Must Design

MoMA's Store Rocks
Wow, I don't usually think of museums as sources of ecommerce inspiration and learning, but the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has a special team you can learn a lot from. MoMA's team excels at ecommerce blocking and tackling such as:

• Great email followups (abandon cart, push emails)
• Great promotion schedule understands DEADLINES and web's constant NOW 
• Easy to understand and use navigation
• Great clean lines and images 
• Tells great visual stories

Knowing your website's navigational taxonomy can mean the difference between millions in traffic and money. Here are 5 Simple Navigational Taxonomy Rules.

* It's About THEM not YOU.
* Create A Commons.
* It's FREE and EASY.

* Srart with Brands & Work OUT.

* Find Engagement & Work IN.

Easy to follow rules so your site's nav WINS traffic, hearts, minds, SEO and loyalty needed to be around for a bit.

"I spent a lifetime learning to draw like a child." Picasso

This is an interesting post from Thomas King about the complex nature of simplicity. Picasso's point about spending a lifetime learning to draw like a child seems important for web designers too.

The hardest thing to do is do less. The hardest mind to recover is the exploratory mind, the mind before judgement. When we recover the playful mind, the simple easily rewarding routine of play, our designs run free like Picasso's bull. 

• Cleartrip.com (Travel)
  
• Paytm.com (Walmart like e-retailer)
  
• Myntra.com (Abercrombie-like online store)
  
• Zomato.com (Foodie)
  
• Flipkart.com (Walmart like e-retailer)
  
• iXiGO.com (Travel)

Indian web design is marked by innovation, clear Calls-To-Action and graceful use of current and future technology. "In India my generation," my friend Ravi told me the other day, "went right to mobile skipping laptops and desktops altogether".

I was looking at these sites with my laptop and expect they look great on smart phones too. Nothing like having must of your customers using mobile tech to make mobile first in both responsive templates and impressive data architecture (easy to see how these sites would accordion in mobile.

The foodie site Zomato.com lives up to its great name. The content, despite their not being "here" yet, is fresh, beautiful to look at and engaging. Zomato is about FOOD and, much like India herself, has few preconceived notions about what that means. .

Instead they curate with clear passion and grace. Every Indian site we studied had a clear sense of GET TO IT many American sites could learn from. Indian web designers know how to "tease", charm and win clicks by providing just the right information at the right time.

Many American designers seek to overwhelm and thus end up speaking to themselves about themselves. Better to box not look for the haymakers we seem to love so much here these great Indian web designed sites illustrate.

Best In Class From Conversion IQ
The other day I complained about "pretty picture' ecommerce sites that make conversion harder. So much of ecom is ditch digging. Ditch digging to make sure you have things such as:

* Email subscription form (prefer presence to popunders).
* Clearly ECOM - looks like a store with things to sell not content to read.
* Social (easy to find theirs and easy to contribute).
* Content Curation from social / comments / reviews (should feel like a party with people who share love / interests).

* Offers, deadlines and a sense of time (of the year today is Columbus Day for example).

These examples from Conversion IQ are closer to "ditch digging" ecommerce websites. Conversion either BUYING or into a list are easier, more clear and so these designs make more money than the pretty picture websites I shared last (http://sco.lt/4ijZIH ),

Beautiful Unusual Navigation Designs for Inspiration. Selection of Awwwards websites with a strong presence of unusual navigation. An effective navigation design is crucial for a website