Tag Archives: call to action

8 ways we increased ecommerce sales by 10,000%

Posted in Design on by Paul Boag

Discover how Headscape increased the sales of Wiltshire Farm Foods by 10,000% and how you can do the same for your site.

A 10,000% increase in sales over 5 years. Sounds incredible doesn’t it. Just to make that an even more incredible, their average customer is in their 80s! Who said the elderly don’t use the internet.

When we started working with Wiltshire Farm Foods their monthly revenue was a 100th of what it is today.

Of course in reality that success was not down entirely to us. Matt Curry, our client at Wiltshire Farm Foods has put his heart and soul into that website and as I say in Chapter one of the Website Owners Manual, it is the site champion who makes or breaks a site.

The organisation has recognised the importance and power of the web for their business and continually invested in it both for development and also in site promotion. If they had not had the foresight to do that then the site would have failed.

So what do I put the sites success down to? Well, honestly that is hard to say. There are so many factors. However below are 8 things that have without a doubt made an enormous difference.

1. Remove clutter

WFF Product Menu

Too many ecommerce websites are overwhelming. Everything is screaming for the users attention. There are offers, deals and recommended products wherever the user turns. Amongst all of this confusion it is hard to find what you want.

Amazon is like this and so we all naturally presume it must be right. However, one of the first conclusions we came to when working on Wiltshire Farm Foods is that they are not Amazon. Nobody is. You cannot presume that what works for one will work for all.

The emphasis of the Wiltshire Farm Foods website was on helping users find and buy the products they wanted. It is not in anyone interest to overwhelm them with stuff that only we wanted them to buy. It has to be the customer first.

This meant simplifying the site. With so much content shouting for attention, users could not find anything. We had to remove distraction and focus them on key tasks.

Take for example the site’s navigation. We actually hide away some of the ranges offered by Wiltshire Farm Foods. Insanity you might think. Surely this made it harder for users to find what they want? Admittedly for a small minority it did. However, hiding the less popular ranges (like soup) we could highlight the ranges that accounted for the vast majority of sales.

WFF Product Listing

The same was true for product listings. Some users were interested in a lot of different information from dietary content to customer ratings. However, this additional information made life harder for the mainstream users who were only interested in a photo, description and price.

We therefore decided to move all of this additional information on to the product details page. That way it was accessible for those who wanted it without distracting the majority.

WFF Shopping basket

The final area we significantly simplified was the shopping basket and checkout process. As I explained in my post on ecommerce lies, once the user has made the decision to purchase you need to remove all distractions.

The shopping basket is not the time to up-sell or cross selling. It’s not even the time to provide a navigation bar to other products. At this stage you want the user to do one thing and one thing only, proceed to checkout.

Talking of the shopping cart, we also focused heavily on getting it to stand out on the page.

2. Make sure the shopping cart stands out

Too many websites hide the shopping cart away. However, this is a crucial step in shopping and the first of the checkout process. In affect the shopping cart is an ecommerce websites primary call to action.

With this in mind we wanted to make the cart as prominent as possible. We achieved this in three ways:

  • We made the shopping basket button visually different from the rest of the site using colour
  • When items were added to the basket it was visually updated (see providing visual feedback video)
  • We tethered the basket summary to the top of the screen so that it would always be visible even when the user scrolled (see below)

As you can see from the video below, the tethering proved particularly effective and makes the call to action obvious at all times.

3. Provide visual feedback

One of the primary questions in the mind of users when interacting with a system like an ecommerce website is “did I do that right?”

Whether it is adding an item to the basket or filling in a login and password, users are concerned that they are doing things wrong. This is particularly true with a more elderly audience who have not grown up using computers.

It is therefore important to reassure users as they progress through the site. This can be achieved by providing visual feedback when the user takes an action.

For example on the Wiltshire Farm Foods website when an item is added to the basket the user gets multiple types of feedback to reassure them the item has been added:

  • The photo of the item is highlighted
  • The ‘add to basket’ button updates
  • The image of the item visually moves towards the basket
  • The basket itself updates

As you can see from the video below, the user is in no doubt that the item has been added.

However, the visual feedback does not stop at the basket. When the user is confronted with a form they are clearly shown what fields are required, and which have been completed correctly or incorrectly. This information is updated without the need for page refresh.

Form field feedback

4. The bigger the better

An image can say a thousand words. It is therefore unsurprisingly that the product shots on an ecommerce site are massively important. Even if your audience are not the elderly with failing vision, it is still important to have nice, big, clear shots of your products.

In the case of Wiltshire Farm Foods we have taken this principle to the extreme.

As we saw earlier the product list is essentially a grid of images with the addition of some basic product information. The image sells the meal in a way words never could, and the grid allows us to have large images. However, we did not stop there.

As you can see in the video below, clicking on a product listing displays an even bigger image in the product details. We also allow users to click on this larger photo and display an even bigger version that expands to fill the width of the page. This leaves the user in no doubt about what they are getting.

Of course this is dependant on having decent shots of the product. If you can only invest in a single thing for your ecommerce site this would be it. Spend money on getting the best photography you can. Its worth every penny.

5. Make buttons and links obvious

A continuation of the ‘bigger is better’ thinking can also be applied to buttons and links. Admittedly this might be exaggerated by the Wiltshire Farm Foods audience, but in my years of user testing I am constantly amazed how often users fail to spot important links and buttons.

You will therefore notice how ridiculously big some of the links and buttons on WFF are. However, size isn’t everything (no innuendo intended).

We also gave a lot of attention to appearance and wording too. For example, notice in the image below how the link looks like a link. Also we did not rely on the link alone because the wording of the link doesn’t communicate the action. We therefore added a button that communicates how clicking it will allow the user to ‘view all of our beef meals’.

Link to Meal catagory

The descriptive nature of buttons can also be seen elsewhere on the site. We are very conscious that users do not always read copy explaining buttons and so the button itself needs to communicate all the information required.

Take for example the image below. If all you read was the two buttons you would know exactly what choice was available. The surrounding text is entirely optional.

Example buttons

6. Always be there to help

An ecommerce transaction raises a lot of questions in the minds of users:

  • Is delivery free?
  • What if I don’t like the product?
  • Is my credit card information secure?

In addition there are questions about the site itself and how to use it.

Surprisingly many ecommerce websites seem reluctant to help their customers. Delivery and return policies are buried. Reassurance about security is limited to a tiny badge or padlock. And most importantly you have to search high and low for a phone number.

We were determined to address these problems on the WFF website. In the end we settled on three approaches:

1. The one stop solution

Our first move was to bring together all help into a single section of the site that was prominently displayed in the navigation bar. This avoided the user having to hunt around for different pieces of information.

We then looked at the enquiries received by WFF customer support and used these to identify the top issues. These where then prioritised and presented on the help homepage.

As you can see the top question was “how do I contact you” so we prominently featured the telephone number. This was then followed by questions about ordering and the website.

Help Section

2. The getting started guide

We also took an idea from the video games industry and provided users with a tutorial. However, the idea of the tutorial (which we called a getting started guide) was to guide users through their first transaction.

This is displayed prominently on the homepage and gives users who are overwhelmed by the site a starting point.

Get Started Content Area

3. Context sensitive help

Finally, we also wanted to provide context sensitive help throughout the purchase process. These are small pieces of microcopy found throughout the site nudging users in the right direction.

Example of context sensitive help

7. Handle errors gracefully

No matter how well designed your site or how much help you provide, things will inevitably go wrong.

If you do not want to lose the sale, you must handle the error gracefully and reassure the user they can still continue.

This is particularly important when working with the elderly audience found on Wiltshire Farm Foods. However, it is always wise to give users as much help as possible and not make assumptions about their abilities.

Below are a couple of examples of how we handle problems on the site.

Error message

The first example is an error message that appears when the user fails to login. There are several such messages across the website. However, they all have two characteristics in common:

  • The message is highly visible – This is achieved either by strong visual branding (as above) or by positioning the message next to field being edited (as in context sensitive help) .

  • The message tells the user what to do     – It is important that messages clearly communicate how the user can overcome the problem.

The example above is probably a little wordy for most websites. Fortunately, our user testing has shown that a more elderly demographic actually reads instructional text! We can therefore take some liberties.

Example of empty search results

The second example of an error message appears when the user has entered a search term that returns no results. The danger in this situation is that users will conclude the site does not have whatever it was they searched for and so leave.

In reality there are number of reasons why no results might be returned. In such situations provide some guidance on searching. We also went one step further by including a phone number in case all else fails.

8. Communicate your value add

The final lesson we have learnt from working on WFF is the importance of communicating what extra you offer customers.

The problem is that there are so much choice for consumer. How for example could an organisation like Wiltshire Farm Foods compete with such a well known brand as Tescos?

Tescos sell frozen meals and a lot more besides. They deliver to your door and have a much broader range of products (although admittedly not frozen meals).

What enables Wiltshire Farm Foods to compete is their value added service. These include:

  • Police checked delivery staff
  • The option to pay cash on delivery
  • The ability to place your next order with the driver
  • Delivery staff will even unpack meals and place them in your freezer

When you are trying to each an elderly audience, these kinds of extra services are a real selling point.

Of course, these USPs are no good if users are unaware of them so considerable effort has been put into clearly communicating these on the site. In fact we are in the process of doing even more work in this area.

What are your USPs and are you clearly communicating them on your site?

Image showing WFFs complete service

Is that all?

So if you follow these 8 guidelines will you increase your sales by 10,000%? The answer is probably not.

In reality there is a lot more that affects the success of an ecommerce business than its website. There is the ongoing communications, customer service, fulfilment, and marketing to name but four.

The 10,000% increase makes a good title for a blog post! However, the percentage growth is not really the point. What matters is that by following the advice here you will be guaranteed to see growth and that is what matters.

However, if I could leave you just a single thought it would be this. Wiltshire Farm Foods looks a million miles away from the busyness of Amazon and indeed many other ecommerce websites. Do not just blindly follow the crowd (or even the advice in this post). Instead learn what your users need and give it to them. It really is that simple.

Of course, you might need some help doing that, but even the answer to that is simple. Give Headscape a call ;-)

10 problems your content management system will not solve and how to overcome them

Posted in Development on by Paul Boag

Content management systems are often perceived as a silver bullet that will solve all your content problems. In reality having a CMS is not enough. You must also address broader issues associated with the content of your website.

So many website owners hate their content management system. This is often because it has failed to live up to their unrealistic expectations.

Many organisations purchased their CMS hoping to solve a wide range of issues surrounding content production and delivery. In reality, a CMS is only capable of overcoming relatively few. In fact often a content management system will solve one set of problems only to create more. It is these new problems that I wish to address here.

What follows is a list of 10 issues that are either directly created by content management systems or that a CMS will fail to solve.

1. A lack of editorial control

One of the primary reasons organisations purchase a content management system is to de-centralise control of content and therefore remove the bottlenecks that surround posting content to the web.

The consequence of this approach is a lack of central control to ensure the quality and accuracy of copy produced. This can lead to contradictions and varying styles of writing across the site.

Although many content management systems provide the tools for central editorial control, they are not always used and require somebody with the editorial experience.

The Solution: Get an editor

Unfortunately this is one problem that technology cannot solve. What is required is a content editor. Somebody who checks what is being produced and ensures it communicates a consistent message in a consistent tone.

Ideally this should be somebody who has experience in writing and editing online copy. However, the most important thing is that this person feels confident in editing copy, and has the authority to remove inappropriate material.

This person will also require a vision for the site and in particular what personality it should be projecting.

2. A lack of personality

Many websites lack real personality. They either ooze marketing BS or come across as singularly bland. This is largely due to the fact that they have been written by people more interested in communicating facts or selling stuff, than wishing to engage with users.

Websites with great copy that is full of personality, stand out from the crowd. They do more than convey information. They actively seek to make a connection with users in much the same way people do face to face.

Unfortunately the distributed nature of content production through the use of a CMS undermines that.

The solution: Decide on your sites personality

The first step towards overcoming this problem is to define who you are. If your website was a person what type of person would it be? What words best describe your sites character? Is it playful, serious, enthusiastic, or friendly?

Next put together a content style guide. This will include examples of writing styles that should be used on your website. It will also include guidelines in terms of tone and wording. This document should then be distributed to your content providers.

Producing an effective content style guide is not an easy task. You might wish to consider employing a freelance web copy writer if you do not have somebody in house. However once it has been produced, it should provide everything your content providers need to add some
personality into your copy.

Of course that does still require your content providers to be committed to the cause.

3. Uncommitted contributors

One of the great selling points of having a content management system is that they allow anybody to post to your website. Unfortunately, just because your staff can edit the site, does not mean they will.

It is not unusual to find that content management systems go unused except for by a few individuals. The belief that content management can be easily decentralised is false. There are two primary reasons for this.

Firstly, some people do not see it as their responsibility to provide web content. They see the website as a marketing or sales tool and so should be managed by marketeers.

The second reason is that most people do not have the time. Writing web content is often seen as a low priority and constantly gets pushed out by “real work.”

The solution: Recognise the importance of the web

The solution to this problem has to come from senior management.

The website needs to be seen as a critical business tool and job descriptions must reflect this by making site maintenance a key component of people’s job. This should include website duties being apart of employee assessment.

There is however another reason people do not using the CMS – they don’t know how to use it.

4. Poorly trained authors

When an organisation rolls out a new content management system they almost always offer some form of training. However, in many cases it is not enough.

Normally training consists of an intimidating manual and one off training session. For the few people who are updating the website regularly this is probably enough. However for more infrequent content providers, this is inadequate.

The trouble with one off initial training sessions is that by the time the content provider comes to update the website, they have forgotten what they learnt. Admittedly the information they need may well be contained in the manual, but who reads those?

This can easily lead to only a few people capable of making updates to the site, thereby undermining the very reason for having a CMS in the first place.

The solution: Provide video training material

The combination of occasional users and new employees, means that most organisations need a long term strategy for training people in the use of their content management systems.

We have found that a series of short video tutorials covering key functionality works much better than training sessions or intimidating manuals.

We still run training sessions for frequent users. However, the video tutorials allow users to work through the material at their own pace. Also, unlike a training course they can learn only the parts of the system they actually need.

However, training in the technology is only half the battle. Content contributors also need to know how to write compelling copy.

5. Bad copywriting

The harsh truth is that not everybody can write good web copy. Even somebody who writes brilliantly in print, does not necessarily write well for the web.

There is an art and science to writing good web copy that many people are unaware of. Copy written by content providers is often verbose, un-engaging and hard to scan.

The solution: Provide a structure for content production

The solution is three fold:

  • First, the introduction of an editor means that content providers do not have to worry about writing perfect copy. It should be the job of the editor to take the raw copy they provide and re-write it for the web.
  • Second, the training provided with a content management system should extend beyond the functionality and also include advice on writing good web copy.
  • Finally, by producing a basic template for content providers you can help them focus their writing. A content template should ask questions such as who is the audience, what is the key message for this page and what is the call to action?

However, the problem is not just limited to the quality of content but also the quantity.

6. Bloated websites

Much like this post, most websites end up far too bloated. This is a problem that content management systems only serve to exaggerate.

By removing the barriers to putting content online, you encourage people to add more. However, more is not always better.

Content providers often approach the website with entirely the wrong mentality. They look at the content they have or can easily produce, and decide to put it online because “somebody will find it useful.” They are driven by what content is available, rather than user’s need.

The problem is that the more they put online, the harder it is for users to find the content they want. It is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

The solution: Focus on users and remove

The best solution is to prevent this from occurring in the first place. This is done by fixating on user needs. Before putting anything online ask two questions:

  • Is the content aimed at your primary audience?
  • Is the content essential for helping those users complete their objectives?

If you cannot answer yes to both questions, then seriously consider whether putting the content on your website will cause more harm than good.

Of course, you may already have a bloated website. If this is the case then you need to review each page of your site and apply the principles above. If a page fails to cater for a specific use case of your primary audience, then it maybe time for it to be removed.

The problem is that most organisations have people responsible for adding content to their websites. However, few have somebody charged with removing it. This is an important role and one your web editor should have the power and time to do.

However, user needs is not the only criteria for judging the worth of content. There are also calls to action.

7. No clear calls to action

As I have already said, most content providers are focusing on conveying information rather than meeting users needs. However, they are also neglecting the business needs too.

With the exception of marketeers and sales people, few content providers are thinking about calls to action. What is it that you want users to do next? How do you wish them to respond?

Even when content providers are thinking about calls to action, they are focusing on the big actions such as “contact us.” Until the user is ready to take those major steps they are left to wander around the website.

The solution: Always guide the user to the next action

It is important to consider the main calls to action for the entire site. Typically they consist of one or two major actions such as buying a product or completing a contact form.

However, there is also a need to think about the calls to action of each page. Avoid leaving your user with no obvious next step.

Take for example this page. Directly below this article you can take three actions:

  • Leave a comment
  • Provide feedback – That leads to videos offering a number of next steps
  • Read a related post

At no stage is the user left without a next action.

A big source of next actions is your information architecture. Unfortunately most navigation is not focused on users needs, let alone business objectives.

8. An organisational focused IA

An unfortunate side effect of running a content management system is that it encourages information architecture built around organisational structure rather than users needs.

If you look at most organisations CMS driven websites, their information architecture closely mirrors their internal structures. This is because it is easier to divide up responsibility for updating various parts of the site if it is structured along departmental lines.

The problem with this approach is that users do not think in terms of organisational structure. They are task focused and so often an organisational IA is entirely inappropriate. It leads to confusion and frustration among users.

The solution: Focus on user tasks

The only solution to this problem is to stop structuring sites around organisations and start focusing them on users.

Although it is easier in most content management systems to allocate permissions based on a per section basis, there is not normally a specific need to do so. It is just as feasible to give access on a per page basis making it unnecessary to organise around internal structure.

Ultimately your site should be about your users and that includes your IA. However, it does not stop there. The community you build around your site is important too.

9. No sense of community

Increasingly content management systems come with some great community tools. They have forums, comments and integrate with everything from Facebook to Twitter. However, great technology does not build great communities.

Many organisations implement these community features on their site and are disappointed when they are not used.

Worst still some organisations launch these features but moderate so heavily that users respond negatively. Eventually the functionality is removed entirely.

The solution: Build relationship not functionality

It is important to realise that online communities are about relationships and not technology. If you want to build a successful community around your website, you need to actively and regularly engage with users.

This involves having people within your organisation who are constantly talk to users, asking and answering questions, and getting to know people through open and honest relationship.

Of course, the problem here is the same as content production. This is not seen as an official role. Instead it often falls to enthusiastic individuals. If you want your community to succeed you are going to require passionate people who have the time and resources to sink into that community.

And it is a lack of resources that leads us to our final problem that content management systems cannot solve – single language content.

10. Single language content

The majority of invitations to tender Headscape receive for content management builds, request multi-lingual support.

In the end few of the sites we build actually make use of that functionality. In effect they are paying money for something they will never actually implement.

There are two many reasons for this.

The first is aspirational. Many organisations request multi-lingual support because they have dreams of expanding in the future and unfortunately those dreams do not come true. I can at least respect this viewpoint. There is nothing wrong with planning for functionality you might need at some point in the future.

However, the second reason is not so admirable. A lot of sites fail to implement their multi-lingual support because they have not fully thought through what that involves.

Implementing a CMS with multi-lingual support is easy. Creating a multi-lingual website is hard. You have to decide what content is going to be translated. You need to find a translator and then you also need to maintain that content over the long term.

The solution: Think twice before requesting multi-lingual support

There has to be a good business case for implementing a multi-lingual website. Unless you are sure that you are going to make money from a foreign market, it is probably not worth investing in language support.

If you aren’t serious about supporting other languages do not add it to your ITT, at least not as a primary requirement. There is no reason to rule out a CMS for not supporting multiple languages unless you are sure you are going to use that functionality.

Conclusions

You could interpret this post as a criticism of content management systems. That is not the case. I believe content management systems are a valuable addition to most websites. However, as I said at the beginning they are not the silver bullet may perceive them to be.

The success of your CMS is largely reliant on you being aware of its limitations and being prepared to deal with these restrictions. If you do then a CMS could be the best investment you ever make.

Three secrets to simplicity

Posted in User experience on by Paul Boag

Many website owners damage their sites by continually adding features and content when they should be simplifying. In this post I reveal why that happens and how to simplify your website.

In my post ‘5 options when website budgets get slashed‘ I explained that many organisations waste money adding ever more functionality and content to their sites when they should be simplifying. Unfortunately it is much easier to add content than take it away. But why is that?

The 3 lures of complexity

In ‘10 harsh truths about corporate websites‘ I outlined 3 reasons why website owners shy away from removing content…

  • A fear of missing something – By putting everything online website owners believe they are giving users easy access to everything they need to know. Unfortunately, with so much available, it is hard to find anything.
  • A fear users will not understand – Whether it is a lack of confidence in their site or their audience, many website managers feel the need to provide endless instructions to users. Unfortunately, users never read this copy.
  • A desperate desire to convince – Many website managers are desperate to sell their product or communicate their message. Text becomes bloated with sales copy that actually conveys little valuable information.

However, I think there is more to it than that. First, there is a general laziness. It is easy to leave content online. It takes effort to remove it. Second (and more importantly) there is a desire to please users. If a user asks for a feature or piece of content, we feel obliged to provide it.

3 questions that encourage simplicity

Adding functionality requested by users is not always a good idea. You need to ask 3 questions…

  • How many people are asking for it? – If only a few people request a piece of functionality, there may not be the demand to justify the time and money.
  • Who is asking for it? – If it is not being requested by your primary audience then you should probably not be building it.
  • How will it affect others? – With new functionality comes complexity. Will that functionality confuse some users? Will it distract from your main call to action?

What then do you do if your site has become overly complex? How do you achieve simplicity?

3 steps to achieving simplicity

According to ‘The Laws of Simplicity‘ there are three practical ways you can simplify anything, including your site. These are:

  • Remove elements
  • Hide elements
  • Shrink elements

Let’s look at how these steps work in practice.

1. Remove

Headscape Website

The first step to simplifying your site is removing unnecessary content. This is by far the hardest step for the reasons I have outlined above. However, it is necessary as Steve Krug explains in his book ‘Don’t Make Me Think.’ He identifies two benefits of removing content…

  • It reduces the noise level of your site
  • It makes the useful content more prominent

Removing content really does make a difference. We applied these principles to our own website at headscape.co.uk and saw a significant increase in conversions (those visitors who request a quotation for our web design services) and some amazingly positive feedback on the site itself.

In fact we took the principle so much to heart that we went from a 40+ page site down to a single page! Of course, that kind of radical approach is not for every site. However, even removing some content can make a huge difference.

2. Hide

Unfortunately, it is not always possible to remove as much as you wish. Sometimes you need to keep content to serve secondary audiences. That is where hiding content comes in.

It is important to cater for secondary users, but you do not want their content to distract or confuse your main target audience. Instead of removing their content, you can hide it deeper within your site or within the interface itself.

Menu on the Wiltshire Farm Foods website

An example of this is a recent homepage redesign we completed for Wiltshire Farm Foods. Most of their sales come from 6 categories of meals. However, they also offer a number of other categories. On their old homepage the 6 main categories were lost among the other categories. Users felt overwhelmed by choice and sales were lost.

One option would have been to reduce the number of categories to focus on the 6 big sellers. However, this would upset a sizeable secondary audience. So instead, we hid some of the categories under a show more link. This meant that their secondary users could still be served, without overwhelming the primary audience.

3. Shrink

Finally, there are occasions when content can be neither removed or hidden. This is often because the content is of critical importance to a secondary audience and needs to accessed quickly. In such cases the content can be shrunk.

Take for example University websites. Their primary audience is almost always prospective students. However, they also cater for staff and existing students. These people need quick access to intranet tools such as the institutions address book. The solution is to add a small inconspicuous link on the homepage that takes them quickly to this content. By keeping the link small (shrunk) the site serves their needs without distracting or confusing the primary audience.

A similar approach was used on the Wiltshire Farm Foods new homepage. However in this case the content was actually shrunk.

Because of the elderly demographic it was important that we provided lots of help to new users. We therefore wanted to dedicate a substantial amount of homepage real estate to meet their needs as they arrived. Our solution was this…

WFF get started guide

Unfortunately this became distracting once the users were familiar with the site. It became a usability hurdle. One solution was to remove it. However, this would make it impossible for users to refer back to if they became stuck. The next option was to hide the content elsewhere (for example in the help section). However, previous usability studies of this demographic showed they develop ‘habits’ in the way they navigate. If we moved these links that they relied upon, it could prove confusing.

Our final solution was to shrink the content. So instead of moving or removing it we simply collapsed it…

WFF get started guide, collapsed

This meant the content continued to be accessible but did not become a distraction or take up too much real estate.

Conclusion

Although the ideal scenario is to remove content, it is also possible to simplify in other ways.

This should not be mistaken as an excuse to avoid removing content. However, you could use hiding and shrinking as the first step towards removing. If these techniques do not alienate your users, then it maybe appropriate to remove that content entirely.

Whatever the case, we should all be looking for ways to improve our sites by simplifying rather than adding more and more content.

10 ways to Battle Site Bureaucracy

Posted in Web strategy on by Paul Boag

Running a large institutional website is frustrating. Your site is often held back by internal politics and bureaucracy. Let me show you 10 ways to cut through the crap and get results.

My recent post ‘10 harsh truths about corporate websites‘ generated a huge number of comments both on my own blog and on Smashing Magazine. I seemed to tap into an undercurrent of frustration that exists within the industry.

However, although there was a lot of agreement about the points I raised, there was also resignation. There was a feeling that little could be done to overcome these problems because institutional websites are too entrenched in bureaucracy and politics.

Although I can sympathise with this position and have myself suffered from the problem, I am not one to give up! Over the last decade of working on these sites, I have developed a number of techniques which (sometimes) help to smooth their evolution. Hopefully they will help you too.

1. Educate and inform

At the heart of any technique for dealing with politics and bureaucracy has to be education.

Although there are occasions when people are just ‘trying to be difficult’, in most cases their objections are based on ignorance.

You cannot expect people to be as knowledgeable as you about the web. If you want people to make informed, sensible decisions you must educate them.

Education is also not just about giving them the background to a specific decision so they understand ‘why you are right’. It is about increasing your organisations general understanding of the web.

Run workshops, publish email newsletters, do anything that informs people about the latest web innovations. Increasingly I am invited into organisations to run short seminars on everything from accessibility to facebook! This kind of ongoing education means people are better informed when tough decisions need to be made.

2. Hold stakeholder interviews

One technique that we find very effective at Headscape are stakeholder interviews.

Stakeholder interviews involves meeting individually with anybody who has a ‘stake’ (interest) in the website. This is typically members of the marketing and IT teams, as well as departmental heads and senior management. However it should also include suppliers, customers and users of your website.

These one-to-one meetings provide two opportunities…

  • Requirements gathering – It is easy for website owners to live in isolated bubbles, separate from the rest of the organisation. These meetings provide an opportunity to understand the real needs and objectives of others within the business. It will highlight ways that your website can help, which you might not have previously considered.
  • To be inclusive – Stakeholder interviews offer a ‘political benefit’ as well. By meeting with people individually they feel included in the process. They feel their opinions are valued and listened to (which they should be!). People are much less likely to object if they have been consulted before a decision is reached.

People often complain about the website in stakeholder interviews. Allow them to do this and avoid becoming defensive. They will feel more favourably towards you and your website, if you listen to their concerns. We all like to be heard.

3. Avoid group committee meetings

The key to stakeholder interviews is their one-to-one nature. Group meetings can be very destructive. This is for a number of reasons…

  • The need to defend – In large organisations that have internal politics, everybody feels the need to defend their own ‘turf’. If somebody criticise the website, you are forced to defend it to ‘save face’ in front of others. Equally others feel the need to defend their own positions for the same reason.
  • A tendency to compromise - When two individuals in a group reach an impasse, the others try to find a compromise. This kind of ‘design on the fly’ inevitably leads to a bland solution. It will neither offend or inspire anybody. Unfortunately, to create a successful website you need to make tough choices that some will not like. A group approach does not lend itself to this.
  • A loss of control – It is easy for you to loss control in a group meeting. One-to-one meetings work better because you can divide and conquer. Only you know what the other stakeholders said. This puts you in charge and allows you to ‘cheery pick’ the feedback you receive. In a group meeting things can easily get out of hand and decisions are made without your buy-in.
  • The dominant individual - Every group has one or two dominant individuals. These are the people who bounce the rest of the group into agreeing with them, forcing their agenda through. A dominant individual drowns out quieter members, who become resentful later that nobody listened to them. Meeting with people individually prevents this because the dominant individuals cannot force their point of view on others or overwhelm quieter ones.

One cannot expect a larger organisation to run its website without some form of committee. However, there is no reason why that committee needs to meet as a group.

4. Target your influencers

Talking of dominant individuals, another successful tactic is to target influencers.

An influencer is somebody that others respect and follow. Their opinion is incredibly valuable and if you can sway them to your cause, others will fall into line. However, be careful not to confuse dominant people with influencers. A dominant person will ‘bully’ others into publicly agreeing with them. An influencer will fundamentally alter somebody’s attitude.

Identify who influences your decision makers and speak to them personally. This person might not even be a decision maker themselves, but they carry enough clout to make them worth your time.

When you meet with your influencers, really listen to what they have to say. They often have valuable insights which may change your strategy significantly. Do not go into a meeting with an influencer simply intent on pushing your own agenda. Instead try and shape your approach around their perspective.

If you get an influencer enthusiastic about your project it can make a huge difference.

5. Use third party experts

A variation on the influencers technique is to back up your ideas with third party expert opinion. This can be done in two ways…

  • Reference the work of a third party expert – For example, if you wish to discourage internal stakeholders from overwhelming users with options on the homepage, you might refer them to Steve Krug or Jakob Nielsen who have both written on the subject.
  • Hire a third party expert - I often find myself brought into companies simply to confirm what in-house staff have already been saying. Unfortunately, decision makers often doubt the opinion of their web team because they either undervalue them or feel they are pushing a hidden agenda. An independent expert can add creditability to your opinions.

Of course, for this approach to work the stakeholders need to respect the expert. There is no point referencing Steve Krug or hiring Jakob Nielsen, if the decision makers have never heard of them. It is often necessary to sell the credibility of your expert first.

6. Rely on evidence, not opinion

Sometimes it is better to avoid personal opinion entirely (even if that is the opinion of an expert). In such cases statistics can be your friend.

Nothing is more powerful for driving home a point than referring decision makers to Google Analytics. However web stats are not the only evidence you can draw upon. Others include…

  • Surveys and polls are an excellent way of getting feedback from your users that can then be presented to decision makers.
  • Twitter search and Google Alerts can be used to gauge how people view your site and brand. These can be powerful testimonials to present decision makers.
  • Heat maps can be used to take some of the subjectivity out of design.

Of course one of the most powerful evidence you can present is the results of usability testing.

7. Focus on the user

As website owners we know that a successful website is user focused. However, not all our decision makers will understand this and even those who do may get ‘distracted’ sometimes.

It is therefore important to constantly move our decision makers away from their own personal preferences and back on the needs of users.

User testing is one way of doing this. Being able to show decision makers how real users interact with your website is incredibly powerful. It helps them empathise with the needs of users rather than thinking only about their own agenda. Play them video clips of users interacting with your site or at the very least quote them the feedback of users.

However, even if you involve decision makers in user testing, they can still get caught up in their own agendas. One gentle way of preventing this is to word your questions carefully. When you need a decision makers response to something don’t ask…

What do you think?

Instead ask them…

How do you think users will respond to this?

This will keep them focused on the needs of users.

8. Control the feedback

As well as wording questions carefully there is also a need to control the feedback you receive. This is important if you want the decision makers to make considered decisions.

Take for example design sign off – never ask a decision marker if they like a design. It is too broad a question that will lead to a plethora of uninformed and ill considered responses. Instead ask them more specific questions such as…

  • Does the design conform to the brand guidelines?
  • Does the design meet the needs of our users?
  • Does the design emphasis the right content?
  • Does the design have a clear call to action?
  • Does the design fulfil our business objectives?

This prevents the decision maker from falling back on their gut reaction (i like it / I dislike it). It forces them to focus on the issues that define whether the design is successful or not and ignore personal preference for specific colours or layout.

Of course, sometimes you will not like the answer to these specific questions. When that happens you need to ask why.

9. Ask why

This is probably the most powerful of all the techniques I have listed here and yet by far the simplest.

When you face opposition to your plans, always ask why. Too often we switch to defensive mode and focus on better communicating our own position rather than understanding the opinion of the person opposing us. This is a mistake.

The question why is powerful for three reasons…

  • It informs – Often the objection raised initially is not the true underlying issue. By asking why you get to the root of the problem and that allows you to offer alternative solutions. Asking why ensures you have all the information required to deal with the issue.
  • It can confound – Most of us make decisions based on an intuitive leap. We do not always think through our decisions and so find it hard to articulate the underlying reason. By asking why you force people to stop and consider their logic. When they struggle to express the underlying reasons, they weaken their position.
  • It shows interest – By asking why you allow them to have their say. You demonstrate an interest in their opinion and establish empathy with their point of view.

    • Ultimately asking why avoids the disagreement from turning into an argument with entrenched position.

    10. Avoid confrontation

    I avoid confrontation at all costs. Going head-to-head with somebody especially in front of their colleagues achieves nothing. You can rarely get somebody to shift their position through confrontation.

    Once a disagreement escalates into a confrontation, nobody can afford to ‘lose face’ by backing down. It becomes a matter of ego, where pride dictates the outcome. Your website will almost certainly be caught in the cross fire.

    A better approach is to agree. The word yes can be immensely powerful. Whenever somebody suggests something to me, no matter how stupid, I will do the following…

    • Acknowledge and thank them for their input.
    • Say yes we could do that.
    • Go on to explain the consequences if we did.
    • Offer an alternative which could achieve the same aims.

    In short I tend to go around problems rather than bashing my head against them. I always look to work with others rather than against them.

    Conclusions

    So there you go, 10 techniques for battling site bureaucracy. I do not claim these techniques are foolproof. Neither do I suggest they are always appropriate. However, they are useful techniques in your arsenal which you may want to call upon from time to time.

    Finally, this is not a definitive list. I could have written more but then it wouldn’t have been a ‘top ten list!’ However, I would be interested to hear what works for you. Post your techniques in the comments.

    150. User Manipulation

    Posted in Classic shows on by Paul Boag

    On this week’s show: Liz Danzico talks about user research. Paul explains how to create an effective call to action and we discover how one button cost $300 million in sales

    Download this show.

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    News and events

    The $300 Million Button

    Our first news story is an incredibly tale from usability expert Jared Spool, which really shows the power of usability testing.

    In the post he writes about a client who had a fairly standard checkout process on his website. The process began with a login form:

    The form was simple. The fields were Email Address and Password. The buttons were Login and Register. The link was Forgot Password.

    It is the kind of form I have seen on many ecommerce websites. This feature, which had been designed to help repeat customers, created two distinct problems:

    • New users resented the idea of having to register. One user said: "I’m not here to enter into a relationship. I just want to buy something."
    • Repeat users rarely remembered their username or password. They wasted substantial time guessing, before eventually resorted to creating a new account. In fact after examining the database Jared discovered that 45% of all customers had multiple registrations. Some did go as far as clicking on the forgotten password link but of those only 25% went on to place an order.

    In the end the site was redesigned, allowing the user to continue without registering. Within a year this created a $300 million increase in sales.

    Of course $300 million is a meaningless figure in itself. It is the percentage increase that matters. In this case is was a 45% increase. That is a staggering number and one that really drives home the importance of testing with real users.

    Read the ‘$300 million button’

    The UK government and graded browser support

    A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the importance of graded browser support. In my post I explained how we should not limit our support to the browsers we test and how it is unrealistic to push for identical support across all browsers.

    This is an approach which has been adopted by the likes of Yahoo! and the BBC for some time, but which now also extends to public sector website in the UK.

    According to The Web Standards Project the rules surrounding browser testing on public sector websites have been changed to better reflect best practice in graded browser support.

    Changes include an emphasise on functionality over identical layout across browsers (paragraph 39):

    You should check that the content, functionality and display all work as intended. There may be minor differences in the way that the website is displayed. The intent is not that it should be pixel perfect across browsers, but that a user of a particular browser does not notice anything appears wrong.

    As well as support for progressive enhancement (paragraphs 17-18):

    You should follow a progressive enhancement approach to developing websites to ensure that content is accessible to the widest possible number of browsers.

    This is excellent news and certainly provides a great reference for UK designers and website owners looking to convince others of the importance of graded browser support.

    BBC Graded Browser Support Table

    Read the UK government guidance on browser testing

    50 Illustrator tutorials

    List of Illustrator tutorials

    From development to design now, and a list of 50 tutorials that help you get your head around Adobe Illustrator.

    The list is compiled by UK web designer Chris Spooner. He echoes my own experiences when he writes:

    Adobe Illustrator can be a little tricky to get your head around, particularly after getting used to the workflow as applications such as Photoshop. The difference between layer use and creating and editing shapes can be especially strange at first hand.

    I am a Photoshop man and I have found it very difficult to make the transition to a vector based world, so this list was particularly appealing to me.

    Its a great list that you will definitely want to check out, if like me you have never got to grips with Illustrator before.

    Read 50 illustrator tutorials every designer should see

    A new approach to PNG Support

    Finally today I would like to draw your attention to a new technique that has been developed by Drew Diller for using PNG transparency in IE6.

    Unlike previous techniques this one allows you to use PNGs as background images instead of just as IMG tags. This opens up a world of possibilities and overcomes one of the most annoying limitations of IE6.

    This minor miracle is achieved not by using AlphaImageLoader as has been done in the past, but with VML.

    Implementation seems fairly straightforward and involves adding a Javascript library to your page. Because this is for IE6 only you can embed the code within a conditional comment. This means other browsers will not even download it.

    Although I have yet to use this approach myself, I have high hopes that this will finally solve the IE6/PNG barrier.

    Download DD_belatedPNG now.

    Back to top

    Interview: Liz Danzico on User Research

    Paul: So joining me today for our little interview is Liz Danzico. Liz, why don’t you start off by introducing yourself a little bit. Telling us a bit about yourself and your background.

    Liz: Sure. Um, I am a user experience consultant, I am here in New York City, I have been developing web sites and user experiences online for about 12 years now. Um, I do a lot of work with Happy Cog Studios here in New York, with Jeffrey Zeldman and Jason Santa Maria. Um, I’m also chair of the new MFA interactions design program.

    Paul: Okay.

    Liz: At the School of Visual Arts in New York.

    Paul: Excellent. I mean, so, to say that you’re an expert in user experience would be a slight understatement then, Liz.

    Liz: Well I wouldn’t go that far.

    Paul: You’d be too modest, obviously, to say that. Okay, so we got Liz on the show, I met Liz when I went to Future of Web Design and we got talking. Um, she’s got some fascinating insights into the whole area of user research, and usability generally, so I thought let’s get her on the show and let’s maybe, you know, try and cover things from, from the very basic level, a kind of introduction to this concept of user research. Um, so, perhaps a good place to start, if you’re okay Liz, um, would be, how would you go about defining the area of user research? What would you include, what would you exclude from that?

    Liz: Right. So … user research, even today, we’ve been doing user research on the web since, uh, the very beginning, so it’s a very old concept but it’s still fairly controversial. So the basic concept is it tells you what really happens when real people interact with your product or service. So, there are no real rules about what it includes and what it doesn’t [inaudible]. You can basically speculate about what your users want, or you can find that out, um, you know? And uh, and the, uh, the latter is probably a more useful approach for you to take than speculation. But with either one, thinking about your audience is useful no matter what. And so, so there are no real rules, now um, when you disconnect thinking about your audience from your business objectives, and you start getting, you know, very excited about behaviors that they’re doing that are sort of disconnected from the real mission that you’re trying to sort of accomplish, then it becomes, um, a bit murky, and confusing. But thinking about your audience is, just in general, is an extremely useful approach.

    Paul: Okay. I mean one of the things that, that, um, I’ve heard said before by, particularly cynical clients I have to say, but I’ve heard it said before, you know, ultimately user research, and all of this kind of stuff feels in some ways like, um, just another way for web designers to suck a bit of extra money out of us, you know that fundamentally how, I know my audience already, is the kind of attitude that many web site owners have, so why do you see it as an important part of the process?

    Liz: Well uh, you know, as we’ve been seeing design flaws often translate to lost business opportunities, you know, usability is becoming more important than ever as the number of web sites and products is, you know, increasing more and more every day. So, we design these products and services, and we are at the same time users of them, but there’s no way that we can really tell what are users, um, might want. And the best way to, you know, usability research doesn’t cost a lot of money, so, the best way that you can help your clients kind of understand that you need to do usability research in some way is to let them know that usability research is important and it doesn’t need to, um, suck up a lot of time or money in the, in the process. So there’s a great fantastic book by Steve Krug, called Don’t Make Me Think, which I’m sure you’re probably well aware of.

    Paul: Uh huh.

    Liz: And in one of the chapters towards the end, he has a chapter called "Usability Research on a Shoestring", or it’s probably better titled, which talks of this approach of going out into the hallway and kind of grabbing people, and just sitting them down, and putting them in front of your product or service, and getting some feedback. So getting some feedback from people, no matter who they are, is better than getting none at all. And so, I think starting there with clients, instead of the, you know, $100,000 user research project that’s going to take you across 8 markets, you know, in the United States, the UK, and Asia, then, is going to be a much better approach than kind of intimidating them with the very extensive projects.

    Paul: Mmm, I mean, when it, the kind of one scenario that I’ve come across before, um, is where we’ve come across with clients that say "Well we’ve already done user research, we already know our audience ’cause we’ve got somebody in to do this or that." Is there a difference between user research that’s been done primarily with an offline audience, and those with, you know, when you’re interacting with people online? Is there a difference in the kind of results and information that you’re after, and even the techniques, maybe, that you use?

    Liz: So, they are probably, when they say that they’ve done user research, they’re probably talking about focus groups. I would venture to guess that when they talk about that they’re probably talking about either focus groups or surveys of some kind and those are not, well, I wouldn’t say that they are, those are bad things to do, but those are not the kinds of user research techniques that are going to give them feedback about their product’s usability. Those kinds of techniques are going to give them good information about, um, certain kinds of things but they are not going to give them information about whether or not people can use the product or service that they’re looking at. So, you want to find out exactly what kinds of user research they’ve conducted. If they say the words "focus group" then you know you want to move them towards something that is a one on one kind of interview. Focus groups tend to be conducted with groups of people, as the name might suggest, um, and when groups of people get together to talk about, you know, they put forth a question for these people, and when they, you know, groups of people get together to talk about the question they might influence one another in their answers, they’re typically aren’t talking about an interface, they’re typically talking about ideas, so you’re not getting good feedback, like in a one on one kind of scenario. So you want to sort of guide them to a more individual, one on one kind of experience. Surveys, on the other hand, are good, but they don’t get that kind of personal experience with a moderator, sitting with an individual, kind of looking at an interface in a kind of task-based scenario.

    Paul: Okay, yeah that makes a lot of sense. I mean, let’s then talk about some of the techniques that can be used to better understand individuals, or how those individuals will interact with your product. What different kind of techniques do you use? I mean, there’s the kind of very basic usability session, but do you do, or are there other things above and beyond that, that you do?

    Liz: Right. Well, the sort of big secret is that, there are names and there are certainly techniques, but the big secret is there are really no sort of techniques beyond knowing who your users are, kind of documenting what you’re seeing, and then kind of analyzing/prioritizing the results of what you see. So, you can, I’m gonna tell you a number of techniques that we can go through, but if those basic sort of constructs are there, then you’ve done sort of good user research. Now, that being said, the techniques that you can do are usability testing, usability testing traditionally has taken place in a user lab where a moderator is sitting with an individual looking at a screen, or a product, or a sketch of an interface and going through questions in sort of a task-based way, asking people "Show me how you would search for x" or "Show me how you would check out," or, you know, and seeing, measuring the success or failure of that kind of task. The clients are typically sitting behind a one-way, a one-way glass, or mirror, and observing these kinds of things. People have been not so thrilled about this technique recently, saying that it kind of, um, is not, it doesn’t produce natural reactions from users, but that is one kind of technique. There is, uh, kind of creating personas, and using personas, user personas which are an archetype of your site or product’s users, and getting everyone involved in activities around those personas, whether that be using those personas as your talking through features around, you know, a brainstorming session, and getting people to sort of role-play those personas. That’s another user research method. There are, there’s sort of the ethnography kind of take, where a lot of people have been doing kind of in-home interviews and observations recently. Ethnography, cultural anthropologists and people who have been doing traditional ethnography have been watching closely the design research that we’ve been doing recently, and wondering if we’ve been doing it right and so on, but ethnography, in that sort of observing users in their "natural environment", has been I would say a more successful way recently of watching people use products and services, um, so I would say that those three things, usability testing in a lab, sort of using personas and scenarios, and ethnography or kind of going out into the field and watching users, whether they’re in their homes or their offices, are the three kind of key ways to gather user research with users. The fourth way that I’ll mention, and we can talk about this in a little bit, is not with users directly, but it is certainly user research that’s available more and more now, and that is data on sort of analytics, which you can gather from Google Analytics, Shaun Inman’s Mint, these kinds of things. Watching site data and user behavior through site analytics is another form of user research that gives you, you know, some information, and you can watch these traffic patterns on your site. It doesn’t answer the question "Why?" but it does show you some evidence as to how users are behaving on your site.

    Paul: It’s quite interesting that you bring up eth, ethnography, whoa I can’t even speak today, because, that’s of interest to me, because that’s an area that we’re beginning to explore a little bit more, and have kind of discovered the same thing, that there’s a real value of going into you know, somebody’s home, seeing the environment that they access the internet on, you know, do they have kids under their feet? You know, where they access their PC, can they sit comfortably at it? All those kinds of things. Um, I guess it’s also an advantage you don’t have to hire an expensive usability lab and all of the rest of it. But I have to confess, I’m a little bit new at it, so talk me through maybe some of the things, you know, how does it differ from a usability test that you would do in a usability lab, other than that you’re in a different environment?

    Liz: Well, uh, it depends. It doesn’t have to differ at all — it depends on the goals of the test. I would say that you could construct a test that’s exactly like one that you’d conduct in a lab, it just happens in someone’s home or office, or in a different environment. But as you said, you get the more realistic interruptions, and that kind of thing, and are they going to be able to complete this task given the natural kind of occurrences of their day. And that, depending on what kind of test you are constructing, that’s either going to inform your results or not. If you are doing task-based testing, so I could maybe talk about the different kind of usability testing that you could do.

    Paul: Yeah, that’s good.

    Liz: Yeah so there are different ways that you could conduct a usability test. Um, traditionally there is task-based testing, where you set up pre-written questions, before you get to the test, that are based on the goals of the testing. So, if we were testing a photo site, we would test whether or not users could upload photos, could they task photos, you know, those kinds of things. So we would write those kinds of questions up beforehand, and then ask those questions during the test. Um, that’s one kind of test. You could do that in a lab, and you can do that same test in someone’s home. In a lab there would not be the children screaming, and the phone ringing, and that kind of thing, or, if someone say were uploading a photo, you would never be able to tell if sort of, timing out, would be an issue, or if anything with time or space or motion would be an issue. If those kinds of things are a goal of your test, then you might want to think about doing it in real time, in someone’s home environment. Another type of testing is something that, I’ll say it was first coined by Mark Hurst, who is a user experience consultant at Good Experience, I think he coined it, it’s called "Listening Labs". Listening labs are, I’ll call them experimental, but they’ve probably been going on long before I was aware of them, where people are designing usability tests in real time. So in other words, you go into the test with absolutely nothing written down, and you sit down with users, and based on your initial interview with them, you hear who they are, and after understanding a little bit about how they use photos in general, say, then you kind of write the questions on the fly, and then sort of develop a test around who that person is and their behavior, with your product, or product type.

    Paul: Which I guess, makes people more engaged with the test, because it’s about what they specifically interested in. Is that the idea?

    Liz: Exactly. So it’s a more natural way of doing the test. That’s the idea. That kind of thing you could do either way, and probably is even more rewarding if you’re doing it in someone’s natural environment. And then the third type of test is sort of a web, a web wide kind of test, where you have people just surf the internet, as it were, and uh, and just have them think out loud, and that kind of thing is also, I’ve found, more rewarding and fruitful in someone’s home environment, because they have their bookmarks there, and they have their post-it notes. Whereas you put them in a sort of artificial setting and they don’t have those things around them. So, if you, it kind of just depends on the type of testing that you’re doing. If you’re doing just the first kind I talked about, just task analysis and having people go through that kind of task-based testing, doing it in a traditional usability lab is great, you know, I mean you really do get the answers that you’re looking for, and it just depends on your goals.

    Paul: I mean, it’s interesting, going back to Steve Krug’s book that you mentioned, I mean he talks about, I guess his agenda in that book is to get people to do testing who perhaps aren’t previously, and so, you know, he really downplays the demographic of who it is that you test, and that it’s more important that you test than that you get the right people, you know and all of that kind of thing. Um, but when you’re going into somebody’s home, and interacting with them, I’m guessing it’s more important to get the right demographic? Is that right?

    Liz: Yeah, I mean one of the, um, I think it’s always important to, it’s always important to get the right demographic. Um, but, well I would say that there is a hierarchy of common mistakes around usability testing that kind of has a trickle down effect. You know, the number one mistake is not conducting any research at all, um, and conducting research on the wrong audience is kind of further down the list. So, you know, yeah if you’re doing research on the wrong audience, it’s not going to affect, whether you do it in a lab or you’re doing it at your desk, or at the water cooler, or at home, it’s going to affect your results and your analysis, you know, no matter where it takes place. So, you know, I think that the drawback is you are going to waste more time going out to that person’s time going out to that person’s time, so it’s going to be a drawback for you, but I don’t think that, it doesn’t matter really where it happens, because if you’re testing on the wrong audience, you’re testing on the wrong audience. Um, you’re probably going to get more information out of that experience if you’re in someone’s home, than if you’re not, so if you’re going to test on the wrong audience, do it in someone’s home, because you’re going to, it’s a richer experience, you’re going to get more information out of it than if you’re just testing in a lab.

    Paul: No that makes perfect sense, I kind of see that. No, it’s difficult, isn’t it? Because, uh, obviously finding the right demographic of people, and picking the right people to test on is tricky, you know, it’s a more difficult thing and it can be time consuming. So have you got any advice about that? What really matters here? You know, for example, if you’re designing a web site for an over-60s audience, you know, are you, do you want to concentrate on the age aspect of that? Or the technical literacy aspect of that? You know, is it okay to have somebody younger if they’re not as good with the internet, if your audience is, do you, I’m kind of not wording this very well, but you get the idea — what’s important when you’re trying to match demographics?

    Liz: Um, well, it’s very specific to your clients. Developing a, so, whenever you are trying to match demographics, you want to work with your clients to develop what’s called a screener, and a screener is a, I would say, whether you’re trying to develop a pretty rigorous recruiting demographic with a professional recruiter, to say, recruit 300 people for an extensive study, or whether you’re going to go out into the hallway and grab some people, or whether you’re going to recruit from something called Craigslist, which a lot of people are familiar with, um, which a lot of people do, I would say developing a screener which kind of outlines your demographic is a really good idea.

    Paul: And what kind of things would that include? Sorry I interrupted you.

    Liz: Yeah, what a screener is, it kind of goes through, it’s a questionnaire that outlines a number of questions that you would ask a potential recruit, that says, if this person can answer a particular question we should keep them in or out, so it’s actually a really good exercise to go through that allows you to kind of think through the type of demographic that you would have. So that doesn’t answer your question in any way.

    Paul: It’s very interesting, though. Can you give me an example? Sorry, I’m interested in this screener thing, cause I haven’t come across it before. Can you give me an example of the type of questions? I mean obviously they’re going to be specific to the individual client, all the rest of it, but what kind of questions?

    Liz: Um, what kind of questions? So, let’s see, would this person, so, let’s see, has this person, I mean typical questions could be around financial demographics, age demographics, you know the sort of typical things. But let me think of some more interesting things. So, is this person a full-time student? Has this person been fired from a job in the last 6 months? Has this person participated in usability research in the last 6 months? Those types of things, so if the person answers yes or no, then they’re not a good candidate. But there are other kinds of things you could put into that screener that would be more specific to the project.

    Paul: So could it include something like is this person aware of a certain brand, because you want to associate with that brand?

    Liz: Absolutely, so does this person drink Coca-Cola on a regular basis, yes or no? That kind of thing. But I’ve found that the screener, because the clients that you work with are often kind of speaking in those terms about their audience, the screener is a really good way to kind of help them understand how you’re recruiting audiences, and a good tool to kind of work together with them to narrow down who you want to be in the target audience for your testing, or your research in general. So, that said, how do you develop a good kind of set of participants for a research study for, say, a product for people over 60? Um, what’s most important, you know it depends on, and I know I hate to say that it depends, but you’re going to develop a goal for the testing, right? And the goal might be about usability, the goal might be about navigation, it might be about design, it might be about, it’s going to have, you have to first identify the goal, and depending on what that goal is, then you can identify the audience. So, the audience, you know the goal might have nothing to do with age, although the product has to do with age. So you can kind of strip away, you can pull apart the product from the goal of the testing a bit, and sort of just focus on the goal of the test. That’s why developing goals for user research is so critical, um, because often times you can separate those and therefore develop a better set of participants for that user research.

    Paul: Mmm, that’s really good. I think what we’ve done here, is, a lot of people that listen to this show probably have a basic understanding of user testing. Maybe they’ve done some basic user testing before, or maybe they’ve even written a persona before, but I think what we’ve done, or what you’ve done, is push people a little bit further to kind of consider it in a little bit more detail what they’re doing in order to kind of refine the results that they’re getting back, and that’s really, really great. I mean, if somebody has just kind of done the very basics, you know, they’ve grabbed some people, they’ve done some user testing, maybe in their own office in front of their own PC, and they’ve got a few people in, um maybe they’ve created a couple of personas, what’s the next step for them? What should they be pushing? Is it through this screener? Is that the number one thing they should be doing? Is the goals more important? Is getting a better demographic more important? What’s the kind of next step for them?

    Liz: Mmm, that’s a good question. I think that one of the most, well, doing the research is really key. Analyzing the research and connecting the research to the next iteration of a design is also key. We haven’t talked about that at all.

    Paul: No, we haven’t, we ought to.

    Liz: It’s often a grey area, um, you know there are lots of reports that are produced, you know, diagrams and things, but there’s a lot of kind of intuition that happens between sort of translating the research and putting that research, feeding that research back into the design. There are hunches, leaps of faith, um, you know kind of between that analysis and design. I mean there are clear cut recommendations that one can make, but then there are a lot of more grey areas. So I would say that, I still think, even though I mentioned we’ve been doing this kind of research for at least, you know, more than a decade online, and you know quite a long time offline, I think we still need to get better at the rigor at which we translate those recommendations and findings. So that’s one place I think we need to focus. Um, in terms of the actual research itself, uh, you know, there’s something, I think there are other sorts of techniques. I’m interested in these kinds of emergent, I would say emergent techniques like the listening labs, um, you know where the kinds of things that we’re looking at today with kind of mobile research, where people are, we need to be looking at how people are using our sites not just in the browser on their desktop but, you know, in the browser on their phone, and how their context is changing constantly and how we need to sort of look at that adaptation. So how do we develop tests that are more emergent and can be a bit more flexible, rIght? So I think there’s something interesting about that listening lab, where we kind of understand the person, and then develop the questions around a person and how they use a product, rather than having a pre-written set of questions. So, something that’s more emergent, I think that’s an area that’s interesting to kind of look at. Then, uh, ethnography, really understanding, goes right along with this sort of, emergent, as you said you’ve been getting more excited about ethnography as well, so, thinking more about kind of fine-tuning our approach to people’s own context, whether that be ethnography, going into their homes, their offices, you know, where people are using our products, whether that be on the street, in the hallway, wherever it is, but really understanding how to find people where they’re using our products and test them or do some research around that, I think that’s really exciting and a really interesting opportunity. Um so that, that’s the next step for us, uh, and I think that the way that people are designing tests and doing some usability testing now, is, you know, is good, I don’t think that there’s a big next step that we can all take together, but I think these are three areas that I think as a discipline that we’re going to see people moving forward together in.

    Paul: Excellent. Let’s finish off, then, with a kind of where people should go if, you know, they’ve been excited by this interview, they want to learn a little bit more, um, about user research and user testing. You’ve mentioned Steve Krug’s book. What other resources are out there that people should be looking towards?

    Liz: Well, let’s see. You know, I was thinking about, I was thinking about that and there are physical places that people can go, but they’re all in San Francisco in the United States, so that’s not going to help anyone. There is, you know, A List Apart has a User Science topic that often publishes user research related methods-like articles, there’s always BoxesandArrows.com which publishes user research related topics, um, Adaptive Path, which is a user research consultancy, or at least one aspect of what they do, they have published a number of articles but they also do events. A lot of events are in the United States right now, but they may have international events as well. But they do kind of give away a lot of their content. Um, and then last but not least, there’s a new-ish publisher called Rosenfeld Media, and the books that Rosenfeld Media publishes are about methods in user experience and, one recently in web form design, was about the usability of web form design by Luke Wroblewski (called Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks).

    Paul: Yeah, I saw that. That looked very good, I have to say.

    Liz: Yeah, so that’s something to keep an eye on as well.

    Paul: Excellent. Thank you so much, Liz, that was absolutely superb. And I will be fascinated to get you back on the show in the future to talk more depth about some of these issues. Thank you very much for your time, Liz.

    Liz: My pleasure.

    Thanks goes to Jason Rhodes for transcribing this interview.

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    Listeners feedback:

    Every website should have a call to action, a response you want users to complete. But how do you encourage users to act? How do you create an effective call to action. Read More

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    Snape and Keith, separated at birth?

    Improving your site with user feedback

    Posted in Site content on by Paul Boag

    Users can be invaluable when deciding how to move a website forward. We should always listen to what they say. However, sometimes that is easier said than done.

    Whether you are a website owner or a web designer, listen to your users. Whether you are running a web application like GetSignOff or developing content driven websites, listen to your users.

    We all know that user feedback can be invaluable for improving our sites. However, knowing something and putting it into practice are different things.

    There are two problems with listening to users:

    • How to listen to them in the first place
    • How to decide what is valuable feedback and what is not

    We will never pay more than lip service to the idea of users shaping our sites unless we overcome these obstacles.

    Collecting user feedback

    Everybody thinks they know their audience. However, in reality they probably do not. When was the last time you actually asked a user his opinion? You may think you know what they want but you can’t be sure unless you ask.

    Fortunately there are a number of ways to collect feedback from users:

    Face to face

    From focus groups to usability sessions, meeting users in the flesh provides unparalleled feedback. Meeting users allow a level of interaction unavailable through other methods because they allow two way real-time interaction.

    This creates a better empathy and connection with users. You can get inside their heads by watching their mannerisms, listening to their tone of voice and even observing the way they dress. All of these subtle elements help construct a picture of the type of person they are.

    Admittedly face to face meetings can be difficult to arrange. However I would encourage you to settle for nothing less. You may not do it extensively, but make sure you do it at least once.

    Web stats and search queries

    In my post ‘use web stats for more‘ I explored what could be learnt from analysing web logs and search queries. I explained that web stats could be used to find and resolve problems with usability, accessibility and content. I also looked at how monitoring search queries reveal what users really want from your site and the mental model they use to find your content.

    In short, web stats are an invaluable source for identifying trends in behaviour and expectations.

    Questionnaires and surveys

    Probably the most traditional and most favoured form of collecting user feedback is the ‘survey/questionairre’. One reason they are favoured is because they identify broad trends in much the same way as web stats.

    Personally I am not a fan of this approach, especially when used in isolation. Tracking broad trends through statistical analysis does not encourage empathy with users. As is pointed out in the book Subject to change, empathy is an important aspect of successful web development. Without empathy you will not truly understand your users.

    Also, in my experience there is a difference between what users say and what they actually want. Users often request features and functionality when in reality they value a simple user experience. Without a two way discussion with users it is hard to identify the underlying needs.

    Finally, unless users feel strongly about a site they are unlikely to complete a survey. This polarises results suggesting extreme opinion where it does not exist.

    I am not suggesting surveys are useless. The problem is how they are acted upon. Many treat survey results as absolute. In fact it is necessary to ignore some results and read between the lines of others.

    Third party web applications

    The final way of collecting user feedback is through a new generation of community tools. Sites like Get Satisfaction and User Voice allow two way interaction with users. Users can submit suggestions, questions and complaints online and you can respond in kind. This happens in an open forum allowing anybody to participate in the discussion.

    This open format (when compared to the predefined questions of a survey) encourages a more personal discussion and provides opportunity for a deeper level of discussion.

    As with surveys the people responding are likely to be more polarised in opinion. However, because of the interactive nature of these services it is possible to dig a little deeper and understand the underlying issues.

    Personally, I have found these services an invaluable way of building a closer relationship with users and better understanding what they are looking for.

    Of course, whatever method you use to collect feedback it must be assessed. You need to determine what must be acted upon and what can be safely ignored.

    Assessing user feedback

    Once you have engaged your users, you will be amazed at the quality and quantity of suggestions. The problem becomes deciding what to implement.

    I have had this problem for some time with both Boagworld and more recently GetSignOff. I have established 4 criteria I use to judge whether I act on a suggestion or not. These are:

    • Level of feedback – How many people are making the suggestion? If it is a substantial number then you should seriously consider implementing the idea. However if it is just a vocal minority then you may wish to think twice.
    • Source of feedback – Who is making the suggestion? Are those people your core audience? It is easy to find yourself implementing functionality for a group of users who provide no value to your business or site.
    • Cost of implementation – Consider return on investment when deciding on whether to implement a suggestion or not. If it is time consuming to build and expensive to implement, then the benefit to your users and your business must be high.
    • Impact – Finally, consider the broader impact of adding new functionality or content. Will it introduce complexity into your site? Will it break another part of the site? Will it distract users from your call to action or undermine business objectives? Often implementing a suggestion can have surprising consequences.

    There is no doubt that listening to users can be an invaluable way of improving your site. However, ask yourself how you intend to gather their feedback and respond to the results.

    Using web stats for more

    Posted in Site content on by Paul Boag

    We all use web stat tools like Google Analytics for tracking marketing campaigns. However, they can also be used to improve your site.

    As I continue my efforts to finish the website owner’s manual, I have reached a section on web stats. What struck me was how little most of us use the power of web stats. They can do so much more than monitor your marketing efforts. In particular they can:

    • Help find and resolve problems on your site
    • Improve the quality of the content you deliver

    Let us look at how.

    Finding and resolving problems

    When it comes to web stats one of the most popular figures to monitor is conversion rate. Conversion rate compares the number of users visiting your site to the number that complete a call to action.

    If your conversion rate is low, this could reflect a problem with your site. This could be due to:

    • Usability – The user is unable to find the call to action due to poor navigation or other usability issues.
    • Accessibility – For example a particular browser does not render the site correctly and so users cannot complete the call to action.
    • Content – The site does not provide adequately convincing content to encourage users to complete the call to action.

    But what consists of a low conversion ratio? That entirely depends on your call to action. For example, an ecommerce site could have a ratio anywhere between half a percent and eight percent depending on the sector and product. On the other hand, a call to action that does not cost the user money should expect a higher figure.

    The best approach is to compare a conversion ratio against itself over time. As you make adjustments to your site does that harm or improve conversion rate?

    Fortunately website statistics can also help establish what changes will improve your conversion rate. Start by looking at where users exit your site.

    Dropout points

    When looking at where users exit your site exclude those who only view one page. If you do not the homepage will be at the top of your list. This is because people click through from a search engine, discover this is not the site they wanted and leave immediately. Although this may indicate a problem with your SEO, it does not reflect badly on the site.

    Once these anomalies are excluded take a look at the remaining pages. Why are users leaving at these points? Is the content relevant and clearly presented? Is the navigation usable? Are you suggesting a next step to the user or are these dead end pages?

    Look at the history of users who dropout at a particular page. How long have they been on the site by this point? What other pages have they viewed? How long did they spend on the exit page before leaving? Does this reveal trends which help to identify the problem?

    Sometimes the problem will be obvious, other times it will not. In such cases try usability testing. This will uncover potential issues. If usability testing is not an option try using a tool like Click Tales.

    Click Tales picks up where traditional analytical packages leave off. It allows you to see what users do on an individual page. It record user sessions anonymously showing you what they click on, hover over and how far down the page they scroll.

    Although a technology like Click Tales is impressive it cannot replace traditional usability testing. It does not provide you the opportunity to question the user. For example it will not explain why users abandon shopping carts?

    When the website owners of ecommerce sites start examining their website statistics they are often horrified by the dropout rate experienced on shopping cart pages. They worry that there is a fundamental usability flaw. However, in many cases that is not true. Questioning users reveal they abandon baskets for a host of reasons ranging from ‘I was saving the items to buy later’ through to ‘I wanted to compare the price on another site’. Like the homepage, shopping carts will always have a high exit rate and no amount of statistical analysis can change that.

    However statistical analysis will allow us to improve the content and products we provide on our sites.

    Identifying popular content

    There is a real benefit in understanding what users want from our sites. From what content they want to what products they will buy, understand users requirements allows you to mould the site to user needs.

    Website statistics can help identify popular content but not in the way you might expect. Looking at the most visited pages will not provide answers.

    Popular pages can be misleading for three reasons:

    • Pages can be visited by mistake
    • Page can be popular because their prominent
    • Pages can be popular because they are gateway pages to deeper content

    The homepage is a good example of these problems. I have already explained that the homepage is visited my mistake from search engines. It is also a prominent page and used as a navigational tool for finding other content.

    Looking at how long users spend on a page can help to weed out ‘false positives’. However ultimately this is a flawed approach and can only give a partial indication of the popular content on your site.

    A better approach is to look at the search terms users entered into search engines to reach your site. Almost all website analytical packages provide this information and it helps define users priorities. However, this is only going to show content that already exists on your site. If a user entered a search term for content you do not have, your site would not have been returned. The user would never come to your site. What you really need is a way of identify content that you do not offer but users want.

    This is possible by examining the phrases users enter into your own sites search engine.

    Approximately half of your visitors will use internal search. Every time they use search they are telling you exactly what they want from your site in their own words. That is incredibly valuable.

    You need access to these search terms and particularly the ones that return zero results. This is the area where you need to do work. Users are expressing an interest in a piece of information you do not have or your search engine does not recognise.

    Once you have access to these search phrases, start tailoring content around them. If the content does not exist, add it where appropriate. If it does exist but is not being found, introduce the exact phrasing your users are searching for. Better to use the language of your users than sticking to internal jargon nobody understands.

    And there you have it. Proof that website stats can be used for a lot more than just tracking marketing campaigns.

    Show 95: In honour of the the RAF

    Posted in Classic shows on by Paul Boag

    On this week’s show: Paul shares some techniques for selling your services through your online profile. Marcus discusses project time scales and Ben Hunt talks about marketing your web business.

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    News and events | Project time scales | Social networking for sales | Ben Hunt on marketing a web business

    News and events

    The Rissington Podcast

    For over 2 years now we have been doing this podcast and in that entire time we have reigned supreme. There have been other web design podcasts but lets be frank they have been shit ;) Obviously out of politeness I have pretended they had their place but I think it was obvious to all that only boagworld was really worth listening to.

    However, like all great empires sooner or later they crumble and fall to a new rising star and I fear that maybe true with Boagworld. There is a new kid on the block called the Rissington Podcast. Not only is it hosted by two web design guru’s in the form of John Oxton and Jon Hicks but it is also professionally put together and at times really funny.

    This rambling, question based show shares some great advice on web design in an entertaining and friendly manner. Definitely check it out, we promise not to cry. After all, it is even more British than us!

    Net Promoter Score

    On last weeks .net magazine podcast we got talking about how to measure the improvements we make to the user experience in order to prove their value to a client. Peter Merholz from Adaptive Path mentioned something called the Net Promoter Score which I have confess I had never heard of.

    Fortunately I wasn’t alone in my ignorance because Andy Budd had not come across the term either. However, unlike me he took the time do some research into the Net Promoter Score and post his findings online…

    To calculate your Net Promoters Score, you ask your customers “how likely they would be to recommend you to a friend”, and get them to grade their answers on a scale of zero to ten. Zero would be extremely unlikely while ten would be highly likely. Those who answer nine or ten are considered promoters, and are the most likely people to evangelise your services. Those who answer between zero and six are considered detractors and are the type of people who will spread negative views about your services.

    To work out your Net Promoters Score, you simply subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. A good score would be in the range of 50-80%, while an average score would be 5-10%. A poor score would be in the negatives…

    Andy then goes on to explain how this basic question can be used to assess the value of your service. I can see why Peter brought this up on the show as it would seem an excellent way of assessing improvements made to the user experience. By testing before and after a site redesign it would be easy to measure improvements in the experience.

    Try it on your next project.

    15 Excellent Examples of Web Typography

    This is a bit of a random news story but I really wanted to mention it. I am excited to see that the movement towards better typography on the web continues to build momentum and I am constantly amazed at just what is possible with a bit of determination.

    Typography can me an incredibly powerful tool in our design arsenal, as I have no doubt said many times before. However, if you still need convincing then check out these 15 superb examples of web typography which I came across this week. There really is some inspiring stuff in here and it should be enough to get even the most jaded web designer playing with type again.

    Social net offers new perspective

    Talking of being inspired, my last news story of today is a post by Bill Thompson on the BBC technology site. I am not sure it is directly to do with web design but it certainly went a long way to re-energising me about the work I do on the web.

    The article focuses on how the social side of the web is transforming not just the way we interact online but also our world as a whole. While other journalists seem to be hammering the social net as a haven for child predators and terrorist trainers, Bill talks about how it is uniting cultures and making the news we see on TV real again.

    Bill writes:

    What will happen when these people (referring to online friends we have made) start dying in famines or wars, or when the climate changes caused by global warming lead to floods and droughts and natural disasters?

    What happens when the photos on Facebook and Flickr show devastated crops and starving families – and these people are not just faces on the television but old friends, people whose likes and dislikes and reading habits and favourite films we know and share?

    The world is different when it’s the people you know, and I do not think we will be able to resist the forces of change when our friends are dying on screen, in front of us, and we know that we could do something but have decided not to.

    The article really grasps the power of the social web, a power I personally am all too well aware of. Running and developing an online community is a strange thing. Many perceive social networks as a numbers game (a way of attracting traffic). However at its heart are real people and real relationships. I will never forget a woman called Crystal whom I became friends with back in 1997 when I ran a virtual community. Crystal was dying of cancer and was housebound. For such a long time she was the heart of our community until one day she died. The grief that we felt was just as real even though none of us had ever met her face to face. She was a real friend to me, a real person.

    I think that is why many online communities fail. They fail because they don’t grasp that communities are about people and relationship rather than features and technology.

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    Marcus’ bit: Project timescales

    I have often rambled on about the importance of contracts on this podcast and, within those the contracts, the need for a detailed spec, a detailed task list and associated timescales and milestones.

    I still think all of those things are important but I do think that often (me included) people go into a land of fantasy when it comes a) when they can start a project and b) how long each one of those tasks will take.

    Clients are guilty of this too.

    This is what usually happens:

    • The client, not knowing how long the project will take, picks a date for project completion because they don’t want it left open. Let’s call it ‘date x’.
    • Unless it’s patently impossible to achieve, agencies will agree to this deadline because they don’t want to adversely affect their bid.
    • A certain amount of back and forth over the delivery date happens because, for example, it takes longer than expected to agree on a contract, or maybe the scope has extended a little, etc. But the agency can’t really move the date to somewhere comfortable because they have already agreed to ‘date x’. So, all parties then agree to ‘date x plus 1 month’ or similar.
    • The project then slips and both parties start blaming each other for it – the agency feels that the client is overly pushy and, worse, the client thinks that the agency is unprofessional, inattentive etc.

    Be honest from the start

    Seriously, do it. I was just having a conversation this morning with a potential client (hi Graham) who is looking for a new site. He has an unrealistic delivery deadline of the end of October. With Headscape’s current workload, I felt that we could deliver the project, at best, by the end of January. This blew our chances completely but -

    a) Graham appreciated the honesty and, who knows, may want to work with us again or recommend us to others;

    b) If I had underestimated – a favourite at this time of year is to say ‘we can do it by Christmas’ – then I would have become very unpopular internally and also with the client when we failed to deliver.

    Don’t forget you have other clients

    It is so easy to think ‘standard CMS site redesign equals 10 weeks’ and then go and quote a date for completion 10 weeks from now! Don’t forget the following:

    • It usually takes at least 2 weeks to sign a contract
    • Do you have the resources to start straight away?
    • What other projects are imminent?
    • Staff holidays

    Educate

    I think the problems I am referring to relate to the fact that, even now, we are working in a relatively ‘young’ industry. This means that many clients simply don’t have an understanding of how long projects, and the tasks within those projects, can take.

    This used to be a problem with pricing and still is in some cases. However, client expectations of cost seem to be a lot more in line with each other than they were, say 3 years ago.

    If we can explain what we do and how long it takes right from the start with a potential client, then hopefully client expectations of project length will also balance out.

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    Paul’s corner: Social networking for sales

    From time to time I get questions about how to build your reputation in the field of web design. How do you become well known so that you can attract more work in? Its a fair question and one that inspired an article I wrote recently called The Geeks Alternative To Golf.

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    Ask the expert: Ben Hunt on marketing a web business

    Ben:

    Ill be talking about marketing a web business. And the things that I cover will apply particularly to small web businesses, little shops, web designers. But, the principles that we will be going over will apply to the whole of web design and in fact the design of any site at all.

    What I am going to be talking about I guess comes under headology, psychology. It will be stuff like: self perception, posture, attitude, and brand – which are really central things.

    So, starting with brand… what is brand? Well, brand is how people perceive you. What do you offer, what can you do for them. And what differentiates you from alternatives. Differentiation is absolutely vital and you must not ever underestimate it. There is a couple of books that have been really influential in hammering this point home to me.

    The first one I would like to mention is called Purple Cow. It is written by Seth Godin, the kind of godfather of marketing. And the core premise of Purple Cow is… whatever you do, you have got to stand out 241 you’ve got to be memorable. In the 22st century just fitting in with people’s general expectations, fitting in with the crowd simply doesn’t cut it anymore.

    The second book that I really loved is called Zag and it is written by a guy called Martin Neumeier. And it comes at the same kind of thing, but from a different angle. It says, “When everybody zigs, zag.” You go in the other direction. What ever is going on around you, do whatever it takes to stand out, to be noticeable and to go against the flow. Zag is also full of brilliant examples that explain why and also how you can go about it.

    So what I am going to be covering is broadly three steps that will help you to get into a really winning mindset. Okay, so let’s dive in.

    These days so much to choose from that we are surrounded by so many brands and so many messages all of the time. What drives our decisions and our choices as clients and what drives our client’s choices. And I find that it really really helps me if I try and get into the head of my potential customers. So the first thing to note, which is really often overlooked, I cannot stress this enough is people who land on your website (generally speaking) want you to be the one.

    No one really enjoys trolling search engine results. People say to you, “Oh you know, you competitors are only a click away.” And I would like to say to these doom-and-gloom merchants, “So what!”. You know, when somebody is on my website, we are half-way there. We are over the first hurdle.

    And these people are going to fall into two categories. They are either going to be someone who is looking for what we do and if they are fantastic! All we need to do then is to communicate that, quickly and cleanly to them, without giving them any reason to click back to the Google search results. And if this people is in the other category of people who aren’t looking for what we offer, no problem! We have got nothing to lose. We’re unlikely to be able to turn them around at this point and they are probably looking for something else.

    But what we might hope to do, is leave a positive impression so that one day when they are sitting there at there desk going, “Do you know what we really need is someone who does expert site reviews, or somebody who specializes in Web 2.0 design.” You might hope that hey remember you.

    It is really important to get your head around this reality that people who are visiting your sites are your friends and they want you to be right, so all you have to do is not bugger-it all up.

    Okay, so let’s take it for granted that your honored site visitor is in the first camp. They are here because they are looking for what you offer; they want you to be the agency for them. Moving on to step two… How to let them make a positive decision.

    Now here my advice is, work out who they really are. Who are your real customers? I see a lot of small agencies and free lancers, who on their websites they try and betray themselves as something they’re not – either bigger or broader or more capable. We don’t need to do that. The absolute core of this whole blurb I am spatting at is don’t pretend to be a big corp megabucks agency, if you’re not. Yeah…

    The whole trick is to be who you are, and portray that in a strong way that people love; that people connect with. I mean, you’ve seen all this stuff where people say, “We this and we that.”. You know, all over their website. When it is clearly one guy sitting in his bedroom. And there is nothing wrong with being one guy sitting in your bedroom doing work; there is a market for that kind of thing. And the other kind of stuff you find is people say is that, “Oh, we do work for clients ranging from 50-quid jobs (for small local businesses) up to mega-gazillion jobs for international blah-blah-blah…”. And you sit there going, you don’t do those kinds of jobs.

    So who are you trying to win? Are you trying to win BMW and SONY and Disney? Do you think they… those guys are going to come along to your website and fall for this stuff? Let’s say they did.

    Let’s go on a flight of fancy and say that the VP of Marketing for Disney lands on your website cause they just happens to find himself between web agencies, looking for a new one, and he goes, “Oh wow! These people seem to have a team although I can’t see them because there are no names and there is not much of a portfolio. And they say that they work with companies just like mine, a massive global conglomerate.” Let’s say you caught him on a bad day and he accidentally picks up the phone and calls you. How long is he going to be on the phone for, one minute 241 two minutes, before he realizes that you can’t possibly give him the security that he as a big-massive client needs. So we just need to accept that these aren’t the guys who will be paying your wage.

    So think, “Who are the real people who want what you offer?” And then, we brand ourselves, we pitch ourselves for those people uniquely. There is no point in pretending to be what you are not. What you need to do is present what you are, in the best light possible, which brings us onto step three… How to show who you are in a way that wins customers.

    So the trick is to examine all the aspects of what you are, what you do, and how you work whether you perceive it as positive or negative. And build those things into a brand, into a whole impression, that really delivers for you. So let’s get back into our customers head.

    Who are they, first of all? So they are not BMW and Disney and all of these guys. They aren’t going to be paying your bills. Who is going to be paying your bills? Who needs what you have? This is a two-way match between supply and demand. You can’t just be what you are not. You can only offer what you can offer. You can’t sell to people who need something else.

    Let’s start with the givens. Let’s start with what you are and what your capabilities are, what you can do. And then, picture a market for that. But the trick here is to select what to show that might make you memorable and create a connection.

    Often the things that you might perceive as weakness… for example if you are stuck in that mindset of thinking, “You need to pretend to be a massive full service agency.”… the things that you think are weaknesses may in fact be real strengths if you can spin them right, if you can present them in a right way. But, fundamentally this is all about getting your head around it.

    Branding isn’t about pretending to be something that you are not. Branding is about working out who you are and what you really do and then standing there and saying it with confidence in a way that really impacts people.

    Okay, so let’s look at a few things. Ah, you might be thinking, “We are not based in central London.” Great! You’re nearer to your local customers. You’re nearer your local small businesses who want somebody around the corner. They don’t want a big kind of so-ho agency.

    So you are thinking, “We are just one person.” Fantastic! You have no huge wage bills and that keeps the cost down. And very often, your clients can know that they can pickup the phone, and might even have your mobile number, and they can pickup the phone and speak to you. And that is worth an awful lot to a lot of clients, knowing who is going to be on the other end of the phone.

    “What about if you haven’t got an office?” Who cares if you haven’t got an office? You go to your clients and meet at their premises. It also keeps the fees down. Your local clients will respect that.

    “You don’t know everything about web technology.” Who does? You might be a specialist in PHP or CSS. Or you might have a particular passion for religious organizations or green issues or whatever it is, whatever really floats your boat is whatever you want to do. Let’s do that.

    Nobody knows everything. So if you are a small scale agency, we talk about this a lot, everyone has a network of other professionals and amateurs in your area, or around the world, who can help. And even the big agencies do that – everybody does that.

    So what we are talking about is, say what you are really about. Lots of people make a positive decision to work with my agency, after reading our ethical policy that we publish on our website. And that works great for us because the kind of clients that we love to work for are actually attracted by reading that stuff and the other clients who are in industries that we don’t do, they don’t bother to get in touch. Which saves everybody time and effort. So now you are getting your brand together. We need to build in, what your audience wants.

    So if you are really suited to dealing with other local small businesses, say. Think about what signs, what signals they are looking for to be able to make a positive decision to take the next step.

    There are two important things to remember here. Remember the customer in on your side. They want you to be the one. And also, here’s a new one, you don’t have to close a sale on your website.

    They job of the website is to get a qualified visitor from the point of first initial contact, knowing nothing about you, to the point of taking the next step. That’s it. So focus your efforts on giving the right kind of visitor, the right kind of signals, that you probably right for them. That is all that you need to do.

    Now generally, you’ll be looking to reinforce just a few points and I always think of these as like check boxes in somebody’s mind. I like to picture somebody; think of what they look like, where they’re working, sitting at their computer typing something into a search engine and clicking on some results. And thinking, “What are the check boxes, what are the three or four check boxes (there are not usually more that that), in this person’s mind that I need to tick-off?”

    And if you can tick-off those check boxes without upsetting the person, or giving them any reason to go away, and not believe in you then you’ve probably done your job. Then what you do is, you say (here is a call to action)… “If you want to talk about this more, that is fantastic, pickup the phone and call me and I would love to speak with you!”

    Let’s imagine, depending on the market you are talking to, what kind of check boxes might be in somebody’s head. I think very often that they are things like, “I can trust these guys.” or “They are not going to be too expensive and will fit my budget.” or “They like working with companies like mine.”

    So they are looking for evidence of all of those things. And it might be like what we said before; “I can get somebody on the phone if I need help.” And clients aren’t necessarily super confident in their requirements. You know, if it is an engineering company, and they don’t really know anything about media or marketing in particular, then there is no reason to think that they are sitting there being really really cynical. What they looking for is a friend, they are looking for someone to be on their side and to help them through this process.

    All we need to do is get them effectively to feel good about you 241 is really what we are saying. We have to get them from first finding you, to coming to a point where they have no reason to think you are not the right agency for them, then you give them a call to action and you say, “Let’s get together and let’s talk about we can do for you.”

    The thing I would add here is to do with focus. You need to plan the steps from the home page through to that call to action. Now you know your website might only be one page. You might only need one page to do that. You don’t have to have a news section. You might not have news to give. Don’t put a news section on because it will be a dead pit.

    You should put on your website only the things that you need to get that person from A through to B. And you need to be very very focused about it. So don’t put in more pages than you need. Don’t put in more images than you need. Don’t put in more blurb-bump-from-rhubarb, the more blurb-bump-from-rhubarb you put on your website the more you’re going to be watering down your message.

    Get all of these steps right, you have done your job and you should see the difference in your bottom line.

    Back to top

    Show 90: Digg

    Posted in Classic shows on by Paul Boag

    On this week’s show: Marcus abandons Paul to go on holiday. Paul talks about competitive analysis and does an in-depth interview with Daniel Burka, the creative director at digg.com.

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    News and events | Daniel Burka talks about Digg | Competitive analysis

    Hello? Is anybody there? I am so lonely, nobody to talk to, nobody to rant at, nobody to take the piss of! Your listening to boagworld.com, the podcast for all those involved in designing, developing and running websites on a daily basis. My name is Paul Boag and this week, I am sad and alone as Marcus is away on Holiday (or should I say vacation?).

    I have to say it is not the same without him. Of course on the upside in many ways its a lot better. Less waffle, no interruptions, no skype problems and you get to hear my undiluted genius. So thats okay then :)

    Because we don’t have Marcus around this week, todays show will be a little different. For a start Marcus wont be saying much, which should make the show shorter. However, in his place we have an extended interview with Daniel Burka the creative director at the social news website Digg. We cover loads of stuff from the difference in designing for social networking sites to working with AJAX and designing for the iPhone.

    I will also be doing my segment as normal. This week I will be providing a quick and dirty introduction to competitive analysis. We will be looking at what you can learn from your competitions websites and how you go about extracting the maximum amount of information.

    But before we can get into all that good stuff we first need to look at what has been happening in the world of web design over the last week.

    News and events

    Eric Meyer tries to prevent history repeating itself

    First up in the news segment of the show today is a passionate call to action by Eric Meyer. Like myself, Eric has been working in the web for a very long time and is all too familiar with the problems of the past. He is a veteran of the browser wars (how dramatic does that sound!) and remembers the many problems that period caused.

    During that time many web designers simply gave up trying to support multiple browsers and instead displayed the now famous message…

    “Your browser is not compatible and must be upgraded”

    It is therefore particularly disturbing when we thought those days are over to see the return of a similar message. As Eric points out in his post, those types of messages are returning in the form of…

    “This site is for iPhone users only.”

    As Eric says: Stop it! Stop it right now. He is absolutely right. There is no reason whatsoever for shutting out users from viewing iPhone optimized pages. Sure they might not look as good on a non iphone browser but other than that they should work fine on a compliant browser. To be honest, even if they don’t, that is still no reason to block non iphone users. If I choose to look at an iphone site on my Windows mobile device or even on my desktop browser, I am not going to expect it to look perfect. However, I could have all kinds of reasons for wanting to do it from wanting to check out the functionality to using an alternative mobile browser that is just as capable of displaying the content.

    In Short, Eric argues (and I whole heartedly agree) that the “best viewed in…” approach to web design is a fools errand. Whether it is the iphone or something else, make sure you avoid that road at all costs.

    6 Keys to Understanding Modern CSS-based Layouts

    Talking about best practice, Jonathan Snook has posted a helpful article for those of you still struggling to move across to modern CSS-based layout.

    As Jonathan says in his post…

    Much of CSS is pretty straightforward and, I suspect, quite easy for most people to grasp. There’s font styles, margin, padding, color and what not. But there’s a wall that people will run into… that point where a number of key elements need to come together to create a solid CSS-based layout that is consistent cross-browser.

    Jonathan addresses this challenge by talking about 6 key principles that will help you get over this hump. He talks about; the box model, floating columns, sizing with ems, image replacement, floated navigation and sprites.

    Its an interesting list although I am not entirely sure I would include the same items. For example there is no mention of HasLayout or IE conditional comments. However, Jonathan does say it is just his take on things and encourages people to add suggestions in the comments so they are definitely worth reading too.

    How to mix fonts

    So you might be listening to this feeling smug about your CSS skills but how are you with typography? Working with type is a challenging area and one that is very easy to get wrong. That is especially true when trying to combine multiple fonts together in an effective way.

    Fortunately, David who listens to the show, has sent me a link to a cheat sheet on mixing typefaces. Not only does it provide specific examples of typefaces that work well together, it also gives you some basic information on typography.

    I am a great fan of cheat sheets and have a number pinned to my wall including my much loved microformats cheat sheet. So, if you are looking for some advice on typography add this to your collection.

    Making money through forums

    My final news story for this week’s show comes off of the back of a story knocking around here in the UK. A number of large companies have pulled their advertising off of Facebook following the discovery that those ads were appearing on the profile of the BNP (a pseudo- fascist political party in the UK). These companies were unhappy that their brands being associated with the organisation.

    This Facebook story is indicative of a wider problem that advertisers seem to be having with social networking sites and forums in particular. So the question then arises, can you make money from a social networking site?

    For most of us this is not a question we have to deal with. Most of us don’t run social networking websites. However, many of us do run forums and we are looking to make a bit of extra cash from them.

    If that is you then you might want to check out “Can forums still make money?” on sitepoint. This post suggests a load of ways you can improve your return on your forum and make some cash to cover hosting costs. The post is very realistic suggesting that the vast majority of us are not going to get rich from our forums. However, it might help pay for your cleaner (which is what I spend my Adsense revenue on!) and so it is worthy of your attention.

    As a slight aside before I wrap up the news segment of today’s show, the article also links to some useful tips from Google about maximizing your return from Google Adsense, so you might want to check that out too.

    Talking of social networking websites, that brings me on nicely to my interview with Daniel Burka from Digg…

    Back to top

    Daniel Burka talks about Digg

    Paul: Okay. So joining me today is Daniel Burka the lead designer/creative director/God of all things user interface at Digg.com. Is that a fair way to describe you Daniel?

    Daniel: That was a very polite introduction. Thank you very much.

    Paul: Well, it is always good to butter up the guests at the beginning…

    Daniel: [laughs]

    Paul: I find it goes down better that way. [laughs] So Daniel, I thought that it would be great to get you on the show, simply because you seemed to have worked so extensively with web projects centered very much on social participation and web applications, you know, and various other Web 2.0 buzzwords. Obviously Digg.com is a good example of that. And a lot of listeners of this show are still working on content heavy brochure-ware type sites. But, they seem to be really interested in more interactive elements to their site. And so we thought, let’s get an expert on the show that seems to specialize in this area. So, here is my first question Daniel. What do you see as being the main differences between designing and social networking sites, compared to more traditional content heavy sites that I am sure you have worked on in previous lives, so to speak?

    Daniel: Oh yeah, I mean absolutely. I worked on those kinds of sites in the past. The big difference with something like Digg is that all of the content on the site, pretty much, is provided by users and so we're building conduits as frequently as we can where people can provide their input, provide content you know foster discussion, these kinds of things so I guess wherever possible we're not only designing the technically areas that they can do it but focusing the design on encouraging them to participate.

    Paul: So how to you do that? How do you encourage someone to participate in using kind of design tools and design approaches?

    Daniel: Right. I guess the big thing is to make it obvious that other users have provided content to the site. So, making it clear that the Digg count went up because other people you know dug the story. You know, showing which users submitted certain things or which user made a comment. You know that indicates, Oh okay. Other people, like me, have participated and that might be something I might be able to do too.

    Paul: So how did you deal with the kind of early days before Digg had really taken off? Where perhaps you had less content than you do now and you kind of want to give the impression that there is loads going on, when perhaps here isn't?

    Daniel: Right. I guess by the time I got involved in Digg which is about 4-5 months after it had started. So Kevin and Owen originally developed the site.

    Paul: Oh okay

    Daniel: And then they hired the company that I work with in Canada. They hired us to come in and basically do a design review and redesign of the site and that was the primary focus of the redesign was to look and say, Okay, what is this site about? And what the site is about providing input and so the original design which was more definitely designed from an engineer's perspective. It had all of that content, it had all of the facts and the bits and the place to Digg something, but it wasn't very clear at all what you should do or why you should do it.

    Paul: Hmmm.

    Daniel: And so, you-know probably the most interesting thing I have ever done on Digg was to take the Digg count, to make it really big and stick it on the left and stick a really explicit Digg It button under it. So, I mean that's clearing indicating X number of people already participated.

    Paul: Yeah.

    Daniel: And if you want to participate hit the big button.

    Paul: Yeah. The kind of putting right in front of peoples face where they can't possibly miss it, so to speak.

    Daniel: Right. I mean that is the entire purpose of the website is to, you know, say you like something.

    Paul: So what other kind of things did you implement in those early days when you came in and started redesigning the site?

    Daniel: The original focus, I actually thought this was a kind of interesting approach to take. Steven and I were looking at the site and trying to determine that. It already, in some ways, had a fairly large scope to the website. So we were trying to determine where do we get started. Often that is redesign the look of the site or redesign the home page. We looked at it and what is the most important thing here and the story format, I think, was probably the most important thing about Digg. And so we looked at each individual story in the list. There is a whole row of them on the homepage. We got about 15 on there now. And kind of a singled one of those and dissected it and said, What is important about a story? Why did the user submit it? Why is another person going to be interested in it? How do I encourage them to participate into that story? And so, that story format counts for a few different iterations since we started.

    Paul: Hmmm.

    Daniel: I think that being the primary focus of ours.

    Paul: I mean what about the kind of more rich elements that you started to introduce? Where there is a lot less page refreshes that perhaps there once was and you kind of changed the way the people interacted with the site by introducing AJAX and things like that. I mean was that a big shift? What kind of thinking went into that process?

    Daniel: Absolutely. I mean that is critical to Digg's success. Owen and Kevin had already started playing around with AJAX and this was before anybody like Jesse James Garrett that coined the phrase, AJAX. So, we were still calling it Asynchronous Javascript and XML request. Thank God someone has shortened that. And the fact that you are requiring mass participation to make something interesting would be entirely stymied if we had forced a page reload every single time a person wanted to participate.

    Paul: Ummm.

    Daniel: So we are using that all over the place. The Digg It button is the one real obvious place. And then you know especially in the comment system. There are various other areas where we're basically allowing you to have a really low-threshold of participation. No long page loads. Immediate reaction that what I did I got a reaction back from that, so I get that positive feeling.

    Paul: So how does that kind of process work within Digg? I mean are you actually involved in coding the AJAX elements or do you just do the user interface? How do those kinds of accountabilities split up?

    Daniel: Right. I guess we've got a really good balance I think between the development and the UI design. We are really tightly integrated with the different teams. And we are getting big enough now that we can actually speak about them as teams. So generally the flow at Digg starts with it's great we have a really design focused process here that Kevin will come up with an idea and then he and I will bounce the idea back and forth usually and figure out what the pros and cons are and then kind of rough out the design aspect. And then, basically take it from the conceptual stage code it statically and then work with the developers in terms of coding the functionality into it. So I don't do a lot of PHP or very much Javascript, but I provide with them XHTML and CSS and obviously the images and work with them implementing the basic flows.

    Paul: I think a lot of the impression I get is a lot of organizations is still struggling to work out whose responsibility is the AJAX elements. It's kind of client side stuff that is very user-interface oriented. So should it be a designer job or is it kind of so intrinsic in the kind of connecting to the database and pulling out the content and that kind of thing which is actually a developer's job? It's quite interesting to hear how different people do it.

    Daniel: Right. We probably fall into the developer's side of things. You know, it is submitting content to the database which is not horribly different than a normal form submitting to the database.

    Paul: Yeah.

    Daniel: So that is probably how we line it up.

    Paul: Yeah. You guys seem to be doing some interesting things at the moment. One of the things that I imagine is particularly challenging is that you got a tech-savvy audience which is where Digg started. But you're constantly at the moment in this process of broadening that audience out to be more of a mainstream audience. And I'm just interested from a kind of design point of view, and user-interface point of view, what challenges that has presented you as far as shifting that audience. You know kind of in-mid process if you want. Most websites have a fairly good idea of who their target audience is upfront. But you are having to adapt that as the site evolves and I imagine that must be tricky at times.

    Daniel: Oh, absolutely. I mean we started off as you said as very a tech-heavy site at about this time last year. I guess just over a year ago we broadened out very explicitly by introducing other content areas to the website. As we grow, and as a less tech-savvy audience comes in, there definitely is a real dichotomy between the perceived power-user who understands the very complex form type systems versus people who barely used a comment system on a weblog. On different areas of the site that level of experience I guess really comes to the fore. Although, I think I really take inspiration from the FireFox Project in that regard – particularly in Van Gudgers response. He is one of lead engineers on the FireFox Project. One of his best qualities being saying No! during the FireFox development and a lot of power-users perceive that they want all of these options at their finger tips. They want a hundred different options, if there are a hundred possibilities. Where as, in reality, having a simple system actually works better for both the power-user and the relative novice. I think the correlation between what happened with the Mozilla Suite, which was the previous iteration before FireFox which had a lot of different features and a lot of different buttons and customizability, versus FireFox which is really the torn-down simple browser. Which really ended up serving both audiences better.

    Paul: So have you had the kind of guts to take functionality away or are you more kind of hiding it away so that it is still accessible to the power-user wants to go and get it?

    Daniel: Well that is definitely the balance that we try and make. I think hiding the functionality is actually I was just reading a book a friend lent me. John Maeda’s book The Laws of Simplicity and he covers this subject. I think that it is really interesting that you can hide functionality as long as it doesn't feel intimidating and as long as you are not obscuring the functionality. I think you can actually, quite successfully, create a simple site by tucking functionally under the right areas, I guess.

    Paul: That struck me. This whole idea of dealing with different types of audiences is a very challenging area. You have been at Digg for a while now, what has been the most challenging aspect from your point of view?

    Daniel: Well, I think managing user feedback is definitely one of the big points of working at Digg. It is very intimidating working on a site where, every time you want something new, you have about 2 million people seeing it the next day and giving you their feedback on it. It is fantastic! It is really inspiring and exciting – and at the same time horribly intimidating. It is hard not to get frozen-up when you are about to launch something in two days and you kind of have to brace for the criticism because you know that people are going to be critical. And I mean that in the positive sense. They are going to critique what you have done. And so, being able to basically listen to a wide range of opinions and make sure that you are listening to everyone. But, you don't necessarily do what everyone says because there are obviously people with conflicting opinions and there are people who have very specific interests that may or may not be reflected by other people. I think managing those expectations that people want to know that you are listening to them and they want to see their suggestions reflected in what you are doing. Balancing those types of expectations is a really challenging part of the job.

    Paul: So how do you go about that? How do go about deciding which suggestions you are going to implement and which you are not? Do you have some kind of process for that?

    Daniel: I'm not sure if it is horribly formalized. I think the first and really important thing that we've learned at Digg, and I have learned on other projects being worked on, is taking a really deep breath. People will immediately ask for feedback on something, the minute you launch it

    Paul: Yeah.

    Daniel: They will ask for change. So don't make a change for the first week, unless they point out obviously drastic problems that you didn't anticipate. Take a deep breath. Let people give their feedback. Let them get some experience with the change because people are adverse to change generally. Their first reaction is going to be, Well I was familiar with it the other way, now it is different and I don't feel comfortable with that. And so, you will get a lot of feedback in that regard. And then carefully go through and filter and look for themes of feedback from different people. Try to determine why they were giving that feedback. And then iterate from there. I think that iterative process is so important.

    Paul: One of the things that I think everyone has noticed recently about Digg, is that you released this iPhone interface. Everybody is going on about the iPhone endlessly and I am hugely jealous that we don't have it over here in the UK. And so, I am obviously bitter and twisted about it.

    Daniel: [laughs]

    Paul: But, putting that aside there is this plethora of iPhone applications coming out and Digg is one of the people who have done it. Were you involved in that putting it together?

    Daniel: Yeah, absolutely. Joe, who is one of our developers, kind of came over and he was talking about it and was thinking it would be a great idea. And we both kind of got excited and pumped the whole thing out over our weekends.

    Paul: Ahhh.

    Daniel: Big props to Joe Hewett, who is not the Joe who works here, but Joe Hewett has made this great framework basically to start developing for iPhone applications in Safari.

    Paul: Ahhh.

    Daniel: He actually released a prototype of it on Friday afternoon. I think? And we started off from there and started developing. That is what does the sliding effects in our interface.

    Paul: Okay.

    Daniel: And we kind of took what he had done and I think we launched on a Tuesday the next week and on Wednesday Joe had already refined it and made into a kind of framework more people could use. So it was very useful to us.

    Paul: So how do you feel about that, because that is a very different interface to be developing? It is much more controlled. You know the browser you are aimed at. You know the screen size. Was it a pleasant experience?

    Daniel: Oh, absolutely. It was really really fun. I mean, there were a few things that were really fun about it. One, you are absolutely in that controlled environment. I mean people aren't resizing there fonts. You have a controlled number of fonts. You know the resolution. You can accommodate for when you flip the screen and it goes to wide-mode. And plus you are working with a rendering engine that doesn't suck.

    Paul: [laughs]

    Daniel: So it is really fun. [laughs] I mean you can even use advanced Webkit only type rounded corners and all kinds of fun stuff like that so, that part of it is really liberating. I can just imagine if all web design was like that. You know if all browsers were actually as standards compliant as they think they are. So that was fun. But, I think the most interesting thing is that you're working with an input device that is this big-fat-honking finger. And so, everything you do you have to be thinking about that. I think it will be interesting to see who succeeds at developing applications like that. But, you really have to think about pairing things down.

    Paul: Yeah.

    Daniel: When you are clicking with a finger there is no way you can have four or five buttons in a row and expect the person to be able to pick one out when they are sitting on a bouncing bus, with this phone in their hand. And so, buttons have to be really big. The Digg button on the source pages for instance is about two and a half times bigger than one on the normal site. And the links, we considered two different links. One to go to the source and one to go to what we call the Permalink page, the story page, of that particular item. But you know, even having just two buttons per story was much too difficult on the iPhone so we just have one you just can't miss which is a big finger button and it slides over and you get the story.

    Paul: Yeah. Do you think you will be doing kind of more with Digg where you are kind of delivering the content, through other various mechanisms; such as the iPhone? I mean, could you imagine doing stuff with desktop applications like using AIR or anything else? Is that an area that you think you would get into?

    Daniel: I think the really exciting thing is that we are finally getting a proper API out there. And so, I guess we launched the API maybe two or three months ago. Maybe longer than that, I forget, but I think it will be really interesting to see you know if a desktop experience of dig is really valuable somebody is going to pick up that project and go with it.

    Paul: Sure.

    Daniel: And they'll develop it on the API. So, I'm not sure if explicitly if a desktop application will be great, but I could see it having certain benefits and maybe toying around with the idea ñ for sure.

    Paul: Is there something personally you are interested in as a web designer doing, you know, it's a different medium again isn't it? You're going from a browser based environment to a desktop environment. Is that something that interests you personally?

    Daniel: Oh, absolutely. I think it is interesting that those lines are really blurring. I mean, AIRs is that first salvo, in that regard, you really are to a large degree developing a web application. You can develop it in HTML and CSS with basically the same skills it takes to make an iPhone application, or a basic website, you can build an AIR app. That is pretty exciting. I think that once that platform matures, it could open up a whole range of things.

    Paul: From a personal perspective, what is the area of your job that you most enjoy?

    Daniel: I really enjoy trying to make things easy for people. Sometimes is really irks me if Kevin describes my job as making things pretty.

    Paul: [laughs]

    Daniel: I think it is such a minor part of design. You know it is an interesting one. But I think sitting down trying to determine, when you are looking at a fairly complex system you are trying to build, and trying to figure out how to not be complex. What to takeaway, how to design something so that it feels simple by putting the really important things upfront. And throwing it by some users and watching them how they do it. I think it is really exciting to see somebody participate in something that is under the hood really complex, but which they have fun and they feel that they are participating. And they do not put a lot of thought into what they are doing, they are trying to achieve what they came to do.

    Paul: What about the fact that you kind of have been working on Digg for a prolonged period of time and it is that one site you have been working on continually? I guess because I work for a web design agency where I have a series of clients back-to-back and I am doing different things the whole time. Sometimes it strikes me that we're working on a project for a prolonged time is both a blessing and a curse. I just kind of wondered, what you think? Do you really enjoy being able to spend time digging into that one area?

    Daniel: That is a very interesting point, because I also come from the web design company background where I basically would do a different project every month. And until December I was still fairly heavily involved in the day-to-day affairs of my previous company, so it has been a reasonably new experience for me

    Paul: Oh I didn't know that.

    Daniel: To be working solely on one site, with Pounce on the side. [laughs]

    Paul: Yeah. [laughs]

    Daniel: Another site I have been working on. So this is really very interesting. Absolutely, there are so many things fantastic about it. It is really fun to be able to go into great detail and have the time to go back into something you designed previously, and to alter it. It is not necessarily that you made a mistake, but a month later you suddenly realize that a big improvement to that would be if I did X. And so you actually have the opportunity to go back and do those kinds of things. Where as I am sure, if you were working with a client, it has happened before that you know six months later you see something you say it is obvious to me now but it is kind of out of your control. The contract is over. You know

    Paul: Yeah

    Daniel: They're working with a different firm. There are all kinds of things like that. And so, working on something as big as Digg it is really fun too. Within Digg there are lots of different projects. There are different pages. There are new things we are working on. And so you kind of I guess segment them into kind of different projects you can go around in a circle and come back to later on.

    Paul: Do you ever envision a day where you throw out the existing user interface and apply a new one? Or do you think it will always be a kind of evolving iterative process?

    Daniel: Oh, I think an iterative process for sure.

    Paul: Yeah.

    Daniel: I don't want to second guess what is possible in the future. We may have some brilliant idea or new technology that blows our minds. But, I think there is no reason to throw out something that is working pretty well. I think there is a kind a rush sometimes to you know, to start from scratch that real desire to start from scratch sometimes. But something like Digg, I mean it has changed fairly significantly over the last two years, but I don't know if too many people notice

    Paul: Yeah.

    Daniel: Other than a few big pushes we made, that things had changed much. I think that is really healthy that people become familiar with systems. They learn how to interact with them. And to really shake them up, you really better have a damn good reason to do it.

    Paul: Yeah. Okay so last question then before we finish up. Is there any stuff that you are working on with Digg that you are allowed to talk about [laughs] because obviously there are things you are not allowed to talk about.

    Daniel: Right.

    Paul: But the stuff that you are allowed to talk about, what is really exciting you and what are you really enjoying getting into at the moment?

    Daniel: Oh, there is a bunch of things. I think I am allowed to talk about that Kevin mentioned the other day that we are working on the images section.

    Paul: Cool.

    Daniel: So we are going to do right now you can do news and videos. And we are pretty confident we are going to get into images as well. And so we are working on a couple of projects to kind of lay the framework for doing that. So, some people think it is as easy as adding a section

    Paul: Yeah.

    Daniel: And putting a title on it. But if we want to do that, we want to do it the right way. And lay the ground work first. I am working a couple of things I cannot go into great detail unfortunately there so much secrecy here that we can't

    Paul: [laughs]

    Daniel: Layout too much of what we are up to. But, I am really excited that we are headed in this direction.

    Paul: Yeah. The trouble is that you guys get ripped off so quickly, don't you, that you need to keep things quite.

    Daniel: Well. I think it is a combination of problems. One is that we are obviously concerned with people duplicating our features and the other one is that we want to be careful setting expectations. Because if we say we are going to do something, we really want to do it.

    Paul: Yeah.

    Daniel: And I think people will get disappointed if we say, In two months we are going to launch such-and-such. and you know lot's of stuff happens in two months. And unfortunately if that had to get pushed back, and that two months was a totally random date that I pulled out of my head

    Paul: [laughs]

    Daniel: [laughs]

    Paul: See know, we all believe that it is all going to happen in two months.

    Daniel: Shoot! [laughs]

    Paul: [laughs]

    Daniel: [laughs] People will be disappointed or they will feel like we haven't lived up to their expectations I suppose.

    Paul: Yeah. Okay. Well that was really great. Thank you very much for coming on the show Daniel. No doubt we will try and crowbar you again in the future to come and talk to us about Pounce as well. Because that is an exciting project.

    Daniel: That would be fun.

    Paul: Okay thank you very much for your time and talk to you again soon.

    Daniel: Thanks so much for having me.

    Back to top

    Paul’s corner: Quick and dirty competitive analysis

    Great stuff from Daniel! It was really fun to speak to him even though I managed to offend him after we stopped recording by calling him an American (he is Canadian). Hopefully he will forgive me for the ultimate crime!

    Okay, so before I wrap up today’s show lets take a quick look at the subject of competitive analysis. Its actually a segment I have just written for the book I am working on and so I thought I would share what I have covered. The idea is not to make you an expert in the field but simply to allow you to extract as much information as possible from your competitions websites in a quick and easy manner.

    As always I have written this up as a blog post entitled “Quick and dirty competitive analysis” so check that out in the show notes if you want to see exactly what I covered.

    No show next week

    So that is about it for this week’s show. Remember that there will be no show next week as I am going away on holiday too! Yippee! However, if you need your boagworld fix don’t forget you can check out the forum and chat with other people about the poor quality of Marcus’ jokes.

    Back to top

    Podcast 22: How your website sells

    Posted in Classic shows on by Paul Boag

    Whatever your website is about, it has to sell something. From selling an idea to a product or service, every site has its place in the sales process. This podcast looks at what that process is and how your website plays its part.

    Play

    Podcast: Download (23.8MB)

    Download this show.

    News and stuff

    This week we look at the new beta of Internet Explorer 7 as well as correcting a heap load of errors we have made in previous podcasts! However, most importantly we tell you about the geek dinner being held in honour of boagworld.com.

    For more about the geek dinner check out my post

    Win a ticket to SXSW by visiting the geek dinner website

    Technobuster: Validation

    This week’s technobuster section looks at Validation. What is it, why bother and how it work?

    Read our validation post for more details

    Main Feature: How your website sells

    As I said at the start of this post, every website is selling something. Even the most dreary public sector site is trying to convince somebody of something (selling an idea). In many ways most of life is about sales, we are always trying to get people to see our point of view, to do something we want them to do. Unattractive though it is, sales are the cornerstone of web design and yet so often it is overlooked.

    In this episode of boagworld, we explore some of the underlying sales principles that have been around for years and try applying them to the web.

    Seven steps in sales

    It is widely accepted that we pass through seven states in the purchasing process:

    Satisfied ignorance

    We do not believe we have a need and so are making no effort to fulfil that need. For example if you have just eaten, you feel no need to eat more.

    Awareness of need

    You are aware you have a need but have yet to take action. Gaining an awareness of your need can be triggered by external or internal sources. For example you may start to feel hungry (an internal trigger) or you might smell some food cooking, which makes you hungry (external).

    Information search

    You now actively look for a way to fulfil that need. Either we rely on internal sources such as a memory of a nice place to eat, or turn to external sources, such as a recommendation of a restaurant from a friend or family member.

    Evaluation of alternatives

    This search process will lead to a number of alternatives. Do I eat in a restaurant or cook something myself? We weigh the pros and cons of different options in order to settle on a decision.

    Purchase decision

    In this stage, we begin to look at the specifics of our decision. If we have decided to cook ourselves, we decide on what we will actually cook.

    Purchase

    This is the actual decision to act. In some cases, this will be a literal purchase while in others it might be a call to action like volunteering ones time or changing ones point of view. Understanding what your site’s objective is (your purchase point) will help you position it in the sales process outlined here.

    Post purchase

    This is the point where we decide if the "purchase" was the right decision and whether we intend to stick with that decision.

    Applying the sales process to your site

    Understanding these steps are one thing, applying them to your site is quite another. It is especially difficult if your site is not an ecommerce site. The goal is to understand which of these steps you perceive your site addressing and which are to be dealt with by other methods (such as on or offline marketing). Before you can do that, you need to understand what your ultimate goal (sale) is.

    Let me give you an example of what I mean. Headscape is a web design company that offers a variety of services that are tailored to individual companies needs. They do not sell a tangible off the shelf product and so the web is not an appropriate environment to complete the transaction. Instead, the actual purchase point needs to be reached from negotiation between the client and the Headscape team. Therefore, the Headscape website is primarily geared around helping prospects with the "evaluation of alternative" stage. Anything before this point in the sales process and the prospect wouldn’t have found the Headscape site, anything after this point and we would prefer to be talking to them face to face.

    Knowing where your website fits in helps determine factors like supporting marketing, content requirements and general design/functionality.

    Useful questions

    The following questions might help you to better understand the positioning of your site:

    • Does your site need to convince the user of their need before you present them with a solution? For example, the majority of visitors to the Headscape website already know they need a site and so this part of the process is unnecessary.
    • Does your site need to explain the solution to the users need before selling your particular proposition?
    • Does your site seek to maintain the prospects attention while they investigate alternative solutions?
    • Does your site manage the purchase process online?
    • Does your site provide post purchase support?
    • Are there methods in place to raise awareness of their need and help in finding your site?

    I realise that this is a bit of a tricky concept to explain so have a listen to the podcast and if it still isn’t clear post a comment on this site.

    Web resources: Choosing a colour palette

    This week Paul and Marcus looked at three sites that help you choose the right colour palette for your site.

    Dark-i.com
    This site lets you view example sites based on palette to see how other designers have worked with certain colour combinations

    Colour blender
    This site allows you to quickly and easy try out different colour combinations together as well as making suggestions of colours that will work well.

    Colour Schemer studio
    The colour schemer studio is the best colour theory software around. This excellent little tool helps you create the perfect colour palette. A great buy!

    Web Design Podcast (6) – The future of the web

    Posted in Classic shows on by Paul Boag

    So what does the future of the internet have in store? How will this affect your website? This week Paul and Marcus look at emerging technologies and how you can use them on your own site. All without technobabble!

    Play

    Podcast: Download (17.8MB)

    To download the latest podcast click here.

    Below is a brief outline of the things covered in this week’s podcast as well as links to some of the sites mentioned:

    Avoiding the technobabble

    What we try to do is explain the complexity of web design in a way that is accessible to those who are responsible for their organisations website but do not necessarily have the hands on skills to build a site.

    The boagworld.com blog and podcast aims to avoid in-depth technical discussion. After all, there are many people out there already doing that. What we try to do is explain the complexity of web design in a way that is accessible to those who are responsible for their organisations website but do not necessarily have the hands on skills to build a site.

    With that in mind, this week on the boagworld.com podcast we look at how the web is changing and what impact this will have on your site.

    Web 2.0.

    The web is currently undergoing a dramatic transformation and many people have referred to this change as the birth of the 2nd generation web, otherwise known as web 2.0. So what changes are occurring and how do they affect your site:

    The growth of broadband

    Recently years has seen a dramatic growth in broadband with 50% of UK home users now connecting to the internet in this way. But, how does this affect your site?

    Multimedia

    It gives you the freedom to add more multimedia content such as video, audio, and product demonstrations.

    Casual surfing

    Broadband users tend to use the web more casually and are not so task orientated. Your website needs to take into account this shift in behaviour by using hooks to keep them coming back until they respond to your call to action.

    Broadband services

    Less consideration has to be given to the depth of your information architecture, as broadband users do not have to wait as long for additional pages to load. Things can be more clicks away if that helps your architecture be more logical.
    Broadband users are more comfortable with services like Skype (internet telephony), podcasting and even IPTV. Consider how these services might fit on your site. Could you provide a "call us" button for Skype users or perhaps a podcast would compliment your site offering.

    However, remember, it is more than likely a significant proportion of your users still use dial up so be careful how you implement broadband related changes.

    RSS and XML

    You will need to listen to the podcast for the details on this one. However, among other things XML provides the following opportunities to website owners:

    • The ability to put your content or products on a partner’s site so exposing them to a wider user base
    • Allowing better communication with users, while avoiding the pitfalls of email such as SPAM filters and poorly displayed HTML emails.

    At the very least you should be considering adding an RSS feed for the news on your site.

    User lead services

    There is currently a new wave of social services such as digg.com, flickr.com and delicious that gives power to the users. Instead of relying on search engines to find content, these services allow users to recommend content to other users. This will affect the marketing strategy of your site:

    • You will need to place less time ensuring good search engine ranking and put more emphasis on the quality of your site
    • Because these services are user driven, old tricks used to "trick" automated search engines will no longer work.
    • Content will really become king and there will be a greater need than ever to ensure it is engaging.
    • Viral marketing techniques may become a more attractive option.

    Web standards

    I have talked enough about web standards elsewhere in this site so I wont say much here expect to point out that web standards (the separation of content from design) opens up a wide range of possibilities when it comes to branding. The same site could have multiple brands (looks and feels) depending on who is viewing the site and how they found it. Your site no longer needs to have a single look and feel, rather it can change to suit the person viewing or the device they are viewing on.

    AJAX

    AJAX is the coming together of a number of technologies which have been around for a while. They offer a new range of functionality that can really enhance the usability of your site. I recommend you take a look at the examples below and think about how that kind of functionality could benefit your site:

    Google suggest (try typing in a search term)
    Google maps (you can add this directly to your own site!)
    Personalised Google (try dragging the boxes of content around once logged in)
    Other great examples of AJAX at work

    But remember not everybody’s browser can handle this kind of code so its important you can still use the site without it. Also, be careful that you do not just use it because it looks cool. Make sure it is useful to your visitors.

    News: Headscape is recruiting

    If you have a good understanding of XML/XSL/XSLT, web standards, JavaScript, ASP/PHP and SQL server then get in touch. We are happy to consider new graduates, however some form of commercial experience would be required.

    You will be required to work alongside our lead developer and so will need to be able to commute to the Southampton area.

    Send your CV to [email protected]

    For more information on Headscape, visit our very out of date website :)

    For more web design related news why not subscribe to my digg.com RSS feed or if you are a digg member add me as a friend at: http://www.digg.com/users/boagworld

    A personal project

    Posted in Design on by Paul Boag

    I can’t believe it has been almost 3 months since my last post! I will be amazed if anybody is even aware of this blog anymore. Usual excuses I am afraid; moving house, family, Christmas, normal things. So what have I been up to while I have been away and what little tip bits have I picked up?

    A personal project

    I am ashamed to say that lately I have been spending almost as much time after work building web sites as I have during work hours. I have been working on a web site for my father (David Boag) who is a professional nature photographer.

    View David’s site

    His old site provided loads of information and was rich in photography but lacked focus. It had hardly any traffic and rarely, if ever generated leads.

    With the new site we hoped to generate more traffic and convert more of that traffic into real leads. Below I outline a few quick tricks we used to achieve this. For now this is just a quick overview. Perhaps I will expand on these in future posts.

    Tips and tricks for turning your web site into a more powerful sales tool

    Target audience

    Step one was to write a list of your potential target audiences. For my dad this included a variety of different audiences that tended to commission nature photographers. Because we had limited time and resources we decided to start with one target audience and also create a more generic site for the rest.

    Landing pages

    Once we had decided on our target audiences we created landing pages specific to them. The landing pages identified problems they faced and demonstrated how David could address those problems.

    The generic entry point is www.naturalfocus.co.uk

    The second is aimed specifically at Quarry owners who dad has worked with before helping them better communicate the conservation and environmental work they do: www.naturalfocus.co.uk/quarry/.

    You will notice that although the homepages are different the rest of the site is fundamentally the same. I used cookies to remember which point people entered the site in order to ensure they saw the right type of images in the gallery and that when they clicked home they went back to the right page.

    Call to action and sales

    We wanted to ensure that the site was focused on getting the user to complete a single action. In this site that action was to contact David. The whole of the site was built around this aim. The copy was written in such a way as to demonstrate David’s understanding of his target audience and how he could help them with the challenges they faced. Each page had a clear call to action at the bottom and contained prominent contact information throughout.

    Driving traffic in the short term

    I wanted to get Dad results as soon as possible so the first thing I did once the site went live was set up a PPC campaign with Google. Because of the niche markets we had selected this didn’t need to cost the earth and instantly started driving traffic to his site. Combined with some message board seeding and requests for reciprocal links we managed to push his traffic from a couple of visitors a day to well over one hundred.

    Driving traffic in the long term

    The focus now is on finding link partners to help push Natural Focus up the search engine rankings. We have identified two primary keywords for our two landing pages "nature photographer" and "quarry". We have looked at who is currently number one and used them to identify potential link partners by looking at who links to them. We have also looked at their text and the amount these keywords are used and tweaked our own content accordingly. This is an ongoing process and one that we hope in time will bear fruits…watch this space.

    Rich Media Advertising and Flash

    Posted in Marketing on by Paul Boag

    98.4% of Web users can experience Macromedia Flash content without having to download and install a player. Over 4 million homes now access the web via broadband with 40,000 new ones connecting each week. Rich Media Ads receive 5 times higher click through rates than traditional online ads. With figures like these perhaps it is time I started taking Flash seriously.

    The problem with Flash

    My problem is that I don’t like Flash. Or more to the point, I don’t like the way people use Flash. Also despite Macromedia’s assurances I still have serious concerns about its accessibility. However if I am truthful I think my biggest problem is ignorance. I used Flash in the early days and soon concluded that it was great for novelty animation but not much else. Well the product has since evolved and I have only recently returned to it in order to revaluate its potential.

    Flash and advertising

    Flash has seen its largest success in the world of online advertising and has, in conjunction with PPC advertising, revived the flagging market. Users that had become banner blind were recaptured with the TV like qualities of Flash. Flash could engage the viewer through exciting moving images and the use of high levels of interaction.

    Flash has the potential to provide considerably more information on a product than a traditional banner ad without asking the user to leave the current web page they are viewing. Take for example the recent Kill Bill advert that has been short listed for the 4th Annual EyeBlaster Creative Awards. This advert not only promoted the film but allowed the user to view a gallery of images, all from within the ad itself. Another short listed advert allowed the user to play a scratch card style game while other ads even contain streaming video.

    Lessons to be learnt

    Of course we don’t all have large online marketing budgets to splash around on buying ad space. However that doesn’t mean we cannot learn some valuable lessons from the use of flash in online advertising.

    We know that flash is a powerful ‘attention grabber’ and that the vast majority of users can view the plugin. We know the an increasing number of users have broadband access that allows the use of bandwidth intensive features such as streaming video.

    With all of these things in mind perhaps it is time to look at Flash as a way of pushing traffic to key parts of our sites whether it is promoting certain products or focusing a user on a specific call to action.

    Flash also allows us to demonstrate and explain complex concepts in an easier to understand and more engaging fashion. If a flash advert can allow a user to engage in an interactive scratch card game why cannot it also be used to allow users to interact with your products virtually or take part in an e-learning application. From streaming video presentations to interactive product demonstrations Flash opens up endless possibilities for your site that transcend simple text and imagery.

    If you are interested in discussing how Flash could benefit your site or you are interested in running a rich media campaign then click here to email me now.

    Product review – ClickTracks

    Posted in News on by Paul Boag

    Do you have trouble understanding the statistics on your website’s traffic? If so then ClickTracks could be for you.

    The problem with website statistic packages

    I don’t know about you but I am a visual person. If I am trying to understand a new concept I grasp it quicker if I can actually see it in action or at least see a diagram of how it works. Perhaps that is why I used to find website statistics so hard to get my head around. I found it hard to get any real value from all of those columns of statistics. Sure they are great if all you want to know is how many people viewed your site yesterday or what percentage of people use internet explorer. However I always found it hard to get a feel of how my visitors were moving around the site and where they were encountering problems.

    A different approach

    Clicktracks takes a different approach and one that is superb if you want to really understand how users interact with your site. Sure it provides all of the normal statistical reporting allowing you to bring back information such as; most common entry page, most common exit page, number of visitors per day etc. It even allows you to generate reports that focus on specific user groups such as pay-per-click customers or those that stayed at the site over 30 seconds. However what really sets Clicktracks apart is the ability to overlay powerful statistical reporting on top of your website. In other words you can actually browse your website and see who clicked on what and when. It is even possible to follow individual users through the site and see exactly what pages they hit and in what order. Still confused? Then take a few moment to watch the demonstration available from their homepage . It really helps to explain the potential of this application. Visit the ClickTracks website now

    The Benefits

    The benefits of this approach our obvious. It allows you to gather huge amounts of usability information without running usability test sessions. Although weblogs are never going to replace test sessions Clicktracks does give detailed information about visitors surfing habits. ClickTracks gives you the ability to really get under the skin of your users. For example it is possible to isolate the users that have completed your call to action (whether that is buying a product or completing a contact us form) and analysis how they came to that point. How did they enter the site? What pages did they view? How long did it take them between arriving and completing the call to action? It also allows you to do the reverse with users that fail to complete your call to action. Why did a user abandon their shopping cart? ClickTracks would allow you to discover for example that many people abandoned their carts after visiting the delivery information page. That might tell you that your postage is too expensive or it takes too long to deliver. You can also track users that arrived after searching for a specific keyword. How long did it take them to find the page on your site that specifically relates to that keyword? Did they go to other pages that were not relevant first? I am sure you get the idea.

    Conclusions

    Although this kind of tracking is available through most statistics packages Clicktracks makes it available in a much more intuitive fashion without loosing any of the flexibility or power of more traditional software. Combine this with the lightning processing of even large sets of weblogs and you really do have a winning package. To see for yourself just how powerful Clicktracks can be click here and download a demonstration version.

    Permission based email

    Posted in Marketing on by Paul Boag

    How to use email to promote your products and services without alienating your users

    I know it has been said a hundred times but it is worth saying again; email is the ultimate application of the information age! Email has literally transformed the way we communicate and now increasingly is being used as a marketing tool. Below I take a look at the power of email and how it can transform your marketing strategy.

    Permission based email vs SPAM

    We have all heard of SPAM. It is annoying and intrusive and I believe undermines your company brand. Not that I don’t understand its appeal. In essence it is a numbers game. Send emails to enough people and you will get a percentage return. However I believe that in the long run this is a counter productive approach. I am convinced that permission based emailing is more effective because it generates a high quality of lead. So what exactly do I mean by permission based emails. Well basically permission based emails (or opt-in) means the recipient has expressed an interest in receiving the email and has signed up to do so. The recipient has also been given the opportunity to unsubscribe at anytime.

    Creating an effective email

    Although opt-in emails do receive a higher response rate than SPAM you can increase this still further by following some simple rules when writing the content for the email:

    HTML or plain text. The big debate

    One of the big decisions you have to make is to decide whether your email is going to be in HTML format or plain text. To be honest there is no simple answer to this one, but a good rule of thumb would be that if the recipient is a consumer then they often prefer HTML formatted emails with all the rich media this provides. However corporate, government or technical users often prefer to receive plain text emails. Although I love the richness of HTML emails I am more and more forming the opinion that it is better to play safe with plain text especially now that email clients such as Outlook 2003 and AOL 9 now block HTML email by default.

    Response Rates

    So what should a good campaign generate in terms of response? Well that is a difficult one to answer and largely depends on the industry you are in and what the demographic of your target audience is. However a good campaign can expect to realise anything between 4% and 20% response rate. It has to be said that unfortunately these figures are dropping as more and more companies realise the potential of opt-in email.

    Trying different approaches

    It is always a good idea to try different messages before you do your full mailing. Take 3 different messages with different content and maybe different formats (HTML or plain text) and send these to a small subset of your whole list (say 10%). Monitor the results and use that to decide which message was the most effective. Although this does slow down the process slightly, it is well worth it because it can have a significant effect on achieved response rates.

    Entry points

    Whenever you do a mail out that encourages people to visit your website, it is always a good idea to create a unique entry point. This separate page can be written specifically to follow up on the content of the email and helps to ease the user into the site. It is also an excellent tool to ascertain which users come via which campaigns. You can simply look at the traffic that hits that particular page in order to see how effective the campaign has been. It is even possible to then "tag" those users so you can see if they actually make a purchase.