Fun With Widgets
by Betsy Balgooyen, Senior Project Manager
Don’t you sometimes wish you had a personal assistant to remind you to brush your teeth, or let you know what the temperature is outside so you know if you need that scarf on your lunch break? All of this can be accomplished with a new type of interactive online media rapidly growing in popularity – the Widget.
A Widget is a software program that has been created for a single purpose and runs from your desktop or from a website. Some popular Widgets are practical, like a constant stock ticker, and others are just plain fun--like Oblique, which displays random questions and thought-provoking suggestions. The key to a Widget is to keep it simple and focused. They can be designed to be interactive or just to display information. They can be maps or calculators, calendars or translators. Remember, Widgets are useful for a single focused purpose.
Adding an interactive piece with pizzazz, like a Widget, can be used to keep visitors interested in your site. Even more effective is something a visitor can download that reminds them about you and your site on a daily basis. One of the most well known examples of this is the weather bug from weather.com–it displays the current weather in the lower right corner of your screen.
Widgets are convenient, as they run directly on a user’s desktop, meaning users will see the branding and message you have created every time they open their computer or go to their desktop, rather than requiring them to visit a website or open an email. As a user views the Widget daily, your message becomes more familiar and they will remember your company more often. The weather bug is a good example of this. The Weather Channel logo is displayed at all times and the user becomes use to checking in with the Weather Channel from their computer.
The Dental Diary Widget we created for the Academy of General Dentistry (AGD) is an example of Quicksilver's entry into the Widget production world. It serves as a unique addition to a website that keeps visitors returning to http://www.knowyourteeth.com/. It provides reminders of upcoming
dental (and even non-dental appointments) for every member of the family. It is easy to use and engaging–especially since it is in the shape of a tooth. The Widget also contains links back to the web site and a table of contents linking to relevant articles to encourage visits to the web site. Visit the site and download the Dental Diary today for a great example of a Widget in action.