Warmest Greetings,

Affordable Newsletter Usability Help Available for Politicians  

:: Monday, October 11, 2004 ::

Today's Alertbox from Jakob Nielsen is about newsletter subscription usability. He compares three major site offerings: Washington Post, Senator Kerry's Campaign and President Bush's Campaign. The politicians failed. No surprise there. We are, after all, talking about usability here, and concerns for people.

The Washington Post scored better in JN's usability evaluation, likely because they understand their target market and are better skilled with presenting online content. They violated a privacy concern by asking for too much information up front, before anyone can subscribe. However, they provided clues about what a subscriber would receive for their trouble.

The politicians never considered providing such clues. You have to guess what their plans are. Need I say more?

There are other good points in Newsletter Usability: Can a Professional Publisher Do Better? that anyone can come away with and apply to their own situation.

Freedom of Choice

JN offers a publication called Email Newsletter Usability: 127 design guidelines for subscription interfaces, newsletter content and account maintenance based on user research. For $298 he'll tell you how to create an emotional connection with your reader and the results of newsletter usability tests.

I offer the quickie checklist that gets to the nitty gritty of setting up our newseltter subscription process to be user friendly and help it convert to more subscribers in How To Quench Your Web Site Visitors' Thirst. For $15.98 I point out common mistakes and deterrents to signups and ways to offer a credible newsletter subscription process. And, there's help with web site navigation and credibility included for that low price.

Had Kerry or Bush paid my fee, perhaps they could saved more money for things like, oh, I dunno, Healthcare, the Environment, French Fries, etc.

Gratitude

Jill Whalen

Mike Grehan

Barry Schwartz

:: posted by Kim Krause Berg on 10/11/2004 10:21:11 AM

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