Tribal drum roll please…the article I wrote for Website Magazine last year won the SEMMY in Design and Usability, And I’m not anywhere near as gorgeous at Beyonce.

The Runners Up should not go ignored. Competition is fierce. I honor Dr. Pete and Daniel Ritzenthaler:

Runners-Up

The top two runners-up in public voting were:

1. 25-point Website Usability Checklist
Dr. Peter J. Meyers, User Effect | 2/10/09
2. Taking the Guesswork Out of Design
Daniel Ritzenthaler, A List Apart | 5/5/09

Everyday Usability – 14-Point Checklist for Success is the winning piece.

To all who voted, thank you very much!

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Kim Krause Berg Article Wins a SEMMY

When I brought up the topic of requirements gathering and documentation during a talk at SMX East last year, I was stunned at the positive response that followed.

Clearly, not enough attention on web site planning is discussed or taught. Segments are, such as the navigation or content. User interface is debated. Goals are tossed about but sometimes not written down or adhered to. A serious chunk of preparation is ignored because managers, from any size business, don’t know what to include. They need someone who does. Because I was trained to be the worry wart on behalf of a web design or online software application, I bring that to my SEO and Usability work for clients.

Mike McDonald, from Webpronews, grabbed me for a video chat called Developing Requirements Documentation after I told him how surprised and excited I was after I gave my presentation. I’m not the best speaker with Power Point. I do far better in relaxed question and answer, in the moment, sessions. I also have so much information that it comes out in a terrible tumble. Thank goodness I write! Knowing this, I worried if what I said in my talk got through to anyone. The video below, made even better with some fancy visual additions by Webpronews, shows me on a bad hair day and we were both tired, but even at that, the gist of my message is not hard to understand.

The Goal Is To Avoid A Crisis, Create What You REALLY Want and Not Forget Anything

Gathering your business and functional requirements is only the tip of the iceberg. There are other areas to consider if you want a web site to succeed and be around for years to come. Search engine optimization and user experience, traditionally after thoughts by site owners, create a conversions crisis when ignored. I wish I could be at every planning meeting to whisper “user habits” into a manager’s ear. Performance issues are an IT person’s paradise and a site owner’s costly nightmare.

I was approached and emailed by many folks grateful that SOMEBODY recognized this area of concern. Unfortunately, site planning and requirements documentation aren’t topics you’ll find often at SEO conferences. Based on the reaction it’s information people want or can relate to.

Click here to watch Developing Requirements Documentation for your Web Site – Interview: Mike McDonald of Webpronews and Kim Krause Berg of Cre8pc.com and UsabilityEffect.com

Here are the slides from that session: Getting Your Ducks in a Row With Documented Web Site Requirements

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Developing Requirements Documentation for Your Web Site

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 link.

Economy blues? It's not too late to increase your web site conversions with Kim's affordable usability audits. Get the answers you need NOW!

The Secret Wisdom of Search Engine Algorithm Chasers

The article I wrote last year for Website Magazine made the SEMMY Finals in the Design and Usability category. It’s time now for readers to vote on the 4 articles chosen by judges.

The article is Everyday Usability – 14-Point Checklist for Success

User behaviors change and evolve and it’s up to website owners to adapt. Constant attention must be given to how users and search engines interact with your site to ensure that you not only attract visitors, but give them reasons to come back. Because as every Web professional knows, the more users interact with your site, the better the odds they convert.

After reading the Design and Usability choices, here is where to vote. While there, why not browse and add your vote to the other categories too?

Also, stay tuned to Search Engine Land’s Just Behave column. My first article for 2010 for them is about chasing algorithms.

Economy blues? It's not too late to increase your web site conversions with Kim's affordable usability audits. Get the answers you need NOW!

Usability 14-Point Checklist for Success is SEMMY Finalist

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 manufacturing replaced people with machines. In doing so, we lost the unseen energy, care and detailed craftsmanship that a skilled human puts into making something. To get a car that has custom work done to it costs a small fortune because people put their sweat and soul into the work. Robots have no soul. Machine-built furniture, cars, food and machine parts are no longer built for the enjoyment and satisfaction of others when mass produced. Even planting fields of wheat, soybeans and corn has been automated. No human fingers touch the dirt when planting seeds.

Site owners are more or less completely unaware of their online customers’ experience or their desires, especially those who buy plug and play templates. They look at the layout and navigation and figure if it takes someone from point A to B, it works. There is no consideration for the user experience itself. People can sense an empty web site space, devoid of any interest in a pleasurable human response. In many instances, the only activity that even matters is whether or not a search engine will find the pages.

A truly usable web site is a fluid, almost living entity. It’s expected to grow, convert traffic to sales, be crawled by search engine bots, be ranked and found in search engines and be talked about. Machines can be programmed to follow certain code to get what they need from web pages. But you and I are feeling, flesh skinned, impressionable people. Our environments and computer models vary, as do our ages and ability to see, hear and think.

We come to the Web knowing it will be a journey. We come knowing that for every action we take on a web site, that same action will likely be handled differently on a different web site with a different design. We pick and choose sites which offer the best user experience.

We are not machines.

Economy blues? It's not too late to increase your web site conversions with Kim's affordable usability audits. Get the answers you need NOW!

User Experience Supports Findabilty and Usability