Social Media - Craig Jamieson

FNB site redesign

On the 14th July FNB launched their newly designed website. There have been a lot of negative comments made, which is to be expected given that people really don’t like change, but in fairness I have to commend the effort made by the team who have redesigned the FNB site, it is a huge leap forward compared to any other banking website locally (& abroad for that matter).

On the plus side, the site is responsive, fast, the use of text instead of images would be a huge help with that, clean(ish) and at least an attempt has been made to refresh it and keep up with current trends.

I haven’t had too many of the problems with my account, like some other people have reported, nothing is obviously broken. But I do see a lot of design and usability choices that I might have done differently. I’m not going to tear into the redesign, I think there are enough people doing that, but I will offer some advice, based on what I currently see online. I hope that this advice is taken into consideration as I really do believe it could improve the over all user experience.

Buttons
It’s not particularly clear what is a button and what is just text. You basically need to run your cursor over everything to see if it’s click-able and on touch devices that really presents a problem. If you are using text links, then underline them. If you have buttons, then make them stand out and have clear call to actions, so they cannot be ignored. Buttons sizes should be larger on touch device’s as your finger is the cursor.

Menus
Whether it be the main navigation menu, a sub menu or a list menu, again these need to be made obvious to the end user, as with buttons. Menus also need to show where you are. They should contain the most important functions of the site first, then secondary include things like about us, careers and other company information (you are mostly buying into the service, not the history of the company or it’s current job vacancies). With responsive designs, especially when focusing on mobile devices, menus should be easily recognizable and easy to use.

Navigating
When you click into many of the sections of the site, a modal like window appears and it has a close button. While that makes sense in some instances, it just doesn’t in others. For example, if you close the window to be taken to the home page, then why not just have an icon that has a house on it. If it’s a tab menu, then why have a close button?

If you are going to have several pages deep as you navigate, then at least include a bread crumb trail, so you can work your way back.

Fonts
The use of web fonts on the site ensure that it’s a lot more on brand, that the content is SEO friendly, will always show, even if images were turned off and best of all, it loads a lot faster. Given that the site homepage is secure (https://) due to the login form on the home page, this is a really smart addition. But they still haven’t got the balance of font weight and size right. On tablet and mobile devices, the text is tiny, which is a simple mistake easily fixed, just bump it up a bit for smaller screens, so you don’t have to strain to read it.

Use a colour scheme that makes it easier to differentiate between header, sub-header, body copy and links. Remembering that hover isn’t immediately recognized on touch devices.

Icons
One of the stand-out features of the old FNB site was the use of iconography and it has often been used as a shining example of what clients want when they reference other sites, so I’m not sure why they have hardly used any icons. Just like icons on road or airport signs, it would be easier to have some symbols that are easily recognizable on the site, so even if you have trouble reading, you know what to click. It would also help differentiate between what is a button and what is just text. Obviously this needs to be a consistent treatment or again it could confuse.

When designing icons, even something as simple as an arrow, make a little effort. A triangle is just a square cut diagonally and rotated. That’s just lazy. When you see all the curves used in the FNB CI (from what I can tell) surely some rounded arrows could be used.

If I had to take a guess, while speeding up the site must be a priority, user friendliness has to come in pretty close. If speed is the issue, then use sprites of png or svg graphics. You can even create a font, which includes all your graphics as vectors, which can be loaded in once.

Interface
The interface design is very confusing for me, I’m just not sure I understand what they were trying to achieve. But if I had to guess they were against the traditional scrolling website and they wanted the interface to seem more contained. The fixed header and footer was a poor choice, as was adding their logo on the bottom. Logos are commonly recognised as being home buttons and are best suited to being on the top left. This isn’t to say that it can’t be done, I see fixed elements and logos being abused in all sorts of ways now that this functionality is better supported, but on a banking site, I’d opt for something more traditional myself.

Another odd element is the left hand side where page headers are flipped 90 degrees; it all just reads a little odd to me.

The element that bothers me probably the most is the search and login section. It sees really cramped and hard to tap on mobile devices. I’m sure real-estate was a huge consideration for the designer, this section s one of the most used features and just seems cramped at the top on the edge. A little padding around everything would make it easier on the eye and touch.

Loading
Remember loading bars on Flash sites? I’ve designed enough of them to know that you can do amazing things, but in HTML, they are a functional element for content heavy sites that load slowly. I understand telling people the pages are loading, but if you are going to have a loader, that is a bar that represents the amount of data being loaded and indicates how long you have to go, at the very least, make it work properly. And only use loaders if it’s really necessary, given the speed of the page loads, I don’t think it’s worth it on this site.

Social Media
I went and looked at a bunch of international banking sites and not one, not even PayPal have social media icons on their home page. While I am aware that FNB dominates as far as banks go in this space, it just strikes me as weird to add these icons to your home page. But if you are going to, then at least use the official icons as specified by the specific social networks. Facebook is probably the most aggressive about this, but even the friendly folk at twitter have some terms too. FNB are a very public online site and could well land up in trouble.

Responsive Design
I believe the use of responsive web design was the smartest choice made when redesigning the site. I’ve not seen another bank do anything close to making their layout work across multiple devices. There are so many advantages to using this technique and given FNB’s commitment to embracing technology, making it work across multiple platforms is a sure way of allowing users to access their site on any device. I actually think the need for a mobile app and a mobi site becomes redundant. What I would caution the team on though, is their current interface design and various layouts across the devices. I’m not sure if they have finished this yet, but across my devices, the site doesn’t quite adapt enough to call it truly responsive. I struggle with the font sizes, buttons etc as mentioned above. Regardless it functionally works across all my devices, which means I can bank anywhere, which is a huge win!

Conclusion
I could continue to do this all day, but I am sure that the team have got their hands full given the mammoth task of pulling something like this off. Again, it’s a huge effort and I really am impressed, as usual FNB are ahead of the rest of the banks online and I’m sure once people get used to where old features now are, the complaining will turn into compliments as they have made the effort, no other bank that I’m aware of has made toward a better online experience. I would personally love to work on a project like this and to the teams involved, keep going, it’s inspiring and you all deserve a good pat on the back.

Friday free social media tips

It’s been a while since I posted something about social media, but I’m seeing far too much rubbish going on, so thought I’d give a few free tips this Friday

Get a life, so you have something to share on your social network
Nobody sets up a group anymore on Facebook, setup a page
Twitter is not an instant messenger, if you want to have a conversation, use Skype, Direct Message, pick up the phone etc
If you’re having an event, and you want people to know about it, setup an event on Facebook
Stuff that is polite to not talk about at the dinner table is more importantly not great for discussing on social networks, it’s documented, so keep your race, political, religious and other such views away, cause it’s easy to offend
Don’t set up a second (or third, firth, sixteenth) personal Facebook account with YOUR NAME 2, just setup a page and use that as your Facebook profile
Don’t be a dick!
Visual posts with images and videos get higher responses
You cannot run apps on mobile versions of Facebook
If you’ve got nothing good to say, say nothing at all
Treat people on social networks as you would in real life
Tell people to Retweet your tweet if you want more retweets
Social media sites are gaining popularity in search results
Low likes, tweets and + reflect poorly on your content, so if you’ve added these buttons to your sites during the “gotta-have-it” phase, if they’re low, ditch ’em, it’ll speed up your site
Building your Google+ profile is a great way to increase your search ranking on Google
Ask users questions if you want better engagement
Twitter followers drop off, it happens to everyone, don’t take it personally
Adding a full stop before the .@ on reply lets all your followers see your response, as twitter by default assumes that @ without the fullstop is a reply to the specific person, it’s better to reply, but add their twitter handle after your reply if you want people to see and you don’t want to .@
In internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community
If you’re a DJ or a band etc and you don’t have money to burn on a website, build a strong social presence, it mostly costs nothing more but effort to maintain
Stop posing, pouting and pretending!
Share your photos at live events, add location and tag people who are with you, let everyone see what they are missing out on
Facebook is going to allow #hash tags in posts
Don’t harsh my morning mellow by ranting about traffic etc, social networks are not your soap box
Think before you drink, before you type, before you wake up the next day and want to die
Use @ and # tags on other social networks, so that when you share on networks that use these, it all works in synergy (far out man)
Stay cool now, over posting, is over baring and it’s kinda like over sharing
Try not to share only drunk moments, potential employers might not think you’re so cool, they might just think you’re a drunk
Home is not where the heart is, it’s some new app for Android, that’s not an app … we’ll never know until they make it for iOS
Your mom is the fastest growing demographic (over 55) on social networks
Pinterest will remove any pin deemed nudity or other such filth, even on a private board

I’m no social media guru, but as a digital creative director, I see a lot of shit on the internet, hopefully that counts for something. Otherwise just chill, it’s Friday, enjoy some free love!

7 things I’d like to see in digital for 2013

I was just reading a .net article on the 20 top web design and developments trends for 2013 and I have a few thoughts on what I’d like to see in digital for 2013, especially in South Africa.

Responsive Web Design
Probably the largest trend, still not picking up enough traction in South Africa is RWD, which makes absolutely no sense to me. The thought of creating a website purely for desktop, when we have such a large percentage of mobile users locally its ignorant. At the same time, RWD might not be the perfect solution after all, given that have multiple layouts require content to be turned on or off, but that only means its hidden from the user’s eye, but all the multiple layouts and content are still downloaded, which in SA, really defeats the purpose.
Content
If you’ve ever read anything on the web, you’ll know that for the most part, it’s absolute rubbish. I believe that content has to be a bigger priority in 2013, that doesn’t mean to say that it needs to be bloated, while content is king, it doesn’t have to be a silly bloated one at that. Craft of visual assets needs to be factored in and more relevant content be created, instead of just recycling images from a google search on a specific subject, purely as a cheap option to visually populate your wall etc.
Conversation
Social media conversations need to be better aligned, this prescribing posts months in advance has to stop. Agencies need to be employed and empowered to write content in real-time. While a strategy can be in place to guide the conversation based on the brands objectives, a more natural real time conversation should take place, where agencies speak in the brands tone to people, engaging in conversation rather than shouting out and waiting for responses. The other problem with the month in advance post prescriptive content creation is waiting for client to sign off everything is the delays it causes. clients need to have a little faith in the communication agency they hire.
Focus
Most agencies try to be all things to everyone, instead of trying to do everything poorly for the same budget, agencies need to identify real opportunities in the digital space and focus more on that specific area rather than spread themselves too thin across every digital channel.
Hybrid designer
I’m borrowing the term Hybrid Designer from the .net article and I’m going say what they’ve said in my own words, the best digital designers have the ability to code as they have a better understanding of what the constraints of the medium are. I’ve mostly done all of my own coding of the sites I’ve done in my career. I lack the level of development of a lot of the talented developers I’ve had the privilege of working with over the years, but I have always had a better balance between design and development output.
Story telling
I believe true engagement is to tell a really compelling story, taking people on a journey, giving people a reason to believe, to interact and be inspired to want to share. In SA, I’m yet to see anything like the type of campaigns AKQA or North Kingdom produce. We spend millions producing TV adverts that run for 30 seconds for a couple of weeks, instead of creating rich online engagements that can last for much longer and offer a lot more information, interaction and share-ability.
Waving carrots
I have noticed that there are few digital campaigns that don’t involve a huge prize as an incentive to engage. If the prize is the reason to engage, then the focus isn’t on the message we’re trying to drive, but rather the “whats in it for me” mentality. If you’re going to give something away, then it’s simple, have an entry form. But if you want people to understand and engage with your brand, give them an experience they’ll never forget.

Fighting words!

It’s quite common to see people get into spirited banter on social forums and for us outsiders it can either make us want to duck for cover or get fired up and add our 2 cents worth. Social media does not play by the same sort of real life social rules and everyone has the ability to be a big mouth from the comfort of where ever they decide to attack from, it’s a new form of guerrilla war I guess, and it’s a global playing field of cowardliness. I’m guilty of it too, but I am trying to learn from it. There’s always going to be someone who wants to take a dig at you, someone who feels they’re some sort of authority on whats right or wrong. Truth is, there is no right and wrong, we all do things for different reasons and I’m sure that if we were face to face with one another and we took the time to understand each other, it might just be a more civilized society after all. But it’s easy to shoot off another cocky reply on twitter than it is to consider for just a second why someone might have said what they did, too much effort to simply send them a ‘DM’ and engage in healthy debate. The reason I say debate, is that when you’re not being shouted at in a public forum, you’re less likely to be defensive and hence you’re likely to have a healthy conversation. Let’s face it, if people spoke to one another in the real world, like they do on social platforms, there would be a lot of people getting punched in the face.

I have adopted a new approach for myself, which I can only hope more people adopt. I’m not saying this is a hard rule and I’m no authority, I’m just a guy trying to stay afloat in the white waters of our technologically driven society. My approach is to say nice things, share great words of wisdom, spread the love. I like to live by “if you have nothing nice to say, then say nothing at all”. I see no point in arguing with people online anymore, and if someone has something to say to me, they need to be polite about it if they expect a response, because I try to live by “do unto others and you expect other to do unto you”. I doubt many people who don’t know me would dare say the things they do to me on twitter or Facebook to my face. So lets all attempt to be a little more civilized online, stop attacking one another, take conversations offline if you care so much to engage with one another.

Stay cool now, there really isn’t any reason to act like a dick!

FNB are quick to respond but are they responsive?

Earlier today I commented on a tweet which mentioned FNB will bring the new iPad to South Africa. Simply, I was curious as to why FNB, not Apple (The Core Group) were bringing the iPad to SA, given that I know FNB as a bank, they handle your money etc. Promptly I received a response which I noted because someone I respect had a good chuckle at my expense.

@MichaelJordaan: A real Guru wouldn’t ask “@Digiguru: What the hell does FNB have to do with iPads?”

This was met with quite a few retweets by people who were either laughing at me or at the cocky response from @MichaelJordaan – CEO of FNB. Not taking it too seriously, without hesitation I replied…

@mikestopforth @michaeljordaan LOL I’m not a real guru, but would hope that FNB was a bank and not a Apple distributor 🙂

I quite appreciated the sensible responses from a few other people who informed me how FNB are trying to encourage clients to make use of electronic channels as a medium to do banking. If that’s the whole truth, I applaud their efforts. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I decided to visit www.fnb.co.za as I wanted to see how they were offering the iPad. I arrived at their seemingly well designed home page and after clicking on an iPad image, I read that FNB gives you an Apple iPad, Samsung Galaxy or Smartphone at a reduced rate, with your Cheque Account. 24 Months to pay. As long as you’re a FNB cheque account customer, you probably qualify for their deal. This isn’t empowering anyone any more than it is signing people up to their business. This I understand, given that I know a little about marketing and advertising. Good for them and it answers my question “What the hell has FNB got to do with iPads?”

I know a designer who works on the FNB brand and wasn’t too surprised that their site looks quite descent on the surface. As far as banks go, FNB seem like a forward thinking bank, I have noted they have an App, which is fantastic in a geeky way, but it’s device specific and not the only way to access their content from tablet & mobile devices. As typical South African standards go, I wasn’t too surprised that the site is not responsive, it doesn’t adapt to multiple devices, making it quite difficult to bank online on mobile phones etc. People don’t seem too bothered about viewing sites on their tablets, when held horizontally they look like they do on computers browser, but what about when you display it vertically (portrait) and on your phones which have an endless amount of screen sizes? Thats where it would be in their best interest to have a rethink of their existing site and perhaps design it to adapt better to the devices they say they the want to empower people to use.

iPhone 4 portrait screengrab

iPhone 4 landscape screengrab

I honestly don’t believe that FNB care any more about empowering people by using devices like the iPad any more than they are building brand loyalty through association, leveraging the cool factor. That’s great marketing. However, if they were concerned about empowering, they would already have built their site to adapt better on devices, make the buttons etc large enough to be selected on touch devices, legible enough to read on smaller screens and reduced site speed by removing the +- 40 images that make up the page and rather used CSS, as phones accessed the internet well before the iPad was released. But they’re cool, @MichaelJordaan has many fans who would sooner laugh at his response to my comment than actually think about what FNB are, and what they are supposed to be doing, which in my opinion is banking. I’m not in a battle with FNB, I quite respect their marketing efforts, they seem like they’re ahead of the competition, sociably they seem to be doing the right things too and I’m certainly not going to get into it with every retweeting fan, I’m smarter than that.

I’m no social guru either, and nothing can be taken back, but now that they have this gem of information from me, the right way to deal with my response online would be to acknowledge what I’ve said and say thanks for the advice, we have noted your point about our site not being responsive and we’ll look into it.

For anyone who cares, let this be a lesson to you. Don’t expect to get an informative answer from brands, you might just get a cocky response. People you respect and others you don’t will point and laugh. But maybe you’ll get lucky – like I have, by actually getting an opportunity to turn this around and hopefully make a suggestion that could actually benefit the brands users.

I buy Apple products, from Apple. I bank, at Standard Bank.

Social Media Etiquette

I’m anything but a “social media guru”, but I do keep in touch with some of the most influential innovators in the digital industry, and might have signed up to a thing or two before many other people, which is my way of saying, I’m an old dog and I there might be some sound advice I can offer in this space without sporting ninja status.

Don’t sweat spelling mistakes: If you were cool at school, you didn’t care about acing a spelling test, and you know what, it’s ok now too. Sure you could really put your foot in it and things could completely get read out of context. But what does it matter? You’re a person, and there are spell checkers, but they just haven’t implemented them on Twitter or Facebook. Your friends won’t care either, unless of course they’re copywriters (I have a few of those) but then they’d be correcting you at the dinner table while you talk with food in your mouth.
Don’t tweet & share your Foursquare check-ins: The only people who care what badge you earned and where you check-in are people on Foursquare, no one else gives a fuck! If you must share your location, Twitter has location-based tweet info and it’s easy enough to check-in on Facebook. You will lose friends and alienate people!
Don’t make a #hash of things: Apparently hashtags add some sort of value when tweeting, but you really shouldn’t use too many, you look like a twat cause hashtags are meant to be relevant to the topic you are tweeting about. But using too many, is considered spamming on Twitter and makes you seem like you’re trending #stupid #thick #dumb #etc
Posting endless images with motivational text on your wall: I love a good thought, especially the really deep ones that kinda blow my hair back the whole day and I kinda want to try to fit that pearl of wisdom into a conversation. But adding all these images about things that motivate you goes against the fabric of the internet, and adding ten in a row is just showing off your copy and pasting skills, while wasting my mobiles bandwidth. Next time you have pearls of wisdom to share, type one up as an affirmation. If you’re bursting to share it, tell the lady who packs your bags at the check out at your local grocery store, she might care more.
Public Ranting: Your social profile, unless set to private (which honestly is very anti-social) is very fucking public, so if you use Twitter to bitch about the traffic, your fight with your sister and the runny guts you got from an Indian restaurant you frequent, all the time, then don’t be surprised when people think you’re a grumpy miserable prick. I simply don’t want to start each day with another of your rants congesting my feed and harshing my morning mellow. Be the cheerful, fun-loving friend I get to hang out with on the weekends. There I said it.
Posting images of hot chicks/dudes: While we all like to admire hotness, keep it to yourself or your select group of friends on a private mailing list. Posting nude-ish chicks and saying “yes-please” makes you look like a horny teenager. It’s a public forum and not your locker at the firehouse. You wouldn’t put half-naked bodies on your office walls or living room, so don’t do it online, unless of course it’s for motivation in the fitness section of pinterest (we’re ok with that, like we are with talking in the 3rd person or for everyone).
Don’t have a conversation on Twitter: I’ve said this a few times before, Twitter is not an instant messenger. It’s easy to fall into the trap, but honestly, if you want to get into a conversation or tell someone to check there mail, and you must use Twitter, DM them. Otherwise find another way of having a conversation that isn’t a public feed … ever heard of msn or Skype?
Posting a link without a description: Facebook has an amazing ability to pull the information of a website, sometimes insert an image and the need for a description to a link is not required, but on twitter it makes absolutely no sense, especially with a shortened url. Hell even a hashtag would be better than nothing, too many though and that makes you look like a twat!
Promoting yourself online but you have a shit website: I buy into social media too, you don’t have to be a “social media guru” to know that it has benefits to any business, but whats the point of investing in a social media campaign that pushes you to ugly website?
Don’t hahahahahahahahahahaha at everything you find funny: It’s cute once or twice to hahahahaha, but if that’s the only thing you do when people you know post something funny, then stop it, you look fucken nuts! Appreciate it, give it a like, hell share it and by all means make a comment, just don’t hahahahahaha the fuck out of things.

Final thought, I wanted to suggest that no one call them self a “Social Media Guru”! I might have used a similar name to describe my online presence, but I have never sold myself as some sort of guru, and neither should you. We all use social media, even your parents and yes, some people have made an exclusive career out of it, but not even Mark Zuckerberg calls himself a social media guru, and lets face it, he wrote the book, get it?!

2011 a short look back

This past year has been an interesting one which on the eve of the new year, could sooner be forgotten if it weren’t for some really significant events.

Steve Jobs
Online it must have been the most significant event in history when Steve Jobs passed away on October 5th. He seriously left a huge dent in the universe and I think people are waiting to see the first significant Apple release without the creative genius driving the company.

Facebook Timeline
Love it or hate it, as of the December 22nd, Facebook officially rolled out Timeline. As an early adopter it took me very little time to really start appreciating the life event display of my personal information. While there are some people who aren’t as happy about the changes, personally I look forward to further enhancements and also seeing Timeline used for page profiles.

Google+
New to social media was the much hyped release of Google’s latest social platform Google+ which has been released publicly, but to date is still very much a geek network. Google also rolled out a really significant UI redesign across most of its platforms, which has significantly improved the look and feel and unified many of their online spaces.

Twitter
Twitter redesigned.

Digital Monarchy
Marianna and I decided we were taking the leap from full-time employment and started our own little digital studio. We were originally going to call our company Harakiri, but the timing was too close to the Tsunami which hit Japan, so we settled on Digital Monarchy. We have no plans of taking over the world, we simply want to do good work. While only being in business for 9 months, we have worked on some great brands with some brilliant people.

FWA
I spent my December holiday in 2010 redesigning my personal website, choosing to try my hand at a responsive html5 design, which won me FWA Mobile Site of the Day on March 16th. Digiguru has now existed for over a decade and will continue to improve while showcasing my ever-increasing portfolio.

2012
With the new year, brings with it new optimism, may your 2012 be full of fun, excitement, success, laughter, good health, peace, love and happiness!

Thank you