Designing the Indonesia Online Experiences

Andi S. BoedimanChief Innovation OfficerPlasa.com

Designing the Online Experiences

The interview conducted around these questions

• Designing the IdeasHow did you come up with the website idea and differentiate among other website?

• Designing the ContentHow do you design a good content for people to keep visiting the site?

• Designing the TrafficHow do you drive traffic to your site?

• Designing the Look and FeelHow do you design the look and feel of the site to relate to your target audience? Any particular technology and consideration?

“Main strength is market positioning, our brand as entertainment site. People google keywords KapanLagi.com™ because of our strong brand.”

Steve ChristianKapanlagi.com

Designing the Ideas

Kapanlagi.com

“Based on our content categories and users favorites, we create a differentiation. The idea is simple to provide easy navigation and expose our main content categories and to be able to accommodate our content growth without cluttering users with too many choices. The apps like in iPhone/Android/Blackberry and recently the iPad influence our homepage design.”

Designing the Content & Traffic

Kapanlagi.com

“Google Analytics provide tools to learn from users behavior, what users click and don't. Editorials focus on users behaviors including how long they stay in the site, how many pages they explore, and how long they stay in each page, and what contents reap clicks what don't. Users adapt new technology fast, we have to keep pace with Ajax which becomes de-facto standard in presenting content, and soon HTML5. SEO drive new visitors from entertainment related keywords.”

Designing the Look & Feel

Kapanlagi.com

“The main consideration is how fast. Many users nationwide don't have the luxury of speedy internet connection, the foremost consideration is that users can access our site fast enough but we absolutely can't ignore beautiful design. The content keeps users coming back but the look and feel make users stay longer. Browsers compatibility are second most important, despite of Firefox stronghold over internet browsers in the country, still there are numerous browsers to be compatible with. Especially with growing new devices to access our site, we need to keep compatible with each.”

“We have a loyal users and we get the feedback for the design, content, look and feel. They become our Business Development Officer :P”

Andrew DarwisKaskus.us

Designing the Look & Feel

Kaskus.us

“Listen to users is not always easy, when we change from forum to the current design (which is more interesting for advertisers and users), there’s so much complaints and critics from the users. Even some become cranky and don’t want to “ngaskus” again. We need to keep improving in the next 3 months. Our email bombarded with critics and suggestions... moderators got private messages... etc. At the end, the result is better... not perfect but at least favored by the users.”

Designing the Look & Feel

Kaskus.us

“We use skin design when designing the channels (eg. Kids Channel with UNICEF).”

Designing the Content & Traffic

Kaskus.us

“If users want to create new category, we ask them to gather minimum amount of users and at least one of them have the knowledge about the category and supported by their friends to become a moderator. So when we create the new category it will directly used by the users.

As we know, user in Indonesia is not loyal, come and go... if they go to the site and no content.. for sure he is not coming back in the future.”

Designing the Content & Traffic

Kaskus.us

“The latest news is the “dragon fossils” at South Bangka. This news become an instant hit and the journalists pick up the story to be published in the media.”

http://www.kaskus.us/showthread.php?t=5282891 http://regional.kompas.com/read/2010/09/15/10074617/Tulang.Naga.Berkaki.6.Gegerkan.Bangka-5

“We want a website that is friendly and pleasing to the users. The whole idea of Plasa.com should be a site where people can hang out, just like in a mall.”

Shinta W. DhanuwardoyoPlasa.com

Designing the Look & Feel

Plasa.com

“The colors are picked to be bright yet pleasing and we want all genders and age to be able to relate to the colors of the site that we pick. We also want the site structure to be friendly and users know the flow of the site itself in seconds they open it. We don’t want this site only screams women or teenage look... it should be able to invite all ages and genders since it is meant to be an online mall.”

Designing the Content

Plasa.com

“Like in a mall, people will need to create excitement with promotions. We do weekly promotions, where we offer great deals with the merchants. We create stories inside Plasa, to highlight interesting stories of merchants, so others can see the values and interesting angles of the merchants. Soon, we will revive our free emails, that will definitely create the traffic in the long run.”

Designing the Traffic

Plasa.com

“#sawityowit (saur with your twitter) is a hashtag created by Ari Dagienkz, Desta and Vincent Rompies as a morning joke during Ramadhan fasting. By bringing this hashtag hosted at http://sawityowit.plasa.com, we drive traffics to plasa.com and bring in new users to sign up. The program is integrated with major radio talkshow to amplify the campaign. Celebrity always has a place for Indonesian users.”

“Being an e-commerce website, we believe in complete information of the products followed by good presentation of the products.”

Tommy ChandraBhinneka.com

Designing the Look & Feel

Bhinneka.com

“We change the theme of our design regularly based on global events or seasons (something like world cup soccer, christmas/new year theme, etc.)

Bhinneka also invite users to participate by conducting photography competition.”

Designing the Content & Traffic

Bhinneka.com

“IT products changes at a very high pace, we have to keep up with all the latest products. To drive traffic, we used to use print ads, but currently we use SEO and off-line promotions.

A unique feature in the website is that the price is negotiable and feature comparison between products.”

“The problem was it's very hard to find products and services in Jakarta especially recommendations about which ones are the best.”

Selina LimmanUrbanesia.com

Designing the Content

Urbanesia.com

“People often say, Content is King and Presentation is Queen. I think in Indonesia Content trumps Presentation (design). So try to focus on content. However Urbanesia's content is derived from the users. Therefore we provided a fun and rewarding platform for users to generate content for Urbanesia. This way people are coming back to generate more content for Urbanesia. And if we have good content, people would keep coming back to Urbanesia. For me good contents is not commercialized, updated and relevant to the user.”

Designing the Look & Feel

Urbanesia.com

“Before we design the look and feel of the website, we define the typical target audience of Urbanesia. Then from there we decided the look and feel of the website. The typical user of Urbanesia is targeted to be young and cheerful. That's why we picked the green Urbanesia color because it's fresh, bright and unisex. Another key factor was deciding the direction towards lifestyle info than a directory. That's why people don't relate Urbanesia to Yellowpages although we offer similar information.”

“I realize that I ‘don't know much about fashion’ because I actually don't read fashion magazines and I thought it would be interesting to highlight this. A fashion blog written by a non-fashionista! :)”

Diana RikasariHot Chocolate & Mint Blog

Designing the Content & Traffic

Dianarikasari.blogspot.com

“My blog is my personal space where I just wanna to have fun. I talk on issue that I care...sometime inviting others to join in a competitions, giveaway, and all that.

It is important to consistently and continuously post on a regular basis. And I do blogwalking and leave comments on other people's blog.”

Designing the Look & Feel

Dianarikasari.blogspot.com

“I believe that my readers are also more image-driven than text-oriented, hence I try to display more colorful images rather than long text-posts.”

“The key to our site is product customization that integrate to our factory production line.”

George B. SumantriOrori.com

Designing the Traffic

Orori.com

“We use SEM and Facebook ads to drive traffic to out site. And we find out that Facebook fan page is the most cost effective and relevant to stay in touch with the customers.

Engine, products and update is our way to attract users. And we have to keep up with current trend such as social media as part of our website experiences.”

Designing the Look & Feel

Orori.com

“Since our product is bought by couples, we design our site to entice both of them. Our engine allow users to change specification of the product such as type of gold, carat size of the diamond to meet their budget, and etc. Woman usually buy things more on the design so our engine allows to zoom easily just by doing mouse over of the products.

We use a professional photographer specializes in jewelry in order to get the real touch and feel for Orori product.”

“COTTON INK is casual with a twist. So, we want to make our webstore is simple but also, still got it twist. We are proud to be a local brand, but its even more proud to be the local one who can represent it in international feel.”

Ria Sarwono & Carline DarjantoCotton Ink

Designing the Products

Cottonink-shop.com

“We try to put ourself in customer's shoes. If our webstore give the same pictures for about 3-4 weeks, they'll get bored. So we try to catch the gap by giving information faster in our webstore, and whenever people go to our webstore they'll think that our product is always new. We can't really tell when they want to shop, or when they won't.

We launch four collections every year, spring/summer collection, pre-fall collection, fall/winter and resort collection.””

Designing the Look & Feel

Cottonink-shop.com

“We imagine what kind of person out there who buy our products. What is her/his everyday style? What are their job? Where do they live? Where do they go after work? After school? What gadget that they use? Where do they go to buy clothes? After we got the ‘look’ we transfer it to our webstore look & feel. Photography is our main attraction to define the look & feel for the website.”

Designing the Content & Traffic

Cottonink-shop.com

“We started from Blogspot, Facebook and Youtube. But we never sell via Facebook, it’s only giving customer information about what's new. Now, we also have Twitter to give people the latest information about what we have in our webstore. So far, this is successfully attract people to go to our webstore. The last, the power of word of mouth marketing.”

Brightspot Market (brightspotmarket.com)–an exhibition at the major mall, brings them to mainstream awareness as visitors voted Cotton Ink to become the Favorite Brand.

Key Takeway

• UsersAlways listen to users, even though sometimes it’s hardAllow user participation

• ContentUpdate regularly and religiouslyContent is the main attraction, even more than presentationCelebrity has its place among Indonesian users

• Look & FeelPhotography will define the site look and feelTheme and skin design change based seasonal campaign

• TrafficPromotion drives trafficSEO, SEM and social media provides direct traffic

Special Thanks to

• Steve Christian – Kapanlagi.com @kapanlagi

• Andrew Darwis – Kaskus.us @adarwis

• Shinta W. Dhanuwardoyo – Plasa.com @shintabubu

• Tommy Chandra – Bhinneka.com @bhinnekacom

• Selina Limman – Urbanesia.com @urbanesia

• Diana Rikasari – Hot Chocolate and Mint @dianarikasari

• George B. Sumantri – Orori.com @orori

• Ria Sarwono & Carline Darjanto – Cottonink-Shop.com @cottonink

Keep inspired!

Andi S. BoedimanChief Innovation OfficerPlasa.comandisboediman@gmail.comwww.ideonomics.com@andisboediman