Since November we’ve had well over 400 users interested in the Stacks beta program. Imulus isn’t exactly a well-known interactive agency, yet we’ve been able to generate a good amount of interest in little time and with little effort. The interest in Stacks is primarily generated from our success with our Support Details product.

Support Detail is a free web-tech support application that we launched in April of 2009. It was a tool that sat on our back-burner for over 6 years, but it took less then 1 week to develop. We launched it to solve a recurring problem that we had with clients not technically familiar enough to give us the browser’s technical specifications. Within weeks of it’s launch, Support Details was featured in LifeHacker, SitePoint, StumbleUpon and MaximumPC. That early success drove visitor count up to 40k per month. With that much traffic coming to the site we decided to advertise our own products using Support Details as the advertising outlet. Our logic, if you like what we’ve done with Support Details, then maybe you’ll like our other products. Hopefully Stacks is equally as exciting as Support Details. We believe it is and we’ll work hard keep it useful without becoming cumbersome.

We’ve snowballed the success of one product into another. This method can be seen all over the web. Most notably by 37Signals. They’ve managed to build BaseCamp, snowball success into Ruby on Rails, then to the SVN Blog, then to the Job Board, etc… Now they have an entire suite of products, most of which are very successful. They are selling by snowballing their success from product to product. This creates a community of supporters and users that grow with you over time.

I don’t think this methodology is difficult to replicate. Focus on solving a problem within your industry. It doesn’t need to be sexy, or feature rich. Stop yourself the next time you get frustrated with an aspect of your daily routine. Think about an easy way to solve that problem then execute on it. Just don’t wait 6 years to pull the trigger.

For years we have always done milestone approvals either by verbal approval or simple email confirmations. When I used to work at Refinery (now G2) we tried doing the legal / contract version of project approvals. I found that method to be cumbersome and difficult to quickly deploy. We’ve decided to try something new and I think it’s worth sharing. We’ve decided to use Wufoo. Using this service we can share pre-developed approval forms which log client acceptance along the development process.

I’ve blogged about Wufoo in the past. I think these guys are one of the most underated Web 2.0 companies out there. Their interfaces a rocking and their shit just works real well. We’ve setup about 14 pre-defined forms, which can be shared with our clients for approvals which take less then 30 seconds to read and submit.

Here is an example.

Here is what we are hoping to achieve with this shift in our process:

Deliberate Action. It’s too easy for a client to just give verbal approval, or reply to an email. Filling out a short form is a deliberate step which requires the user to read before taking action. It falls outside the normal workflow enough to be memorable.

What am I Signing? A short explanation helps the client understand the impact of what they are signing without all the legal mumbo-jumbo of a contract. It’s enough to explain the point and nothing more.

What’s Next? Once signed, what does that actually mean to the client. This is a friendly reminder of the next steps which will be taken on the project along with a statement about what it means to give approval to this task.

Get to Know Us. A quick “Thank you” followed by a “Did you know?” We see this as another opportunity to interact with our clients in a way which helps us better know each other.

I sincerely hope you try using Wufoo to replace the old sign & fax forms of the 80’s. I’d like to hear the results if you do make the switch.

I haven’t posted a critique on motion graphics in a while, and I know how much you have all waited and pined for another so here it is. What is the deal with all these commercials stealing their ideas from viral videos? (she says in her best Seinfeld voice). I get that it’s kind of cute and funny in an inside joke sort of way. One of the funniest music videos is Weezer’s Pork and Beans. This is mainly because they’re intentionally taking the viral videos that we all know and love and using that as a media.

What bothers me are the commercials that steal concepts from viral videos and it is unclear if they’re trying to be cute and pay homage to the original or if their just blatantly ripping it off. The video “Drive Through Rap” was remade into a commercial for Taco Bell. Personally I don’t think this is an homage, this is just a rip off.

Recently I saw a stop motion commercial that looked suspiciously like the animations from BLU. In this case I’m not so sure this was a rip off, because BLU themselves may have been responsible for the commercial. I unfortunately don’t know enough about the company (or who the commercial is for) to say for sure.

If any of you know any more please let me know. I am constantly amazed by the impact that YouTube has on our culture. (Please note, I intentionally left out the sand art commercial because I wasn’t sure if that was a viral video before or after the commercials — or if it counts as a viral video.)

Tonight I watched a phenomenal TED Talk given by John Francis. A man who is a leader and role model in in the field of environmental activism. For seventeen years he did not speak, but rather spent time listening, thinking, and writing. His story is fantastic and a great reminder to all of us that sometimes the most important thing you can do is listen and try to understand other people.

I think that truly listening and paying attention to people’s ideas is something we all could do better.

We run across a lot of discussion whether the stage of wireframing a website is important or not. Should you avoid the process of wireframing and just dive into design? What is the purpose of wireframes and why many designers and developers implement this stage as part of their planning tool?

Wireframes are an essential tool of communication that provide a rough guide to website structure. Their purpose is to give guidence to general layout, navigational elements, and content structure to designers, developers and clients. The stage of wireframing is achieved after the process of sitemaps has been approved. At this time, you should have in your hands a site structure in a hierarchical style. Here at Imulus, we take time at a wireframe stage in order to run the design and developing stage smoothly. Only an educated client will understand this process if explained. Sure, all clients would like to see their website redesigned in 24 hours…that would require a lot of java. We take time to explain to our clients why this stage is important to us and to them as well. They will understand.

Our designers will work through the wireframe stage to completion and then will sit down with our developers to discuss the many possibilities. This opens different perspectives which are always handy to get everything on track. For example, when it comes to talking about some special functionality feature for the site, it is a good thing that developers know this ahead of time and see what’s expected. They can see what problems they can run into and how to solve them ahead of time. It is too late if this got avoided when the design is already in development. As for the designers, it is easier to have a wireframe in hand. You get the idea where things are supposed to be, and start to visualize the design. Try to have some fun with wireframes. OK, sure, they can get boring sometimes especially when it comes to some revisions but that’s all because you’re anxious to start the designing and developing. Also, you don’t have to adhere strictly to what the wireframe is showing. We have run across many times where the wireframe was showing one thing, but in the design stage we have changed it. It’s all right to change the wireframe in the design stage as long as the purpose and direction is not lost. My advice is to spend whatever time necessary to complete the wireframing stage; it will make your job easier in the design stage, and will save headaches to developers, as well as to clients.

A book recommendation to follow on a wireframing stage: Web Redesign 2.0 | Workflow That Works by Kelly Goto & Emily Cotler