Redbox Biz Blog

In our industry and business, we hear of many strange stories. Particularly stories from people we know.

One guy, let’s call him Wong, had approached us and asked us if we could re-design his website.
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It’s infuriating… but that’s how corporate types make their living. If you want to hide your real meaning these days, and want to confuse your readers/listeners (and at the same time, want them to think you’re so darn learned), try peppering your speech or email with jargon.

The more, the better.

The more bombastic words you stuff into your speech, the faster you speak, the more gestures you make - the more excellent you seem to be.

People stare agog at you, not wanting to raise their hands to ask you to clarify what you mean exactly, as they don’t want to look like idiots. They just accept the way things are. In this case, language is totally emasculated.

You can fool some people some times. But that’s if your audience is not very clever - or they like you immensely and think you’re their living god.

This reminds me of a friend who’s really a good example of a walking corporate jargon spouter. She writes her emails with gorgeous corporate jargon and speaks as if she’s here to save our sad, pitiful souls.

It reminds me of the Dilbert comics, which is my fave comic on Tuesdays and Thursday (techie types will know why). Why does Dilbert make sense (and leads the way in being anti-corporate?) Because every nuance, character and spoken language in Dilbert hit close to home - you would have seen and listened to such things in some corporate office at some point in your life and you’re recalling that memory!

Corporate types like to hide behind words! They don’t say what they mean, really. They just use words like some heroes use their light sabers, to mesmerize their enemies a bit, shine it in their eyes so they get befuddled and then deliver a whack. It’s cowardly.

As this world is full of such people bandying and using words like ‘professional’, ‘excellence’ and ‘quality’ disrespectfully, it is no wonder that we no longer believe what we read anymore.

I am sure you have sniggered inwardly when you read the mission statements of some companies. What do they mean exactly? Does the company even believe those few paragraphs which are supposed to imbue the ‘force’ in their staff? Doesn’t EVERY company want to be known for their excellence and quality?

It’s a sad world when we no longer mean what we say or when we use words to confuse, rather than clarify. Or we just use words blindly without understanding what it is that we want to say.

That’s why I try not to confuse or be vague when I write or speak. With clients, we use real words - not airy-fairy words which sound grand but mean nothing. With clients, we write real content too; not some mashed up corporate stuff which leaves you with a big question mark and a feeling that you’ve been cheated out of real understanding and labeled an idiot if you didn’t quite get it.

The hardest part for any writer or speaker is to clarify what one actually means. It’s much easier to bullshit one’s way through. That takes less effort.

Anyway, Robert Fisk writes about this sad state of using jargon to hide the real intention in this article titled “This Jargon Disease is Choking Language” over at http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2149736.ece

Enjoy it… it’s an eye-opener!

We were called to do a website audit for a public-listed company in March this year. They knew they were having major problems with their corporate website but they didn’t know how to fix these issues or where to start.

Here, we share with you some of the major issues and what we recommended. The company is not revealed (due to confidentiality of course, but let’s call them Syarikat ABC) because our main concern are the website problems of this company.

Some of these problems are across the board and can be found on most websites. If you have similar problems with your website, it’s best to fix them before the problems get out of hand!

1. Problem: Website loads too slowly

The slow loading time of the ABC website can be a major annoyance to prospects, customers and investors who are viewing the website. Possible reasons for slow load time of the website include usage of Flash animation on the website, non-optimised Flash graphics and extra excessive codes on the back-end of the website.

Redbox Studio recommends:
“Clean up” the excessive codes of the website. Make the codes leaner and cleaner. Also, optimize Flash graphics so that it loads faster if you still want to keep the Flash graphics.

2. Problem: Combined navigation links with Flash graphics

Incorporating the navigation links on Flash graphics means your prospects, customers and investors will not be able to see the navigation links when their computers are not installed with the required Flash software.

What this means is, your prospects, customers and investors cannot navigate elsewhere on your website. All they see in the first web page and they cannot click to go into the other pages. They may not know why and think your website is defective, which is likely to reflect badly on your company’s professional image. They are most likely to leave your website too.

Redbox Studio recommends:
Separate the Flash animation portion from the navigation links. This ensures that you still get to maintain your Flash animation and allow non-Flash users to see and use your navigation links.

3. Problem: Misspelling of keywords and website address

The major problem here is a misspelling of your website address within the back-end of the website. In your back-end, your company URL has been misspelled. Search engines cannot index your website as it is given the wrong website address!

Keywords, although inserted, are not properly researched and optimized for search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN) to find. The keywords used are too general which result in confusion when searched. Being online does not automatically mean your website is visible. You need to insert specially-researched keywords in order to target and attract the niche prospects, investors and customers you are looking for.

Redbox Studio recommends:
Conduct a thorough research on the niche keywords and descriptions used by your prospects, investors and customers to find you and add these keywords into your website for better indexing value. This allows you to be ranked higher when searched using major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. When prospects, investors and customers easily find you online when they search, they are more likely to do business with you.

4. Problem: Too little information on web pages

Not much information is found on the web pages (information is separated into a few pages) and visitors need to click “Next” to read more. Information on each page should be sufficient to satisfy the visitors’ needs without having them to ‘drill’ down into other pages unless necessary. Clicking into more and more pages frustrate visitors because they have to do ‘more work’ just to find the information they need. Also, if they print out information, they need to print out more pages than necessary. If all relevant information is in one page, they just need to print one page.

Redbox Studio recommends:
Group relevant information and present it in one page (around 500 - 600 words per page). This allows visitors to have an overview of all pertinent information. Break up information into shorter paragraphs, use bold headlines and subheads, and ensure all information is useful and not full of jargon or useless business-speak. Make every word count!

5. Problem: Not specifying formats of downloadable files

When visitors click on a link on your website, they expect another page to open. They do not expect a PDF file to pop open.

If they have Adobe Acrobat Reader, the PDF file will open automatically. However, if they do not have the Adobe Acrobat Reader, the PDF file will not open but might cause the visitor’s computer to ‘freeze’ or ‘hang’ which means the visitor needs to reboot his computer.

File sizes on the ABC website are not specified either and visitors do not know whether the file is large or small, and how long they have to wait for the file to download. Not all visitors surf the Internet using broadband Internet; some still use dial-up Internet services so both types of visitors should be accommodated equally.

Redbox Studio recommends:
Formats as well as sizes of files to be downloaded should be specified clearly. If it is a PDF file, alert your visitor and provide adequate instructions such as how to download and how to read/open the file. Again, it helps to optimize and compress the PDF file so that visitors (on either broadband and dial-up Internet services) can download easily and quickly. Remember, your goal is to offer information to your visitors easily, effortlessly and quickly.

If your website is not performing to its optimum, we’ll help you review it and give you a quick diagnosis via our website audit service. Learn more about our website audit.

At times, it’s better to have a website audit done before you go for a complete web re-design. It’s always best to know what problems you face in your website before you go about fixing those problems!

To your web success,
Nic

Just a quick heads-up and a message of congrats to one of our clients and longtime friend, Robert Raymer because his short story has been chosen as one of the literature texts for SPM 2008. His story is among the five selected texts under the short story section - other writers of this section include Kurt Vonnegut, Vivian Alcock, Roald Dahl and Anva Sitaram.

We last saw him during Chinese New Year when we were back in Kuching, Sarawak.

We just heard from him that his short story “Neighbours” will be used as one of the texts in next year’s SPM exams. You can download and read this story from his website at www.BorneoExpatWriter.com . What this means is that hundreds and thousands of Malaysian teenagers sitting for their 2008 SPM will be analysing his story. It must be so exciting! So congratulations are in order for Robert.

In case you do not know, Robert is a prolific writer who has written and published more than 350 short stories and articles for various magazines such as Going Places, Reader’s Digest and lots more. He is now of course teaching Creative Writing at UNIMAS, Sarawak.

Once again, congrats Robert!

One of the advantages of owning one’s own business is that we can take our day off without having to call in sick or take leave. As long as we finish what we’re supposed to do, we can actually take a break between projects.

We had just finished a project last week and gave ourselves a break - our favourite hangout area is at Starbucks @ Borders Bookstore, Queensbay Mall, on a Monday afternoon!

Last Monday, we had taken off to watch the movie Wild Hogs because I’m a big Harley fan (yes, even though I watch Paul Teutul and his crazy sons of the OCC, that’s Orange Country Chopper to those not in the know - I still appreciate sleek, rumbling Harleys!). The good thing about watching a movie on a Monday afternoon is that the crowds are non-existent, the cineplex is nice and empty and there’s no rush for caramel popcorn either!

One of the reasons why we take off on a Monday is because we sometimes work on Saturdays and Sundays too, finishing website development projects for clients.

Anyway, yesterday was no different. Over the weekend, we had worked hard and so we took Monday off for a few errands and to get away from the Internet for a while.

We had to run some errands in downtown Georgetown plus we had to go by a friend’s shop to drop off some clothes and biscuits; she was collecting them for the poor and homeless in conjunction with Easter.

On our way back, we decided to visit Borders and take a quiet break among the books (by the way, Borders is having a sale until 6 May. Lots of bargains!).

The best way to while away a cloudy afternoon is to find a comfy wingback chair in Starbucks, grab a few bestsellers from the book shelves of Borders, order a mug of hot coffee or tazo tea, and just read and people-watch!

Both Krista and I can sit for hours, just reading and watching the world go by. It’s only worth doing on a weekday afternoon; weekend afternoons can be frenetic and you won’t be able to find that nice spot by the window either.

And it gets too noisy too on a weekend. The crowd is also different. On weekdays, you will find people coming by to work a little on their laptops, drink some lattes and chill in their shorts and t-shirts. On weekends, there’s too much noise to work quietly!

Once we’re satiated by our new finds and new books to buy (deciding on WHICH books to buy is a tough decision, as always), we’ll happily pay and go off. We usually leave before the dinner crowd arrives around 6pm. This is the time when the factory folks get off work and many stop by Queensbay for a meal.

Anyway, that’s something we enjoy doing - it’s one of those simple pleasures in life where for a few hours, we are unhurried and we can read to our hearts’ content. It’s not something to be done everyday, because anything that’s overdone gets mundane and boring.

So if you see us in Starbucks Borders one of these days, do come by and say hi. We’d love to have a cup of coffee with you.

PS: The checklist for web design is coming up soon! Yep, I didn’t forget.

Cheers,
Nic