’s one of those ‘less talk, more listen’ posts. You don’t get many from me! I want to know a bit about your websites and your approach and attitude towards their purpose. Is your site(s) designed to make money, inform and educate, publicise a product/service/person or is the purpose unclear – perhaps it’s just for fun. For each case, how do you achieve your goals?

Design and Usability

How does your site design contribute to the end goal? With regards to user experience, what do you feel takes priority – enabling visitors to get to where they need to be as quickly as possible, or to provide an enjoyable experience. Or both? And how do you go about achieving this?

How much do you feel design contributes towards the overall user experience? Would you prefer a site that is easy to navigate and view, with well written copy and clear structure but features a minimal or unattractive design? Or would you rather a beautiful looking site with fancy dynamic functionality and gimmicks, but ‘makes you think’ a more? What about a balance of the two. How do you feel you can work to create a website that is fantastically well structured and presented, whilst revealing some tasty eye-candy?

Measuring success

How do you measure your site’s success? What do you determine to be ‘success‘? Site traffic? Perhaps a deeper look at your site’s analytis; what do you feel takes precedence? Length of visit, repeat visits, countires visited from, pure volume of traffic? How do these statistics vary depending on your site’s purpose? Perhaps you feel the best measure of your site’s success is more organic than statistical – the comments you receive, RSS or email subscribers, contact form feedback or a combination of the lot.

What do you feel is more important; your visitors experience or the site stats and revenue made?

I want your opinions

Please take the time out to comment below. This post isn’t about me or Redswish, I want to know what other people think. Get your site URL in there to get some coverage. I’ll be summing up everyone’s responses in an article in a few weeks.

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Speaking at Manchester WordPress User Group


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My first real speaking engagement, how exciting!

Next Thursday I’ll be talking about Wordpress Custom Fields (in light of the popularity of this article) at the MDDA offices in Manchester. The evening solely focuses on Wordpress (because it’s so darn cool) and will also feature a talk from Simon Wheatley on the structure of Wordpress plugins.

For more information about the group you can join the MWUG Google Group or give me or Alan Holding a shout on Twitter.

If you wish to come along it’s at the MDDA offices on Portland Street, starting at 6.20-6.30ish. Be there or be square!

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Growing for Movember


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Bigger beards
Image courtesy of www.biggerbetterbeards.org
This month me and the fellows (males) at Flame will be growing moustaches, while trying to refrain from letting loose our uncontrollable natural beards (well, if I could grow one!)

Why are we doing such a crazy thing? Well, for charity of course! Allow me to indulge you…

The men in the office are growing fine moustaches throughout the month of ‘Movember’ (as opposed to November) in support of the Movember Foundation – an Australian based, not for profit, charitable organisation that creates awareness around men’s health issues, with a focus on prostate cancer.

So, why do I bring this to your attention? 3 reasons:

  1. Because it’s cool, and I’m spreading the word about a good cause.
  2. To explain to those who may meet me over the next few weeks why I will look so ridiculous.
  3. Ahh, that’s right – I want your help!

How can you help?

All we ask is for a monetary donation to go towards the foundation. We’ll be looking ridiculous for 4 weeks while you can do a little bit to help a good cause.

How much? Anything, anything at all from 1p to ‘ridiculous figures’. Every little helps and no donation will be considered too small.

Sounds great – cash or cheque?

In this modern day we don’t even need sponsor forms. You can go straight to the Movember site and donate to our team – The Mo Fo’s…

Donate!

So, get your wallets out – meanwhile we’ll be keeping our razors away!

For more information on the Movember Foundation visit their site at www.movember.com.

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