Monthly Archives: February 2009

Last night, as I was browsing sites of some of my favorite bands, I ran across Jimmy Eat World’s website. After looking around for a few seconds, I noticed that this site was significantly different than many of the other recent sites I’d visited. This was due to the fact that a large portion of the site’s content is generated by fans, not Jimmy Eat World. This trend of creating mini-social networks demonstrates how the web can be used as a platform to further connect businesses to their clients.

Short of creating a custom social network, business owners can maintain regularly-updated blogs as a way of creating an online community for clients & partners. Depending on the nature of the business, an open web-forum could be an effective way of encouraging collaboration among the ‘community’ that is your business.  With new technologies such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube evolving every day, the possibilities are endless. One emerging technology that could be very effective in fostering an online community is Facebook Connect, a topic that will be explored further in future Bottlecap blog posts.

User Experience, as defined by Wikipedia, is a term used to describe the overarching experience a person has as a result of their interactions with a particular product or service, its delivery, and related artifacts, according to their design.

But I would argue to say that it is not only about the user it is also about the business.  If the user has a great experience, but the business has not met any of its goals than the project has not done its job.   So how do we approach this thing called User Experience?

As a development company, we are always trying to find the best way to create our projects utilizing the latest technologies and methodologies.  Though when exploring our options, we always have to keep the User Experience in mind.  A site can be the most amazing piece of art on the back and front-end, but if the user can’t find what they’re looking for or if their interaction with the site is difficult, then you have not done your job and you won’t have a successful project.

When Bottlecap is developing a site, whether it is brochure site with a simple CMS or if it’s a full-blown SaaS application we always take the mindset that the user needs to be able to understand the system intuitively and without a 300 page user guide.  And we always make the effort to understand our client’s goals so that the User Experience for both the business and the end-user is a success.

User Experience, isn’t just the responsibility of one member of the team, it’s a group effort between the designers, the developers and the client and quite honestly everyone that is going to be involved with the project.

Here at bottlecap, we spend a lot of time building web forms for all kinds of projects. Personally, I don’t have anything against forms. The information architect in me enjoys the challenge of organizing and validating a user’s input in a way that makes sense to them, and ensuring that the information received is accurate. As an avid fan of digital services and generally impatient person, another part of me view forms a bit differently.

I recently read an article by Luke Wroblewski (author of Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks) titled Sign Up Forms Must Die. It really got me thinking about the concept of gradual engagement. Why do websites spend so much time and money marketing their “revolutionary” web services, and then hide the experience behind a ten step signup process. If the service is a good fit for a user, the experience itself should be the strongest selling point.

Gradual Engagement bridges the gap between offering a fully functional service (without hasseling the user at all), and collecting the vital information needed to successfully market and maintain a web service. Basically, information is collected during use of the service, or when the user wishes to complete the process (i.e. publish a video).

It’s kind of like dating, the user gets to know the service without having to make a major commitment. This leads to more exposure for the web service and better first impressions.

Bottlecap Development is finally on the web! It’s pretty funny that we have been developing websites since June of 2007, yet didn’t have a site ourselves. We actually went through several iterations, but as we developed web sites for our expanding list of clients we began to evolve.

We began as Jeremy, Dan & Dan. 3 guys with full time jobs, developing sites on the side. By the end of the summer of 07’ we were supporting a number of creative’s. We put together the first Bottlecap site with our creative and branding clients in mind. Before we could launch the website we had evolved to the next level, developing big web apps for companies.

Entering January of 2008 we were supporting a lot of incredible graphic designers and creative’s, but now could also boast an impressive list of clients whom we had developed web apps for. We weren’t just developing for our clients, we were helping them think through their business ideas and guiding them through architecture and planning.

Today, we launch our website knowing who we are. We are the web technology guys supporting businesses, the web idea people launching new companies every month, and a  lifeline to creative’s who need a development partner.

We hope that the Bottlecap Blog will serve as a web technology resource for all of our clients, partners and friends. Bottlecap is now 8 people, and our team could not be stronger. Jeremy, Dan and I are extremely proud of our dev team, I think you will find how useful, smart and entertaining they can be as you check out the Bottlecap blog.

We want to thank all of the clients and partners who helped to shape Bottlecap into who we are today, and who help us continue to grow.

Repetition is not a foreign concept among designers by a long shot. In fact, you’ve probably heard that repetition is one of the four basic principles of design (or at least that’s what I read in The Non-Designer’s Design Book). However, what you may not know is that repetitive visual elements in design actually play an important part in the development side of web sites and web applications.

Repetition in design creates:

• familiarity with the user
• decreased download times
• faster development.