However, I’d like to add another guideline regarding the fold:

“Make sure that each page’s primary function is at least partially visible above the fold.”

I was recently tasked with redesigning the contact page for Polar Leasing, because the marketing director had a hunch that something wasn’t right.

The original page:

On the original page, the contact form is pretty far down the page, after the general contact info. My theory is that the user would  scroll past the Flash header until he or she  saw the company phone number or live chat, and then either use one of those contact methods or leave the page. Because there weren’t any visual cues hinting at a contact form below, most users weren’t even aware of it.

The redesigned page:

Here are the changes I made:

• Removed the Flash header so it didn’t take up as much space on the interior pages
• Moved the address, email, phone, fax, and live chat information into the right column
• Moved the contact form to the top of the page
• Made the form more prominent by applying a light blue background

The fold for 1024 x 768 users was originally just below the “Find your state representative” link; now it’s just below the comments field on the contact form.

The Result? 3.5 times more contact form submissions per month.

By increasing the prominence of the page’s primary function, I increased the conversion rate of this page by a significant margin. What are your thoughts? Do you have any examples of similar “fold redesigns” or realignments of purpose?

Currently the new website is on the back burner, because the Voices of Unity Youth Choir has been invited to participate and represent Fort Wayne and the USA at the 6th World Choir Games in Shaoxing, China, July 15-26, 2010. For more info, visit UPAF.com/gold

For now, you can preview the new design here.

Their old website was powered by Contribute, which is great for simple websites, but they had outgrown it. Studio 625 updated the website design and integrated the new site with WordPress, so they could establish some consistency in their cross-site linking structures and have an easier time maintaining order, utilizing WordPress’s page management and heirarchy features.

We also helped to bring the various blogs and resources scattered across the internet under one roof, by pulling in RSS feeds from Women of Grace’s three blogs.

View the live site for Women of Grace →

I just read an excellent examination of the excruciatingly slow death of Internet Explorer 6, by Popular Science. Right at the end, there’s this quote pulled from a comment thread on one of Microsoft’s blogs:

“I work for a large financial services company with 40,000+ employees. And yes, every desktop PC and laptop runs WinXP and IE6. More than 85% of all browsing is intranet. Basic news sites etc deliver the information without the frills. For our vendors who offer Web portals (eg home loan valuations, stationery suppliers etc) – we’ll simply dump them if we can’t access their sites after a ‘no-IE6 revamp.’”

In other words, if you improve your website based on W3C Standards, but neglect our antique browser of choice, we’ll sever our business relationship with you. I guess I always assumed that businesses would upgrade if they had the money, but this person seems to suggest that it’s not a priority at all and that he or she is perfectly justified in ditching valuable business partnerships if they don’t comply with IE6.

How many of those partnerships are you willing to dissolve before upgrading your intranet becomes a viable option? 10%? 50%? 100%? And to those partners: why should you have to absorb the cost of supporting IE6 rather than expecting them to join the modern world? It seems to me that the vendors hold the real power, but they are being bullied into prolonging the issue for fear of losing business.

Microsoft has stated that it will continue to support IE6 as long as it supports Windows XP, which ends in April of 2014. But with this kind of attitude, I doubt that corporations will even care. Until then, I can only hope for more exploits that assist in the demise of IE6.

Illustration by Chris Fletcher.

Here’s the link:
web directories list

I’ll post a more thorough review once I’ve used it a little more.

Fun. Like when you finally take off those painful shoes at the end of the day, or when you start using a hammer instead of your forehead to drive nails into the wall.

Today, I needed to send a questionnaire to a prospect (based off of this excellent article), and was about to fire up Word and create a form. Instead, I created a new form with Gravity Forms, and about 15 minutes later, here’s what I got: http://www.studio625.net/new-client-questionnaire/

It’s got drag and drop field creation, validation, conditional logic, form submission emailing & routing, and conversion tracking right out of the box. Plus lots of other stuff that I’m sure I’ll use in the future.

So yeah, if you’re on WordPress, go buy a copy of Gravity Forms. You won’t regret it.

Update:

Since I wrote this article eight months ago, I’ve used Gravity Forms on every single website I’ve deployed (hooray Developer’s License!). Nearly every website will need some kind of response form, since that’s the primary way of getting value out of a non-ecommerce website. It makes sense to use the best plugin available for the job, and there’s so much flexibility here that you shouldn’t need anything else.

Also, I’ve started using Gravity Forms to get signatures from clients. I simply put the contract into a password-protected WordPress page, embed the form at the bottom and restrict it to one submission. The  client gets a link, reviews the contract, and signs the form. Everyone gets a copy of the signature and the contract remains online for future reference. So much easier than the email > print > sign > scan > email routine that often happens when dealing with customers outside of your area.

Conclusion:

I realize this is starting to sound like an advertisement, but the level of quality in Gravity Forms in a world of poorly-supported WordPress plugins is simply amazing, which is why I can wholeheartedly say that it’s the best form plugin available.

Instead, here’s what you have to do to see the exact page that someone clicked to get to your site.

1. Click “Traffic Sources”
2. Click “Referring Sites”
3. Click the name of a site to show the exact referring page on that site:

• Read about us
• See what we do
• Check out our portfolio
• See before & after shots
• Learn about the anatomy of a professional website
• Sign up for a free website analysis