23. Consistent Font
Font Face
Size
Color
Anyone can make the simple complicated.
Creativity is making the complicated simple.
Anyone can make the simple complicated.
Creativity is making the complicated simple.
Anyone can make the simple complicated.
Creativity is making the complicated simple.
36. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do
eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad
minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip
ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in
voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint
occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit
anim id est laborum.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do
eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad
minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip
ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in
voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.
53. Red
intense, angry, creates feelings of excitement or intensity
Blue
calmness, serenity, sadness or aloofness
Yellow
emotional, cheery and warm, most fatiguing to the eye
Green
balance, symbolizes nature, tranquility, good luck, health, and jealousy
Orange
excitement, enthusiasm, and warmth, draws attention
White
purity or innocence, simplicity, create a sense of space
Black
Sophistication, glamour, security
Brown
warmth, comfort, and reliability
Today I am going to be showing you why it’s important to have a great registration website and the importance of a site with a strong visual appeal.
So why is it important to have a visually appealing website?
Read this and think about how it makes you feel…
How about when you read it now? The human brain is more reactive towards pictures and easily connects with them.
Look at each of these pictures… How do they make you feel?
Images have a big impact on the mood of the website and depending on the images used, effects the way an attendee sees your site and ultimately the event/meeting itself.
Creating a clear, concise, well-defined registration process is imperative to the success of any event. It is an extension of the event and can make or break a registrant’s first impression.
So, I’ve compiled a list of our top tips to creating a more streamlined, attractive registration process to impress even the most fickle of event registrants.
Just by a quick show of hands…
For those of you that don’t have access to a designer or photo editing software, this slide addresses some great resources. Besides Photoshop which can be expensive, there are some good free photo editing tools you can use. Product websites are also listed on the resources page at the end of the presentation. A quick note, Sketch does have a small fee and is only available for MAC at this time.
Whether you have access to a designer or create your own layouts, producing a visually appealing site is of utmost importance. There are 5 design principles we are going to focus on today to help achieve that goal.
Before you begin creating your website, ask questions. Find out as much as you can about the company or organization - the culture, target audience, purpose/goals of the event. Check out the corporate website. Find out if there are brand guidelines, examples of other sites they like for reference, or if there are any specific images/event themed graphics?
When you know your audience you can easily incorporate a strong call to action, which gives the attendees every reason to establish an immediate connection with your website. An effective website layout should ideally have a big call-to-action message that screams for their attention as well as one call-to-action message that propels attendees to perform an action. This may be an image or a button, i.e. pushing them to the registration form.
This website wouldn’t have the same effect if it just had a picture of the location and a logo. You relate right away with the pictures and the “child-like” feel.
On this example the attendee can easily get to the registration form with one click.
Keep it simple. Every client/event is unique but as a general rule, a clean and simple layout is best. Easy to follow navigation and well organized content is more important to the user experience than flashy graphics. Well-conceived color palette, graphics and images are by far more effective than rainbow colors.
That doesn't mean design has to be boring - some projects should have big bold design - but the design should not distract. Good design enhances user experience, draws the eye to important information, and helps people connect with the message. Let’s look at a few examples on how to accomplish this…
This site is very simple yet depicts a lot of feeling. It makes the attendee excited about coming to the destination and they want to begin registering. There is very little text but it’s powerful and inspiring.
Part of keeping things simple is being consistent
Headers and navigation pages can be bigger, have color and a more unique font type but do not use more than 2 font types, 3 font sizes and 3 font colors.
See these examples and how they bring your eye to the word complicated and the sentences are a bit harder to read… there is something just a bit “off”.
This screen sort of speaks for itself. If you overdesign attendees don’t know where to look first, are overwhelmed and are likely to get “lost” when trying to register.
This site is very simple yet leaves a big statement. It also has a great call to action as it points attendees through the site information.
Don’t take text to the edge of the margins, use padding and whitespace.
Take a look at the layout of this… it is very hard to read because the text goes all the way to the edges.
When you add white space, it’s easier to read and more appealing to the eyes.
We’ve already discussed the importance of visuals, so obviously, images are important in the design of a site. By using vivid images you can grab an attendees attention, communicate a message effectively and leave a memorable first impression.
So what is a vivid image? A simple definition is an image or photo that is striking, shocking, intriguing, interesting, or beautiful. It causes a reaction from the attendee that an average image would not. But we also have to remember, we talked about the importance of knowing your audience so be sure you know the type of attendee you are targeting before picking or deciding to use a vivid image…An attendee connects more to websites when the images are more relevant to the content on the page. It is important to add not only stunning imagery but also those images that complement the site’s written content. There are 6 main reasons to use images.
The most common and obvious reason for using images and pictures in web design is simply to create a more attractive and visually appealing design.
This site immediately makes you feel happy and content… anyone up for heading on vacation to a tropical destination??
Photos and images have a strong ability to add color to a design that may be very plain or basic without the image. A well-chosen photo can complement the color scheme and give it more depth. In some cases a color scheme can be too overwhelming with lots of different colors of text, backgrounds, buttons, navigation, etc., but a picture can add far more variety of color without having the same downfalls.
This site would look very different without the colorful background… the background image adds an extra level of color and style to the site.
One of the challenges of building a great website is to create something that attendees will connect with, which we’ve discussed is very important. Photos and images can create a greater sense of personality for the site and can do more for building a connection than just text. We’re used to seeing photos of people on an About page or a Staff page for this reason. Readers connect more with people than they do with text.
This site has a lot of personality as it relates directly to the meat cutters that are going to be at the event. They see last years winners and some of the competition taking place in the pictures as well as the flames and the meatcutter logo.
Branding is a priority for most websites, and images are capable of helping to establish the brand of the company by creating a particular vision of the company/website in the minds of attendees. Many images that are used for the purpose of branding will lead the attendee to quickly see the company in a particular light. While text is also useful and essential for branding, images have the ability to communicate a message more quickly and more powerfully.
We easily connect to images and recognize them immediately without text.
This site is powerful in that it uses the logo as the main call to action…this allows the brand to show through.
The 5th reason to use images is to showcase products. People like to see what they’re buying, and photos can help to give them more confidence that they are getting what they want. If the information you want to carry down to your attendees is about a place, which is the case for most registration websites, an image can help the attendees to imagine and visualize the destination. For events, this translates into either buying into your event and/or creating excitement and “buzz”.
And the final reason to use images…they are often the first thing attendees will notice, so when they are used properly they will lead the attendee to understand the content and to continue reading the text. Be sure that you follow the first rule we talked about, know your audience, and also ensure that the attention catching photo fits with your message. Often we will see images that include people (or animals) and the reason is that they are relatable therefore more memorable. Ideally, if you chose to go that route, the image should be an individual initiating eye-contact with the attendee. Thus, engaging in a sort of “conversation” with the image.
Another great way to catch attention is with a great splash page. The rest of the pages can then have a more “simple” look.
Besides using a great image, another way to catch the attention of an attendee is to use a video. It’s actually much easier to incorporate than you would think and leaves a big impact.
Many registration software products allow you to upload videos directly into the software. There are great products out there that help you with video creation and display. Most everyone knows about YouTube which works well but I would also recommend Vimeo. Vimeo (for a small fee of $9.99/month) has a bit more security and control. There are easy to understand privacy settings where you can decide where your videos appear and who can watch them. You also can easily change the look of your video and add a soundtrack.
We’ve touched on color in some of the other sections so I’m not going to spend a ton of time here but it is so important that is needs its own category. Color is a very powerful tool to touch the emotions of the website attendees. It creates a physical and emotional reaction and is able to carry a concrete message. When it comes to expressing emotions and attracting attention, color is the essential means.
Color is one of the web designer's most powerful tools. There are many ways color helps communicate a message.
Color can convey meaning, express personality, differentiate, frame, and highlight content. Keep intense colors for attracting the eye
Intense color attracts the eye, and the greater the area, the stronger the attraction. Too many intense colors attract the eye in too many directions, and the technique loses its potential effectiveness. Watch what happens when we change the color of the words.
Notice how your eye quickly moves to the word with the color.
Color has a psychological impact. Try to remember to use the colors that help you convey your message to your attendees.
Visually appealing web pages need a consistent color scheme. Without color, a page can lack personality. With a consistent and balanced color scheme, a page can have a consistent and balanced personality. Too much color, or erratic color, gives a page a confused personality. Limit a color palette to 2-3 colors and find colors that work with your brand, theme and audience. At the end of this presentation I have a list of great resources for helping you pick the right colors for your website.
And our last principle discusses the importance of templates. Once you have something good, use it again. Work to create a template site that incorporates all elements of your events. Then copy it. This also helps keep a consistent brand and attendees will recognize the site and know what to do for repeat events.
Most registration software products have amazing design templates in which you can use to help create your event website. You just need to upload a header, footer and select your color scheme.
Here is an example of a great design that was used multiple times with just the colors and images swapped out.
You’ll notice that the overall look remains the same but the color and new images change the tone.
You can use a site over and over again for multiple events but not just for the design. Re-use the content style as well as the registration form. You’ll notice on this site template there is even a space to upload a video.
Many event registrants are frustrated by the length of time it takes to fill out a registration form. Pre-populate as much attendee information as you can whenever possible. Not only does this practice dramatically reduce time spent in the registration process, but it also decreases the number of people who abandon the process and reduces errors in your reporting. This simple process can improve the attendee experience while making sure you always have accurate contact information for follow-ups and promotions.
After sending the initial automatic email confirmation, make sure that you send out a final confirmation (about 1-2 weeks prior to the event). The email should contain details about the registration, the hotel and travel information if applicable, possibly a schedule recap and any other important information the attendee will need when onsite.
Test your website- Once you are done with the site development, it is important to test every aspect of the website. Have someone that wasn’t involved in the creation of the site to test as well. Often we become so closely involved that we easily miss something obvious. The last thing you want is for your attendees to find the mistakes.
Events are becoming increasingly dependent on good networking opportunities to make them stand out due to social networking becoming much more important to attendees pre and post event. These opportunities should start at the registration process. Adding a quick link to a directory of event attendees during your registration process and in your confirmation email will immediately engage your attendees with your event. Add a link to an event specific page on Facebook, LinkedIn and/or Twitter. There are great applications out there as well that allow you to build your own event specific app and many now integrate directly with the registration system.
Use What’s Out There… Obviously you can’t copy sites completely but you can get ideas from other people’s designs. There are some great websites that I list at the end of the presentation that will give you great ideas and inspiration for building and designing your own sites.
I’m going to end this by showing you some unique registration websites. All have been designed using an online registration software.
This site has a lot of “bells & whistles” with animated images, dropdown navigation, links to social media sites and feeds directly from Twitter.
This site showcases a great splash page with social media links and a great “Why Attend?” area with video testimonials from past attendees.
This site wow’s the attendees with it’s animation and unique design. It also allows for a lot of information to be showcased (on the FAQ’s) without overwhelming the attendees with too much text and has a unique way of displaying activities.
