Media: MarketingProfs preaches Usability to the Uninitiated

"Usability Testing: Ask Me If I Care" by Jim Sterne gives a sobering view of the marketing department's grasp of usability.

'The Web is a wonderfully measurable medium. Clickthroughs, pageviews and revenues have become the watchwords in datacenters and marketing departments throughout the land. But most companies seem to blithely ignore one set of metrics: their customers' feelings.

Having castigated his own for overlooking this source of information, he concludes:

'Have real, live visitors identify trouble spots before engaging in an analytic analysis. When you read a log file or sophisticated analytics reports, you surmise where to focus your attention. But when you look at actual customer comments, they'll tell you where you need work. Then use the analytics to figure out how well you're fixing the problem.

'Rich datamarts filled with cross-server, multiplatform, path analysis and conversion data are necessary for survival for larger companies that are becoming more and more dependant on the Internet as a way of doing business. But let's not forget the reason we want the nuggets of knowledge buried in those datamarts: to make our site visitors happier about their experience. Asking how they feel is a great way to measure whether you are achieving that goal.'

Nothing you've not heard before a thousand times in the way of advice, but it's sad that he's having to give it.

Associated Link: MarketingProfs: Usability Testing: Ask Me If I Care

Online poker company uses Science to assess Player Preferences
Source: Recentpoker.com, 8 January 2009
 
Working with customer experience consultancy Foviance, PKR is exploiting the benefits of electroencephalography (EEG) technology to gather information on poker players' emotional relationship with a brand or service.

Do Users really love Laptops?
Source: channelinsider, 7 January 2009
 
More than one-fifth of all laptop computers will break down over the course of their life, and other limitations frustrate their users. From this list of user complaints come laptop opportunities.

User Interviews - Analysis Simplified
Source: Webcredible, 6 January 2009
 
You’ve conducted your user interviews, but now you need to make sense of all that information you’ve gathered.

Why Products Fail
Source: ComputerWorld, 5 January 2009
 
Most gadget and software makers don't understand what users want most: control.

How to Design Websites for Mobile Phones
Source: stemkoski.com, 3 January 2009
 
Tips from Ryan Stemkoski's web design blog.

Pioneer of Cyberspace honoured
Source: BBC, 2 January 2009
 
A professor who invented a forerunner of the world wide web has been made a dame in the New Year Honours.

2008 in Review: Developments that rocked the world of User Experience
Source: Catalyst Resources, 1 January 2009
 
A look back at 2008 highlights some of the key developments that rocked the world of user experience.

2008: The Year Online
Source: MIT Technology Review, 31 December 2008
 
The business of social networking, cloud computing, and a flaw in the fabric of the Internet top the most notable stories of 2008.

Shoveling through the Spamalanche
Source: UN, 30 December 2008
 
A ‘Spamalanche’ of 3,000 emails will be waiting in your inbox by the time you get back to work. What can you do besides 'delete all'?

New guidelines boost Web Access
Source: BBC, 29 December 2008
 
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has announced a new standard to make sites more accessible to older and disabled people.