‘How to Make A Gif’

Last weekend I had a really interesting project. I redesigned and developed an existing site called MakeAGif.com to make it more user friendly and to give it a nice boost in traffic. MakeAGif is a clever site that was started by my favorite partner in crime, Troy Osinoff, that lets users create an animated .gif online out of still images they have on their computer in just 3 easy steps. The main problems with the old version were that it was hard to figure how to make a gif and once you had made it you were redirected to a page that was only temporary. Check out the old site by clicking the picture to the left.

With the new redesign, there are clear steps laid out to animating your gif and the form options are much easier to use. The script used to create the gif is a lot more fast and efficient now, as well. Once your gif is uploaded, instead of being redirected to a temporary page, you are redirected to a “Share Page” where you can link your gif to your blog, website, facebook and twitter pages.

Along with improving the UI and speed, I was able to implement some new features to the site. The most notable is the photo booth which allows you to take pictures directly from your webcam on the website and create a gif from from them instantly. I also had the site translated into Spanish and created a sister site called Animados Gif to be more user friendly to our Spanish-speaking traffic.

Since implementing the share pages and other features, traffic on the site has almost doubled in less than 3 days, with more people sharing and hosting their gifs right on Make A Gif, rather than uploading them elsewhere and sharing. Be sure to check out the redesign and to use the photo booth. Trust me, it’s addicting.