Tag: UX

October 23, 2003

  • Thought

    Seth’s Blog: My note to Susan:

    “You say to the prospect: I will work with you to build a four-page engine of revenue. The idea: the client loads it up with targeted traffic that he buys by regularly trying and testing adwords and other relevant, measurable media. Then, I will regularly, constantly tweak (or redesign) the four page site to turn those strangers into friends (and maybe, if your product is great and your followup is appropriate, you can turn those friends into customers).”

    This is another great article by Seth. Read the whole thing.

    If you (or someone you know) is doing what Seth is suggesting, let me know.

    (I would however object to Seth’s “Further proof that the web is now officially a direct marketing business” comment. While this is true, it implies that the web is now officially NOT something else. The web is many things and can be bent and twisted to meet many needs. Direct marketing is just one aspect. Small point, but an important one — always ignore statements that say “the web is…”.)

October 16, 2003

  • Two New Services Launched Today

    My postings have been sparse this last week or so as I’ve been putting the final touches on site updates in advance of the launch of two new services today:

    One is a Report called “The Schafer Group Guide To Corporate Web Sites”. This 145 page Report covers 123 best practices using more than 100 screen shots. I’ve been looking for something like this for years and in the end I needed to create it myself. I’m excited to be sharing this with the world and hope others will find it as useful as I do!

    The second is a Web Audit. This service provides clients with an expert assessment of how they are doing (good and bad) with respect to all 123 best practices identified in the Report. The Audit features a Priority List of suggested improvements, ranked by their potential to improve the site’s usefulness to customers.

October 11, 2003

  • Thought

    CNET News.com: Dell.com gets a makeover:

    “Dell hopes to get to the point more quickly with a new version of its Web site, set to be unveiled over the weekend.
    The new Dell.com is designed to offer a cleaner, more streamlined view of products such as PCs and servers and easier access to services such as tech support.”

October 1, 2003

  • Thought

    Good Experience: Four Words to Improve User Research:

    “But most websites are a strategic representation of the business. How can you presume to know how customers relate to the business, unless you ask them first? If your test moderator has a healthy case of ESP, or can bend spoons without touching them, by all means, define the tasks beforehand. Otherwise, try the listening lab method.”

September 25, 2003

  • Thought

    Seth’s Blog: Helping Jack with web design:

    “You only have four paths:

    1. get someone to buy something right now

    2. get someone to give you their email address so you can build a relationship

    3. get someone to tell a friend

    4. get someone to go to another page on your site.”

    Path Number 2 is the basis of most of Seth’s ground-breaking work on permission and viral marketing. But with the increasing pressure on e-mail as a commercial channel (spam filters, viruses, low-response, overload, consumer awareness of privacy and identity theft), I’m not sure that this is still a top priority.

    It would be easy to say that Path 2 should be “get someone to subscribe to your feed so you can build a relationship.” Unfortunately, RSS Feeds are not yet ready for prime-time so we’re stuck at this point.

    I wonder what happens to Permission and Viral marketing when everyone things that giving their e-mail address is the path to more spam and just stops filling in those boxes?

September 11, 2003

  • Thought

    Seth’s Blog: Lesson from yesterday’s seminar:

    “He didn’t know. He just wanted to make it better. “I haven’t updated it in a few years. How do I make it better?” He was looking for tactics, then he was going to invent a strategy to match. After a few seconds, he realized exactly what he was saying. Of course our tactics wouldn’t solve his problem because he didn’t know what his problem was!”

    It still amazes me that most sites are built and maintained without any sense of why or to what end they even exist.

  • Global Rich List

    I just discovered the Global Rich List via Wired. I love the concept and the site, but I did feel compelled to send them this constructive criticism:

    Hi there,

    I love the site and the message behind it. Well done!

    Three small suggestions:

    1. The site design is fantastic, but the background image of stacks of money is visually very distracting. It made my eyes “buzz” all over the place. It also makes it look at first glance like it will be an anti-money screed (looking like old socialist “money bags” imagery). I’d suggest removing the image and going with a white background or a light shade of grey.

    2. The graph of global income doesn’t seem to make sense. The axis labeled “billion people” seems to imply that six billion people’s income is right off the chart it is so high. I know that’s not what you meant, but that chart says that.

    3. The “spread the word” banner seems to have the message backwards. Promoting “I’m the richest” doesn’t seem to be what you want to have people talking about, rather you want them to think about the fact that “There are 5,280,616,966 people poorer than me”.

    Good luck with the project! I’d add links to CARE in the US and Canada to really boost giving!

September 10, 2003

  • Thought

    The Register: Web Sites That Crash:

    “Nine out of ten people have been forced to abandon an online transaction because the application failed before completion.”

September 9, 2003

  • Thought

    Boxes and Arrows: Natural Selections: Colors Found in Nature and Interface Design:

    “From complex web applications to informative “brochure-ware” sites, naturally occurring color combinations have the potential to distinguish (by helping create a more memorable website), guide (by allowing users to focus on interactions), engage (by making page layouts comfortable and more inviting), and inspire (by offering new ideas for color selection).”

    The article offers some great ideas on getting out of the “techno-color” rut. I particularly liked that the author used compelling photography as the foundation for a naturalistic color scheme. To a certain extent, this is cribbing colors from photographers instead of graphic artists because the photographer is still deciding on what is photographed and how. Still, this technique should be very useful.

September 8, 2003

  • Thought

    Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox: Misconceptions About Usability:

    “Misconceptions about usability’s expense, the time it involves, and its creative impact prevent companies from getting crucial user data, as does the erroneous belief that existing customer-feedback methods are a valid driver for interface design.”

August 9, 2003

  • Thought

    Boxes and Arrows: Usability Heuristics for Rich Internet Applications:

    “Heuristics, or “rules of thumb,” can be useful in both usability evaluations and as guidelines during design. Jakob Nielsen’s 1994 set of usability heuristics were developed with a focus on desktop applications. In 1997, Keith Instone shared his thoughts on how these heuristics apply to what was a relatively new area: websites. Today, in 2003, with Flash-enabled Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) becoming more popular, Nielsen’s heuristics still offer valuable guidelines for RIA designers and developers.

    In this article, we focus on Flash because it currently dominates the RIA landscape. However, many of the lessons for Flash apply to other technologies as well.”

    FYI, here is the link to Jakob’s Heuristics for User Interface Design.

August 7, 2003

August 4, 2003

  • Thought

    Is it possible to put your entire site on one page? The Lightning Field shows us the answer is “yes”.

    (Is this on your “to do” list in life? It’s been on mine since I was a teen — the site bubble the idea up from “but how?” to “maybe someday” on my list.)

  • Thought

    I’m seeing a trend towards “super clean” web sites. Sites are starting to understand that the goal is to get the user on their way as quickly as possible as opposed to overwhelming them with every possible option.

    Here are two current minimalist favourites:

    TypePad

    Tribe.net Beta

    TypePad in particular has this zen elegance and simple design that immediately makes you think “these guys are on the ball”.

  • Thought

    Digital Web Magazine — An interview with Jeffrey Veen:

    “‘Hurdles’ is a polite way to put it. The Web has been following an enormous pendulum swing for some time now. Back about five years ago, when I was still at HotWired, we could do no wrong. Every stupid idea was a new paradigm and the foundations of a new economy. Now, things are just as silly. Nobody will touch the Web, and everyone is running away screaming.”

  • Thought

    Boxes and Arrows: Web Traffic Analytics and User Experience:

    “By looking at the data on what users do on the site, however, you can enhance your effectiveness as a specialist in the user. You already have information and knowledge gained through observation and direct questioning of individual users. Now, you can add to that insights gained from the broad swath of information pulled during their actions on the site. These numbers represent the real-world behavior and interests of the user.”

August 2, 2003

  • Internet Best Practice — 001

    Google is currently the de facto standard in search and you’ll benefit by thinking about Google as you build your site.

    Google recently released the beta of Google Toolbar 2.0. One of the neat features included in the new toolbar is AutoFill of web forms.

    Here’s how Google describes this feature:

    “The AutoFill tab in Toolbar Options enables you to automatically complete forms on the web. Enter your information and it’s stored securely on your own computer. When you see yellow-colored form fields on web pages, you can choose to have Google complete the form for you with the information you’ve entered.

    AutoFill stores personal data where only you can access it — your own computer. And your credit card data is encrypted and protected by a password you set. None of this information is ever sent to Google. In the Toolbar, the AutoFill button is enabled when you visit a page with fields that AutoFill can fill. Otherwise, the button in the Toolbar appears gray”

    As users download and become comfortable with the Google Toolbar, they will demand that sites build forms that work with the AutoFill feature. Luckily, Google likes standards:

    “You can ensure that AutoFill will work on your pages by using field names defined in the ECML (Electronic Commerce Modeling Language) standard, found at http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3106.txt.”

    Now for some sites, it may be onerous to change data field names on all forms. But if you have the option, you should use any existing standards. While the ECML field names may not have been important when you built your forms, now that Google has brought the standard to consumers, it will be.

    Originally posted to the Internet Best Practice Newsletter. To receive your free copy.

July 22, 2003

  • Thought

    Good Experience — Top Sites’ User Experience Teams and Their Challenge:

    “In the long run, companies must ‘bake it into their DNA.’ Customer experience work, if taken to the logical conclusion, eventually reforms the company’s entire organization around the customer’s needs — not around business units and sales channels.

    If this seems daunting, remember the good news: even the best websites in the world are dealing with this issue. Now is a good time to engage this issue within your company.”

July 16, 2003

  • Thought

    By the way, once you know all the rules of communicating online, there is nothing wrong with breaking the rules if you have a reason to do so. Of course, the risk of failure when you deliberately go against people’s expectations is far greater, so proceed with caution.

    I call these sites that successfully walk this line “the rule breakers” (original, yes?).

    Here’s today’s Rule Breaker:

    web zen

    Art, humor, and personal sites tend to fair better than corporate sites when it comes to rule breaking. For web zen, minimalism is taken to an extreme and many of the things we expect on a corporate site have been stripped away for Zen-like simplicity.

July 5, 2003

  • Thought

    If you go to the Herman Miller site you’ll see an interesting way of promoting their “revolutionary” Mirra chair, pegged to be the first great chair after the Aeron (which I’m sitting in as I type).

    At the top of the page, you’ll notice a cropped image of the bottom of a Mirra chair. It looks like this:

    Clicking on the chair takes you to a rather large but overall effective Flash animation that explains the key features and benefits of the chair. Given that the chair is being sold using design aesthetics and sexiness as key drivers, this seems very effective.

July 2, 2003

  • Thought

    Jakob Nielsen’s latest Alertbox is Information Foraging: Why Google Makes People Leave Your Site Faster

    The article introduces us to “informavores” and the application of foraging strategies in animals to the way that people forage for information on the web. This serves not only as an interesting metaphor in considering web best practices but also reminds us that our sites (from a user’s perspective) are part of one large experience — using the Net and we need to account for this in creating effective sites.

    “The big difference between websites and rabbits is that websites want to be caught. So how can you design a site to make your content attractive to ravenous beasts?

    The two main strategies are to make your content look like a nutritious meal and signal that it’s an easy catch. These strategies must be used in combination: users will leave if the content is good but hard to find, or if it’s easy to find but offers only empty calories.”

June 20, 2003

  • Thought

    There’s a new site that’s just been launched by Mark Hurst at Good Experience. This Is Broken is looking for visual examples of online and real-world experiences that have clearly gone off the rails.

    That shouldn’t be too hard.

March 1, 2003

  • Thought

    Your web experience is your brand.

    This ClickZ article uses Google as an example of the user experience trumping all the fancy graphics and flash intros that people think equal brand online.

    I must agree.

October 16, 2002

  • Thought

    Usability (and Google) fans might enjoy this Good Experience interview with Marissa Mayer, Product Manager at Google. She was their first full-time usability person and offers interesting insights into how Google has managed to stay simple while adding features.

July 19, 2002

  • Thought

    For you “data junkies”, After the Dot-Bomb might be worth a look.

    Here is the abstract of the in-depth article that follows:

    In the excitement of the “dot-com” rush of the 1990’s, many Web sites were developed that provided information retrieval capabilities poorly or sub-optimally. Suggestions are made for improvements in the design of Web information retrieval in seven areas. Classifications, ontologies, indexing vocabularies, statistical properties of databases (including the Bradford Distribution), and staff indexing support systems are all discussed.

September 26, 2001

  • Thought

    It’s always good to get straight forward tips on keeping the user front and centre in all business thinking.

    IBM’s developerWorks has a good article on how to respond to usability complaints called

    The cranky user: What’s with the attitude? If you have to deal with feedback on your site, this is worth a review. (I’m tempted to see how Peter “Cranky User” Seebach would respond to some harsh words about this article, but I couldn’t think of much to complain about!)

August 14, 2001

  • Thought

    Not enough people think of web design as software design.

    This article on adobe.com called “Style vs. Design” is a rather personal rant on the need for a better understanding of what “style” is for, and what “design” is.

    Here’s a quote:

    “Most of all, I worry about Web users. Because, after six years of commercial Web development, they still have a tough time finding what they’re looking for, and they still wonder why it’s so damned unpleasant to read text on the Web — which is what most of them do when they’re online.”

August 7, 2001