With the increase in good stock imagery and the decrease of its cost, I get asked the question of whether or not a professional photographer is needed all the time.

In my opinion, there is absolutely no doubt that a professional photographer will provide a much higher value than stock imagery in terms of quality. I think all of us can tell when images are stock or when they come from an amateur’s digital camera and can appreciate the work of the professional. The question really becomes one of budget. Photographers will be more expensive than stock or amateurs and significantly …

We are all tired of spammers finding our email addresses and sending us junk email. Even if you have a good spam filter in your email account, these spam messages always get through.

I’ve heard clients getting so frustrated that they ask their web developers to remove email addresses from all pages of their websites. Of course this works… but at the expense of the end user.

Did you know that you can protect your email address and still use it on your site?

Spammers look at the code behind the email address. In code, xxx@marissaberger.com looks like “<a href=”mailto:xxx@marissaberger.com”>. Spammers basically order …

The use of Flash is not limited to cute little animations on web pages. Flash is a very powerful software that allows for intelligent and useful interactivity. And when Flash integrated video, it increased the possibilities even more.

Here’s how we have used Flash at MB/I:

• Sales presentations
• Product demos
• Software wizards
• Interactive educational pieces
• Screensavers
• Calculators
• “Build your own” scenarios
• Training presentations
• Multi-level portfolios
• Advertising banners
• Tradeshow loops
• Animated cartoon strips
• and of course, animations for websites!

Flash can support deep layers of logic. One of calculators we built was an interactive ROI calculator. The formulas and logic involved in developing took up about 100 8.5″ X 11″ printed pages. One of the longest …

A multimedia project by definition is a combination of text, audio, still images, animation, video, and interactive content forms. There is a lot to think about when planning a multimedia project.

At MB/I we work on a diverse range of these multimedia projects, from a trade show piece to an hour-long high-end sales presentation. Here’s what these projects have in common in terms of planning.

1. Purpose
A piece that needs to sell has a very different tone from a piece that needs to educate. Understanding the purpose is critical to defining the message, the tone, and the types of content that will …

Flash animations on websites have a bad rap. I attended a meeting yesterday where someone said “Flash is never done right.” I disagree completely. I think this bad rap comes from all of the animated site intros of the recent past. We all got used to quickly finding the “skip intro” button. These intros had their time; a time where cool animation was new and we were more patient. Now, we want content, and we want it quickly.

When Flash is done right, it can communicate  a strong feeling much, much better than a static image can. It can also handle …

The days of the online brochures should really be gone now. Websites should be functional and even transactional. Visitors get more and more technically savvy and their expectations keep getting higher. So, what should your website do?

It helps to think in terms of three key audiences a website has.

1. Your existing customers.
How can your existing customers benefit from visiting your website and from coming back again and again? If your existing customers like your site and feel it makes their working with you–or even their lives–easier, they will spread the word. You can:

• Have a password protected area where they can …
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At MB/I we present our clients with two different home page designs to start with. The idea is that one of them will be picked, and after 1-2 rounds of revisions on the chosen concept, we will have an approved design and be able to move forward.

The key to evaluating a new design properly is to look at it from the user’s perspective. The website is not for the CEO or the Marketing Director. It’s for the user. When evaluating a new design, consider the following:

1. Does it look like what your users think it should look?
Users will have expectations …

Clients are often torn on whether to have a simple e-mail address or a contact form on their websites. On the one hand, users don’t like filling our forms and would find the e-mail link more user friendly. On the other hand, it’s nice to collect a minimal amount of information from each user for tracking and marketing purposes. It’s a fine line… how do you decide?

From the user’s perspective. You should consider having a form if:

• Your company has a well-functioning communications process to handle website leads. If by filling out a form, the user can get in touch with …
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We have clients that come to us wanting to re-design their websites. The main reason they give is that their sites “don’t work”. What does that mean?

No marketing?
Sometimes the website is just fine. It’s designed well and it works well. But no marketing efforts have been made to drive traffic to it. A site like this one does not need a re-design. What needs to be determined is how to market it. Don’t blame the site. A site with no marketing plan is just like a physical store with no marketing plan. The only ones aware of it are the …

The need for a professional writer becomes apparent when we start considering search engine optimization. After all, having a website no one finds does no good at all.

Writing for the web is different than writing for print. We need to make sure the content on all pages is consistent, speaks of benefits and not features, is readable (per web standards), and has a specific call to action. This is just for the human reader. Now we need to tweak this content for the search engines, mainly Google since it is used in approximately 70% of all web searches.

Here are a …