When Good Forms Go Bad: Improving Your Online Forms

Do you hate filling out online forms? Most web users do. Forms are critical to companies collecting our personal information so they can “convert” us into something---a new lead, a direct sale, a happy existing customer, a new employee. That’s why forms matter, and why they won’t be going away anytime soon. But do forms have to alienate the end user?
Private: Melisa Zachrich
Private: Melisa Zachrich, Senior User Experience Architect
The Delta Faucet booth at KBIS 2012, photo by Hanson Inc.

The KBIS 2012 Digital Experience

KBIS, the Kitchen & Bath Industry Show, is the best place to experience the newest and coolest kitchen and bath products and technology. Every year, one or more Hansonites hit the show floor in support of clients exhibiting there. As their digital partners, we pay close attention to the technology used to support the products and draw visitors into the exhibits. Here are a few observations I made this year from the floor of Chicago’s immense McCormick Place...
Leslie Mohn
Leslie Mohn, Director of User Experience Architecture
10 Ways to Start Improving Your Content

10 Ways to Start Improving Your Content Today

Can’t afford to hire a professional content strategist? Neither can you afford to continue ignoring the outdated and unhelpful content turning your site to irrelevant mush. But with a little research, you can update your content one section at a time, as hours and budget allow. So put a team of employees or volunteers together now, because here are 10 ways to start improving your content today.
Mindy Withrow
Mindy Withrow, Managing Director of Strategic Planning
Content Strategy for the Little Guy

Content Strategy for the Little Guy

Content strategy isn’t just for the big guns. Whether your site is 5 pages or 500 pages, a little attention to your content can go a long way. And small improvements over time will add up, resulting in better content and increased traffic. How? Here’s a crash course in content strategy especially for small businesses, non-profits and other internet little guys...
Mindy Withrow
Mindy Withrow, Managing Director of Strategic Planning
What Being in a Band Taught Me About Marketing

What Being in a Band Taught Me About Social Media

Musicians spend countless hours and dollars crafting their music and the vast---and I mean vast---majority of them fail. The good news is that like most things in life, some of the greatest learning comes from failure. After I hung up my professional musician hat, I realized how similar the marketing life is to the musician life. Here’s what being in a band has taught me about branded social media...
What Being in a Band Taught Me About Social Media
What Being in a Band Taught Me About Social Media,
Coming Clean on the Creative Process: Some Unproductive Habits are Anything But

Coming Clean on the Creative Process

Some “unproductive” habits might be anything but. I have a habit of standing too long in the shower. Done washing, just standing there, zoned out. Mind blank. Accomplishing nothing. Not only am I wasting water, I’m making myself late for work. It’s a bad habit. Or is it? Turns out, it’s just one of the quirky (and seemingly unproductive) habits that might actually help my performance at work...
Jen Molnar
Jen Molnar, Messaging Strategist
4 Digital Tools to Turn Desk Dwellers into Fitness Fanatics

4 Digital Tools to Convert Desk Dwellers into Fitness Fanatics

They say a person’s health can be judged by which he takes two at a time---pills or stairs. Desk jobs are notorious for weight gain, back pain and other health problems. But here at Hanson, digital innovation is our middle name. So it is no surprise that digital and fitness have formed a healthy (pun intended!) bond. We spend a lot of time at our desks creating digital experiences, but we’ve also embraced the healthy lifestyle concept in numerous ways...
Private: Sarah Bakian
Private: Sarah Bakian, Account Coordinator

SlideShare: 4 Strategies for Developing a Unified Digital Experience

The last five years have seen amazing technological growth and maturity in the digital world. Hardware and interfaces are more interconnected and people have these amazing devices in their pockets. All content that matters is now ones and zeros in the cloud. Data is moving faster than ever, people can be online every waking moment. It's seriously incredible how richly we can connect people to brands today with technology...
Mike Osswald
Mike Osswald, Vice President, Experience Innovation
Websites & Trail Races: It's All About the Navigation

Websites and Trail Races: It’s All About the Navigation

There is nothing to fear except fear itself. And also getting lost in the woods overnight. My husband and I are both runners. Yet I had long hesitated to run a trail race for one reason: my fear of getting hopelessly lost in the woods. Last summer my husband coaxed me into a series of XTERRA trail races. But as the date of our first race approached, I became almost panic stricken that I would never find my way out of the trees.
Websites and Trail Races: It’s All About the Navigation
Websites and Trail Races: It’s All About the Navigation,

SlideShare: What is Responsive Design?

Think about how you typically consume information on the internet. PC? Tablet? Smartphone? TV? Internet consumption is an essential part of our everyday life. But the devices we use to consume this content are multiplying and changing at a rapid pace. And these devices differ in screen size, resolution, and interface, to mention just a few variations. To give users access to this content via a variety of devices, we have to start making websites more flexible or responsive. By changing how we think about website design, we can maximize our audiences without having to rethink the wheel for every individual device. Our slideshare shows you how...
Charles Ryder
Charles Ryder, Director of Design
Dave Rodriguez, Director of Front-End Development

4 Reasons to Keep Press Releases Out of Your Company Blog

How many visits and comments does your company blog get? Is that a painful question to answer? Companies large and small have recognized the immense popularly of blogging and jumped on the bandwagon. But a tour of these brand blogs reveals that many still don’t know why to blog (other than “we should”) or how to blog (beyond the function of WordPress). Indicator number one? Their blogs are full of press releases. What’s wrong with that? Plenty. Here are four reasons to get the press releases out of your brand’s blog...
Mindy Withrow
Mindy Withrow, Managing Director of Strategic Planning
6 Reason Your Online Video Sucks and How to Improve It

6 Reasons Your Video Content Underperforms and How to Improve It

It’s no doubt that video content continues to soar in popularity for brands and marketers. It truly is one of the greatest mediums for communicating your companies products and offerings. However, all too often branded videos underperform and end up doing little of what they were intended to---provide value to current or potential customers. What follows are a few of the common issues found with branded videos online, especially ones that live on YouTube. Your video content may suck (or underperform) if it’s guilty of one or more of the following.
6 Reasons Your Video Content Underperforms and How to Improve It
6 Reasons Your Video Content Underperforms and How to Improve It,