Commentary by blog and social media consultant Josh Hallett on the use of blogs for public relations, media, marketing, communication & branding and from time-to-time the unsolicited opinion.
Message to corporations with fancy phone systems that say, "To reach a specific person just spell their last name....." There is one big problem with this. Blackberry and Treo users don't have the standard letters on their tiny keypads. Some of the 7100-series Blackberrys do have the letters on the number keys, but none of the 8700, 7200 or 7700 series do.
I've used gadgets for a while, but I can't remember that #6 corresponds to M, N & O. Anybody else run into this problem?
Great quote from the audience during Ethan Kaplan's session at Gnomedex:
When I see a Flash site with skip intro, I read it as skip web site.
Yahoo released a major redesign to their homepage last night (details from Richard). Currently it's only available for users of IE or FireFox. Safari users receive the following message, but support is promised soon.
I spent most of the day in Jacksonville, FL hanging out with the nGen Works gang talking about blogs and other web-stuff in addition to eating some great Thai food. (some pix here)
Carl, Bruce, Travis, Joey and Varick are a cohesive unit that focus on building standards-based web sites. They launched a group blog, In the Garage, a month or two ago and wanted to talk shop so-to-speak. They're off to a good start but they just wanted to make sure they were heading in the right direction before really ramping things up. Each of the guys have some diverse interests that will really make the blog an entertaining read in the next few months.
Over In the Garage, Carl wonders if the media's lack of coverage of the Target web site accessibility issue is because they're such a big advertiser?
Jacksonville, FL web studio nGen Works have quietly been blogging over In The Garage. They're a group that is very hip on standards.
They've also got some photos from the re:Charge conference.
Jeremy Harrington has created a great set of replacement icons (direct download) for NetNewsWire based upon the new 'standard' RSS icon.
There has been quite a bit of discussion surrounding SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as a PR function. It started with Jeremy Pepper riffing on a post by Steve Rubel on how PR is adapting (imagine that, a Jeremy/Steve disagreement). Nick Wilson over at Performancing agrees with Jeremy, SEO PR is wrong. I've jumped in the comments on a few of these posts. Here is what I said:
I think there is a relationship, but perhaps SEO is not the right word. Jeremy is correct, PR is about content and relationships. However, content and relationships can lead to good natural search engine positioning. It's sometimes a side benefit.SEO implies doing things specifically to target the engines.
I have never been a fan of the SEO crowd, mostly because of a few unethical ones (a common issue that the SEO industry faces). People like Teresa Caro help change that perception though.
When I consult with clients and help them develop blogs and web sites I do things that might help them with search result listings. It's amazing how developing good content that is relevant and contextually linked is looked favorably upon by the search engines :-) It's not my fault that findability is a good thing. In reality, it's mostly common sense and making sites usable for the visitors.
While visiting the Georgia Aquarium today I saw this:
It's a Window's error message on a large touchscreen display. The aquarium worker standing next to the exhibit says it always happens. I posted a photoset of the day.
I received a web brief for a project I have been asked to consult on. One line in particular sticks out (when discussing the attributes of the web site):
break through the clutter with a WOW and COOL web presence
That's just the problem, WOW and COOL usually end up becoming Flash-based, lame and foster no long-term relationship with the user, just like every other 'edgy' site. Making your web site WOW and COOL means you are the clutter.
Usability guru, Jakob Nielsen has posted a Alertbox update on blog design: Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes.
Luckily when I look over my blog and some of my client blogs I am proud to say we don't break that many of the 'rules'. I should note that Jakob is talking only about business/corporate blogs. If it's your personal blog and it's not associated with your work feel free to break all the rules.
Let's look at the top ten:
No Author Biographies
Check. Typically I like to provide a link rather than including a full bio on the page, but we have done it for some clients (Wendy has a short bio intro).
No Author Photo
I think this really depends on the blog. I sometimes feel photos are a bit to 'self-promo-ish', sort of a 'hey look at me!' thing. Plus I hate the standard headshot. I guess if that's you and how you want to be portrayed on your blog then go ahead. I would prefer something with a bit more style. You can see how we incorporated Wendy's photo in her blog template. As you can see it's not your standard headshot in a rectagular box. For WebSolvers' blog we can add some personality by showing the photo of each author next to their posts.
Continue reading "Reviewing Jakob Nielsen's Weblog Top Ten Design Mistakes" »
Boing Boing picked up the chatter about how you can't access the FEMA claim web site with a Macintosh. Macintouch had the following comment:
FEMA's website for disaster registration requires:"In order to use this site, you must have JavaScript Enabled and Internet Explorer version 6. Download it from Microsoft or call 1-800-621-FEMA (3362) to register."
I tried the latest Safari, IE and Firefox, none work. Heaven help all the Mac users in the South... assuming they have power.
I visited the registration page last night and had the same issue. What's ironic is that this violates Section 508 guidelines.
While writing this post I went to NFL.com to see if the NFL was offering blogs to fans. I did a search for blog on their site. Here is a screenshot of the results I received (click for larger version).
All the visible results are from advertisers. I had to scroll down to find the real results to the search. Now remember two things:
1. I chose to search NFL.com and not 'the web'. I can understand providing me a list of external links for a 'web' search, but not when I am looking for something on NFL.com.
2. I have a high resolution screen and the section title NFL.com results is barely visible at the bottom. Anybody coming in with 1024x768 resolution would not see that.
I know the NFL is trying to pay the bills but this is ridiculous. This would be like calling the NFL corporate offices, asking to speak to the legal department, then being placed on hold and hearing advertisements for law firms for 10 minutes.
Media Insider has a post about creating an effective online newsroom. The article has quite a few good tips. However, there is no mention of creating RSS feeds of your releases. Yes I realize that only a small percentage of visitors might utilize RSS, but adding it to a content manager is a quick and easy job and requires no additional upkeep.
In the article, this item brings up a common issue:
DO provide a link to your consumer FAQ page and an e-mail link for customer service to give non-journalists a place to go to get their questions answered. This will save you a great deal of time responding to messages from non-journalists asking, "Why am I looking at a press release? How do I download a new driver?" or some such thing. Here's what Gateway says, "Gateway press contacts are only able to provide assistance for qualified members of the news media. They are not qualified to respond to product or technical support needs... If you are not a member of the news media, please feel free to visit our pages for Product Service and Support."
Unfortunately the product service or support sections of many web sites offer no contact information. Many people 'just want to talk to a person' and they'll look for any person they can find. If your media contacts are the only ones that list contact information or respond, guess who is going to get contacted?
Rather than being upset that your media contacts are getting outside calls and treating it as an 'issue', why not investigate why the people are calling. Chances are you might be doing a poor job of customer support.
My favorite situation is when I call a firm for some information that I can't find on their web site and the person on the phone says, "Just visit our web site!" My response is usually, "I am at your web site and I can't find it."
For a web-developer the BlogHerald points out the obvious: Checking to make sure your blog presents well on a Mac, in addition to other browsers and platforms. As the article mentions, browser compatibility checks are not a standard practice for many bloggers.
For too many bloggers their view of the internet is via a single browser and a single OS. Any credible web developer will always make sure a web page presents the same in a variety or browsers (IE, Mozilla, FireFox, Opera, etc) and a variety of operating systems (WinXP, OS X, Linux, etc.). In today's culture that also includes browsers in devices such as PocketPCs and BlackBerrys.
Luckily for most entry level blog users, services such as Blogger and TypePad have taken care of many of these issues via their templates. When you start to hack your templates or style sheets make sure you know what is compatible with specific web browsers and test your blog design on as many systems and browsers as possible.
The big news late last night was Microsoft's announcement that XML would be the default file format for the next version of Office. Quite a bit of blogging/discussion going on about this today. Steve wonders if this means a 'Save as RSS' option will be coming soon? For the more technical aspects of the discusion I turn to somebody like Stephen O'Grady who pulls in a variety of opinions on his blog.
My question is, will this new standard be similar to the nightmare that was/is Office's 'Save as HTML' command? Any web developer who has received 'web pages' from clients that were created in Word knows what I am talking about. The HTML is so full of inline style tags that it's a nightmare of code bloat (yes I am calling HTML code....shoot me).
I hope that some of the standards-gurus will be able to tell me if this is a good thing or a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Does your software pass the sandwich test?
Dwayne from Genuine Curiousity said that the ActiveWords product met his "Sandwich Test". "Sandwich test, what's a sandwich test?", we all replied at the same time. Dwayne went on to say that his test for usability of a product is one that doesn't require a lot of switching back and forth between mouse and keyboard. In other words, he should be able to eat a sandwich in one hand and get around the application in the other.
Jeff Veen talks about RSS usability. As with the others who have pointed to this article, I agree that this is a major hurdle that RSS must clear.
Whenever I show audiences in my seminars how to utilize RSS it seems so cumbersome to subscribe. As with most technology, those who utilize it frequenly forget what it's like to be starting out. Any process that goes beyond two steps has any novice quickly looking for a pen and paper to write the steps down. The problem with any memorized process is that the novice returns to their computer and the experience or interface is a bit different and they get lost.
Apple is making steps with Tiger/Safari, but the best bet on the Mac is the integrated support in NetNewsWire. If you are visiting any blog/web site within the built-in browser and a RSS feed is available the small '+FEED' buttom appears. (shown right) On the PC side Onfolio does a good job with FireFox.
As a person who is constantly helping people get set up with RSS readers, the software that provides the easiest way to subscribe will always be my choice to install.
Negative comments are already appearing about Google's Web Accelerator. Benjamin Adam has noticed that Google re-directs any 'not-found' hostname look-ups to a Google branded page. (You might remember when Verisign did a similar thing)
When Steve Rubel first posted about the launch of the new Google product I asked how soon the complaints would start. I predicted that they would be over privacy though.
Stephen O'Grady posts a great dissection of the problems with the Software-as-a-Service model. Stephen is a software industry analyst so of course his post is, well, analytical.
Many years ago I was a partner in a computer networking firm. We were always approached by vendors wanting us to 'suggest/sell/push/offer' their products to our clients. When the Application Service Provider market was just starting up we had quite a few knocking on our door. We saw and pointed out many of the issues that Stephen talks about.
Some of the first ASPs to approach us were online back-up firms. They would talk about all the services they could provide, the cost savings over traditional back-up (in their eyes) and on and on. What they never mentioned (which we would always point out) was the bandwidth requirements. In the late 90's most of the clients we dealt with were on 56K or 128K frame relay circuits. Doing some quick calculations clients would need at least 512K or a full T1 to utilize the service effectively.
Great we save $400/month using your online back-up service, but our bandwidth costs are up $1000.
Content Management Systems (CMS) have been the big rage the last few years. Quite a few firms began to call some of their solutions content management systems, even though they might not have been. Friends of mine own a document management firm and hate it when people confuse CMS with DMS (Document Management Systems). A recent post to their blog compares the two in a humorous way:
Content vs. Document ManagementContent: Lifeblood of a former dot-com. You see "content" when looking at "websites" while "surfing".
Documents: Lifeblood of a real business. You see "documents" when looking at your "desk" while "working".
Pop Quiz:
Adrian Holovaty has not been posting that often, but when he does it's usually good. His latest item is about a new web-delivery of a newspaper.
I started a long list detailing why I don't like EmPRINT, but I scrapped it. Instead of taking the easy way out by raising standard PDF criticisms -- no permalinks to articles, bad accessibility, nonstandard browsing, etc. -- I'll just say this: EmPRINT is fundamentally flawed because its presentation is fundamentally tied to print newspapers. That is, it's static. Flat. Rigid. It looks the same and acts the same no matter what you do to it.
The conversation has begun. It's great to read the comments at Adrian's blog and over at Buzzmachine where Jeff Jarvis linked to the original post.
The two local papers in my market also use a similar solutions to convert special print sections to web pages. Example 1: The Ledger: Health 2004 Example 2: News Chief: Her Voice
Both of these implementations are awful.
The latest edition of Wired has an article about some communities rethinking traffic control and the relationship between vehicles, pedestrian and bicycles.
Hans Monderman, the traffic engineer with the new perspective, is shifting paradigms. Why are we doing what we do?
The planned suburban community of Radburn, New Jersey, founded in 1929 as "a town for the motor age," took the segregation principle to its logical extreme. Radburn's key design element was the strict separation of vehicles and people; cars were afforded their own generously proportioned network, while pedestrians were tucked safely away..
..Radburn quickly became a template for other communities in the US and Britain, and many of its underlying assumptions were written directly into traffic codes.
Perhaps there is a better way. When I read the article what struck me was the use of interaction between drivers and pedestrians in determining right-of-way. As a cyclist I have learned to never trust the signals, I always try to make eye contact with drivers to see their true intentions. Wait, isn't that what they teach in defensive driving?
It has been one month since I posted my usability review of the recently updated News Chief website. The day I posted that critique, I received a response from the News Chief webmaster:
Thanks for the feedback. You certainly have some valid points in terms of usibility. We will be addressing some of the items you mentioned in the coming days.
Well, one month later, and nothing has changed. All the issues still remain.
Here's another small issue. At least they got the placement of the search box correct, upper right corner. Except for one thing. The word 'Go' is not clickable. You would think that you would enter your search term and click 'Go' but that does not work. You need to click the small arrow to conduct a search. How hard is it to make the 'Go' a link?
What will happen to media/journalism in the coming years? Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson put together this great presentation about what may happen in the coming decade.
After watching I think about some of the echo chamber issues that exist with blogging and media sites today. What will happen in this future if all your news is based upon reccomendations of your friends?
Update: I am hosting a mirror of the presentation on my server.
While in Orlando yesterday I stopped to get gas at a Citgo station. I did the standard pay-at-the-pump thing...but ran into some issues.
Insert/remove card, wait for the "OK," but it asks me for my 'Billing Zip.' Haven't seen this one before. Sure enough below the screen is a sticker informing users to "Enter Your Billing Zip Code for all Credit Card Purchases."
I enter my zip code, wait, then I am told "See Attendent." I go inside, talk to the cashier. It seems I am expected to enter the zip code where I send my credit card bill, that is what is meant by "Billing Zip." I bet you ask 100 people what their billing zip is, all 100 will give you their home zip code. Who even knows their credit card company's zip code?
The cashier tells me the 'new system' is the biggest pain in the ass. The purpose is to prevent credit card theft, but it is more of a hassle to customers than it is worth.
So once again...was this ever tested with a human?
At this past weekend's Online News Association conference, the Online Journalism Awards were handed out. One of this year's winners was AFP for their coverage of the Tour de France.
The AFP won in the 'Creative use of Medium' category. "Judges said it is an incredible tool for following a sports event in real time, with an interface that provides tremendous detail on the race. It includes real-time running news updates and complete access to all data about every rider in the race. An excellent job mixing maps, news and data."
I remember using it at both USAToday's site as well as the NYTimes. Poynter has a story as well. (Thanx Barry for sending the tip)
The New York Times has an article about the San Jose police experiencing issues with the new in-car computer system, some even fear for their own safety.
"officers have said the system is so complex and difficult to use that it is jeopardizing their ability to do their jobs"
"Officers complain that routine tasks are so difficult to perform that they are discouraged from doing them. And they say that the most vital safety feature - a "call for assistance" command that officers use when they are in danger - is needlessly complicated."
Doing what I do, I have to ask, how did this system ever get installed? Was there not an evaluation period?
I have just started a project which has Section 508 compliance as a requirement. As a web developer you can get away with the basics. But why not take the extra steps?
456 Berea Street has a good article about adding additional mark-up to tabular data to aid those with screenreaders in understanding the data.
Following up on my recent post about Required Registration, I saw this post on Slashdot today. This is the part that caught my attention.
Customers avoid intrusive practices; although this story was written by the Washington Post and I have the URL to the original story available, I declined to link to washingtonpost.com because of their intrusive registration.
I am seeing this bypassing of registration systems more and more.
At some time during this election week my local newspaper, The News Chief, updated their web site. It is a change, but not for the better. Newspaper sites are utilized by a wide range of users with varying capabilities. Usability is crucial. There were so many glaring usability issues that I just had to address them.
Wikis seem to be the topic of the day. Ross Mayfield has some more thoughts on the subject and sources the same PR Week story I metioned earlier.
Steve Rubel also blogs about the participatory journalism capabilities of wikis.
PRWeek has an article about PR firms adopting wikis. Good intro:
The flux of new technologies entering the market is enough to give the average PR pro a migraine. Just when one understands blogs, early adopter colleagues point out real simple syndication (RSS). Now water-cooler talk revolves around wikis, which can provide PR firms with internal communications enhancements; make writing press releases and communiques more of a team effort; and provide new opportunities for soft launches, tipping off journalists, and communicating with clients.
The local PR professionals I deal with fall into the category of the migraine masses. they are just now beginning to understand how blogs work and how to utilize them (if at all).
When I show individuals public wikis such as Wikipedia they all have the same response. Fear. Many can't understand how such an open system on the internet can function without falling into utter chaos.
Internal wikis are a different story.
Metacool, begs for Jonathon Ive and the Apple design team to develop voting systems. I agree.
Luckily we use the Accu-Vote OS system in my county and not the TS, which is the Touch Screen.
A number of blogs have pointed to Doug Bowman's presentation on Pushing Your Limits (and other secrets of designing with CSS) from the Web Essentials 2004 conference. If you are a web developer using CSS it's a great read. If you are a web developer that does not use CSS, then you better get with the program.
Doug works for Stopdesign and Adaptive Path. Some recent work includes the Wired redesign and the new look for Blogger.
I have been in the web development industry for almost nine years now, a few years ago I had become somewhat burned out on the process. Seeing the promise of CSS has re-energized me. Where is CSS going? Check out this presentation on IA and CSS by Christina Wodtke and Nate Koechley.
Seth Godin's latest post What happens when it's all on tape discusses how a person's behavior would be different if they were being video taped. Of course most people would act a bit differently.
The basis for this is the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. If you Google it you'll get a number of links. Most of which show the actual formula and get a bit technical. In laymans terms it means that "Any interaction between an observer and the observed changes both. The more an observer probes, the more difficult it is for him to obtain INFORMATION about the initial STATE of what he observers and the more are his observations contaminated by his own efforts"
All that physics in college is paying off!
Seth Godin has a great entry about how a web-based process leads to an unrealistic end.
This is what usually happens when programmers have too much control over the workflow and content of any web-based process.
I have dealt with enough programmers on projects to know that, as Seth says, "They don't service my area. Their solution? I should move, then try again." makes sense to the programmer. Sounds absurd, but unfortunately it's true.
WriteLife blogs some more on the subject. His premise, "be a customer first" Read the rest he has some good advice.
I have always had mixed feelings about requiring registration to view free content on web sites. Adrian Holovaty blogs a recent interview he gave with BusinessWeek about the topic. He's not in favor.
The issue just came up again for me this week. While reading CNNSI on Monday I noticed a small item about Ron Zook being fired from the University of Florida. The article was small and mentioned a source at the Gainesville Sun. So I headed over to the Gaineville Sun. Of course it was front page news, I clicked on the link, sorry you need to register. No thanks, I'll just wait another five minutes and read some more at CNNSI.com.
So the Gainesville Sun denied their advertisers some impressions and I probably won't be going back there any time soon.
Here is the original BusinessWeek article. And a blog entry from Matt Haughley on the subject.
Christina Wodtke has a blog entry about journalists using Yahoo Maps to scoop the competition. An old mentor always said to me, "Technology will never replace people, but people who use technology will replace those who do not."
An old friend, Max Strang, had his house featured on HGTV's Homes Across America last night.
Max calls the style of his home, "Tropical Industrial". He's always had a very clean design style. Perhaps the union of form and function? So if you are looking for a great architect, check him out.
I had planned on attending the AIFIA Future of IA, A Retreat last week. Then things like paying a deductible for a new roof from the hurricanes, and other emergency repairs before the next storm hit came up. The funds weren't there. Then I read this. Aarrgghhh!
When travelling I use my Blackberry to browse the web in a text-only mode. Text-only allows me to read traditional web pages such as cnn.com without worrying about download times. One side effect is that I see all the ALT tags used for images. With my ‘text-colored’ glasses on I see things a bit differently, and sometimes notice some strange quirks.
Victor Lombardi originally wrote about this article on how investment in design pays off. The primary case study is a bank in Oregon that hired a design firm, rather than the traditional business consulting group to handle their growth. With the focus on the design, more specifically user/customer-centered design, the bank has been quite successful.
When looking at the Toyota Prius web page to get a link for this entry, I noticed something on the Toyota Model Selector page. One of the options for sorting their cars is "Sort by Miles per Gallon." Obviously Toyota is drawing attention the the fuel economy of thier cars. Honda, another champion of fuel efficiency, does not have a similar option on their Car Models page.
It's probably not surprising that Ford or Chevrolet don't offer the same option.
I guess the opposite of this would be Ferrari having a "Sort by Top Speed" option.
The New York Times has an article about healing design. Specifically designing hospitals so they enhance the healing process, rather than looking like drab socialist edifices.
The idea is obvious: Build inviting, soothing hospitals, graced with soft lighting, inspiring views, single rooms, curved corridors, relaxing gardens and lots of art, and patients will heal quicker, nurses will remain loyal to their employers and doctors will perform better.
The article goes on to state: Their research shows, for example, that patients who can see trees instead of cars from their windows recover more quickly, and that single rooms help stave off infection and draw more visits from friends and family members.
So have you ever worked anywhere you loved? hated? from an environmental standpoint?
It's been noted on a number of web sites that Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, had surgery this past weekend to remove a cancerous tumor from his pancreas. The story appears at: USAToday, CNN to name a few. Most of the headlines state that Jobs or the 'Apple CEO' has successful cancer surgery. Except the New York Times.
The NYTimes article is titled 'Apple Chief Has Emergency Cancer Surgery' I guess they needed to include the word 'Emergency' in there? Why, when other stories, or even the original letter Steve wrote mentions never says 'emergency'?
In a recent post I mentioned that SportsIllustrated.com had recently launched a web version of Scorecard, one of my favorites pieces in the print magazine. After visiting the web version on a daily basis, I have started tracking something that is rather annoying, and a major usability no-no.
It is of course Tour de France time, and for those of us in the United States, Outdoor Life Network gives us our daily dose (or in their case 4x daily dose) of Tour coverage. During their coverage OLN promotes their web site as being the official English version of the real 'official' tour site. I would imagine that traffic would be high at OLNTV.com.
So why does OLN insist on keeping a multi-page Flash intro on their site?