Apparently I stirred one of the Moderators for Cre8asiteforums with my remarks the other day in Are We Designing For The Human Experience? I stated that I felt it was “wishful thinking” to believe that forums would last much longer. Considering I own one, I can see this raising an eyebrow.

My friend Adrian Lee, Cre8asiteforums Site Administrator and one of my longest known friends on the Internet, chewed on this and then came to the forums to pick our brains, in a discussion called The State Of The Social Web And Where Forums Fit In. He launches the thread with:

Forums used to be a bastion of online social communities. Not the first kind of community. You had newsgroups and others before Forums, in the form we see them now, became big. But for several years now, there have been lots of big forums, huge, diverse communites or people discussing various things in various manners. They’ve been one of the main forms of community on the web, especially since chat rooms began to decline in popularity.

Now that we have this new raft of social community, from the Diggs/Reddits/Teechmemes, to the Facebook/Myspaces/Bebos, are forums as we know them, under threat?

Kim’s been mentioning it a bit recently, wondering how they fit into the new scheme of things, and I see Rand saying he’s drifting more to blogs and social bookmarking sites from forums.

And actually, I can see what they mean.

One of our points is that sites like Sphinn, SearchEngineRoundtable and others not only direct their readers to some of our forums threads, but discussions can occur on those sites, outside the original thread. In the case of Sphinn, readers can vote on a topic, which in some cases, is not an article but one of our Cre8asiteforum threads.

Interesting thing. Is there something wrong with forums? Is talking about discussions outside the room with outsiders kind of like gossip? Is the ability to cross link and weave forum threads in and out of other web sites simply part of the social aspect of the Internet?

Forum participants in this thread are offering thoughtful ideas and it’s obvious a nerve was struck. Can blogs, forums and social network sites continue to share the Web or are forums being phased out?

Where do you feel the most comfortable being?

The Search Engine College announces its latest project, Search Engine Wiki today. Founder and Director of Studies, Kalena Jordan, has been actively involved with the search engine optimization and marketing industry from its beginnings. She and husband, Jerry, founded the Search Engine College, providing online learning, self-study and certification courses at affordable fees.

Today’s announcement culminates 10 years of intimate involvement and tracking the industry. The new vertical wiki enables visitors to get the most accurate information and resources, as well as networking for employment opportunities.

Lists of international search engines categorized by country, type and industry
A glossary of definitions for common terms used in SEO, PPC and SEM
An extensive library of search engine marketing articles
Employment resources where you can find SEO, PPC and SEM jobs
A collection of popular search engine marketing blogs and newsfeeds
Frequently Asked Questions about search engines and SEM
A list of popular search engine marketing tools and time saving software
Links to upcoming search industry conferences and events
Introductions to well known search industry personalities

Plus a large variety of other resources relating to the exciting and fast-paced world of search engine marketing. We’ve been compiling these resources for over 10 years now and we’ve decided to share them all with the public in the form of a collaborative wiki. This means that YOU can become an editor and add your own favorite resources.

For fun, try Search Engine Marketing Personalities, Search Engine Marketing Frequently Asked Questions and the list of industry related blogs.

It’s been reported that Jakob Nielson spoke about SEO and Usability in his keynote speech at the User Experience 2007 conference in Barcelona. Known to have a strong interest in search engine development, he sometimes gets on the nerves of search engine marketers.

According to Jakob Nielson sees parallels between ethical SEO and usability,

With Web 2.0 still a buzz word and Web 3.0 or even 4.0 on the horizon, Nielson predicts a ‘back to basics approach’ as website owners realise that simplification and resolution of basic problems is the key to a positive user experience, rather than the bells and whistles that come with participation innovations.

Ultimately, Nielsen’s keynote address poses an important question: should we look to trends in search engine development and SEO techniques to persuade web owners that simplest is best for website usability and ‘findability’?

My instinctive reaction to that question is “NO!”. Designing and marketing for the lowest common denominator isn’t challenging, creative or even practical. Twice this week I addressed this in Are We Designing For The Human Experience? and the one my husband felt might ruffle the feathers of SEO’s, Customer Experience, Loyalty and Search Engine Marketing Without Understanding Either of These.

To look at search engines as the holy grail of web design practices?

It’s not that search engines aren’t making an effort to go out and try on every human. It’s that not every human uses search engines, so why base web design on what they’re doing?

User Personas Are Us

The topic, Is It Worth Creating User Personas? took a little turn when 37 Signals wrote in Ask 37signals: Personas? that “We don’t use personas. We use ourselves. I believe personas lead to a false sense of understanding at the deepest, most critical levels.”

As my friend, Adrian Lee, said when I pointed out the 37 Signals post in our Cre8asiteforums thread, Thinking About User Personas,

Heh, well yes, if you’re building something to fix your own problem, then there doesn’t seem much need for personas. But if you’re trying to solve someone else’s problems, what do you do then?

Ecommerce site owners may want to consider the many points in Persona-lizing a site from Internet Retailer.

For example, a project for Home Depot uncovered two very different customers who might have identical demographic profiles—the do-it-yourselfer who wants to pick out all the cabinets and appliances and the customer who wants a kitchen designer to do it all.

The article also describes how FutureNow took a web site’s conversion rate from less than 1% to average 4%, and the return on pay-per-click is consistently 2 to 1.

From My Messy Inbox (Not to be confused with my messy desk)

User testing? Morae is on sale until December!. Go ahead. Spend now.

I really liked this article because it provides case studies and other resources: 30 Usability Issues To Be Aware Of.

Another case study…Landing Page Optimization: Improving Conversion 50-60% by Applying Continuity and Congruence

Laura Milligan wrote The Del.icio.us Toolbox: 50+ Del.icio.us-related Scripts, Tools, and Tutorials. Did you know they’re changing their domain to “delicious.com”? I use this site and had no idea there were so many things you could do with it. This article has them all. Love the “Lazy Sheep”. It’s perfect for me.

If you haven’t been there yet, go now to the newly redesigned and updated Small Business Brief. There’s no slowing these people down!

And finally, SEOMoz has launched the Marketplace. It’s free to everyone to use or submit to. The application itself is just out of BETA and having pounded on it myself as a tester, I found it to be one of the smoothest user experiences I’ve ever had with an Internet application. It’s sleek. Simple. Useful. Attractive. Functions well. If your company handles web development, Internet marketing, usability or Internet software development, the Marketplace is a place to list your services. If you’re job hunting, you can submit your resume too.

November 8 is World Usability Day. From the official web site, “World Usability Day was founded to ensure that the services and products important to life are easier to access and simpler to use.”

So here’s a toast to all the people who know what they want and ask for it and especially, all of you who read the minds of those who don’t share what they want or need.

And you build it for us anyway.

This year hasn’t been one of my favorites. It’s been “The Year of Pondering My Navel”. Or, perhaps, the “Year of Unraveling”. If you earn your living connected to the Internet, this year went by in 1.3 minutes flat.

I’m finding that what worked before may be losing out to the current fad. One area of constant change is how we interact with the Internet and each other. A few months back I had asked if traditional online forums were going to fade away due to the popularity of social network sites and nearly everyone felt forums would remain.

I don’t think this is true. I think it’s wishful thinking. I can say this because I own a forums and have been watching things. People want to vote on other people. This is how they communicate their opinion without actually stating it with words. Chances are good you have several homes on the Internet that permit you to “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” thread comments. Whether or not you do, the option is there because this is a known favored user interaction device.

Since a forums such as Cre8asiteforums doesn’t incorporate a voting system, I’m now seeing other web sites link to forum threads and in THEIR sites, they can discuss the forum thread and members can vote.

It’s a sign.

SEO and Usability Games

I’ve been watching this too. Call me crazy, but I feel the two practices can share the same house. I think it’s unnaturally limiting to peg one before the other or one without the other.

Search engine optimization is more than about the act of searching, in my opinion. It’s about finding all the ways the Internet enables people to connect so they’ll produce and create something they want or need in a new way.

The way to discover what people want to create is to get far, far beyond how they were taught to search or interact with web pages. Search itself is one small part of an even greater act that we’re all participating in, if we’re invited or enabled to do so.

I haven’t been content to accept the way things were taught because everyone hasn’t had the opportunity to ride the horse. Accessibility and designing for seniors and “baby boomers” remaining an afterthought are just two quick examples.

Can You Understand What You Don’t Know?

Sometimes we build a web site for who we know best. That would be ourselves. We’re not so good at building for invisible people, which essentially, most everyone is. Sure, we have user studies, click tracks, database criteria to play with. But we base design guidelines, business requirements and site enhancements on the words that someone might type back to us or lines in graphs. Data gleaned from video taping users in a lab is another. When was the last time you sat in a lab answering questions or having your mouse movements recorded?

When I look in the mirror, I don’t see a line going up and down. I’m made up of a trillion billion tiny details that no web site designer or search engine marketer could ever know.

Are We Designing For The Human Experience? is a discussion I started in Cre8asiteforums a few days ago, inspired by DUX 2007: A great conference, but fundamentally off the mark.

I wrote:

My own observations and personal feelings are that sooner or later end users will stop basing their experiences on the short-lived thrill of the next roll-out of the “something new”. There’s a movement towards substance and the “integrity of being” as I call it. The impact of the “green” movement tells me that people are ready for experiences that place a strong value and emphasis on their participation and programs that include and welcome them, rather than being a “cog in the wheel”.

Designing for participation can be seen in social media, but despite all these new sites designed to bring us together, I still feel disconnected. The experience of social networking is only going to be based on how much we’re willing to share. Rather than the whole human, we’re more likely to get bits and pieces and believe we’re getting a human experience online. We’re not. (Emphasis mine.)

Consider that playing out right now is the fight over what comes “first” - SEO or usability. The whole argument leaps right over the idea of creating something meaningful.

I’m not alone in my thoughts, as a visit to the discussion will show.

I think some people wanted the chance to look at this too.