Warmest Greetings,
New Usability Testing Services Launched by UsabilityEffect
:: Saturday, August 21, 2004 ::
The long awaited shopping cart functional testing service I've developed has been completed and tested with several clients, who received the testing at no charge in return for my feasibility testing.
They were most pleased. One client emailed back that my findings were "eye popping".
I broke the test plan into two separate offerings. One is for functional and user interface, and one is just focused on the user interface. Both require test credit cards and some minor setup (to make sure I don't actually make a purchase.)
Many ecommerce sites are using third party shopping cart applications and wonder how well they blend into the flow of their own web site. Others are concerned over abandonment issues that they're seeing. For example, they're paying for Google AdSense ads, but seeing their clicks are not producing sales. They want to rule out the shopping process as a problem.
In addition to shopping cart testing, I've also developed a handy newsletter conversions test case. I review the user paths, ease of use, persuasiveness and find causes for low signups. I've made this service very affordable. Many small and home businesses use newsletters, especially when announcing sales and specials. Newsletters and ezines that accept advertisements want to show a high subscriber rate. For newsletter conversion checkup orders taken via Paypal, I take $5 off the total fee.
Here is more information on all my web site usability testing services
Plus:
Shopping Cart Testing
Newsletter Conversions Checkup
There are plans to ramp me up for MIVA programming and testing MIVA shopping carts as well.
I accept Partners who would like to add my services to their own. This idea is hot for companies who want to offer a holistic approach for their clients.
:: posted by Kimberly Krause on 8/21/2004 05:49:19 PM
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Search Engine Optimization is For People Who Use Web Sites
:: Friday, August 20, 2004 ::
Ammon Johns is receiving kudos, and rightly so, for presenting what he feels is the bottom line purpose of SEO practices. In a comment he made in someone's blog, he writes,
"SEO is all about usability and accessibility. It always has been. It is incredibly obvious that it always has been."
I can think of no company I've ever worked with who saw how "obvious" this is. Their blinders were on too tight. The negative press SEO receives has tarnished the industry. So have the bad practices deployed by individuals and companies who looked for ways to compete in engines, unfairly.
Ignoring the habits, needs, and intelligence of end users indicates to me the web site itself is desperate. Desperation is a real turn off.
Ammon continues,
"However, despite the saying being that all press is good press, I don’t believe that publishing your lack of understanding of SEM/SEO has done much but allowed others who don’t understand it to have a quick rant and underline their lack of understanding.
The basis of all SEO is really simple: we design for one more broad type of user-agent than most of the designers ever think of – even the so-called progressive ones. SEOs design for the spiders to get as much out of the site as the human users can.
That is the essence of all SEO in a nutshell.
My job, of the last ten years, is to fix the oversight and inconsiderations of the average designer employed by all levels of companies, from the mom-and-pop business to the large multi-national corporations."
In this one long blog comment, Ammon stated what I've been talking and writing about for the past several years.
I went from Webmaster in 1995, to SEO by 1997, to usability consultant by 2001. Each step forward was because I could not accept limitations.
I came to finally understand the value of putting the web site user first. How a person uses their computer is critical information for a user friendly online property of any type, be it a store, search engine, forums, information site, etc.
Search engine optimization and marketing plays a part in this. The requirements for search engine robots and humans are surprisingly very close. After all, people are the inventors of search algorithms and rating systems.
We train our pets to be more like us. We do the same with our computer technology.
In the early 1980's I worked for an animal hospital. Though hired to help with patients, it became clear I was better at maintaining their computer system. It took up one portion of the office, and my back up tapes where the size of platters. I named this computer "Hal". At an animal hospital, all living things had a name. I made sure "my" computer was included.
This is the fundamental principle for any web site presence. People do matter. Build it for them.
Yahoo! has launched a blog, called Yahoo! Search Blog. Interestingly, they link to the Google blog, a competitor. Even more fascinating, and telling, are their links to several SEO news blogs.
If the Yahoo! blog links to usability resources, I'll be completely impressed.
See What SEO/SEM and Usability Folks Say About...
Is the JavaScript redirect still necessary?
"I may have a shock for you. The question isn't about the number of users still browsing without JavaScript, but rather about the absolute fact that the number of users choosing to browse without JavaScript is growing, not declining."
:: posted by Kimberly Krause on 8/20/2004 11:56:08 AM
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Cre8asiteForums Noted For Best Design Principles
:: Tuesday, August 17, 2004 ::
Noted for its "Best use of core design principles", Cre8asiteForums is awarded recognition by WebDesignFromScratch, making the "BEST" side of the best/worst showcase of web sites. In the company of AdaptivePath, Apple, and CriticalMass, this is quite an honor!
WebDesignFromScratch hit us front and center recently at Cre8asite, when, during my daily "runs around the Web", I came across Ben Hunt's shareware tutorials in web design. He's big on user centered design, but more than that, his smooth web site is educational, passionate and easy to use. Ben tells us,
"If you love WDFS, please do me the honour of leaving a message or two on the site itself (preferably not the home page, it's very busy on there, but on topics that you find stimulating - for any reason!)"
CForums is really more than a forums. The Moderating team, led by Stock (Grumpus), also built Cre8asite.net, which is the research library. There is also a forums blog, Cre8ative Flow, which several people write for. The forums have undergone changes to the back-end, and the user interface has been changed over time in subtle ways. Expect to see new top navigation soon. Sophie (Sanity) and Dave (ILoveJackDaniels) are working on this now. The Cre8asite Network (forums, blog and library), are also a referral network. We team up on projects, and refer people for projects.
Back To Yesterday
Matt Bailey responds too. SES slammed by designers
"Well, I just had to say something, being a part of that panel."
More Fun
Barry Welford has some questions for SEO's in No sex please, we're SEO's
I dunno about that. When I was a Journalism student I wrote a hilarious piece called the "History of Sex" for the college newspaper. One of the tidbits I found in my research was that journalists were said to have the least amount of sex.
I sooooo didn't want to hear this, at 20 years old!
UsabilityEffect.com News:
New accessiblity section in the Usability/User Centered Design Research section.
Kim joins the staff of Mike Grehan's E-Marketing News
Added Usability and User Centered Design Books for purchase.
:: posted by Kimberly Krause on 8/17/2004 10:44:27 AM
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Danny Sullivan Defends Integrity of Search Engine Strategies Conference
:: Monday, August 16, 2004 ::
A blog post from a disgruntled web designer attendee at the 2004 San Jose SES conference prompted a discussion, more blog posts and defense of his speakers, by Danny Sullivan, conference organizer.
In The craptastic adventures of SES San Jose 2004. The author writes,
"Many of the advanced technical sessions suffered from a severe case of suck (except perhaps the web server issues & feeds/blogs sessions); apparently “expert” means “spent a few hours reading WebMonkey in 1999.” By this I refer specifically to the conference’s worst session, 'Advanced Design Issues: CSS, Javascript, and Frames.'"
Cre8asiteForums moderator Adrian Lee, our CSS guide, was prompted to ask questions about this in SES slammed by designers. Adrian writes,
"This is only one review of the session, and it would be nice if there is anyone else out there who also attended it to confirm whether the review in the blog is accurate.
If it is an accurate assessment of the what was said, then personally, I have to agree with it, and I'm disappointed that the well known names running the session were giving that kind of advice."
Quick to respond, and rightfully so, is Danny Sullivan. Danny points out,
"Every session at our New York show rated 4 or above on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being perfect. That's to me a pretty good record."
He continues,
"The show is about search engine marketing. It is designed to help you do your search engine marketing better. However, it has had to take on areas that go beyond this. For example, we've long had sessions on improving conversion. That's not necessarily an SEM skill -- but it can be closely tied to it. A number of people have suggested sessions on usability in the past. I'm still considering it. But at what point does it turn into a web marketing/web design conference? I'm not knocking that -- but the more you get away from a search-centric focus, the more you lose the focus overall that's made this particular show successful with many people."
Point taken. But, with search engines themselves promoting the idea that they're focused on usability and making their web properties more "user friendly", and the big emphasis on pay per click ad campaigns, I'm surprised at the lack of industry interest overall in web site usability.
Who would I rather pay to promote my web site?
A company that cares about whether or not my web site is designed to convert to sales and signups, making my SEO investment worthwhile, or the SEO/SEM who takes my money to help my site rank, but isn't skilled enough to tell me whether people will stay on the page once they find it, or not?
This is a big plug for my Partners - all companies who do care. (Many are speakers at SES conferences, or sponsor ones themselves.)
:: posted by Kimberly Krause on 8/16/2004 02:12:56 PM
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