Wondering how in the world to develop an App for Google TV?

Google has released an initial web development guide to aid those interested in porting their Web or mobile applications to Google TV, the newly announced platform built on top of Google Chrome technology.

• Make it Simple: Identify the vital parts of your app before starting work, stick with one visible mode of navigation or one information hierarchy, make the primary action reachable in one click, avoid the temptation to use abstract icons, limit vertical scrolling, and preselect the user’s next action when you can.
• Get Navigation Right: Google TV users will often navigate with a directional pad, so the navigation model involves up, down, left, right and enter buttons and action. Make your app navigable with one hand.
• Design for TV screens, not Computer Screens: TVs have wider screens, so you should make UI elements slightly larger. Also, avoid highly saturated and very bright colors, and design for 1280×720 and 1920×1080 resolutions, including at least a 10% margin. Use pure white (#FFFFFF) sparingly.
• Pick the Right Fonts: Avoid lightweight fonts or those with very narrow or broad strokes. Use simply constructed sans serif fonts and apply anti aliasing to increase readability. Google TV currently supports only the Droid Sans and Droid Serif font families. If you want to use font embedding techniques to create a more customized appearance, you can, but this relies on Flash design, which will be slower.
• Make Onscreen Text Readable:
  • Limit each paragraph to no more than 90 words.
  • Break text into small chunks that can be read at a glance.
  • Keep line length at about five to seven words per line. Never go shorter than three or longer than 12.
  • Remember that light text on a dark background is slightly easier to read on TV (compared to dark text on a light background).
  • Target body text to be around 21pt on 720p and 28pt on 1080p.
  • Don’t use any text smaller than 18pt on 720p and 24pt on 1080p.
  • Add more leading (larger line spacing) for onscreen text than print text.
• Don’t Use Disruptive Sounds: By default, volume should be low. Make it simple to mute the app. Don’t make interactions dependent on audio cues.
• Use Flash Wisely: Google TV can play 720p and 1080p Flash videos. Use h.264 encoding, not h.263 or vp6. Avoid Flash banner or sidebar ads that include video. Only use one instance of the media player at a time. Be conscious of system memory.
• Be Conscious of Performance: Perceived performance is more important than actual performance for TV apps. Make sure the app never executes so much code that the runtime can’t frequently update the screen and gather user input. You may need to divide a task into parts to accomplish this.
• Use Bitmaps: Use bitmaps to optimize rendering.
• Watch Out for Tweening: Minimize the use of motion tweens to help content run faster. (Source - Read Write Web)

With Google TV, “television is no longer confined to showing just video” explains Salahuddin Choudhary, Google TV product manager, in a blog post. “It can be a photo slideshow viewer, a gaming console, a music player and much more.”

• Logos are like badges of honor, which lend authenticity to an entity’s offerings.

• Logo design is most effective when it reflects the product identity, appealing to its specific target audience.

• Over the last decade, the following logo design trends have been popular among well-known brands.

• 3D logo  - Well before the debut of “Avatar” three-dimensional logo design have been in vogue for quite some time.

• Eco-smart logos – symbolize environmental responsibility. The IgoCar sharing company exudes the eco-concept by using green to emphasize its font based logo design.

• Conceptual Logos intelligently camouflage certain shapes and features, which are unique to the brand.

• Minimalism logo – Apple and Nike are examples of minimalism logo design.

• Signature Logo –Effective for luxury and designer apparel, signature logos are brand-driven

• Despite the aforementioned list of logo design styles, the most distinctive logo is not limited to the latest trend in logo design.

• The colors used for logo design inculcate specific mental associations.

• Book Antiqua, Didot and Lucida Calligraphy exemplify elegantly stylized fonts, applied to luxury products.

• Purported as the lasted trend, conceptual logo design incorporates and conceals another design element. For instance, Budweiser’s Select beer product line’s brand identity consists of a red crown with five smartly disguised points, representing the five ingredients used to make Budweiser Select beer.

The web design company, The Net Impact utilizes a typeface logo to distinguish its company. (See the example below).

The Net Impact's logo design typifies the typeface logo

If your company needs more Web design or logo design assistance, contact the Net Impact at 888.629.4672.

It’s no secret that social media design requires more than selecting the templates, available in Facebook and Twitter web applications. Just as the company Web site, stationary and traditional advertising collateral sport the company’s insignia, the social media site is not any different.

Did you know... that social media doubles as a market research platform. Moreover, corporations with social media pages on Facebook and Twitter bolster better page rankings and search engine visibility than those that do not subscribe to social media.

Since, social media remains an enigma to small to large sizes businesses, companies should approach the marketing catalyst with a strategy in mind. Use the following list to refine a social media design strategy:

• How does your firm plan to use social media to heighten brand awareness? 

• Does your firm plan to leverage social media to enhance the company reputation?

• Is your business introducing a new product line or service(s)? Whether social media design is for new or existing products, remember to include the products, logo and other distinctive brand traits on the Twitter and Facebook site layouts. Also, make sure that your company’s Web site has a link to the Facebook  and Twitter sites.

Social media design tip: Compile a list, creating a profile of the specific target segments

Once the social media design is complete, be sure to assign a member of the team the responsibility of keeping the page fresh and current.

 Please click “social media design” for more information.

CMA Consulting, a management consulting firm with headquarters in St. Louis, required a website design renovation, which accentuated the company’s brand as an authority in business with an engaging visitor experience. CMA intended to maximize their site’s marketability via lead generation and new business development. CMA also necessitated a redesign geared toward Traffic Based Design™, providing the consulting firm the self-sufficiency to administer site modifications as often as possible—and post frequent updates.

The Solution

To resolve the redesign Website, The Net Impact recommended that CMA architect their site with the aid of their partnered product, Auctori—a Web Content Management System programmed for search engine optimization.

The website design renovation begin with a premise to develop a polished brand identity for CMA that would ultimately bolster targeted traffic, maximizing lead generation. With the website design strategy in place, and using the Auctori engineering software, The Net Impact rendered the CMA’s site build-out. 

To expedite CMA’s website design specifications, Auctori served as an efficient, and comprehensive solution. The finished product was a showcase of search engine optimized pages, an interactive forum, and blog for posting frequent updates. The Net Impact implemented an IP Security system to ensure visitor, client and candidate protection. The security upgrade also gave CMA the autonomy to control their online safety measures.

The Outcome

Partner of CMA, Dan Bean shared, “TNI worked with our existing vendors to integrate some complex database features and assessment delivery functions, and we’ve been impressed with their ability to understand and solve business problems… Moving from a static site to a dynamic one is a leap forward for us as a company as we look to better establish our presence on the web.  We consider the Auctori content management system and our new WordPress blog to be tremendous assets, and we feel like we have the keys to the car with our site.”

• Read more Web design case studies

If your website design requires a renovation, please click “contact the Net Impact” for a consultation.

Sometimes web design is counterproductive to converting site traffic. Certain layout flaws impede a site’s ability to seamlessly transition a unique visitor into a new customer.  Using the storefront ABCD Stuff, as an example, it is located across the street from Madison Square Garden. Each day hundreds of thousands of potential customers walk past the store. It sells everything from batteries, gifts to zippo lighters. On a daily basis, more than a 100 people enter ABCD Stuff and walk out suddenly.

Despite the visibility to random foot traffic, the store is comprised of 500 square feet. Void of aisle markers and organization, each shelf is a hodgepodge of products. Many would be customers complain that ABCD Stuff feels cluttered. The owner does not understand that the store’s layout and product presentation is hobbling its sales.

Consumers are generally impatient and indecisive requiring an immediate ability to locate specific products. Walgreens is strategically laid out to maximize its point-of-purchase model. The publicly traded general store averages customer transactions within five to seven minutes. It’s also why the corporation tries to maintain the same blueprint and continuity at most of its locations across the country.

Conversion driven  web design necessitates a similar infrastructure philosophy:

• A well-organized layout
• Clean navigation
• Intelligibly labeled pages
• Each web page maintains a semblance of continuity

 As for analyzing your business’ website design  for it conversions, answer the following:

• Does your site have high traffic, coupled with a high bounce rate?
• Are the pages titled, using quirky headings?
• Does your site convert fewer than five percent of its visitors?
• Are most of the pages designed in flash?
• Are only half of your company’s offerings featured on the Web site?

If you answered no to each of the aforementioned questions, your company’s web design should have a high conversion ratio. However, two or more “YES” responses  suggests a potential incongruity with a site’s conversions and overall  productivity –  qualifying your business for a complimentary consultation. Please click: “Contact The Net Impact ” to  claim a hassle-free web design analysis. 

The layout of the home page is emblematic of a well laid out department store. Each category is comprised of products and labels, which appeal to the target audience’s shopping interests. As the site is a child and adolescents room decor and furnishings.

From items marked as popular, which make for sure fire birthday gift ideas. to inventory on sales, a well designed ecommerce site has a robust cross spectrum of categories to pique unique visitors.

On the far right of the ecommerce site’s page, the clothier and furnishing etailer make it clear that their brand is quite social, with links to Facebook, Linked in, and Twitter.

Each product inventory page offers the viewer the option to review products according to their online shopping preferences. Visitors can review the featured items of the category by a dozen products per page or all products.

 Another consumer friendly web design feature of quality ecommerce presents related and similar products to extend the visitor’s stay on the retail site. Remember the longer one is able to maintains the consumer’s eyeballs oogling products the higher the chances of converting the visitor.

On the sales and promotion’s page of the ecommerce site, the design presents several consumer friendly features. In the upper right hand corner of the Verified Merchant stamp instills a modicum of ecommerce security, suggesting that the online retailers is a professional and credible entity protecting their consumer’s credit card information.

Finally, after the consumer add an item to their shopping cart, the ecommerce site, Artistic Sensations gives the customer the option to continue shopping or proceed to the check out line.

Navigation is secondary, visitor will figure it out.  On the contrary, navigation influences how  visitors and prospective consumers experiences a site. Ideally, horizontal, vertical, top and bottom navigation enables visitors to interact with your site according to their viewing preferences.

Forty second page loads are the norm. Many sites designed in animation have long page loads, which can be irritating for the visitor, who wants to quickly determine whether a site has the offerings that he or she is in search of. More importantly, Google evaluates many Web sites based on the immediacy at which a site loads. Since, findings show that long page loads motivate site abandonment, and a high bounce rate, some major search engines penalize page rank.

We decided to alter the color of your logo. It is unprofessional for any creative entity to modify another organization’s branding. In cases where a logo loses its visual efficacy online, the appropriate protocol is to notify or create an alternate for consideration.

Web design has nothing to do with search engine optimization. Although web design and SEO are not one in the same, a  site should be designed to reinforce its exposure to major search engine traffic. After all, a well-architected site is only as effective as the attention it attracts and converts.

Don’t worry about security. Site security is a critical issue, protecting  a site from spam and assuring that customers are able to complete sales transactions without any security breaches concurs with the purpose of enhancing the online identity: growing new client relationships. Any web design company, downplaying security, is a vendor unworthy of your company’s contract.

In the end, hire a company with a proven track record of case studies and a commitment to marrying suitable web design for the best SEO. Contact the Net Impact for professional advice.

The prospects that are courted today become new clients tomorrow. Sowing the seeds is comparable to link building. Links from microsites, social media pages (Twitter and, Facebook), press release optimizations, and even fan sites procure new business opportunities.

Are all the pages of your web design attuned for the Internet marketing strategy?

• When your consumers and clients ponder your products, what does your brand call to mind?
• Is your online brand identity achieving proposed benchmarks and consumer loyalty?
• How does your company plan to bolster consumer loyalty?

Whether your business development and strategic planning departments have the answers to the aforementioned questions or not, social media networking provides the immediate solutions and answers to these brand identity inconsistencies and Internet marketing assessments. Twitter and Facebook are narrowing the communication gap between corporations and consumer commentary. By humanizing a product, service or behemoth corporation, brands nurture steadfast loyalty.  With the ability to initiate the dialogue with prospects and clients, companies can use the online audience to fine tune the brand id. 

Thanks to these social media design and networking instruments, inept, unproductive products have a short lifespan. With a mélange of effective web design, social media and the fulfillment of consumer demand, any-sized organization can develop an immensely effective Internet marketing strategy.

As your company plans its Internet marketing strategy for the year, approach it with the same cultivation and diligence that agriculturists employ to assure a fruitful crop for the vernal equinox.

Contact The Net Impact to customize an exacting Internet marketing strategy for your company.

Placement reigns. Web pages, featuring top horizontal navigation, attain a higher conversion rate than top left vertical  ones. Clean, concise site navigation delivers the best user-ability because it simplifies the visitor experience, assuring a benter retention rate.

Web promotions, nestled in the top right corner of the home page, attract the most conversion action. Also, position other feature promotions, prominent enough to capture the visitor’s attention. 

Style matters.  Fonts, color and layout influence a site’s underlying magnification qualities. Integrate color psychology in with the web design development strategy. Select a typeface that epitomizes your products and services. 

Size repels or appeals. Certain Web sites use microscopic fonts to assure that readers review the content. Depending on the visitor’s vision, diminutive typeface can repel the visitor from lingering a Web site. Select content which makes it easy for the visitor to scan.

Content captures.  While certain market research statistics illustrate that photos attract attention, others defy the theory. In other words, a dominant headline can outperform a mediocre photo. Make sure that all content formats add value, enhancing the visitor’s experience on the site.                                           

Maintain continuity. With the right content management system, web design continuity is a no brainer, assuring online visibility.

Click on Website design for additional innovative ideas.

• Unidev’s success is attributable to a customer-centric approach to resolving client IT glitches.

• As a Microsoft Certified Partner (MCP), Unidev has the expertise to develop the most groundbreaking and cost effective solutions for customers, who use the Microsoft technology.

• Thanks to it designation as an IBM business partner, Unidev has the expertise and is authorized to apply a wide spectrum of software applications (in example: Java, Linux Websphere and DB2).

• Unidev’s satellite company, The Net Impact is a web design search engine optimization company, providing all the services related to maintaining a prominent Internet presence. (Web design, social networking, SEO and more)

• In October 2008, Unidev developed a powerful web application, called Auctori. The content management system automates search engine optimization. With Auctori, companies can save money managing their news blog internally.

• Based on each company’s requirements (budget, time frame and strategy), Unidev tailor fits an exacting technology solution for small to large corporations. By customizing a technology solution around each organization’s technology, budget, strategy and time requirements, the customized services enable the web applications company to service all sized companies throughout North America.

Congratulations Unidev. To read more the Missouri-based web applications achievements, click on any of the following links:

• Unidev Blog
• Twitter
• YouTube