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Colorful Overtures
Sat 06 March 10
When it comes to design, whether it be web design, home interior design, art in general, there are some principles in effect which we would do well to understand, principles which influence impact, tone, atmosphere. The colour wheel represents the colour spectrum and provides some natural composition laws that are quite simply unbeatable.
Colour Harmonies
Color harmonies serve to describe the relationships certain colors have with one another.
Complementary: A complementary relationship is a harmony of two colors on the opposite side of the
color wheel. e.g. segments 1 and 7 or 4 and 10. When complementary colors are placed side-by-side they tend to enhance the intensity of each other.
Also when they are blended together they tend to decrease the intensity of each other.
The image showing the red strawberry against a green background represents the use of complementary colours.
Analogous: An analogous relationship is a harmony of colors whose hues are adjacent to one another on the color wheel.Analogous colors tend to be families of colors such as blues (blue, blue-violet, blue-green) and yellows (yellow, yellow-orange, yellow-green). Segments 2, 3 & 4 are analogous. The illustration shows analogous hues of purple and pink used to create a mood.
Triadic: A triadic relationship is a harmony of three colors equidistant from one another on the color wheel. e.g. Segments 1, 5 & 9 are triadic primary colours and segments 2, 6 and 10 are triadic secondary colors. This Graphics Design logo uses a
triadic scheme.These colour relationships can be used to create moods and effects…
A TOOL TO HELP YOU CHOOSE
Whether you are a web designer, or someone looking at colours for your own website, I can highly recommend Adobe’s (free) Kuler site
You can look at colour palettes submitted by others or you can take any colour and examine it’s colour harmonies to create a web palette.
Have fun!
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Websites for Montessori and other Nurseries
Wed 28 April 10
Introduction
When my wife and I started up our web business, it just so happened that we were initially drawn to the education market having completed a website for our daughter’s Montessori Nursery school. That experience (both of designing a successful nursery website and living through my daughter’s Early Years education) has given us insights into the benefits and key ingredients of a successful nursery school website. In this article, I will point out a few helpful points when considering whether or how to implement a website for your school or nursery.
Why have a website anyway?
You might reason that you have always managed to operate without a website and if you are well established and favour a non-IT approach to your business then there is no reason why you may not continue to be successful. However, I would like to point out that in the words of the singer Bob Dylan, ‘The Times They Are A Changin’ ! Last year internet advertising for the first time became the dominant form of advertising, overtaking television advertising expenditure for the first time. More and more people are abandoning traditional hard copy directories (such as Yellow Pages) in favour of internet based searching. Recent statistics show that 81% of people search online before making a purchase rather than using traditional offline methods. Whether we like it or not, the internet has become a dominant marketing tool and most businesses require some level of marketing.
Furthermore, if your waiting lists are full, consider the efficiencies that a website might be able to offer in terms of reducing time spent in administration (reducing the need to mail brochures or photocopy newsletters and notices).
Understand your audience and your objectives
Having decided that a website will be beneficial to your nursery, it is time to consider your goals and the audience you are trying to reach. Some principles of web design are generic, whether you are a school, a dentist, a retailer or a high technology company, you need to understand your target audience. Therefore the first step in putting together a website that appeals to your audience is to know your audience.
I would suggest that the audience for a nursery website is the parents rather than the children who will attend the establishment. My experience suggests that you should not “go overboard” on cutesy nursery characters for your website as you should be largely trying to address the expectations of the parents rather than the children themselves.
It may help to draw up a persona or profile of whoever you perceive to be your typical or most prolific visitors. For example, for a nursery you might consider:
Name: Anne
Age: 32
Living in: Thames Valley
Occupation: Working Mum
Details: Anne’s daughter attends the nursery already. She is a busy lady and would appreciate being able to find information about the school quickly and easily (latest newsletters, dates of term etc)
Her IT equipment may consist of:
Browser of choice: Firefox
Operating System: Windows
Screen Resolution: 1024×768Name: Elizabeth
Age: 24
Living in: About to move into the Thames Valley area, looking for a nursery for 2 year old
Occupation: Housewife
Details: A prospective customer, housewife, perhaps budget might be more restricted as household depends on 1 salary
Browser of choice: Internet Explorer
Operating System: Windows
Screen Resolution: 800×600 (she uses an old laptop)Some of the more technical details (choice of browser, screen resolution) may not be essential but some thought about the age of the computers of your visitors will help you to arrive at a design which will look best in particular screen resolutions. What looks good in 800×600 on an older monitor may not look so good on a more up to date 1440×900 higher resolution screen.
Notice that our two personas help us to identify a couple of major website objectives, to provide information to parents of both prospective and existing attendees. You may decide that one of these objectives is more important than the other or you may decide that your website needs to facilitate both camps equally.
Once you have some insight into your audience and your audience’s preferences you can start to think about designing a website for them.
Creativity with a purpose
A website should be aesthetically pleasing and at the same time be practical in delivering a clear message and make it easy to find relevant information. For the aesthetics, the website should reinforce your branding and I would suggest that the natural laws of colour theory are your friend here. You should explore harmonising colours or complimentary colours (try a Google search for “colour wheel theory”).
When you consider the content, identify your “calls to action” – i.e. what do you want the visitor to do? Pick up the phone? Request a prospectus? You should help your visitor to do this easily. In fact, you should make this blatantly obvious. Make your content relevant and present it in a concise, personal and friendly manner (try to engage your visitor).
Always use good quality images or photography on your website. Everything that you use reflects the quality of your establishment or service. Poor photography will make your site look amateurish.
The above site uses a colour scheme that harmonises with the photography and branding, clear menu system with some colour panels to draw attention to the key services and messages.
How dynamic will your content be?
With a decent looking website in the making, the next consideration is how often will you need to update the content? Websites that have changing content tend to be visited more regularly. They also offer the opportunity to provide fast-changing information to your visitors and help you to stay more relevant.
How the content will be changed should be one of the prime considerations in developing a website. If you are technically adept and have the ability to edit code (HTML or similar) then you will have the means to update a static website fairly easily. Alternatively you may have to factor in some cost for your web developer to make updates on your behalf.
Another option is to have a website with an underlying Content Management System (CMS). A CMS offers you the ability to change some or all of the website content by yourself using a private password protected web page. You would login to your private page to edit or enter content, typically you would type into text boxes and commit the updates at the press of a button. However these systems are much more complicated to implement (some of the more powerful ones may require some training to use effectively) and will inevitably be more expensive as an up front cost.
Therefore when considering a website for your business, you need to plan for either the up-front or ongoing costs of updating content.
Some possible features for a Nursery Website
It is usual to have a welcome message, contact details and to offer some information about your services. In addition a website could offer the following nursery-specific benefits.
Newsletters and other Documentation
Communications with parents is an important part of a website, in fact I would go so far as to say the whole purpose in having a website is to communicate with your visitors. Ofsted have been known to make positive comments where schools have used their websites to communicate effectively with parents
Most schools or nurseries issue newsletters and make available other documentation such as a prospectus, policy statements, forms etc. Your website can make serious in-roads into reducing the amount of photocopying, issuing of hard-copy documents and can reduce the amount of your time spent on administration. If you prefer not to share information outside your circle of parents then consider password-protecting your Newsletters so that only “your” parents can access the document.
Notice boards
One of the benefits of a website is it’s ability to convey information quickly. You may wish to use your site to display notices (either routine notices or urgent messages such as school closure). You may not catch every parent every time but it is another step in reducing the amount of phone calls or paperwork that might otherwise have been undertaken.
Maria Montessori
Don’t assume that everyone knows who Maria Montessori was. Do take the opportunity to explain her remarkable history, philosophy and continuing influence on today’s education.
Useful Information for parents
Consider adding real value to parents by pointing them at useful online resources related to nursery education (government funding, employer voucher schemes, Montessori resources, EYFS). You can link straight to your own Ofsted Report.
The art of being found
With your website online you will be wondering how others will now find you. This is the art of Search Engine Optimisation or SEO. Unless you have some really unique selling point (like an associate of mine who is one of only a handful of Marcos car dealers in the UK) then you are unlikely to automatically figure high in search engine results. Some companies spend thousands or pounds each month on SEO. The more competitive your particular business landscape, the harder it will be to stand out.
You will generally be able to drive more traffic to your site by making sure that your content is relevant to your product or services, by building links into your own site and, increasingly, by participating in social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In and others) to create an interest in your own site and services. Social networking is a hot topic and this year (2010) Google have introduced real-time results (including Facebook and Twitter posts) to its search engine results. This can be a complicated topic and you might want to take further advice from a marketing consultant or SEO expert on this aspect of your site’s performance.
Are you up for the challenge? Consider these 6 Steps for a successful site
In summary, these are the steps you you should take in evaluating and then creating your website.
- What are your business objectives? Your website should perfectly reflect your business objectives.
- Know your audience. Carefully identify your target audience and offer them what they want in terms of look, feel, tone and colours (as well as your services).
- Research other websites. Find examples of sites that you like. Try to understand why you like them. For a light-hearted look at what doesn’t work, visit www.websitesthatsuck.com
- Carefully assess how often you will need to update content. Is it worth having a Content Management System?
- Will you need to invest in web-marketing activities to help drive traffic to your site?
- Set a realistic budget.
Good luck with your nursery websites!
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