Ever been to a website and felt an immediate sense of visceral revulsion (like this - arghhh!)? Or perhaps been quite impressed by the interface and then spent a frustrating eternity trying to find what you are looking for (help!!)?  Inevitably this ends in a ‘what were they thinking!’ moment. And then you leave – never to return.

The answer to the question is they weren’t thinking much or not nearly enough! And certainly hadn’t adopted best practice in User Experience design (UX).

UX is the intricate process of producing a website. Planning, research, design and development are all steps in the UX process, often running concurrently and involving specially trained people. The cohesive interrelationship of each person and each task will lead to a successful website defined by a seamless and rewarding experience for visitors (‘users’).

We sometimes work on projects where an external designer without UX experience is tasked with ‘producing a skin’. Visions of prosthesis? Or perhaps wrapping a present, all tied up with a neat bow!

If this ever gets suggested to you, alarm bells should ring. Designing a visual identity or a brochure is a skill to be admired but the leap to website designer is wide. The wider the gap the more it’s likely to cost in getting expert help to support the development team or repair the damage. That’s why we never outsource to India or Uzbekistan.

The designer works within the process taking research and content and arranging it into a visual output.

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I was running through Yarra Bend park the other day (that very same one Sonya Hartnett lurks in) looking up at the public housing estate, feeling small before this great monochromatic fortress,  wondering how such a place is intended to foster life.

That oft repeated childhood directive ‘work hard or you’ll end up in there’ suddenly came to mind – and phrases to that effect. Win or lose. Dog eat dog.

But who is the competition? And what competition is truly healthy? At the agency it doesn’t feel like we have competition in the ‘who’ll cross the finish line first’ kind of vein. We’re not measuring ourselves by another agency’s success. Time is absolutely the most valuable commodity we trade with one another. So, is it a race against the clock – is that the competition?

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Wikipedia went offline for a day and for some, it was a long 24 hours. While the validity of its information can be contested, web-browsers used to being spoon-fed information had to do without.

The Facebook generation was activated. Up until this point, the SOPA battle had been largely fought in the tech, media, and business pages but all that changed when Wikipedia went dark.

In an effort to protect the very freedom and openness at the core of the web’s architecture and success, millions of internet users asserted their influence on Washington, and effectively stopped Hollywood’s effort to address “piracy” the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

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Public Relations are a notoriously difficult function to measure. More often than not, we use an advertising value equivalent, which, most obviously, gives you just that – the equivalent of a paid advertisement. Though widely criticised, not one accepted alternative to this has materialised.

Someone once said “Advertising you pay for, PR you pray for”, which I feel perfectly sums up the idea. It is proven that readers acknowledge and remember editorial over advertisements. The fact is consumers don’t feel as though they are being bought when they watch or read about something. Now, let’s not say readers have complete trust in journalists, but it would give the cause a bit more credibility if an established publication outlined the key factors that actually make a product work.

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Using the computer as a tool for design relies on the interface between man and machine.

Mice are the standard tool for navigating a computer. The first mouse prototype was Independently invented and developed by Doug Engelbart at the ‘Stanford Research Institute‘ in 1963. You can see how far technology has come but in essence the interface has remained the same for the last forty five years.

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Pinterest is the new age version of scrapbooking. It’s an invite only photo-sharing site and has an obsessive like quality that captivates users with engaging content, trending images across areas like home decor, crafts, fashion and food – but truthfully, you can find almost anything on Pinterest.

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Below is David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” video clip.

Filmed in 1983 in Carinda – a town with one pub about 645 kilometres out over the Blue Mountains in NSW, the clip is surreal to me. It seems so bizarre to see a David Bowie hanging out at the Carinda pub, juxtaposed onto a dry, hot and dusty Australian landscape.

I interpret the clip to be a statement for Aboriginal rights. After digging around on the internet, I discovered that “Let’s Dance” was filmed around the time of “China Girl“. And both songs were used as catchy, upbeat vessels for Bowie’s sociological commentary on a situation he didn’t think was right.

In a Rolling Stone interview excerpt from May 1983, Bowie, somewhat bashfully (I think due to the clichéd nature of his explanation), explained that both clips were “..very direct. And the message that they have is very simple – it’s wrong to be racist!”.

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• RHOD: Tie between online content management as a discipline and integrated issues management (on/offline).
• KATE: Only one? I expect to see perceptions of social media across all industries change from a digital mysticism to a practical necessity. The social media gurus, jedis and wizards of this world will be put to rest and as organisations become more comfortable with this medium they will better integrate it across all operations (even outside marketing).
• KURT: The desire of businesses to be seen as good corporate citizens will increase in the face of increasing public disillusionment.
• KAT: A giant spike in social recruitment.
• WILL: Production time.
• KATEY: Retail’s shift into online after this year’s slump.
• ANNMARIE: More work and more new clients! I’m looking forward to working closer with clients to achieve results and attracting new contracts in the NGO sector, to work on lobbying campaigns.

That said, we look forward to welcoming 2012 with open minds and hearts.

2011 was a year of many changes. Our team grew larger, the world got warmer, Steve Jobs passed away and someone decided it was an amazing idea to document the tiniest morsels of life on the Internet.

So that you may get a bit of an insight into the type of person who works at Ellis Jones, we have produced a list of our favourite albums and, being the intellectuals we are, our favourite books of 2011.

RHOD: Com Truise - Galactic Melt (not for the faint hearted) // The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson

KATE: Red Rockets of Borneo - Red Rockets of Borneo // The 20th Anniversary edition of Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

KURT: Goyte – Making Mirrors // China Syndrome by Karl Taro Greenfeld

KAT: HTRK - Work (Work, Work) // Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

WILL: Little Dragon - Ritual Union // The medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuan

KATEY: Bon Iver - Bon Iver // Normal Gets You Nowhere by Kelly Cutrone

ANNMARIE: Wild Beasts - Smother // Delusions of Gender by Cornelia Fine

…and here’s what we think of 2011 online >> Read all…

Aidacare is the leading provider of ward based equipment and rehabilitation products to Aged Care facilities, Hospitals, Physio and Occupational Therapists and private retail clients in Australia.

In December 2011, Ellis Jones was commissioned to design and develop a presentation for the company as it prepared to respond to an important business development opportunity in the aged care sector. Straight after, we were asked to create a brochure lift-out for an occupational therapists magazine. Read all…