Trioro Blog

Enjoy The Ride Rewards with Sweetmama.ca

2009-05-22T08:15:00.005-04:00

A recent article from Media in Canada touts the success of the new Huggies EnjoyTheRideRewards.com campaign.

As the article mentions, Moms can earn points towards Huggies rewards by participating in various online activities. One of these experiences was delivered through Sweetmama.ca. We thought we'd share a few more details about that program...

Trioro delivered the Sweetmama.ca integration with a seemless user experience for Sweetspot Insiders. Create a profile or login to one you already have with Sweetmama and those Huggies rewards are at your fingertips.

The Huggies environment on Sweetmama is not only built as a natural extension for Sweetspot Insider users, but it also provides a user friendly handoff of your reward codes to the EnjoyTheRideRewards.com microsite. It's a fast, easy and fun way to "Enjoy The Ride".

Usability: Body Language for the Web

2009-04-20T12:30:00.001-04:00

Usability can sometimes be hard to understand. A metaphor for usability I’ve been using a lot lately is body language. In face-to-face communication your stance, facial expressions, gestures, and eye contact can say as much if not more than words you say. On the web, navigation structure, the amount of motion, how you collect user information, and availability and presence of comment/feedback functionality can also say as much if not more than the content itself. For brands that spend a lot of time and money to develop their brand character and messaging it’s important not to undercut that with poor usability. A brand claiming its fun, easy going, and full of life isn’t too believable if its website is hard to navigate and search, doesn’t give positive feedback for user actions, and has no motion on the site.

Does your website’s usability support your brand?

It just keeps getting sweeter

2009-03-16T10:00:00.001-04:00

We've been busy over at Sweetspot. Sweethome.ca, a site dedicated to living comfortably, has recently launched. A members section for all the sweetspot properties and a new homepage design are also new additions. Just like the existing Sweetspot and Sweetmama sites, this new site fully leverages the existing content management system we built. The members section includes some fun features such as commenting on articles and creating your own personal sweetpicks (a collection of your favorite articles). Meanwhile, the new homepage design includes a more impactful featured section, and is organized to more clearly highlight the most recent content.

Check it out, and make sure to sign up to be a sweet insider!

Did Skittles do it right?

2009-03-11T12:55:00.005-04:00

From a buzz point of view, I think Skittles made their mark. Their new website which consists of a branded navigation bar that hovers over social media sites like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Wikipedia has received a lot of attention lately. From a marketing effectiveness point of view I'll let others be the judge, see Ad Age's take on it (membership required for older articles) or Bite Communications blog. However, from a usability perspective how does it rate? There is a lot that goes into good usability, but for this lets keep it simple - does it make it easy for the audience to do things they want to do on your site. Here's my take on Skittles usability:

What's Good:

Flexible home Page
Whether they've done this on purpose or not their home page can be easily changed from Twitter to YouTube (as they've recently done) or to Facebook, depending where the most action is. This can be used to make YouTube the home page when they release a new video, or Twitter the home page when there is a lot of chatter about all the ways you can have fun with Skittles, which helps them ensure the home page is as relevant as possible to their audience.

Simple Navigation Bar
It's straightforward without too many levels and very easy to use.

What's Bad:

The Navigation Bar blocks important content
Unfortunately the navigation bar blocks content and important links on the social media sites, esspecially on small screens (like the 13inch tablet that I have). Usually I like to be able to click on the Videos or Channel links in YouTube's main navigation, or the discussion tab on Wikipedia, or see that the Twitter stream is based on a skittles search. Even on larger screens some of these are blocked. What could have been done to make the experience better is allow you to move the box around the page. This was already done on Modernista's site, on which this design is based, so I am not sure why they didn't include this feature.

The Ad Box below the Navigation bar opens on every click
Every time you click on an item in the navigation, a Skittles ad pops up below the navigation bar. This is quite annoying for me because it blocks even more content, and needs to be closed on every new page I view. This could be easily addressed by making it smart enough to remember if I've already closed it and keep it closed until I return to the home page. Though of course that would mean I wouldn't see their Transplant the Rainbow ad, and get annoyed, as many times.

What do you think?

Match Marketing gets a new site

2008-12-22T11:34:00.002-05:00

We recently launched Match Marketing's new site. Match asked us to make their web presence consistent with their overall brand. To accomplish this we designed and built matchmg.com as well as modified the look and feel of their existing job application system, hotjobsatmatch.com.

Congratulations Match Marketing on your new site!

An evolution in medical networking

2008-12-04T13:03:00.004-05:00

The last couple months we've been working on an exciting new online professional network for doctors, due to launch this month. The site will provide doctors involved in specific clinical studies a secure community to collaborate and share information with each other as well as receive important resources and medical news.
There are some great features in this site:

Group areas where doctors can share documents and coordinate on specific projects/tasks
Easy to search news and resources sections
Forums where doctors can discuss, find answers to questions, and poll the community
An Event Calendar where doctors can keep track of the events they are invited to and add these events to their Outlook calendar
And a host of other features that allow them to easily connect and communicate with other doctors.

Unless you're a doctor involved in one of the registered studies, you wont be able to access the site, but don't worry, we've put together a animated tour of the community which is available on the communities registration page. Check it out.

Shopping Guides on Sweetspot & Sweetmama

2008-11-10T11:59:00.001-05:00

We recently launched Shopping Guides on Sweetspot.ca & Sweetmama.ca. This is a fun section that features a variety of products in different categories, cities, and price ranges. The ladies over at Sweetspot love it because it is easy to manage using their CMS web interface. They get to load product images, descriptions, and categorizations all in one screen - and it's pink too!

Check out the Shopping Guides they've created
Sweetspot Shopping Guides
Sweetmama Shopping Guides

The new Sweetspot.ca

2008-09-19T11:40:00.002-04:00

After a summer of developing at break-neck speed, we've launched the new Sweetspot.ca and Sweetmama.ca. These sites are built off a sophisticated custom CMS that we developed which allows Sweetspot more flexibility than they ever had before and improves efficiency in their editorial process. We've been getting great feedback on the usability of the site and the design, and have started seeing the results of this in the web statistics.

Congratulations Sweetspot on your new sites!

Launch of PopUpRetail.ca

2008-08-28T12:17:00.003-04:00

We just launched Pop Up Retail's corporate website. It's a straightforward and clean informational site, and the jobs section has an easy-to-use administrator section where the Pop Up Retail staff can manage their list of available positions.

Congratulations to Pop Up Retail on their new website!

In the eye of the beholder

2008-08-21T10:13:00.003-04:00

Like beauty, a brand is in the eye of the beholder. No where is this more evident than Brandtags.net, a site that allows the public to tag brands and pit one brand against another.

If you work on a brand, see how it ranks on the leader board. (If it's not there, you can have it added)

Trioro in the news

2008-07-30T16:32:00.002-04:00

Yesterday ConnectIt news ran an article about our work to build Sweetspot.ca a robust custom content management system on a .Net platform. Check it out.

Navigating through technology clutter

2008-07-17T17:27:00.001-04:00

At every turn, it seems there is a new technology product claiming it can, as if magically, connect you to your audience and improve your business. All too often, we come across businesses where these promises have rung hollow (a little too often lately, which is why I am writing this post). For example, we’ve recently come across businesses with content management systems that allow them change content, but cannot be configured to work well with their content creation processes, and with forums that help manage and moderate many conversations but are not flexible to allow the customized design necessary for that businesses brand. This is not to say technology product developers are incompetent or most of the products are useless, far from it – there are a lot of great technology products out there.

The point is that it takes the combination of business understanding and technical understanding to make a proper fit between your business and the right technology, and all too often technology providers simply try to fit the business to their technology, rather than the other way around. They do this for a reason; they own a pre-developed technology that they want to sell you.

As an internet technology agency, Trioro takes the opposite approach. We have skilled business resources that learn about your business first, and then find the right technology to fit with your strategies and goals – even if it has been developed by someone else.

Web Design - the OXO test

2008-07-11T14:31:00.004-04:00

“User-centered design” is often used to describe designing products and services from the consumer’s point of view, which is something we are very fond of here at Trioro.

Recently the User experience arts blog outlined the 4 criteria that OXO use to evaluate which consumer product ideas to commercialize. I think these criteria also work well to evaluate websites.

So does your website pass the OXO test?

You must be able to understand what it does [or what type of information it contains] just by looking at it
Knowing how to use it has to be obvious (no instructions!)
It must be thought provoking
It should warrant consistent use (not a use-once-and-put-away product)

Source Michael Grossman, User Experience Arts

The POST approach: Where Internet Technology Agencies fit in

2008-06-17T11:45:00.003-04:00

POST is a simple approach invented by Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li from Forester Research to help people step back from the dizzying social technology buzz, and get back to the basics of figuring out what they want to accomplish. It’s an approach that has been getting a lot of attention.

The POST approach (Learn More):

Source: Forrester Research

An Internet Technology Agency, like Trioro, typically enters into this method at the strategy stage. Once people and objectives are defined, the process of collaborating with the client on strategy and then delivering the technology becomes more effective.

Actually the Trioro process has always been centered on this fundamental idea, our terms are slightly different, we use “user experience” and “business goals”, but it is the same thing. We put the people and objectives at the center of our process to collaborate, create, and connect.

Who needs paper! - Part 2

2008-06-10T17:04:00.003-04:00

Though phrasing their headline as a question, rather than a statement, the Economist has published an interesting article also called "Who Needs Paper?"

What I find particularly interesting, is that the article mentions that Continental Airlines is testing a system to deliver tickets to traveler's mobile phones using the same technology as the Digital Coupons I talked about in a previous post.

Who needs paper!

2008-06-06T17:16:00.002-04:00

My recent trip to New York really highlighted how little paper is needed when traveling. The combination of credit cards, and online or mobile services meant that my trip was almost paperless.

Hotel and Flight Booking: Expedia - E-tickets and electronic booking.

Shows, Meals, Museum, Shopping: Credit Card, Credit Card, Credit Card! Even many of the street vendors had credit card readers attached to their mobile phones. Though there were a couple that still only took cash.

Recommendations: No tourist book here. DailyCandy.com , city search, and email & txt with friends gave me great recommendations.

Finding Places: I did use the free tourist map, mostly to figure out the subway stops, but most of the time I used Google and the map on my blackberry. Sometimes the digital maps in New York taxis came in handy too.

Getting Around: Credit Card. The subway and all taxis take credit card.

Money Exchange: I didn’t change any cash before I left, or get travelers cheques. I actually didn’t have a single (U.S. or Canadian) in my pocket when I boarded the plane. I did take out cash from a bank machine when I got there, mostly as a precaution, but I ended up having to try to spend it, using it instead of a credit card so that I wouldn’t be left with it when I got back.

Tips: Credit Card and Cash, this is one of the last bastions of paper.

Comparing auto manufacturers’ websites

2008-05-28T12:26:00.001-04:00

J.D. Power and Associates recently ranked auto manufacturers’ Canadian websites. The ranking put Subaru first, Hyundai last, and Mini right in the middle. The ranking was based on a shopper survey which took into account four areas: information/content; ease of navigating; appearance; and speed of page load.

Take a look at these sites yourself, and see what you think.

www.subaru.ca

www.mini.ca

www.hyundaicanada.com

What I find particularly interesting is that with all the flashy bells-and-whistles that are included in the Mini site, it only ranks as average. I think this is partially a lesson in the effective use of motion and animation on websites, which many people have yet to learn.

What is an Internet Technology Agency?

2008-05-12T22:35:00.000-04:00

With the rapidly changing world of internet technology - from Facebook applications, eco-calculators, voting platforms, to blogs, music sharing, online stores and online communities - the possibilities are limitless. Because of the opportunity for infinite permutations and combinations, turning internet technologies into useful and engaging experiences has become just as much an art as it is a science.

This is the core of an Internet Technology Agency.

Like advertising, marketing, or public relations agencies, creativity and a focus on the consumer is paramount. However, unlike these other agencies who’s end product is made up of spoken and written words, colours, images, song and dance, and human action; an Internet Technology Agency’s end product is made up of computer code, databases, existing software products and services, automated processes, mobile devices, and computers.

At Trioro we develop, assemble, and orchestrate a huge variety of internet technology into engaging and useful consumer experiences customized to meet the client’s business goals. At the same time, these experiences enable words, colours, images, song and dance, and human action to come to life through the technology.

This explains why, for Trioro, partnerships with marketing and public relations agencies are a natural fit – our creative expertise just mesh!

What Makes a Good Online Community?

2008-05-07T20:23:00.001-04:00

Based on some recent activity at Our Power and some questions I got after the Toronto Star ran a related article I've been thinking about what it takes to put together a successful online community.

From my perspective, the most important aspects of an online social network are as follows:

Access has to be free of charge - this probably goes without saying.
Obvious representation of the size of the community

New and returning visitors have to be given some sense that they're not the only person visiting the website.

Before connecting with other people in the community there has to be an evident visualization of how many other people are actively involved.

Sincere community commitment

Bells, whistles and a fancy facade will be quickly overlooked
The website site doesn't necessary need to be "useful", but the service or offering has to be genuine

Without those three aspects, an online community will quickly dissolve.

Real, long-term success would need to add to the following factors:

Provide a sense of security, privacy and comfort

Obviously a security or privacy breach would be game over for any website.
I say "sense" because people have to inherently trust the website they're interacting with - a privacy policy isn't enough.

Critical Mass

For a website to take on a life of itself it needs to hit a critical mass of participation - that number depends on the purpose of the community.
At this point you've hit the jack-pot and user-defined content can really be a big driver of success.

These are base essentials, additional success factors would be specific to the type of community and the activities the community undertakes.

On many occasions I've run across websites that make failed attempts at starting an online community.
Here's a quick list of potential pitfalls for building an online community:

A forum or chat room is NOT an online community.

These are features and elements that are part of most successful online communities, but a forum unto itself is NOT an online community.
If you build it, people WILL NOT come - the offering needs to be much bigger.

A blog is NOT an online community.

A blog is a great way to be a casual journalist and talk TO your community, but communities are interactive and involve feedback and conversation.
Commenting on a blog is NOT the feedback and conversation I'm talking about.

Product marketing websites are under the most scrutiny from potential community participants.

A product or brand website can indeed result in a good online community if the essential aspects above are followed.
The sincerity of the community commitment is most important in this case.

Now that I've made this list, how does Our Power compare?

Our Power is certainly free of charge and has a sincere offering to help people adopt renewable energy.
What's missing is the obvious size of the community.
Our Power has a database of hundreds of interested people, but that network and those relationships haven't been visualized or aggregated for others to be able to see the success of the online community.

Good thing there are some new developments in the works for Our Power! :)

How does this list compare to some of the online communities you're a part of?

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Own your niches

2008-04-23T17:09:00.001-04:00

Advertising Age recently ran a story about Purina’s jump into the role of curator for pet enthusiasts with its website www.petcharts.purina.com :

Purina Joins Pack of Marketers Turned Content Aggregators (if you aren’t an AdAge member, articles become unavailable after about a week)

The site is a good example of using technology to make the job of gathering, selecting, and publishing relevant content easier. The technology has enabled Purina to provide a valuable resource to their target – pet enthusiasts – in an efficient and effective way.

In the future, more and more brands are going to try to claim the curator role in the niches that make up their target market. Will you be next?

If you look at the niche communities that make up your target market, is the thought of owning them overwhelming? You know you have the insight to select relevant content, and the skill to craft complementary brand messages and programs, but how would you execute it?

As an Internet Technology Agency, Trioro is here to help you execute. We find the most effective technology for your goals and develop engaging easy-to-use online experiences for your audience – own your niches, and leave the technical details to us.

Trioro in the community

2008-04-18T19:17:00.001-04:00

Though a little different from what we usually blog about, we’re pretty proud of our involvement and support of local environmental organizations, so we wanted to share. The organizations listed below are doing great work to improve the state of the environment by educating, enabling, organizing, and encouraging our communities to take real actions - making a positive impact on the environment. Check them out:

Earth Day Canada

Earth Day Canada is a national environmental communications organization mandated to improve the state of the environment by empowering Canadians to achieve local solutions.

Our Power

Our Power is a voluntary organization, partnered with the Toronto Renewable Energy Co-op (TREC), whose mission is to promote and facilitate community-based sustainable energy projects.

Zerofootprint

Zerofootprint's mission is to empower individuals and communities to fight climate change in measurable and practical ways. Zerofootprint develops applications and initiatives to measure and manage carbon and ecological footprint for the purpose of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Digital Coupons - part 2

2008-04-18T09:14:00.001-04:00

A couple days after my last post on Digital Coupons insideTORONTO ran an article about the Downtown Yonge BIA providing its 2000 members the ability to offer digital coupons through its Mobile Yonge program. : Yonge Street stores going high-tech

Though not explained very well on the Mobile Yonge site, the system works by choosing coupons on their website or through a mobile version of their website. Then if you have a decent mobile internet browser, you redeem the coupon by viewing its unique bar code on your phone's screen, which the cashier scans at the time of purchase.

If you don't have a good browser, you're left to print the coupon at home and bring it with you.

I signed up to try it out, and I must say that only having two coupons available is a little underwhelming. I hope they have a lot more in the pipeline.

Persona's Defined

2008-04-15T09:05:00.001-04:00

In the world of website development a persona refers to the description of a fictitious person that is very similar to an actual human that would visit your website.
Personas are typically given a real name so that the development team can refer to them as a real person. The characteristics given to the persona paint a picture of what you would expect to see if someone fitting that description were using your website.

Using only one persona to describe all the users for your website would be an over-generalization. It is common to have several personas, each describing a different type of interaction and a different type of person that would use your website.

The approach of using personas allows a team to share a consistent understanding of who there users are that are going to work with the website being developed. Personas also give clients and developers some common ground to help relate to the business need with the technical solution. In a sense this provides a "human element" that helps the development team empathize and identify with the end user. For the same reason it is common for the persona to be given a photo of someone similar to the persona.

The more detailed a persona can be, the better. However, even a simple persona is helpful.
Here's an example...

Kathy is a 30 year old business professional who is always on-the-go. Kathy has Internet access wherever she goes and is quite comfortable with computers. As a result her interest and time available to research new information is limited.

The development team can then infer that the following considerations should be made when building a website Kathy would use:
- be concise and straight forward so Kathy doesn't have to hunt around for what she wants
- it's okay to use familiar interface elements such as clicking column names to sort data, Kathy is probably familiar with this
- consider providing mobile content so that Kathy has access to the website from her Blackberry

Of course, this is a simplified example, but hopefully you get the point.

More information on personas is available here:

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Within Six Degrees

2008-04-14T11:56:00.001-04:00

Trioro is proud to announce the addition of Six Degrees Medical Consulting to its growing list of clients in Marketing and Communications industries.

“We have been very impressed with the ideas, creativity and energy of the Trioro team. They have helped us recently with cutting edge ideas for use in our new business presentations. In addition, they redid our company website and gave us something that is now generating very positive feedback from our clients. I look forward to our next project with Trioro!”

Colin Buchanan

Six Degrees Medical Consulting

Digital Coupons

2008-04-08T16:46:00.000-04:00

Some grocers are experimenting with digital coupons. The most promising of these looks to be a system where coupons are “loaded” onto the shoppers loyalty card. The shopper selects coupons online adding the coupons to their account. Then, at the register, the system retrieves the coupons for the products purchased.

What seems to be missing from these systems are options for the shopper to remember what coupons they have “clipped” once they are already in the store. Right now, the shopper needs to go online to look at their list and print it off.

An option to retrieve the list from a SMS text message might be helpful for the younger, on-the-go crowd, but they are not usually the target demographic for coupon clipping. In store kiosks may be a smarter option for the target coupon clipper. The kiosk would allow shoppers to scan their card to receive a print-out their coupon shopping list. Stores that already have self serve check-out kiosks might be able to avoid additional capital expense by adding this extra feature to this existing infrastructure.

There are also other types of digital coupons out there. One example is with mobile phones where the consumer takes a picture of an advertisement with their cell phone and sends it to a short code. The picture is matched to an available promotion, and a coupon is sent to the consumer’s cell phone. One company that provides this service is Snaptell.