Articopia! Holiday Open House

Here's one of the latest HMK Archive projects, the invite and logo for this years Articopia, Saturday, December 13th from 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM at the Ursuline Campus of the Southwest School of Art & Craft.

The Ursuline Campus of the Southwest School of Art & Craft, on the National Register of Historic Places, is located on the edge of downtown San Antonio, on our awesome River Walk.

Seasonal offerings of copious holiday gifts for the home, the body, the spirit, designed by some of the country's most respected artists and craftspersons. Refreshments. Free and open to the public.

On this historic site, a convent was established in 1851, when seven Catholic nuns arrived in San Antonio to start San Antonio's first school for girls. The complex expanded throughout the 1800s under the architectural direction of Francois Giraud.

See you there!

That's Right,

HMK

Southwest School of Art & Craft

Keep'em Coming Back for More

Here's a nice handfull of 14 Website Usability Guidelines designed to bring them back for more...

"Sites that are designed to sell products and/or services must go the extra mile to enhance the visitor's engagement with the website. Shopping cart abandonment (shoppers abandoning their carts before deciding to pay for the "items" they've added to their cart) can result in a significant loss in potential sales. But much of that can be reduced when the shopping process is streamlined and geared for shopper satisfaction.

The selling process--from initial interest to the very last checkout page--must be able to grab shopper's attention and proceed to drive them through to the finalization of the sale. But even after the sell, you must deal with customer service issues in order to keep the sale finalized. Good customer service will bring your purchasers back for another and another and another.

Here's the first of fourteen general usability guidelines that will enhance shoppers overall experience on your site.

Images vs. Content

Images and content must work together to provide the user with a satisfactory experience. Relying too heavily on images and other media can be distracting, especially to those that really need to read more about what you're selling before they are comfortable making a purchase. On the other hand, too much content on the wrong pages can also turn some shoppers away. A proper balance must be struck.

Check out the the other 13 via Stoney Degeyter's article over HERE.

That's Right,

Go Spurs!

HMK

Awesome image by: M. Moormann.

So, What Makes a Product Cool?

You might want to read this before you head out for your next round of Christmas shopping. Especially if you're buying anything for yourself.

We may try to hide our lust for goods but our brain can't. Steven Quartz, a neuroscientist at the California Institute of Technology, is part of a new generation of researchers exploring neuromarketing -- a new field that uses brain science to understand consumer behavior. Quartz and his colleagues roll subjects into MRI machines (which measure oxygenated blood flow) to see what parts of the brain light up while viewing images of iPods, Aeron chairs, Capresso coffee machines, and Oakley sunglasses. Their findings are challenging some basic assumptions about marketing and economics.

What exactly is neuromarketing?

A lot of people think neuromarketing is just using brain imaging technology to understand the decisions that underlie consumer behavior. Although technology is a really important part, brain science over the last decade has advanced at a tremendous pace. Neuromarketing is the application of this huge amount of information that's available in the literature in terms of how people make decisions.

Check out this The Fast Interview by Kermit Pattison: Steve Quartz on Neuromarketing – and why iPods are like heroin.

That's Right,

HMK

The above social commentary is an illustration I did back in 1996.