I’m surrounded nearly every day with discussions both on and off line that cover Internet software and web site development. It’s part of my job to know what frustrates people. Sometimes the user experience is so pathetically bad that all you can do is try to grin and bear the ordeal and hope that someday, somebody, gets with the program.

Take EasyPass, for example. In the State I live in, some roads are not free to drive on. There are toll roads, which require that money be collected from everyone who drives the road. Bridges operate in the same way. On holidays, busy weekends and during rush hours when people are coming and going from work, toll booths get backed up with cars waiting to pay their fee.

Hence, some States in the USA offer a way to zip on through electronically with a gadget you attach to your automobile that’s scanned as you whiz on through the fast lanes of the toll booths designed for easier passing through. Your credit card is billed the amount for the toll.

It’s a nifty little device and comes in really handy on long trips or for commuters. My husband had one, since he uses a toll road to get to work. When we’d go on vacations, we’d grab the EasyPass device from his car and stick it on the motor home, so we could sail on through any toll booths that had an EasyPass lane.

You can order the device online. But as Eric learned, if you lose your device, you enter something resembling La La Land if you try to replace it.

Not long ago he went online to use the form that he hoped would let him replace the lost EasyPass device and also order two more. We’re traveling soon and taking another car along with the motor home. We’ll need a device for each car. He fiddled with the online application and told me in passing one day that we were all set. The devices would arrive in time for our trip. It was one less thing I would need to worry about.

On Saturday he got a letter in the mail telling him the State couldn’t assist him because he already had an account. So? We just stared at one another. Because he has an account, he can’t get a replacement device or order additional ones? Why did he get a form letter in the mail? He used the Internet for the transaction. Why did the software not let him know of any problem while he was there? The letter said if he had any questions, to please call. He wasn’t encouraged to seek help online and no email contact was made. It was all snail mail communication, although his contact and supposed transaction was made online.

There was no confirmation of his supposed transaction other than it wasn’t going to happen within our lifetimes without a fight. Eric uses his cell phone for calls, as well as it’s an appendage to his body. He uses it to remember every detail of every second of the day. I swear it’s glued to his hands. So when the letter said to call a number that looked like this: 234-iam-nohelp (in other words, it was a combination of numbers and letter) he ranted about how much of a pain it is to dial phone numbers like that with a mobile device.

He finally accomplished that task only to get the robotic voice directing him to the many options available. When he made his way to the right department, they still wouldn’t let him talk to a human until he had his account number ready.

Which of course, was not on the letter they mailed him. He was standing in the middle of the driveway, outside the house, nowhere near a computer that could have gotten him to their software application that may, or may not, have had the account number somewhere on it. The letter didn’t supply any warning that an account number would be needed for the phone call.

One of the few perks of being married to a SQA Performance Engineer is moments like this when he wants to scream to the high heavens about poor usability and I get more insight into user behavior, for free.

How can a government agency have done so poorly? Clearly, the online application isn’t working properly or wasn’t user tested. Eric says he can’t go in and edit anything except possibly changing his credit card information. He seems to be unable to order more devices or replace a missing one. He can’t talk to a human being without having the secret word. He’s heard there are ways to get devices in stores, which might be fine, but why bother to have a web site application then?

I have no idea the outcome of all this. He’s got it in his head that he figure this all out. Between me and you though, I have a feeling we’ll be slowing down at toll booths on our trip and cursing software development processes that aren’t usable or accessible to people because that’s what user oriented design people always do while on vacation. Right?

In Other News

On accessibility, Joe Dolson has some feedback on a recent article on e-commerce accessibility.

Richard Sedley’s What is your most powerful persuasive page on your website is a perfect podcast for persuasion designers. Did you know it takes 500 milliseconds to decide if something is credible or not? It covers “snap judgments”, momentum, conversions, human behavior, requirements based decisions and a great deal more, in a lively presentation. It fits in well with the book I’m reading now called “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell, author of “The Tipping Point”, which I also read. He also gets into influence and motivations people have.

One example is an experiment about how people looking up into the sky motivates others to do the same. This reminds me of an incident back when I was dating a student from Lehigh University.

A small group of us were walking up the “The Hill” one night, heading for yet another frat party. One of the other girlfriends of the guys had the idea for a way to annoy the people driving the winding road on campus that circled around the frat houses on the side of South Mountain, rather than walking, which was the tradition.

She suddenly stopped, stooped low to the ground and started yelling, “My contact, my contact! I can’t find my contact lens!” One by one, those in our group played along to get the gig going. I think I had too much beer because I could only bear to stand to the side laughing hysterically as I watched more and more people come running over to help look for the “missing contact”. A car pulled up, and the driver was asked to shine his headlights closer so everyone could see better. The girl did one of the best acting jobs I’d ever seen, as she expressed her distressed state at losing the tiny contact lens.

Within a few short minutes, people gave up because there was no resolution to this experience. They backed off or walked away. The driver got angry because there was a line of cars now behind him honking. The whole thing took less than a few minutes but it forever imprinted on me how easy it is to influence people into doing something.

Congratulations to one of the my students, Miriam Ellis, who won educational scholarship money from Cre8asiteforums. She completed my online usability course at SearchEngineCollege, as well as other courses to complete Pathway A: Certified Search Engine Optimizer. Usability is an elective for the certification path and I was pleased Miriam chose to add it to her search marketing course list.

Lastly, I visited Commerce 360 today to have lunch with my friends, Bill Slawski (my co-Admin at Cre8asiteforums) and Liana Evans. I got to meet some more folks at Commerce 360, as well as prove to myself that Bill really does work there now. Lunch was fantastic. They asked if I’m going to SES San Jose in August.

No plans yet. But I can bribed.

The rumors that “SEO is Dead” prompted Jake Lowrey of OffSiteOptimization to interview SEO’s about life without search engines and the future of search marketing. The series starts off with answers to his questions from me, an SEO escape artist.

No Search Engines? Kim Krause Berg Says, ‘Go Local’ delves into my take on the topic.

Here’s a quick snippet from the article:

“Over the next year or two Kim would like to see the industry strive for more excellence and professionalism.

‘SEO/M is a vital part of the web design and marketing food chain,’ she said, adding that sometimes it appears as though that is not taken seriously.

‘The SEO industry is still viewed as a bunch of wild, free-spirited folks who like nothing better than competing and playing head games with data and rank,” she said. “What isn’t communicated well, yet, is how smart these people are and how valuable the experienced ones are to a company that wants to be found quickly in search engines.’”

Oui. Reading Lorelle VanFossen’s, What Should Bloggers Apologize For and How?, made me stop to wonder if I’ve ever written anything offensive to anyone on this blog. She asked if we bloggers have ever regretted anything we’ve written.

No Regrets

I think there’s a certain freedom of expression that comes with blog ownership and if bloggers write something regrettable, the horror of the experience can be enough to shut them up forever or they’ll ride the wave of backlash without batting an eyelash. I may not agree with that dumb thing they wrote, but I try to respect their right to screw up royally and I move on. Sometimes for good.

Some blog writers get their jollies by hurting people on purpose. I doubt that’s anything they regret and Lorelle’s post is scrambled eggs to them. While I personally don’t get a rise out of sites that degrade and humiliate other people, some blogs are designed to raise hell with no apologies. That’s their whole point.

A long time friend once told me that I should never have regrets. She felt they’re useless feelings that clog us up with nonsense. She says there are no regrets, only lessons we need to learn.

Another friend of mine would say to me, “Kim, let that one go! You don’t need that [insert decorative language here]!” In her fun way, she was trying to get me to unwrap and untangle myself so that I could be free to grow and keep experiencing new things. And make more mistakes.

Is that not what some of us do with our blogs? Our readers watch us grow, learn, change, experiment and make mistakes. We can’t be absolutely perfect every day.

So, if you’ve written something you regret in your blog, you can either torture yourself with a personal flogging, or just let it go. The reality is your mistakes remind us that behind your typed words there is a human being trying to figure out their Way.

I’m Sorry For

Lorelle writes,

The thrill of getting the news out first or getting your thoughts out now seems to be more important than the consequences of your words visible on the screen for all to see and search engines and other services to cache and save forever.

So have you ever published something and then regretted it and had to apologize for your actions?

Here is my list, just to cover my butt.

1. I’m sorry for not staying on topic. This is because I’ve long since forgotten what it is.

2. I deeply regret not writing something that the kind folks at Webpronews can use every day. I never know what the heck you people want, which is nice because when you run something from here, it comes as a sweet surprise.

3. I’m sorry for writing about my family. Some of you LOVE my “baseball pants in the freezer” stories and others of you…well. You haven’t learned to go with the flow here. By the way, my boy hit a home run yesterday and I got a call late last night that he made the All Star Team for the league he’s in now. He’s got a double header on Saturday. I will come home looking like a giddy mom lobster unless I remember to wear sunscreen. Which I won’t.

Sorry. Strayed off topic there didn’t I.

4. I’m so sorry I’m not naughty and “bad girl” enough. Since my days as an erotica writer are over (as if) and I have clients that expect me to be professional and gorgeously smart, I’ve needed to run a class act here. This means there are some styles of writing that don’t quite fit the “Blogger Guidelines So That Kim Behaves” document in my head. Now. For the record. The fact that I don’t talk trash in this or other blogs doesn’t mean I’m not a carefree dare devil woman with a talent for potty mouth quips. Some things are simply meant for the privacy of my own car.

5. I’m sorry for the occasional expertly written article or blog post. I’d write more of them but sometimes during the day I do that funny little thing called “work”.

6. I regret going on vacation and leaving you all here twiddling your thumbs because I know darned well that if I’m not here, you get out of your daily “Visit Kim’s Blog” routine and when I get back, I’m forced to retrain you all again to come back every day. When DID you all become little lab mice anyway?

The hardest thing about owning a blog is being perfect. I come here because I want to talk. I like you. I think it’s so cool you stopped by.

7. I’m sorry I can’t hug you in person.

As an occasional Search Engine Strategies Conference Reporter for SearchEngineRoundTable , I can choose the topics I want to cover. I purposely combine topics I know something about, such as SEO and Usability, with areas I have no skills or knowledge about. This keeps me learning while I’m working.

In New York last April, I chose AJAX and SEO because it was new to me. Far too new, frankly. I did my best to cover CSS, AJAX, Web 2.0 & Search Engines for the blog, but didn’t do it justice. Much of that could be attributed to what I later realized was a presentation designed for attendees who are already developing with AJAX.

Fortunately I came away from that session intrigued and have kept my eyes out for good sources of information someone at my level might understand.

Rich McIver, from SoftwareDeveloper.com, came through by sending me a heads up for How to: Get Google and AJAX to Play Nice: The best ways to incorporate the benefits of AJAX without making your site blind to search engines.

From the first page:

AJAX allows you to incorporate a lot of innovative site design characteristics. Some designers take the AJAX craze too far, however, by incorporating AJAX to a degree that it hurts their site’s usability and accessibility.

As I read along, I had in mind the recent discussions at Cre8asiteforums on WCAG Samurai Errata for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0.

Now, I have even more questions related to AJAX and Accessibility.

The article provides brief information on sitemaps, noscript, Hijax and links to White Papers on the topic for further help.

When was the last time you stopped and pondered your Being? I do this all the time, trying to figure out why I do the things I do. I’m not satisfied to coast along and dip my fingers in waves. I need to create them, ride them, fall in them, drown in them, and paddle close to the cute guy with tanned muscles.

The beauty of having a brain like mine is that I wonder what everybody else is like too. So, when you use web sites or build web sites, I’m terribly curious about your experience. Why did you give up after clicking to that page? What is it about you that makes you like web design? If you promote sites in search engines, what is it about your personality that makes the work fun?

Connected Beyond This Place

Recently, someone had a dream about me. In her dream, we were discussing (debating, really) my inability to charge enough for my usability testing and site audit services. The environment in the dream was filled with Native American colors and decorations. When she woke up from this dream, she was amazed and surprised.

She’s never met me before. She had no idea I have a strong affinity with my ancient Native American bloodlines and my office walls are lined with drums, feathers, mandellas, rattles, rain makers, skins, and a beautiful handmade walking stick with carved eagle’s head made for me by an old boyfriend. She has no knowledge of this, and yet she dreamed it as if being right here.

How she tapped into my long-time joking around with some good friends about my fees is another mystery.

Is the Internet connecting us in new ways?

Who Are We?

Three blog posts appeared today that inquire about who we are, how we behave and why it matters to web developers.

The first is a fun piece written by Miriam Ellis for Cre8tiveFlow called Take the Color Quiz - Diagnose Yourself! She talks about the use of color in web design and what our choices may be communicating. She also just put the challenge out there to find out more about our true selves by analyzing our favorite colors. So of course, I took the quiz.

The results were strikingly accurate, with the possible exception of this first one.

Your Existing Situation

Persistent. Demands what she feels to be her due and endeavors to maintain her position intact.

Did you get the part about “demands what she feels to be her due”? I thought that was interesting, in light of the dream mentioned earlier.

Here are snips from the rest: (My favorite parts.)

Your Stress Sources

Anxious to experience life in all its aspects, to explore all its possibilities, and to live it to the fullest. She therefore resents any restriction or limitation being imposed on her and insists on being free and unhampered.

Oh yeah! This is so on the money it’s scary.

Your Restrained Characteristics

Distressed by the fear that she may be prevented from doing what she wants; needs both peaceful conditions and quiet reassurance to restore her confidence.

Yep.

Your Desired Objective

Has an imperative need for tenderness and affection. Susceptible to anything esthetic.

How do they know this by the colors you choose?

Your Actual Problem #2

Has a fear that she might be prevented from achieving the things she wants.

Heh.

They even give you a nifty thingy so you can explain yourself to everyone who doesn’t believe you about those things you say about yourself. (Lisa!)

cre8pc took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test!“Longs for a tender and sympathetic bond and for a …”Click here to read the rest of the results.

What’s interesting is the colors I chose as my lead off colors for the test are choices I made for headings, links, subheadings and anything I wanted to stand out in several of my past and present websites, including this blog and client work.

How much of ourselves do we put into our site designs that we’re not even aware of? How accurately do we understand those who visit our web sites?

Robert Gorell wrote about personalities in Annoyed by the Sopranos Ending? You Might Be “Type-J. He says,

Here at Future Now, we’re obsessed with Meyers-Briggs (define) typology, occasionally to the chagrin of our loved ones. Be careful, though. Once you’re good at it, qualifying people by personality type can be pretty exclusionary. (One colleague’s girlfriend mocks us as “letter-talkers” for, say, describing an “ESTP” she’s never met.) But it’s important stuff. In addition to helping us to better understand ourselves, it helps us relate to our clients and, more importantly, their customers. It helps us build personas that seem real.

I create user personas in my work and base them on real people with actual personalities. Their habits and behavior are usually easy to nail down, but the exercise falls short because these personas aren’t based on actual data. I create them as a teaching tool to illustrate the importance of knowing target users, their behavior, needs, desires and emotional state. And that’s just for starters.

FutureNow uses Meyers-Briggs data. I decided to take the HUMANMETRICS Jung Typology Test he linked to because my color test proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’m relentlessly curious.

Rather than a Type A personality, I’m an ” INFJ”. [Note: See comments. Apparently INFJ is the "rarest of all types, at less than 1.5% of the population."] It would take a while to read about that here and here. I scanned for the good parts that stroke my ego, like “Their amazing ability to deduce the inner workings of the mind, will and emotions of others gives INFJs their reputation as prophets and seers.” Cough.

Just looking at the volume of information and translating it into something like search engine user behavior would be fascinating. This is what Human Factors experts do for breakfast. SEO’s work so hard to get websites indexed and ranked, but there’s no passion for understanding the different kinds of people who find those sites because many web site owners aren’t thinking like this yet.

How We Find Each Other

When I was single, I tried online dating and was a complete disaster at it. Nobody ever presented their true self. They embellished it. Trying to find someone who fit what I wanted was torture because I didn’t trust them, and I didn’t know enough about myself either. At no time did I have the nerve to say to someone, “Hey. Take a chance on me if you love variety and someone who is not a perfect body Barbie doll!” They usually wanted Barbie and to heck with the variety part.

How we make connections online is done in all kinds of ways. One way is via blog comments and the art of dropping into a web site without an invitation to the party (otherwise known as spam.) One wonders at the colors spammers like. I wonder what their personality test results are. What is the label for invasive, rude, self centered jerk?

Link drops have their place, I know. They can be done with class and integrity. I tend to be mean and unforgiving with blog spam. This is because I’m an Administrator for a busy forums and if you saw the volume of spam I see everyday, you might doubt the sanity of most people who call themselves “marketers”. What they do is not even close.

Matt Bailey wrote a terrific piece about his take on a kind of connecting we do in The Rules of the Conversation. He points out,

Much like those networking situations above, the internet tends to devolve people into conversation interrupters. I am not really sure when it became cool to drop a link into someone else’s blog. Link exchange requests have always been suspect, in my opinion, as I have no knowledge of this person, their site, or even their business. Why would I offer a link to a site where I have no knowledge of the content or the purpose?

Matt’s more tolerant with spam than I am. This made me wonder about taking chances. I’m not the kind of person who drops in and link drops and I’ve rarely, if ever, asked for a reciprocal link, especially from someone I don’t know. If I’m not bold, who would get to know me?

Apparently it’s a mute question, since I’m showing up in your dreams.

Cre8asiteforums Discussion