Facebook Ties Up, Blindfolds and Gags Its Usability Department
As if this is isn’t an already stressful season, Facebook has decided to change its user interface YET again. We had a learning curve the last time they did it. With this latest “upgrade”, they’ve clearly lost their minds. Facebook. What have you done! Let’s explore. If I wanted to update my status, or add a link, photo or video, that main task was front and center and easy to use. Underneath that, in the wide center column, it was easy to scan what I linked to...
Read MoreThe You-Don’t-Matter Website (A Look At Ego/Vanity Sites)
Last week I conducted a web site usability audit for a famous brand corporate web site. It never fails to amaze me why these companies don’t hire designers trained in search engine marketing and user experience design. I won’t divulge who they were. I never do that with client work because for starters, they had the brains to find me and get help. But what I found illustrated what I often find on corporate, famous brand web sites. There seems to be this arrogance that says,...
Read MoreFacebook Removes User Profile Rights and Choices
Facebook has removed your right to present your user profile the way you want it. Without your permission, they simply went ahead and turned every profile into a Facebook link farm. What They Did Your personal profile is now a list of links. They link your content at their own discretion. So for example, I have the phrase “I am very proud of her”, referring to my daughter, in my profile. Facebook decided to link that to this Facebook page they created, without my permission. You...
Read MoreReadings from Planet UX
Just plucking out some of the good stuff from my pile… Information Architects Are From Venus, SEOs Are From Mars Here are some common mistakes that SEO professionals make that can negatively affect a website’s search engine visibility and ROI… Decisiveness and Search: Two Different Strategies A new study out of Wesleyan University explores the actual cognitive mechanisms of decisiveness. This has direct implications for search marketers, because every time we use a search engine,...
Read MoreThe Secret Wisdom of Search Engine Algorithm Chasers
I wanted to describe how the combination of organic search engine optimization, combined with captology (emotional web design) work together for findability on the Web. You can read The Algorithm Chasers at Search Engine Land’s Just Behave column, that was published online today. The incentive behind algorithm chasers is to drive traffic to revenue generating web pages and to know that, search engines seek out what’s relevant to users and what motivates them to click, read or...
Read MoreUser Experience Supports Findabilty and Usability
I’m always asked how to explain web site usability and why a site owner should bother investing in user experience design. What would make an impact on users? Understanding, in-depth, who web site visitors are is a good place to start. When we use the Web, we agree to an Internet, computer based experience. We may spend so much time with the journey itself that we never reach our destination. User experience design aids and supports findabilty and usability. Consider what happened when...
Read MoreTen Ways to Improve Product Images
If your web site contains images of products, what is the best way to present those pictures? Is “click to enlarge” the only step to take for an alternative view? Here are some ideas to jazz up your product images: 1. Get close up shots. If you sell boots, offer a way to see the tread. If you sell handmade jewelry, show the types of clasps. 2. If you sell earrings, do you offer it in a variety of hooks? What does it look like with different ones? Are there safety features for...
Read MoreUser Experience is Everything
I loved reading “Ten Rules for Web Startups”….and not just because of this part: #5: Be User-Centric User experience is everything. It always has been, but it’s still undervalued and under-invested in. If you don’t know user-centered design, study it. Hire people who know it. Obsess over it. Live and breathe it. Get your whole company on board. Better to iterate a hundred times to get the right feature right than to add a hundred more. The point of Ajax is that it...
Read MoreLet’s Talk About [Insert Your Brand Here]
In this week’s Search Engine Land “Just Behave” column, you’ll find an article I wrote called Of Conversations And Conversions. Using real life examples, I hope to illustrate the power of conversation as it relates to conversions. Funnily enough, at least several times a week, someone will ask me to “prove” usability counts. They only want to pay for search engine marketing and put up Facebook. They don’t want to hear about ease of use,...
Read MoreUsability/UX Design Insights You May Have Missed
Clicking back through my mountain pile scattered mess of TO READ links, are some juicy bursts of brilliance from the usability and user experience design community. User experience is not just a result of UX design; rather, design directly affects user experience. - Is Design the Preeminent Protagonist in User Experience? Typically, anything that moves and bounces detracts from Web usability; when navigation moves while users are trying to find their way, it’s deadly. Users should focus...
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