It’s that time of year again when we’re all finishing off our last pieces of work and heading for Christmas drinks in celebration of our two weeks off. Unfortunately though your website won’t be getting any rest this Christmas as it will be relied upon to provide great customer service while you’re enjoying your turkey and stuffing.

Providing excellent customer service online is essential and as you know, creating satisfied customers is they key to succeeding in any business. It is equally, if not more important to keep your customers satisfied when dealing with them online as it is when dealing with them in person.

So, how can you make sure your website delivers great customer service for you?

- Make sure you provide your customers with clear instructions

Customers do not like websites that are confusing and difficult when they’re trying to buy from you. Your website should provide clear instructions enabling your customers to shop easily. Make sure you give your customers concise details about the product, how to pay for their orders, how the product will be shipped and how the customer can track their order. If your website is providing a service, make sure you show your customers how to use your service and what it entails.

- Pay attention to customer’s questions and concerns

It is important for customers to know that they can contact you if they need to. Make sure you always provide a clear email address or telephone number your customers can use to get in touch. For times when you can’t personally respond to an enquiry, it is beneficial for you to provide a frequently asked questions page. This is an efficient way for you to provide answers to any questions your customers may have. The more efficient you are in responding to customer’s questions, the greater your customer satisfaction will be.

- Always ask for customer feedback

Asking customers their opinions on how they can be better served allows your business to improve your customer service. By taking customers suggestions into consideration you will be able to make necessary improvements. You will also provide your customers with the satisfaction of knowing that they are being listened to.

- Pay attention to returning customers

The more you know about your customers, the better level of service you can offer them. By paying attention to customer details you will be able to connect with customers on a more personal level. Give your customers the option of receiving email notices or send them personalised emails every now and then. By sending updates and special occasion offers, as well as notices regarding new products that may interest customers, you will make your customers feel important. Customers who are satisfied before, during and after the sale are customers that will return to your website.

The only time I had previously come across the word, ‘bespoke,’ was when I was flicking through pages of designer dresses in an issue of Vogue. Before now, bespoke always meant an absolutely beautiful, one-off, custom-made dress… absolute glamour.

So when I heard bespoke and web development being used all together, I’ll admit I wondered what my dream dress had to do with web development. In my quest for answers, very journalistic of me, I found a few bits of usual information I though you might like to know…

- Bespoke web development is a consideration of striking, intuitive designs and commercial elements so that your website can be developed for the right reasons

- There are plenty of existing websites that are developing for the wrong reasons – they may be pretty but they’re definitely not clever

- Bespoke web development is effective in taking you ahead of the market place competition

So, instead of that custom-made dress I was imagining, think of it like a custom-made website with functions that often stretch far beyond the imagination. 

Here at Ph. we have our very own in-house content management system, Ph.Use, which means we can make anything possible - from online redeemable vouchers to innovative scraping technology.

The main thing about bespoke web development is to make sure you always have your client’s commercial goals in mind, navigated with Search Engine importance.

If you can offer something completely new, well that’s just showing off really…

After its first release on 9th November 2004, quickly became a firm favourite with web developers.

Firefox has been downloaded more than one billion times and is the world’s second most popular browser after Internet Explorer.

For web developers like myself, Firefox’s greatest appeal is the add-ons system, with favourites of mine including Firebug and the Web Developer Toolbar.

Checkout the video for Five Years of Firefox: www.spreadfirefox.com/5years/en-US/

After some more great feedback I've decided to release version 3 of our jQuery Scroll to Top plugin.

There have been 2 main updates to this one:

1. Following user comments from v2, I've added the additional option of choosing when the scroll to top link appears. So you can choose for it to appear only after the user has scrolled down further than, say, 700 pixels.

Implementation of the new feature is easy. First of all, if you're new to the plug in, follow the original instructions to help get set up. (Plus you might want to have a look at version 2 for information on the speed and easing options.) Then, you can simply add the new option as follows:

$("#toTop").scrollToTop({
   speed: "fast",
   ease:  "easeOutBounce",
   start: 700
});

Easy!

2. The plugin now includes licensing information, as the script is now released under the open souce MIT License! Good news for all, so remember to comment and let me know if you make any cool updates to the script.

Also, feel free to post a link to your website if you're using the plugin! We'd love to see it.

scroll-to-top-v3.zip (25.74 kb)

After 15 long years we finally say goodbye to GeoCities forever.

GeoCities was an instant hit when it first opened in 1994. This service did more for the web than almost all other Internet services ever designed, and it played a major role in the web’s popularity. Many believe that the Internet wouldn’t have become so popular if it weren’t for GeoCities.

GeoCities simplified the process by helping people sidestep the complications of registering a domain and learning how to program HTML.

In 1999 Yahoo bought GeoCities for about $3 billion, which is probably one of the worst deals ever as the service is closing today, 26th October 2009.

You will no long be able to develop a free website using this service. Yahoo already announced that GeoCities is closing many months ago as the service is no longer helping its customers.

Yahoo is developing other services to allow users to build relationships online. Many are happy that GeoCities is gone because the service is “so 20th century” and we’re moving towards a new Internet with new services.

As they say, all good things must come to end!

Twenty of our favourite high street stores have gone under the microscope of Webcredible in order to find out how good their usability is. The sample was taken for the first time last year and it found that webcredibly many of the sites really weren’t taking advantage of the potential revenue in the run up to Christmas.

This year they looked at the same 20 high street stores, judged them on 20 different criteria and gave them an overall mark out of 100.

With the results just out, in first place, drum roll please …

With 83/100 points … WHSmith and M&S

This is the second year at the top spot for WHSmith, no points gained but no points lost. On the other hand, M&S snatched an extra 15 points this year to zoom them up into joint first.

M&S re-launched their brand new site just before the report was made and it seems they paid attention to improving their user experience. Well at least someone did! Unfortunately the average score across the sample only increased by 5.5%, the top score isn’t any higher and the lowest score was still 56.

The sites are judged on search results, browsing, product pages, basket and checkout; all things you would expect of an ecommerce site. For simple things like ensuring there is a link to the basket and checkout on every page – all sites should be scoring 5/5, but they weren’t.

Debenhams was the only website out of 20 that changed the colour of the link once you have visited it. Nothing is more annoying than trying to remember what you have already seen. Tut tut to the other nineteen stores who don’t know what their customers want.

How about the guidelines- you know when you click on, for example, women’s department, clothes, tops, evening tops and then when you don’t like the one you clicked on, you go all the way back to the start of the process. How about just taking us back to the evening tops? This is a long term guideline and it is not particularly hard to implement. If not implemented, then it won’t be long before customers start visiting their competitor’s site.

You would also think ‘Proceed to Checkout’ would be a major priority for all the sites but guess what; it was the only guideline with a lower score than last year. Site designers should carefully consider where to place and how to design this button to ensure that customers don’t get lost and drop off at the most crucial stage.

Any website scoring in the 50’s and 60’s, such as Topshop would you believe, really need to up their game. A good ecommerce site is now just as important as the shop itself. If you’re not taking advantage of the online market then your not taking advantage of big money and ultimately you’ll be losing customers to competing stores who know where to put their ‘Buy it Now’ button.

Making your webpage easy and enjoyable for your visitors is the key to usability success. There are plenty of tricks and tips to try out…

1. Making Faces

Whether you’re walking around town or visiting a bar, you can’t help but take a look at the faces around you. Subconsciously you are absorbing much more than you realise. You can take advantage of this fact by featuring people’s faces on your webpage, sounds simple you think? Well hold on, there’s a bit more to it than that. Studies have found that we actually look in the direction of the face we see on screen, so if you want to share some specific information make sure your friendly face is looking straight at that information.

2. Quality Counts

As shameful as it is to admit, we humans really do have a tendency to judge a book by its cover. Therefore the quality of your webpage is key. Visitors are going to believe that your product or service will be as good as your webpage looks, so make sure you invest in making it perfect.

Once the user has checked out how you look, they will then be judging you on personality. It’s one tough crowd out there! So they will be looking at the actual quality of your website, the amount of errors, how often information is updated and its ease of use. If you tick all the boxes, then you’ll be more than likely to guarantee a second date.

3. Keep Scrolling, Scrolling, Scrolling

Once upon a time only around three-quarters of all visitors to your website would not have bothered to scroll. Those who panicked at hearing this information made the dire mistake of attempting to cram all their information into the top half of the site. Unfortunately no one lived happily ever after.

Flash forward a few years and it appears we are now the generation who love to scroll. People are much happier to have content well spaced out with plenty of white spaces as it makes it clearer and easier to read. People are now so keen to scroll that they will even make it right down to the bottom of the page, so make the most of every inch.

4. Blue is the Colour

As important as it is that your site stands out from the crowd, it seems people still love their home comforts. When people visit new websites they look for something familiar, this is called usage patterns. People expect certain things to be the same, such as the location of the website’s logo and the behavior of tabbed navigation. People know what they know and in this case, they know that links are blue. Google sticks to this time-honoured tradition and so should you.

5. How wide is your Search Box?

Time for some specifics - the ideal search box is 27 characters wide. A fact that is clearly not known by many, as the average search box is just 18 characters wide. So take note and remember that by giving the user more space allows them to review, verify and submit their enquiry quickly. Sounds simple enough but yet so many people still choose to ignore this, make sure you’re not one of them.

Hi guys,

Just letting you know about the first Ph.Tools service to go live is the Google Maps Coordinates tool. A must-have for web designers is a good tool to help you find coordinates in Google Maps, the problem I've had in the past is finding one that's user friendly and easy to use. I hope this fills the gap.

Features include scroll wheel zoom, point and click functionality and precise click and drag support. Let me know what you think, and please report any bugs to me directly at craig@ph-creative.com.

In today’s world with everyone & everything eco-friendly what else can save the planet?

Well, it’s the simple font. The font, overlooked by many but used by everyone is now doing its bit for the planet.  The Ecofont, designed by dutch designers, SPRANQ, is surely the next generation in fonts. Ecofont has been designed to not only increase environmental awareness but to save you money.  The font has been designed by cutting out the maximum amount of black area from the font whilst still remaining legibility. The result is a ‘holey’ font that uses up to 20% less ink thus giving printer cartridges a longer life.

The image above illustrates how the Ecofont works. You’ll see it has been created by cutting out parts of the letter. At 60 point it’s not that appealing however at a more useable point size of 10 or 11pt, it looks great. The Ecofont is based on the Vera Sans, an Open Source letter, and is available for Windows and Mac OSX.  By introducing the Ecofont into your font library is going some way to help save the environment.

Other cost effective ways are;

• Print only when necessary
• Use a modern, efficient printer and use unbleached paper
• Paper choice, take the environment into account. Look at recycled materials
• Invest in environment-conscious innovations 

The Ecofont is based on an Open Source font and is FREE to use. You can download your FREE version by visiting:- http://www.ecofont.eu/downloads_en.html

So goodbye comic sans, hello Ecofont Sans. Enjoy and use responsibly!! 

Internet Explorer 6 has taken some nasty blows recently as it grips on for dear life in the browser war. To the merry cheers of web developers everywhere, Google’s YouTube announced they were soon stopping support for the 8-year-old web browser. This follows on from such other large sites like Twitter, Facebook and Digg all prompting IE6 users to upgrade.

The issue here is that for many years, IE6 has been running on empty due to technological advances in web development but many web users are reluctant, ignorant or restricted in upgrading to a newer version, despite the major security issues it raises. This causes a major headache for web developers, as providing support and maintenance for websites in IE6 requires a big commitment. They’ve tried everything to persuade IE6 users to upgrade, from browser detection scripts to out right blocking of IE6 visitors.

The opinion of what to do with IE6 has caused splits in the development community. We all want to phase out IE6, it’s just a question of how it should be done. Is it moral for us to force users to upgrade their browser?

The aforementioned websites are some of the most visited sites on the web, so to have the backing from them seems to be exactly what we developers have been waiting for.

The web is at a really exciting stage right now, there’s loads of interest in HTML5 and CSS3, which will change the way we build and style websites. The problem just now is that IE6 is restricting the development and implementation of these new technologies (on a large scale, at least) because it doesn’t support HTML5 or CSS3 very well.

Once IE6 is dead and buried, the web will change forever.

I had a look at our own IE6 visitor stats and they’re showing a nice decline over the last 12 months. This month last year, www.ph-creative.com received around 8% of traffic from IE6 users, this month we received around 5%.

So is 5% of traffic worth the extra development work that the other 95% don’t need? Should we follow the large websites and stop IE6 support? Let me know what you think!