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Little gem from Jakob Nielsen in my inbox this morning:F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox)
I’ve seen the eyetracking diagram that shows how users look at search results before, but this article shows two other kinds of pages - an About us page and a product page. Take a look!

If you follow Jakob Nielsen or any other content and usability gurus, the implications are obvious:
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Ha! I knew that would get your attention. What do you mean, Marisa? Everybody knows Google has the cleanest, most usable site on the planet! Well, that’s true. But that usability does not extend to the emails they send.

I run Adwords campaigns for several of my clients. One of the features of Adwords is, you can set up periodic reporting so you can see how your campaign is performing and …

The following snippets came from Jakob Nielsen’s latest Alertbox:Growing a Business Website: Fix the Basics First (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox)
(If you don’t know and love JN, you should. One of the ugliest sites in the world, chock-full of stuff YOU NEED TO KNOW.

Summary:
Offering clear content, simple navigation, and answers to customer questions have the biggest impact on business value. Advanced technology matters much less.

Among his morsels of excellent advice (paraphrased)

• Communicate …

Great quotes from Sigia, which is a very academic mailing list devoted to user-centered design, usability and information architecture. They’d all crap their panties if they saw I didn’t capitalize any of those terms. Shnort!

“Design is doing for a dime what anyone can do for a dollar.”

I like that one a lot. It encapsulates what we do here at YVOD, I think.

“Design is the art and science of balancing the …

In a study of a few internet users with various physical impairments, Clarity of content – using straightforward language and a clear, simple layout – was regarded by 88% as ‘very important’. Good navigation – the ability to know where you are within a site – was regarded as very important by 65%, followed by the use of meaningful and clear hyperlinks (63%).

Top five annoyances
1. Not having in-site search
2. No …

My apologies to Gerry if I have misquoted anything and please don’t be angry that I am spreading your gospel truth all over the internet. I hope this links helps in some small way:Choose Gerry McGovern for all your Content Management needs.
Quote of the day:

“The hippie period of the web is over.”

Infrastructure and Architecture are givens. But it’s CONTENT that wins you the game. The way you …

I’m reading E-Commerce User Experience by Jakob Nielsen et al, which is a very thick and informative book. Even if the findings and guidelines in it are not necessarily surprises, they are still valuable. Here’s what I’ve learned or reconfirmed so far:

The first law of e-commerce states: “if the customer cannot find the product, the customer cannot buy the product.”… Low usability equals lost sales. It’s as simple as …

Okay, you’ve all heard of Paypal. Fine way to handle online transactions if you’re selling vintage Hot Wheels on eBay. Occasionally a small business client will ask me about using Paypal to process their online transactions. They don’t want to deal with the expense and hassle of a “real” merchant account. That’s understandable. Even if you already have a brick-and-mortar merchant account, it’s still a bit of …

My mom was nice enough to give me a plane ticket for Thanksgiving. She emailed me my e-ticket and told me I needed to call or email United to register Brandon as a lap baby. I thought, how do I register him as a “running-down-the-aisles-kicking-the-back-of-seats-playing-peekaboo-with-flight-attendant baby?”

So off I go to United’s website. I copy the link in the email called “My Itineraries” thinking that might take me to …

If you don’t need Flash and you can’t afford to do it right or you want people to be able to find and use your site, resist the urge and just say no to Flash. Your website will thank you for it.