Anyone who’s choosing a cupcake flavor, in the market for a new bathroom tap or deciding which social networking buttons to use on their site knows the burden of too much choice. We poor humans melt down when it comes to laundry lists. It’s the analysis paralysis that comes from too many possibilities.

Instead of overwhelming your blog or website visitors with every single stinking social networking icon available–and zero clicks–pick three. Here’s how you might mix and match for your audience.

Standard Vanilla Audience

Twitter, Facebook, Google+

Corporate/Business Audience

LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+

Image-Heavy Content

Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter

Consumer-Focused Product

StumbleUpon, Pinterest, Facebook

Try them out. If you’re not getting clicks on one button, drop it. Try another in its place or leave it out altogether

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Post tags: icons, social networking, web design

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Want to double the number of people who click on something when they go to your homepage? Here are six steps for getting more people to click, from Bob Hebeisen’s presentation on SlideShare, who says:

“With a few clever design modifications I doubled the effectiveness of their original landing page. That means for the same media expenditure they are now driving twice as many leads!”

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Post tags: conversion, landing page, marketing, slideshare, web design

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If your website looks like it was beat with the ugly stick, have hope. Download our guide Upgrading to a Drupal CMS for step-by-step instructions on how to guide your website from outdated to fabulous:

• How to evaluate your existing website content
• How to survey your visitors to see what they want and need
• How to perform a needs assessment
• How to create measurable goals
• How to write helpful RFPs
• How to choose a web designer
• How to make smart staffing decisions

… plus templates and cheat sheets for making the whole process easier. Don’t use Drupal? No worries. It’s useful for any kind of website redesign.

Oh, did I mention there’s no cost?

Check it out now by requesting your download: Click here.

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Post tags: cms, download, drupal, redesign, resource, web design

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Even the most energetic cheerleader may need to apply a little technique when it comes to starting a new e-learning program. Here’s how to focus on the benefits of online training to your organization’s stakeholders, not simply the features.

Focus on benefits for buy-in

You may be positive that an e-learning program is perfect for your organization, but when it comes to delivering that message to your colleagues, you’d do better focusing on the why rather than the what.

Why? Benefits make more sense than features. It might be great that your learning management system has blogs, easy to follow forums and granular tracking and analysis. But most people what to know how that program will solve their problems.

Here are some great examples of some of the biggest features and benefits of e-learning to prime your next discussion:

Instead of …

“It’s self-paced.”

Try:

“We can save $20,000 per year by eliminating monthly in-person training sessions.”

Why it’s better:

Explain what happens when you allow people to take an e-learning program as needed. In practical terms, it might mean that you can save on trainer costs, you don’t have to buy training materials, you no longer need to block out a certain amount of time for instructor-led training. Figuring out how much money that will save will help you make your case.

Instead of …

“Accommodates multiple learning styles.”

Try:

“Retention is improved because information is presented in various formats.”

Why it’s better:

In this case, it makes sense to strike the jargon about learning stylesand explain the outcome. If you’re trying to give your staff a new skill set for their jobs, it’s critically important they remember it. That’s much more important to your organization than pedagogical jargon.

Instead of …

“It’s computer-based.”

Try:

“It’s good for the environment. A study University found that the production and provision of the distance learning courses consumed nearly 90% less energy and produced 85% fewer CO2 emissions than conventional campus-based university courses.”

Why it’s better:

Back up your claim with facts. The fact that it’s computer-based training isn’t much use, but if you find a study, like the one here from Britain’s Open University, can give you the credibility and research that helps explain why it’s important.

Eventually, your discussions will be broken down into key features and if they’ll work with your organization. In the beginning, however, it helps to think about what kind of effect a new e-learning program will have and why.

[Image: Flickr user opensourceway]

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Post tags: benefits, copy, e-learning, marketing, open university, sales

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RFPs stink as a way to find web designers. The problem is they prevent even a modicum of relationship-building, and without that, you’ll never know if you’ll be able to love the next person you hire to build or redesign your website. You won’t have a good sense of their managerial skills. You won’t know if they’ll stick around post-launch to keep updating your site. You won’t know if you simply like talking to them on the phone.

Before you face failure with your next RFP by spending a huge amount of time and resources, try these strategies for finding a web design superhero.

How to Find Web Design Superheroes

Ask around

Hands down the best way to find a web designer is to ask your friends, family and colleagues. Someone who’s been through the process with a developer can tell you if it was easy or painful.

Web search

This might be the easiest way to assemble a list of design agencies that do what you need. Try to be specific in your search with terms like “web designer Boston” or “health agency web design nonprofit.”

Meet-ups

Attend some designer meet-ups near you. This will give you the chance to press the flesh and find someone you connect with.

Associations

Contact the association that covers what you do and see if they have lists web design and development firms. Also check your local Chamber of Commerce if you’d like someone nearby.

If you really, really must, here are some tips on how to write a good RFP.

[Image: Flickr user opensourceway]

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Post tags: hiring, meetup, rfp, web designer

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Ever wonder how other organizations run their web projects so successfully? Learn through Talance Client Spotlights, where you can connect with peers to pick up inspiration and proven tips you can apply to your website or online course.

Liz Engelman

Liz Engelman’s greatest enemy is the unexamined question. As a dramaturg, her job is to identify the questions a play asks, and the questions to ask of the play. She’s a bit like the confusion police; identifying the difference from good and bad confusion –anything from intentions, to anachronisms to logical gaffes. With her help, a play can be closer to the playwright’s initial vision. In short, she helps make plays become their best selves. For anyone who’s thinking, “There’s no part of my life that wouldn’t benefit from a little dramaturgy,” have hope. You can apply to Tofte Lake Center, a nonprofit creative retreat that looks a little more like your most idyllic summer camp fantasy in Ely, Minn. TLC’s purpose is to apply the principles of dramaturgy to all artistic pursuits. Read on for more about how a very in-person organization builds community online.

How does one become a dramaturg?

I first heard about dramaturgy when I was a junior in high school, when I was taking a class called Madness in Literature. My teacher said, “Liz, you should be a dramaturg,” and I said, “Dramawhat?” She replied that I had the ability to look at the big picture and relate it to the specific. And vice versa. And I thought, “That’s cool, but how is that a job?”

Later, when I concentrated in theater at Brown, my professor suggested that I create an independent study in dramaturgy. I thought, “Okay, two different people are telling me to do this; I better listen…” So I did.

How did that evolve into Tofte Lake Center?

After 20 years of working as a dramaturg, I began to realize that there are ways of telling stories other than through the theatre. Each media has its own narrative, its own way to tell a story. I wanted to create and environment for these different types of stories to emerge. Often we hear about starving artists who live miserably in a garret somewhere creating their life’s work, and I thought there had to be a way to live as an artist without a struggle – to be nurtured and inspired and surrounded by beauty in the process. So I did what a dramaturg does: articulate the intention, build the story, take yourself seriously… and the dream starts to form.

What kinds of artists visit the center?

I like to say creative thinkers rather than only artists, as many creative people don’t identify as artists. However, most people who come are: they are playwrights and writers of all genres, (novelists and poets), musicians, visual artists, dancers and choreographers. The Stuart Pimsler Dance and Theatre Company has been in residence each of our 4 years, and have become a community face for the center. Our artists have come from all over the country (and Australia!) for their weeklong residencies, and we have been fortunate to receive funding from the Jerome Foundation to support our emerging artists program for artists who reside in either Minnesota or New York.

How do you represent a decidedly in-person creative retreat in the online world?

At first it was hard to think of how to translate an experience that’s very location-based onto a screen. Then I started thinking about how to communicate TLC’s values–conversation, innovation, community, creativity, sun and water. When I thought about how to share the impulses of and behind TLC’s story, the role of the website became clearer.

The website has become a way of maintaining our off-campus community. The site has been a way of deepening and broadening it, to partner with artists and make connections, using the site as a conduit for conversation. I used to think of a website as a static thing. I thought of our old website as an online brochure. Now it’s malleable, evolving — a way to tell our story.

I’ve found images as a way of building partnerships and interest, too. One of the artists whose images we included in our Flickr gallery thanked me for sharing his work. Letting people know I could link to their profile was a major way of building traffic to the site. The partnering opportunities have been more helpful than I’d imagined. I want to continue to find ways to use more photos as an attractor to the site.

A collaborative online gallery of Tofte Lake Center artists

What are some of the most helpful parts of your website?

Putting our applications online has been most helpful. I was getting submissions via e-mail before, and I would have to send each e-mailed application to our review panel, one at a time as I received them, and they had the most difficult task of having to keep track a hundred incoming individual applications. An applicant might resend something, and the panelist might forget where they put it, and worry that something got lost. It was thus immensely time intensive on my part. Now applicants can submit online, and it’s all stored on the website. I heard from someone who applied last year who was so happy to see that the application was now online. It was a mature professional step up.

Tofte Lake Center's online application for artists

What did you learn through a major website redesign process?

I was not expecting to learn as much as I did. I had been thinking more about the result than the process. It took longer than I thought, and this turned out to be extremely informative. The process was completely dramaturgical: identifying what I was trying to do and the best ways to structure and say it. Working on a website is a continual process. The story keeps evolving.

I also learned that just because another organization used their website in a particular way, it doesn’t necessarily apply to mine. They made certain choices in how to tell their story, but that’s not my story. Realizing that: that’s what a dramaturg does.

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Post tags: artist retreat, community, dramaturg, flickr, liz Engelman, nonprofit, spotlight, tofte lake center, traffic, web design

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Think back on every one of your failed New Year’s resolutions. The reason you failed probably had something to do with abstract, unspecific goals: get thin, exercise more, enjoy life more. Without clarity, it’s nearly impossible to figure out how to succeed. You’re doomed by January 2.

Goals should be less abstract, more concrete

[Image: Flickr user opensourceway]

The same kind of thinking can harm a new e-learning project. Unspecific goal-setting can prevent you from knowing if your e-learning project is a success. If before you begin developing your training curriculum, you specify abstract goals like, “train employees,” “put this PowerPoint presentation online,” or “set up e-learning infrastructure,” you’re bound for failure. Instead, think about what success looks like, think about how you’ll arrive at success, and you’ll know if your online training program is doing what it should.

An easier way of arriving at a list of goals is to pose these simple questions to yourself or your team:

• Why do you want to do the training?
• What will your learners get out of it?

When you answer these questions, make sure to attach a number (like a percentage), so it’s measurable and a due date, so you have a focus and target–a must for continued funding.

Measurable, actionable and realistic e-learning goals

As soon as you pose meaningful questions to your team, you’ll find it’s much easier to create measurable, actionable and realistic e-learning goals. That will also help you keep spending in check and calculate the return on your e-learning investment. Training programs are expensive, so you need to be able to show how well your new e-learning initiative works.

What might those goals look like?

• Transfer 50% of training programs into online format by the end of the next fiscal year.
• Train 95% of employees in HIPAA requirements by January 1.
• Increase awareness of new products by 25% among sales staff by the end of the quarter.
• Successfully operate new medical device in five minutes or less by the product launch.

See how easily you’d be able to see if you met those goals or not? Prefix each list item with “Did we …” and you can answer each by a simple yes or no. Also by setting goals at the beginning, you’ll have something concrete to shoot for.

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Post tags: e-learning, goal, planning, roi, strategy

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The devil, they say, is in the details. Anyone who’s planned a considerable undertaking–be it a new kitchen or strategy for your organization–knows that the beast can rear its ugly head when you haven’t thought the project through well enough.

Want a Painless Website? Get Planning

[Image: Flickr user opensourceway]

Before you begin to think about selecting a technology partner for your new website redesign, you should do a little preliminary planning so you know what to look for when it comes time to choose. Now would also be a good time to do an internal needs assessment, so get your team involved to help.

Start with having the answers to these questions handy, and you’ll be glad you did when it comes time to start shopping for a web designer or put together an RFP (request for proposal).

1. When do you want to launch?
2. Do you already have a budget established? If your funds don’t meet your aspirations, can you break the project into phases?
3. What is the main goal for the new website or redesign (update the design, provide a better user experience, target a different audience, etc.)?
4. What’s the site’s concept? In other words, why does it exist?
5. Who is a typical person who might use the website? There might be more than one.
6. What’s the main thing people need to do on your website (search for information, sign up for something, make donations)?
7. What’s your functionality wish list for the new site (calendar, RSS, Twitter feed, Facebook Like button, etc.)?
8. What are some other sites you like, and why?

If you’ve got the answers to these questions, then you’ll be able to answer questions from your web development partner, and you’ll be in a better position to make a decision. Also check A Comprehensive Website Planning Guide from Smashing Magazine for an even more in-depth look into planning successful websites.

Converting to a CMS Website Free Guide

Need a little nudge when it comes to transferring your old website to a new CMS-based website like Drupal? Request a free copy of our website redesigning handbook that offers more tips, as well as templates and examples to take the pain out of planning.

Request your copy now.

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Post tags: planning, smashing magazine, web design, workflow

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Thinking of embarking on a website redesign? The smartest place to start is by asking the people who use the site what they want. Now is a perfect time to embark on a new project, while you’ve got spring cleaning on the brain. Check out our series on how to spring clean your website for a fresh start.

Here are four tests and surveys you should conduct before you launch new project.

User Needs Survey

Set up a questionnaire survey to find out what your audience thinks is most important about your website. Take their comments into consideration for your needs assessment process. What those survey questions will be largely depend on your own organization’s directives. But a question like this might help you get started.

Please rate the value of each of these features, with 1 being extremely important and 4 being extremely unimportant.

• Ability to log on to access premium material
• A blog
• Video clips that demonstrate how we work

You can request a free quick and easy survey template if you don’t feel like writing your own. Make sure to leave a comments space so people can add features they think might be valuable. This is also a good time to evaluate some of your current processes, like asking people how long it took them to receive feedback or how easy it is to make a donation or pay for an item.

Web Content Test

Having an appealing design is one thing, but having readable copy is another. (Be honest: how much jargon are you using?). The web design industry magazine A List Apart puts it this way:

Whether the purpose of your site is to convince people to do something, to buy something, or simply to inform, testing only whether they can find information or complete transactions is a missed opportunity: Is the content appropriate for the audience? Can they read and understand what you’ve written?

ALA gives helpful instructions on how to test the effectiveness of your content. Examples: try some readability software like Added Bytes, Juicy Studio, and Edit Central (or even Microsoft Word’s built-in Flesch Reading Ease check), or host a moderated reading test.

Accessibility Review

A website is only useful if everyone can use it. Paying attention to accessibility is good practice for all organizations–especially since good accessibility equals good SEO–and it’s a must if you’re a government agency. You can start with these Essential Tips for Making Websites Accessible, and then you might begin a “preliminary review.”

The W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative provides instructions for conducting a preliminary review of your website’s accessibility. In short, they recommend selecting a representative sampling of high profile pages (e.g., the welcome page) and those with different layouts and functionality, and testing just a few of those to see how well you’re measuring up.

SEO Audit

Making your website more friendly to search engines is a large but critical undertaking. The good news is any improvement you make is a good one. Schedule a search engine optimization (SEO) audit of your website with a few key goals in mind:

• Are you using heading tags correctly?
• Do you have a sitemap?
• Is your content skimpy?

Check out the 9-Point SEO Checklist for more tips.

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Post tags: a list apart, accessibility, Content, section 508, seo, survey, usability, w3c

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Time is money, especially when it comes to educating a group of people. Time is even more money when that group meets in person vs. online. Consider how e-learning can save your budget.

Image: David Castillo Dominici

It’s easy to overlook all of the hidden costs of in-person instructor-led training. There’s real time and cost involved in putting actual bums on actual seats. Just start to jot down the costs of getting people into a room together, and it’s easy to see how the prices quickly shoot up.

Training material costs

• Space rental and overhead
• Day rates
• Instructor travel (airfare, taxis, hotel, tips)
• Learner travel (airfare, taxis, hotel, tips)
• Printing
• Collating
• Binding
• Storage
• Food (breakfast, snacks, lunch, drinks)
• Presentation equipment

I can keep going, but you get the point, right? The instant you start gathering people into a room together, it costs a lot of money.

One of the strongest business cases for e-learning is for lowering training costs. That’s why so many companies turn to e-learning, especially when they have ongoing programs, a large number of people to train or have a geographically dispersed workforce. That was the rationale behind a government-led project Talance completed for a division of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. It’s cheaper to bring people from across the state together online.

Time involved in training

It’s easy to see how the kinds of things you can buy at your local Staples drain the coffers. One item that’s often neglected from “should we move to e-learning” calculations is the cost of time. Instructor-led training simply takes longer than e-learning.

“My company has found that on-ground courses that move to eLearning take about half the ‘seat time’ in their eLearning format,” Judy Unrein says in her article Overcoming Objections to eLearning in Learning Solutions magazine.

Unrein, who is an instructional designer for Nike and who has an M.Ed. in Instructional Design from the University of Massachusetts in Boston, goes on to say that one cause is because an online course is more streamlined. All of the “nice to know” filler information that instructors share in classrooms has been removed by the time it goes online.

Minimizing financial risk

Live trainings are also critically scheduled, and the margin of error is much narrower. For example, one of our clients, a department of a New York-based college, recently had an in-person event where the instructor didn’t show up. He simply forgot, and there was a room of people clearing their throats waiting for the star to show. They rescheduled for the following week, duplicating all the costs of the lost event.

Problems can happen online too, but when mistakes of this magnitude happen in person, the financial drain is much higher.

While every program is different, the savings of an e-learning program vs. instructor-led training can be significant. Every program considering moving training online should carefully research hidden costs of bringing a room of people together.

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Post tags: boston, department of public health, e-learning, ilt, massachusetts, online courses, roi, training

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