The ZURBlog is where we discuss interaction design and strategy.

A lot of our work happens in a digital environment, but unfortunately it's not always the best medium for getting feedback. There's a lot to be said for face-to-face meetings and here at ZURB, we take a hybrid approach to sending and receiving feedback on design work. Here's an inside look at our process.

Digital feedback keeps work focused

Digital feedback has a lot going for it. First of all, it can be a lot easier to articulate an idea because writing things down forces the person giving feedback to think through the idea. Written feedback also serves as a great historical reference so you can recall what your team said in years past.

Digital feedback is also terrific for keeping things brief and succinct— no need for endless conversations that go on and on. It's also asynchronous and doesn't rely on matching schedules or hard-to-plan meetings. Feedback apps like our Notable are particularly useful for getting feedback because it's very specific, contextual, and takes the guesswork out of exactly which concepts are under discussion.

Some things can only be done in person

No matter how useful digital feedback is, in-person meetings can provide much better insight. For instance, body language and tone of voice are very revealing. You'll get a sense of how comfortable the feedback giver is with what they're saying and their tone of voice can help you better understand the scope of the discussion.

Feeling the intent of the feedback can also give you enough insight to get the point of the directive. Don't over look the power an in-person meeting can have toward building and creating momentum based on positive reinforcement. After all, digital feedback can seem rather critical all the way around, but both positive and negative feedback can be easier to appreciate in person.

We use a hybrid approach

At ZURB, our team use a hybrid approach because we feel that practice in digital form makes in-person delivery more efficient and powerful. Indeed, sometimes we switch back and forth several times in the course of a day. The key is to be flexible when working in the web world— being able to switch gears smoothly is important to getting useful feedback.

When most people think of web design, they think of pretty pictures, layouts, and coded web pages. While those are important ingredients, they're merely design tools— nothing more.

Design is about solving problems for people, not building things. In fact, "not building" something is the best type of design you can offer. The web doesn't need more crap, and people don't want more crap.

It's not necessarily a bad thing if you don't remember every single thing you've read on a website or know exactly what you clicked on. Although data testing may not reveal this, not all tasks need to be memorable. Sometimes you just need a directive, like "what's on your mind?", to get people engaged with a webpage.

Interactive vs. Interaction: People get get confused by terms that are so similar. To define the concepts more clearly, consider whether a designer is affecting the system or influencing how a user clicks around a website.

Interactive Designers	Interaction Designers
Interactive designers tend to think of the web as a series of branded moments that occur through a series of frames that a user clicks through.	Interaction designers are more concerned about the intent of the user and how they can help them accomplish a task.

Why should you care?

Well, we're not sure you should. Terminology varies in the web world because it's still very young. That's ok for designers. Designers still have to sell themselves anyway— our industry is so fragmented that the collective benefits of a unified industry don't really provide benefits. The terminology someone in our industry chooses is revealing, though, and gives us some insights into where they fall on the interaction vs. interactive design spectrum.

Ultimately what's best for a company depends on several factors. As with the Flash vs. Javascript debate, it's not whether one is good and another is bad, it's how the concept is implemented. Many web sites are interactive, but looking at site designs with a critical eye toward interaction can drastically improve a user's perception of a site as they click through.

You can learn a lot about an organization or company by viewing its company website or online application process. If we look at this overview of product development, you're able to visualize how different groups in an organization influence the UI and who's responsible for making the decisions. It's important for designers to understand how decisions get made in an organization because the more you can anticipate roadblocks and red flags, the easier it will be to drive your vision.

Let's take a look at some examples of popular websites and what type of organization structure they project from their interfaces.

Apple - This company clearly designed its website with focus on marketing. It's got big, beautiful pictures and interface elements that capture the product's vision and idea. Short paragraphs help explain the pictures while compelling headlines build desire. The sparsity inherent in Apple's website helps keep the reader focused on only a couple of ideas at a time.

NYTimes - Here's a great example of a content-focused website. Distinct visual buckets help sell different types of content and heavy use of words convey meaning. The dense pages are information heavy -- perfect for info-seeking readers. The site projects an air of strength and elitism, as if to say, "we believe what we write."

Google - The focus here is on engineering. To convey meaning, its design uses sparse imagery but doesn't focus too much on structure. The site's functional elements are very prominent, though not always particularly intuitive.

MySpace - This site is all about business development. It's not very visually compelling, and its structure is often random. There's a heavy focus on targeted advertising, and it's workflow is often disruptive, similar to television advertising.

Facebook - There's a heavy focus on product at this website. Clean, structured lines help promote intent and relevant content is based on the users needs. The visuals are tame and not overly exciting, however every action is focused around the intention of getting users to take another action.

Amazon- This company has an extremely customer-focused website. Relevant content is based around the user's desires, while the structure is focused around merchandising. Although the visual design isn't very compelling, it's a lot more tolerable than others we've seen.

When you're considering what design elements to include in your website, spend some time looking around at sites whose focus matches your own. You'll glean some good ideas about what works and what the perceived organizational structure of your website will tell users about your company.

When it comes right down to it, the web is just forms, links, and content. The next time you're starting a new design project, take a different approach -- think about how you can create value for a user with only those three elements.

Begin your next design project by bulleting out every content piece on a separate line. Try to think of each piece of content as a meaningful directive and look at it from a user's point of view -- What should I, the user, do with this content?

Now turn those answers into form elements that capture ideas. List all other pages you think might be relevant to this one, then create a list of links that utilize the names of these pages. Can you create a meaningful page from all this information? If not, you might rethink what you're trying to do on the page, because some splashy imagery will only bring superficial completion to that page for your users.

Let's stop thinking we're trying to create something novel every time we design a new website. While "creative vision" has it's place on the web, if a user can't get something accomplished through actions on a page, then you need to do more with your design thinking.