Jewish Family Service Website Launches

Jewish Family Service (JFS) of Seattle has deep roots in the Puget Sound area with over 117 years of commitment to the community in the North West. JFS has grown from an agency that provided support to Jewish immigrants to a non-profit organization that services many diverse populations in the Seattle area.

JFS’ website was not adequately presenting the mission, scope, and strategy of JFS. Many of their users couldn’t effectively find the information and support they needed with the old design. JFS came to PPMG with these concerns and we worked very closely with them to solve for their complex situation.

PPMG embarked on two parallel tracks to meet the needs of JFS and its constituents. We entered into a Mood Board process to define the visual language of the site, as well as an Information Architecture phase where we defined the site structure and document taxonomy.

For the Mood Board, PPMG chose images and colors that would represent the various populations that JFS serves, as well as photographs of the founding mothers and shots of the Seattle area. This did several things. It gave JFS the opportunity to discuss and define the high level value of JFS and choose a library of images that would evoke appropriate emotional responses from their users. PPMG worked with JFS to create a visual language that would provoke a feeling trust, community, safety, and show concern. Our goal was to connect viscerally to the needs of the site user.

View the Mood Board here >

The IA phase was challenging because of the complexity of JFS’ offerings. We concluded that the best way to meet all site-interaction scenarios was to have navigation by both persona and by service. This created a difficult puzzle to solve, but we were able to effectively create a structure and navigational system that provided easy, intuitive access to all of JFS’s services in a manner that was easy to use and understand. JFS had ample content per page, so PPMG was able to easily flow the existing information into the new design.

The Mood Board and IA phases worked together to create a cost-efficient design process because all of the elements had been defined at a higher level. Repeated touches to the pages during the design phase was not necessary because consensus had been achieved before that phase started.

Through our collaborative efforts, JFS’s understanding of their audience, and PPMG’s expertise, within the first month of the newly designed site launch:
• Average user time spent on the site increased 81%
• The bounce rate decreased 22%
• Page views increased 54%

JFS had a limited budget, complex needs, and a short time frame. PPMG worked closely with the stakeholders through work sessions and presentations to provide a robust website, as well as a meaningful experience for both the JFS staff and the community that they serve.

View the live site here >

New Advert for Bluephone.com

BluePhone is a subscription service that provides online and phone support for consumers with computer and device problems. Perfectpixels was hired to create an advert spot to appear as a pre-roll for network webcasts. The objective was looking to create a fun take on their brand while representing the main issues BluePhone customers look to solve.

Our solution was to create a campy, fun and tongue-in-cheek set of characters accompanied with a voice over of an over-the-top announcer. The characters and scenes chosen were based on the personas of typical customers. Part of the advert was to create associated banners you can view here.

The Most Cynical Website So Far

Skittles.com takes its website with a far more realistic look at itself as an online entity than most other self-promotional product websites; inconsequential. The Skittles website is not really a site, but merely a portal to finding Skittles on other sites. The homepage and product pages are Wikipedia pages. The photos is a Flickr page, the videos section is a YouTube page, the Friends page is a Facebook group page, and the Chat page is a Twitter page.

Skittles is experimenting with the idea that an offline brand exists online elsewhere on other websites and not within its own branded confines. Its profound in a way with either a cynical look at itself, or a clever way to promote Skittles directly to where users may actually be talking about their product- not on skittles.com. Brilliant.

Best iPhone Apps

The iPhone has thousands of apps and hundreds added every week. The iPhone is unique in not just its breadth, but also the variety in which a user interacts with the device. The API allows you to use standard controls or create custom controls including its ability to detect movement and position. This has created unprecedented freedom for a mobile device developer. Here is a list of the must-haves for any iPhone user.

Vlingo
The best app you can possibly have for the iPhone and is astounding this did not ship standard with the iPhone. You can use voice command for twitter updates, web searches, phone calls and mapping. The importance of an app of this nature since it is converting voice to text is the flexibility to allow the user to make corrections, which this allows you to do by editing the text.

Keynote Remote
One of the great capabilities of the iPhone is its seamlessness to the Mac. This is a must have for any presenter using Keynote as you have control of not only moving the slides, but you can look at slide notes or preview what the following slide will be. I happen to be a wanderer when I present, so an app like this is a life saver.

iTunes Remote
Another Apple provided app that seems almost ridiculous that it doesn't ship with your iPhone. This one allows you to commandeer your computer's iTunes, including volume control.

New York Times
The secret for reading on a handheld device is readability. The New York Times is probably the best paper in the country and having it available and legible while on the go in your hand is worth putting up with the quirks that still need to be worked out with it.

Pandora
As long as you have the 3G version, this is a great utility for music listening. It behaves just like the web app, just a little simpler. The draw back like most iPhone apps is that you cannot have this run in the background.

Classics
Great classics with chapter jumping, bookmarking where you left off, original illustrations and a nifty page turning animation. The cream with brown text makes it easy on your eyes to continue reading on a flight or train ride for long periods of time. They also continue to add to the 18-book library with its free updates.

Yelp
Tell it to locate you and what kind of food you are looking for it will give you all the functionality of the website with a hook into your dialer and the map finder.

i.TV
This app is quite easy to use, especially considering how comprehensive it is. You can view not only what the television schedule is for your particular cable or dish network, but you can also find out movie listings for your area. Using the same panel slide metaphor as the Mac Finder, you can easily select by a genre, location or specific movie to find listings - including booking through the app itself for participating theaters. You can also view previews, view reviews and Tivo shows.

iDicto Recorder
Record notes to yourself and mark them. You can also append to a audio note. The only thing you wish it could do is convert into a text note, but sometimes a dictation tool is just handy enough. The UI has a big fat button to start and stop making it nice and easy.

Wunder Radio
I haven't lived in LA for seven years but aside from friends and sunshine, I miss most KCRW. I can grab it while attached to my computer but having it now available through my iPhone means I can plug into it as well as hundreds of other stations while in my car or on the train. The 3G network is dodgy, so its not reliable to hear for long periods of time while moving, but at least with this app, I can catch Metropolis while driving home. Another great feature it has is a recommender for similar stations.

Easy Writer
For us fat fingered folks, the fact that you can only have a landscape keyboard when in the browser but not in email is maddening. Easy Writer fixes this obvious oversight, but only for new messages rather then also for replies. But at least I can type faster and more reliable when I have the opportunity to start a message screen using this app.

Around Me
The Swiss Army knife of what's around me. Pretty good to have handy when needing a quick idea where to park or the closest pharmacy.

Easy Wi-Fi
Get hooked for free to the wi-fi the next time you are at a Starbucks. Not sure how it does it without the payment normally required, but no UI knowledge necessary. You open it, and it lets you know when you are on.

Happy Valentine's Day

We've made a Valentine greeting to boost your spirits up!
http://www.perfectpixels.com/samples/greeting/ppmg_greeting-card.html