IBL Studios has great expertise in designing social media-ready Web sites. We take the best of social Web, integrating the most advanced tools for you audience. 

We work with you to create a framework within which you pursue specific outcomes utilizing online strategies and campaigns. From graphic design to search engine optimization to advertising placement to content management, IBL Studios offers dozens of interactive tools and services to drive and monitor your strategic campaigns.

We combine the newest, most relevant technologies with the best online communication tools to advance your marketing and PR efforts. With most campaigns, the goal is to reach your audience (target market) and inspire them to action (purchase, donation, subscription, change of opinion, etc.). We make sure that your audience (customers) always has a positive, simple, informative, visually-stimulating experience, while you get the bottom-line results you demand.

IBL Studios is a full-service social media agency, so we can provide the infrastructure for every facet of your online campaign, on both the front and back end.


Guiding Principles of Design and Usability for IBL Studios' Web Platforms, Video Players and Applications

A well-designed user interface for IBL Studios platforms, players and applications is comprehensible and controllable, helping users to view and experience content successfully and efficiently. Effective user interfaces are developed based on principles of human interface design and the constantly evolving world of web 2.0. They are founded upon a long history of human-computer interaction research, cognitive psychology, and design best practices. IBL Studios employs all of the following concepts in designing custom technology for our clients. 
 

Usefulness

• Value — The technology should provide necessary utilities and address the real needs of users.
• Relevance — The information and functions provided to the user should be relevant to the user's understanding of the web and how it works.
   

Consistency

• Consistency and Standards — Follow appropriate industry standards and conventions for web technology and video platforms. Within an application (or a suite of applications), make sure that actions, terminology, and commands are used consistently. 
• Real-World Conventions — Use commonly understood concepts, terms and metaphors, follow real-world conventions (when appropriate), and present everything in a natural and logical order.
   

Simplicity

• Simplicity — Reduce clutter and eliminate any unnecessary or irrelevant elements. 
• Visibility — Keep the most commonly used options more visible (and the other options easily accessible).
• Self-Evident — Design a system to be usable without instruction by the appropriate target user of the platform, player or application. Display data in a manner that is clear and obvious to the user. 
   

Communication

• Feedback — Provide appropriate, clear, and timely opportunities for user feedback. 
• Structure — Use organization to reinforce meaning. Put related things together, and keep unrelated things separate. 
• Help and Documentation — Ensure that any instructions are concise and focused on supporting and enhancing the user's experience.
   

Efficiency

• Efficacy — Accommodate a new user's continuous advancement in knowledge and skill of the technology. Do not impede efficient use by a skilled, experienced user. 
• Shortcuts — Allow experienced users to work more quickly by providing abbreviations, function keys, macros, or other accelerators, and allowing customization or tailoring of frequent actions.
• User Control — Make users the initiators of actions (rather than the responders) to increase the users' sense that they are in charge of their own viewing and web experience. 

Additional Design Rules for Web 2.0 Sites

In addition to the above principles, IBL Studios incorporates some of the following design rules (when appropriate to your project), which have guided the development of some of the best web 2.0 sites.

• Central Layout
• Minimal Columns
• Separate Top Section
• Solid Areas of Screen Real-Estate
• Simple Navigation
• Bold Logos
• Bigger Text
• Bold Text Introductions
• Strong Colors
• Rich Surfaces
• Gradients
• Reflections

The 2012 High-End Web Platform is:

• Exclusively designed. Unique UI (User Interface)
• Social Media-ready
• SEO & Google-optimized
• Mobile & Tablet-friendly
• Empowered with an Easy-to-use and High-Performance Control Panel
• A dynamic video platform
• Securely maintained

Site Navigation:

• Enhanced navigation to provide a more streamlined look and feel with greater readability and quick access to the information you want most
• Mega Menu to expose the depth of your content
• Feedback link on the lower-right of your screen from any page of the site to share visitor's opinion on the latest enhancement
• Article Series, Email newsletters, Blogs, Social network widgets...

A well-designed Web platform increases user engagement, virality and conversion. A poorly designed site can turn off prospective users and leave a lasting negative impression. Interactive design, information architecture, usability testing, graphic/visual design, logo/identity design are key to keep people coming back.

Trends we follow:

Shared and mobile content has become so significant that traditional website is no longer sufficient. And since technology moves so fast, there are some trends that we follow at IBL Studios:

• Flexible Websites — Our Websites serve several media purposes successfully (traditional browser, iPad, iPhone...). We use CSS media queries to serve multiple layouts based on device and screen dimensions so that the website is flexible enough to display properly and cleanly. 
   
• HTML5-ready Websites — HTML5 is the next major revision of HTML that is seeing a wider adoption. It offers an integration tool with social media. Microsoft, Google and Facebook have already started implementing it.
   
• Simple navigation —  easy to follow messages and good editorial layout. Some experts like to talk about the "editorial layout": brief articles with subheadings and large images. It is said the the average attention span is about 8 to 10 seconds. This is the amount of time your website has to grab the attention of the visitor. Then if you succeed, you probably have another 2 to 3 minutes to present relevant information to the visitor.
   
• Staying secure. Visitors want reassurance that they are at the right website and the site is secure. Trust seals and certificates like Extended Validation SSL Certificates, help when shopping online. 
   
• Mobile E-Commerce and Mobile-friendly Websites. Shoppers are increasingly using smartphones for price comparisons, loyalty programs, finding local inventory and making online purchases.
   
• Social Sharing designs. Visitors should be able to user their browser plug-in or widgets like Facebook Lice, Twitter, Linkedin Share, Sharethis, Addthis, etc.
   
• Website Measurement; data rich analytics report. We pay attention to your analytics after setting your goals. We find where your best visitors came from and which campaigns work.
  (Read Michael Amigot's post of "Some must-haves when redesigning a Website")
   

Please contact us for samples and case studies.