Captcha and Usability
Captcha is a necessary evil we put up with on the Internet. I did a little digging and found there is much to learn about it. I wrote about Capthca for my latest installment at SearchEngineLand – Recent Findings On Captcha & The User Experience The purpose of Captcha is to find a way to prove that you’re a human being and not a computer with abuse on its agenda. However humble and helpful the original goal, today there is software available to bypass Captcha’s, as well as...
Read MorePinky and the Brain, Search Marketing & User Experience Design
When Google went from being just another new search engine to the search engine, I couldn’t stop comparing the company to the cartoon series, Pinky and the Brain. In my mind, the conversation between Larry and Sergey was identical to the two lab mice: Larry: “Gee Sergey, what do you want to do tonight?” Sergey: “The same thing we do every night, Larry—try to take over the world.” For the cartoon, no matter what scheme Brain devised, the world was not his to take. Perhaps it...
Read MoreHiring Web Site Information Architecture – Tips for Better Decisions
Web site information architecture is an additional skill web designers may not have that you may need to outsource for. Information architecture is tied to usability testing and how humans search, sort, classify and order things. This is not the same as site architecture that SEO’s use in their work. Shari Thurow describes what information architecture is for web design, why its so important to design and how it relates to user centered design. She offers logical examples and a...
Read MoreSlideshow: Web Design Techniques To Enhance Online Marketing
For those who haven’t seen it, I presented a webcast for the American Marketing Association last June. Here is the free slideshow of the presentation. Aquent/AMA Webcast: How User Centered Web Design Techniques Enhance Online Marketing View more presentations from Aquent Webmaster When a search engine giant such as Google has a large usability department, you can be assured that user experience is vital to online and offline marketing. This webcast session will debunk the myth that...
Read MoreBalancing Search Marketing & User Experience: Why Bother?
Yesterday a colleague asked me to find information on software application response times. I responded with some qualifying questions to refine my assistance but what it boiled down was this: the corporate powers wanted to know how much they could fudge things so that an ecommerce software application could roll out into “production” even though it wasn’t ready to effectively respond to customers. Could this be a problem and if yes, who says so? Selling Customer Experience Most online...
Read MoreNo Guidance, No Interaction, No Sale: Improving Internet Shopping Usability
A good friend recently told me a story about how a company built a web site that needed user instructions to use it. The only page that was allowed to put a link to those instructions was the homepage. Therefore, should a visitor arrive via a search engine to a landing page within the web site, they were out of luck. No guidance, no interaction, no sale. I went Christmas shopping online for a computer armoire. I knew exactly what I wanted because I had done previous research on the manufacturer...
Read MoreSneak Preview: Emotional Design and Affective Computing
According to popular prejudice, women embody ‘emotion’ and ‘irrationality’ whereas men embody ‘rationality’ and ‘objectivity’. As such, designing for emotions/affect stir up gender issues. Are women better designers of technology which uses emotion and affect? Affective Computing, Affective Interaction and Technology as Experience One free chapter and several videos are available now for Affective Computing, Affective Interaction and Technology as...
Read MoreCommon Web Site Usability Mistakes
When you built your first web site, didn’t you just want to promote it everywhere with big bold letters saying, “HEY EVERYONE! COME HERE AND LOOK AT MY WEBSITE! ISN’T IT GREAT?” Or, when you submit your web site to forums for web site reviews, what do you typically ask for? You may write, “Tell me what you think of my web site” or “Which color do you like better, blue or red?” or “Did I optimize for search engines properly?” The worst mistake you will make as a web site...
Read MoreA Different Way of Looking at Usability Skills
Two of my articles were published this week, each of them looking at user experience web design from a different perspective. They were fun to write. The first one, for SearchEnginePeople.com, was Ruud’s idea. I’ve been writing on Usability and SEO topics for over 15 years and it helps when a publication I write for has an editor who can offer me some new ideas. Knowing my heritage and beliefs are rooted in Native American ways, he wondered if I could find some tribal wisdom that...
Read MoreCre8pc Web Site Reviews on Sale
In this, the season of giving, and because web site reviews are so popular, I’m offering the chance to get your site review for just $82.50, on a first come, first serve basis. What Do You Get? A full written report emailed to you in PDF format. Screenshots with notes, suggestions, etc. Fast turnaround. Input on usability, understandability, conversions, calls to action, persuasive design Feedback on information architecture and navigation Organic on page search engine optimization...
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