No, I’m not blown away by the 160 million number. What I’m impressed by is the thinking behind Ping.

Ping may function like a cross between Facebook and Twitter for iTunes by allowing you to follow celebrities, create social cliques and get artist updates via an activity stream. I think it could have tremendous impact on social sharing and commerce.

…

Ping, from what little I saw during Steve Jobs’ demo, allows a similar level of social interaction. It can tell me who my friends think are cool and the top 10 favorites of people in my social graph. Some of my friends are famous deejays. Others just have eclectic musical tastes. They can collectively sift through over 10 million songs and help with the discovery of music. This social-powered discovery is part of the biggest theme of our times: serendipity.

…

What if they too could share their likes and dislikes via a social layer inside Amazon.com? Or what if I could follow my favorite authors and get updates on their books? Much like Apple, Amazon owns book-based social service, Shelfari, and should find ways to embed the social layer inside of all Amazon products and connect its tens of millions of users.

In this model, if there is absolutely no friction to purchase (and let’s admit it, there is no friction to purchase, because iTunes is one of the easiest purchasing models in the world, artists are going to flock here.

If Apple opens the site up to a self service model, could you imagine what happens to the labels, not just MySpace?

Both Microsoft and Yahoo failed to jump into keyword search in any serious way until long after Google established it as a giant business. At that point, both tried to play catch-up, with Yahoo buying Overture and Microsoft rebuilding its product — and as we’ve also seen over and over again, by waiting that long, it was too late. The two companies still haven’t come anywhere close to catching up in market share, even if the technology is considered to be about equal at this point.

So the fear of some big company coming out and just “copying” you is generally overblown. If your idea is really disruptive, they probably won’t recognize it, and by the time they do, you’ll have a big head start, and their attempts to copy what you did will prove a lot more difficult than they expected.

How many newspapers are going to close because of the creative destruction of Craigslist?

The next version of iTunes, available today, includes Ping, a social music discovery tool that allows users to follow friends and artists, helping customers to discover and share new music.

“It’s sort of like Facebook and Twitter meet iTunes,” Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs said of the entirely new Ping service. He described it as a social network all about music, built in to iTunes.

The product is based on discovery, allowing users to see what their friends are listening to and what concerts they’re going to.

Users can choose to “follow” artists, as well as their friends, and iTunes will populate a customized top 10 list that represents what their friends are downloading. Users can also see concerts that are coming near them, and inform their friends that they will be attending.

If artists can connect with fans on iTunes, is there really a need for MySpace, a place for music?

That’s about right.

What if some of the most famous online services were launched in 1959? That’s what Sao Paulo ad agency Moma imagined when the released this 3 part series of fake vintage ads for Facebook, YouTube and Skype. The “Everything Ages Fast” ad campaign is Mad Menera imagery that would look perfect in vintage copies of Esquire…more below!

Very cool.

From OKCupid:

The chart pretty much speaks for itself; I’ll just say that the numbers for all three brands are for 30 year-olds, so it’s not a matter of older, more experienced people preferring one phone to another. We found this data as part of our general camera-efficacy analysis: we crossed all kinds of user behaviors with the camera models and found we had data on the number of sexual partners for 9,785 people with smart phones. We dropped what we found into Excel, and voila.

This is part of a larger article where OKCupid did a statistical analysis of photo ratings they captured through their site. The best part — 11.4 million opinions on what makes a great photo.

When fishing you use the lure, line and hook type appropriate to what you want to catch–a fisher would never use the same type of line and hook when trying to catch several different types of fish. Yet every day I see companies using the same general lures and hooks trying to catch many different kinds of fish.

Ok, I’ve only ever been fishing once, but I hope the analogy will help as you read on.

As a consultant, one of the biggest frustrations I face looking through RFPs and project descriptions is that while on the surface many look great, they ultimately don’t provide enough detail in terms of what’s needed. From experience this leads to frustration on both sides, as (i) the client gets bombarded with replies, a lot of which miss the mark in terms of skills needed, and (ii) consultants mistakenly apply for projects their skills aren’t best matched for.

So why does this happen? Whether you’re a small/medium sized business or a multinational looking for an online project to be done, in the end it is usually one person who writes, or at the very least submits the project description. Especially in a larger organization, this person may not be closest or have the technical knowledge needed to accurately describe the skills needed/nature of the project.

Even if they have the knowledge, there is the terminology trap–while I’m sure we can agree there’s not much alternate interpretation to, “experience conceptualizing and creating Twitter pages surrounding launch of new product”, “Social Media Expert” can be interpreted as general or granular, all-encompassing or exclusive–and is! …on a person-to-person basis.

Others include: change in the scope of the project after an ad is posted, reposting of old ads with slight modifications, generalizing ads after a lack of initial response, and the list goes on. I recognize that sometimes there are some things that you can’t change. Let’s talk about those that you can.

What can I do to help get the right consultant(s) for a project?

Be specific and give examples

If you’re looking for someone who is a “Social Media Expert”, define what that means to you. If you’re looking for a “SilverStripe Specialist”, list what specific skills you are looking for (e.g. are you looking to integrate an eCommerce solution into the site, and if yes, what one?) The same applies to skills. If you want someone who is experienced in WordPress 3.0, then don’t write “experience with WordPress”, or even worse, “experienced with CMSs”.

Avoid using words like expert by themselves–they are too ambiguous and as a result too open to interpretation (e.g. a self-proclaimed flash “expert” might be of a high enough level in their own or even previous clients’minds, but not enough to make your cut–if you give examples you’ll be able to weed out more unqualified individuals before having to ask them questions in an interview/presentation).

Also, if you’re posting on someone’s behalf, backtrack and make sure that any overly general terms are fleshed out. And if that isn’t an option, put yourself in the consultants’ shoes and try looking through some RFPs online–you’ll quickly see the difference between those which are specific enough and those that aren’t. Clarifying is particularly true in terms of technical specifications–if you’re a marketing person and your RFP includes detailed specifications from someone, it’s probably a good idea to leave them as they are–they’re like that for a reason.

When creating the scope, assume nothing

As with #1 specificity is key, but only listing in detail what you need is not enough.

“What do you mean the site doesn’t have [feature alpha-beta-squiggly mark]? We thought it was standard.” or “What do you mean we won’t be able to make the original deadline? The number of revisions shouldn’t matter.” When I first started consulting, if I was given a nickel for every time I heard some variation of these I’d be writing this article from my private yacht instead of at the offi…er I’d be a man with many, many nickels.

While there may be certain universally accepted “standards” in terms of websites, this kind of assumption is very likely to leave you disappointed, and will lead to either scope creep or something simply not being done, not to mention the creation friction with your consultant and a lot of unnecessary back-and-forth.

Some reoccurring assumptions I’ve come across over the years include:

• hosting costs and management are included
• monthly maintenance and updates are included even though there is no maintenance agreement
• multiple revision cycles beyond a reasonable number have no influence on timeline
• “website revision” is the same as “complete rebranding including a new company logo”
• “copy for web and meta tags” means “complete SEO services including a social media campaign and Adwords”, and the list goes on.

While at the end of the day there is going to be a certain degree of unwritten give-and-take in any project, clearly outlining expectations as much as possible from the beginning will help keep projects on time and on budget, as well as reduce time spent on dreaded five-email-deep back-and-forth threads.

If you’re on a tight budget, list your budget expectations

Appreciating that any organization is trying to get the most value for its money I’m not suggesting you throw out some wildly high figure–if you advertise that you’ll pay $200~$250/hour for a project then I guarantee you’ll end up having everyone under the sun that has even some of the skills and experience reply–especially if you’re too general in your description (see #1 above).

If you’re on a budget it’s better for both yourself and prospective consultants to be up front with it. Doing so will save you headaches for two reasons: (i) consultants that have the skills but would balk once they hear the budget won’t apply in the first place, which means (ii) you won’t need to spend unnecessary time and human resources interviewing people who are ultimately going to turn down your offer.

Tagging on to #1 and 2 above, it is also good to be as specific as possible. If you are looking for an ongoing or maintenance agreement and have budgetary expectations, now is the time to make them clear. If you have set requirements for payment scheduling I’d include those in here too.

What this all really comes down to is at the end of the day you’re going to get what you pay for. Rome wasn’t built in a day on a dollar, and neither was Facebook. If you’re looking to build a BMW Convertible and you’re budget is a third of that, you’re probably going to have to settle for a Fiesta. This includes site maintenance. While it will vary from project to project, expect to add an additional 30% to your budget specifically for that purpose.

And as an additional plus, if you’re honest upfront, you’re more likely to get someone who’ll settle for less if the opportunity is right–you still won’t get a BMW, but you very might well get a Focus.

Be sure your dates are realistic, feasible and flexible

Nobody likes scope creep. As equally frustrating is having to push back deadlines. As a consultant do it once and it’s bad enough, do it more than once and your credibility takes a beating–regardless of the circumstances that led to it.

Upon taking on a project a consultant agrees to the milestones and associated dates noted in the RFP. In terms of project management standard pessimistic-realistic-optimistic scenarios are created, and the project commences. Even the most drawn out timelines however, can fall victim to internal factors that can delay progression, or even worse, stop it altogether.

If you have a drop-dead deadline for a project of six months from commencement, be sure that that deadline reflects what is realistic internally. If you know that your internal Project Manager/key contact is going to be away on business for two out of the six months, or is so busy they can only reply to critical emails once a week at most, perhaps six months isn’t realistic. Even the best PMs and consultants can only manage expectations, stay on clients and follow-up to a point–at the end of the day if your internal management and communication is poor it will ultimately delay the project, which can mean missed deadlines. This not only speaks poorly of the consultant, but ultimately of internal resources as well.

Also let’s not forget about timeline based on what you are looking for. Let’s assume that you need what you want (assessing whether this is true will need to be another post)–do you know how a consultant is going to help you get there? I’ve seen projects falter because clients ultimately didn’t really know what they were looking for. An excellent article on that can be found here (I hope that clients and consultants alike can see the humor in it).

Dealing with management and timelines can be challenging, but if you consider your  internal resources and incorporate their management into your RFP, you will ultimately help the consultant, which in turn will help you.

Send it to the right people and places

So now you have your polished, air-tight RFP ready for the world. Where should you post it? Given the law of large numbers if you put it on every major site out there you’re bound to find some quality–however is it really worth the thousand reply emails you’ll need to go through to get there?

Start small with those sites/mailing lists/contacts that best indicate the specific individual(s) you’re looking for. If you don’t have any luck you can always widen your net later–trying to do it the other way around will not be as effective. And as with the specifications, if you’re not the only contributor to the RFPs content or not sure what are the best sites or lists to place it, do your research internally instead of taking a stab in the dark.

With a busy schedule I appreciate that it takes extra work to write in the extra detail, but in the long run you’ll find it means less resumes and proposals to look through, or at the very least, a greater pool of eligibles that have the skills and experience you’re looking for. Happy fishing!

Jeremy D. Thomson is a Vancouver, Canada based Online Consultant and UX/UI specialist with more than ten years experience in the industry. (www.jeremydthomson.com)

Very cool.

It can be frustrating when you and your clients are at odds with one another. It happens for many reasons and when it does, you run the risk of losing the client. Obviously, consultants aren’t in the business of LOSING clients. The goal is to make them as happy as possible. But there are times when meeting a client half way becomes more than a challenge. The best way to nip this in the bud? Make sure you and your clients are always on the same page.

…

My favorite: Know when to let go

There may be clients you just can’t see eye to eye with. Maybe there are personality issues, maybe a job went wrong and the client can’t seem to forgive you. Regardless of the reason, you need to know when a consultant-client relationship simply will not work. It will be far better for your business not to string that client along (for fear of losing business) than to keep an unhappy client around. The longer you retain such clients, the more likely you are to develop a bad reputation. And the last thing you need is word getting around that you can’t be trusted, that your work is subpar, or whatever gripe that client has. When you see a relationship isn’t going to work out, end it professionally. Refer the client to someone who can help them. Do whatever it takes to leave as much of that bridge unburned as possible. There may be a time when that client, based on your professionalism, will refer another client to you.

Read on…

Google agrees. Ha.

Every time I start with a new company or a new contract, I walk around and ask questions about how people do their job. I don’t ask the veep’s — I usually ask people in the trenches what the customers want. They’ll give you the straight up, non-politicized answer, and sometimes, they’ll give you that one little nugget that makes all the difference in the world.

UX people especially aren’t a system administrator where all our job consists of is keeping things running; we’re right in the middle of the business process. We should care.

Just a thought.

Here’s the post.

I recently ripped my pals in HR a new one. Then my friend and colleague Laurie Ruettimann reminded me that if you’re going to criticize, you should have a solution ready to go.

She’s right, so I posted a solution — a solution that applies not only to HR, but really to anybody with a job anywhere in the organization. It goes like this:

Find out how your company makes money.

Once a week for the next four weeks, take one of your lunch hours and go talk with people in various parts of your company who can explain to you, in plain English, exactly how raw materials become finished goods (or how ideas become service offerings), and how sales happen, from initial contact to cash in the bank.

Take them to lunch.

Buy lunch for both of you.

Tell them it’s your way of compensating them for answering what you’re certain will be an hour’s worth of rudimentary questions, and for helping you out.

Some topics you might want to ask about:

• Marketing decisions: who are your target markets? Why?
• What’s the plan moving forward?
• How does the company generate prospecting lists?
• How is sales organized?
• Who builds sales demos?
• Incentive programs for customers… and incentive programs for the salespeople… motivate what behaviors?
• Are products discounted?
• Who responds to RFPs? Who finds out about them?
• Invoicing & collections: how quickly do your clients pay?
• How tight are the daily delivery routes?
• How well is the warehouse managed? What does it look like? How disciplined are the workers there?
• What’s the real impact of unionization on the floor workers?
• Real estate: does your company own or lease? Why?
• Who owns purchasing decisions?
• Does the company hedge fuel purchases?
• Why do some departments charge others for their work? That seems crazy!
• Major client accounts: how much of the overall revenue do they represent?
• What is the driving factor behind internal technology decisions?
• What’s the impact on IT costs if one person brings in their own laptop to work?
• Are our HR policies driven to create a culture, protect against lawsuits, or both? And if “both,” then which is the higher priority?
• What’s the CEO like, as a person? Is our company reflective of his/her personality?
• Who has the data on our customers/clients purchasing habits? If I wanted to crunch it in order to look for trends, how could I get that data, and who would I give the results of my work to?
• What does the company do with its cash? Does it have a huge checking account? Does it invest in 1-year bonds?
• Who is on the Board of Directors, and why?
• What are the company’s loan obligations? What impact do those obligations have on the firm’s ability to take risks or make investments?
• What new strategic projects are planned for next year?
• What strategic projects are being considered?
• What does top management see as the number one obstacle to growth?
• What do the rank and file see as the number one obstacle to growth?

See where this is going?

Build an understanding of the business. Armed with that knowledge, you’ll automatically become more effective at your job. And, you’ll get seen as someone who cares.

(Now, if you lack the curiosity or authenticity to ask these questions and genuinely care about the answer, don’t do this. Then you’ll be seen as a fraud and people will resent you wasting their time.)

Something to think about go do.

Problem solved.

In some cultures complex products are more appealing than products that appear simple. In South Korea, for example, products like refrigerators are designed to appear more complex than non-Korean ones, even when the prices and specifications are very similar, because that complexity is equated with sophistication and value, and is thus a symbol of prosperity.

Don Norman’s justification…

Why are Yahoo! and MSN such complex-looking places? Because their systems are easier to use. Not because they are complex, but because they simplify the life of their users by letting them see their choices on the home page: news, alternative searches, other items of interest.

It’s really in context. On-Star hides it’s complexity behind a single button or automated systems, but it’s still complex. Some products (think that The Onion Video about Sony) should be complex because of the context of their user base. It’s all about who you’re targeting.

Each points offers some simple suggestions and points to consider when designing. Potential design patterns are recommended (and linked to) as examples for what could be done in your interface as you design and grow your service. Keep in mind that your context will dictate different specific solutions but the questions and concepts to think about will still be applicable.

As with any successful, new, and vaguely-defined industry, the User Experience field has brought with it a lot of confusion, and created a lot of confused people. Confused clients, who know they need User Experience expertise but are unsure of how to get it, and a confused work-force, who has started labeling themselves as User Experience experts without really understanding it. This group is very well-intentioned, and either doesn’t know the difference between what they do and real User Experience work or are just as eager to learn as anyone else. Yet they know that talking about User Experience sells projects and so continue to talk it up.

What Makes A User Experience Expert?

• They run discovery sessions.
• They focus on user stories.
• They do user research.
• They’re often not visual designers.
• Finally, they know that good User Experience is really the same thing as Customer Service.

Read on…

More humor.

Funny nonetheless.

Working too much is likely to decrease your productivity, leave you creatively drained, and negatively effect relationships with friends and family. Don’t get me wrong, pursuing your passion is a beautiful gift and there is nothing wrong with working hard on projects you love. However, it’s essential to take breaks. Whether you’re working from home or in an office environment it’s essential to nourish your creative spirit.

Favorites…

Unplug from the internet. Getting work done doesn’t require an internet connection. It’s amazing what can happen when you step out from behind the computer screen or your mobile device. Most of my killer ideas come to me when I’m taking a shower, on a walk, cooking a meal, and “not working.”

Everyone is creative and ideas can come to you at odd moments. Just because you have an idea doesn’t mean you have to implement it right away. Keep a journal with you at all times so that you can capture your idea and enjoy your down time.

And…

Constantly question your goals and life purpose. It’s important to continually reevaluate your goals, life purpose and behaviors. For example if you constantly stay late at the office, sacrifice personal relationships because of work, or check your email obsessively, ask yourself:

• Why am I doing this?
• What is the end goal?
• Are my behaviors healthy?

Read on…

When I asked Resolve about the age groups of iPad users, I found out some other interesting information. The first owners of the iPad tended to be young professionals, 22-45, who were either early adopters in general or had a highly connected and mobile lifestyle.

However, the next group of adopters and those interested in buying an iPad are much older than the one might expect (45+). Anecdotally, I’ve seen this in my own travels and discussions with iPad or future iPad owners. The first wave of iPad owners were people like myself. The second wave of iPad owners, at least from what I’m seeing, have more in common with my parents.

Not surprised. I’ve been discussing this with a few friends. If the iPad had been around before, this would have been the device they bought before an iPod. Using it is so easy to use, I can’t imagine older users having issues, especially with a clearer, larger screen than an iPod.

Network effects can be your friend or your enemy depending on whether your product has reached critical mass.  Getting to critical mass in complementary network effect markets is sometimes called overcoming the “chicken and egg problem.”  Back in graduate school (2003), my friend Jeff Rhodes and I wrote a paper titled “Six Strategies for Overcoming the ‘Chicken and Egg’ Problem in Complement-Based Network Effects Markets.”  This is a frequent challenge when launching technology products, yet at least at the time we had seen very few people try to systematically document strategies for overcoming it.  Some of our examples are a bit dated now, but if you are interested in this topic you might like the full paper.

User Experience Will Trump Ubiquitous Content

The balance of power within digital media is shifting again, this time to the experience that envelops the content. In the same way that musicians are now making money again by going on tour and entertaining their fans at real events, online content that is packaged as a social experience will be more in line with consumer web use trends than mass-market online content portals.

Read on…

More ads equal more money, right? Wrong. According to the research, the best performers across the network displayed an average of 4.7 ads on the home page. Meanwhile, the lower performers with an average of 9 ads per page saw 50 percent fewer click-thrus. Just as publishers struggle to break through the noise of a crowded ecosystem, so too do advertisers.

Interesting. Read on…

I have a stack of about 2,000 resumes, and many of them fail at the basics — typography, composition, use of color. It’s even more frustrating, because I depend on good designers to get the results I want and am frequently disappointed in the outcome.

Anyone can open Photoshop, Illustrator or Dreamweaver, but it takes a good designer than can communicate and grow with clients. The reality is the most valuable designers are the one’s that understand the needs of the project first and are creative second.

Follow Instructions and Apply the Right Amount of Effort

The hardest part about working with clients is communicating with them.

Words don’t adequately describe what we need to be designed, so designers and lay folk meet in this awkward common ground where the results are not so common.

When a designer meets someone that understands the craft, there is an importance to following instructions that is much higher than working with a normal client. Also, knowing what’s appropriate for a task (a ten hour logo versus a full branding exercise) is something that should be asked. Many clients are looking for the right amount of effort on a task and will pay for it.

So here’s a tip: sit down and draw out what the client or manager wants by sketching it on a piece of paper — even if it means getting a user experience designer involved. Then ask, “How much time should I spend on this? Is this a one hour task? One day task? One year task?”

You’ll be surprised at the clarifications you’ll get.

Learn to Adapt to Other Styles

The vast majority of work on the web is not designing new sites: it’s maintaining existing sites and designs. This means that if you are a designer, you’re going to be picking up the designs of someone who’s the art director or a previous designer on the project.

This is hard.

Unless you have a distinct design style that resonates (Saul Bass and Andy Warhol come to mind), you’re going to work in situations where there’s going to be either an Art Director or Creative Director that’s going to lay down the line before you.

This means that you have to copy other artists work, which is not necessarily a bad thing. You learn how to deconstruct other styles and, in the process, will probably improve your design skills. I think colleges and art institutes spend too much time on teaching students how to develop new designs and should spend more time teaching how to copy current designs to illustrate what makes them effective.

And seriously, do you think your own designs are all that original?

Copyists in the art world get paid well, and there’s a whole career called conservator that involves preserving and restoring artwork in its original form and intent, even if that form is missing. Learn how to replicate other styles. Not only will you learn, but it will keep you employed.

Don’t Be a Stay at Home Defenseman

This is the hardest one, because creative folks are creative folks. This is the way I explain it: the NHL stay at home defensemen are slow, lumbering bruisers that work best on their end of the ice, disrupting and doing one thing: stopping the puck. However, when required to score, they don’t get much further than the blue line at the offensive end, because they are always trying to get back.

They also don’t take a lot of initiative — doing only what they know how to do. Designers are the same way.

In big corporate environments, having one skill can work, but when you’re in the real world, clients are going to ask for CSS skills or if you know a bit of Flash or can do some data entry into a content management system.

I don’t think designers have to know everything, but each skill that a designer has over “I can use Photoshop” is another skill to use when billing out to clients.

Learn Great Typography

No matter what someone says, typography is more important than ever on the web. Yet I see portfolio after portfolio where typography is average at best and poor at work. Love for typography goes well beyond knowing the difference between Tahoma and Arial or watching the movie Helvetica. Designers should know how to use type both to communicate and as an interface tool.

Here’s a challenge that will help any designer learn great typography: start with only Arial or Helvetica. Learn how to use contrasting weights and sizes to direct the users eye without using any other type styles.

I Love Typography has a great guide on how to use type on the web. They have the following quote:

First, it’s worth noting that Typography is not just about choosing a font, or even distinguishing one typeface from another. In recent experiments, trained monkeys were able to correctly identify Helvetica 90% of the time.

Learn How to Design on a Grid and How to Use White Space

From The Web Style Guide

Grids are equally as important on the web as in any medium. The truth is that most designs are closer to mathematical equations than something overly creative and have to use white space and composition to: a) fit in a lot of content, b) be engaging with a call of action and c) look good. Not as easy as it looks.

Designing on a grid helps solve a lot of these issues without a lot of thought, and grids can also be used to establish design styles and visual structures.

Do Stuff No One Wants to Do

There’s nothing worse for a client or a manager to hear than having someone who says, “That’s something I don’t do,” especially when it falls right in the middle of their skill set and when they are junior to other designers and workers in that group.

Data entry. Sure.

Picking up work someone else is doing, but too busy to complete? Sure.

Doing production work to resize 70 logos to the right size? When do you need it?

Web design isn’t all glamour and glitz (how glamourous can a home page be?), and it isn’t all redesigning websites for the clients. Sometimes we have to remember it’s a job. Sometimes you’re just going to be changing the oil, but you’re still getting paid for it.

The original post is here. Enjoy.

I like social tools and websites. I started blogging in 2004, I opened my first Twitter account in 2007, and I’ve joined every social networking site on the planet. I even co-founded a social network for HR professionals because I think technology is fun & interesting. I wanted to learn.

Unfortunately, there are days where I want to quit Facebook and go back to my real world.

I don’t mind your Farmville updates or your Mafia Wars invites. I can delete those requests and hide your activity in my feed. What bothers me is the hyper-aggressive use of social media to spew emotion, feelings, and opinion. People who are otherwise sweet & kind will comment on my wall and write the most idiotic, racist, and sexist stuff in defense of an otherwise irrelevant position.

I’m like Mr. Wilson from Dennis the Menace. I find myself yelling, “Get off my lawn!”

Here are my guidelines for Facebook. Let me know if you have others you would like to add.

• Facebook is meant to be fun. It’s not very fun when you come over to my page and insult my friends, my ideas, or my taste in music. It’s even less fun when I have to go back and delete your tone-deaf comments. Please shut up, already.
• Facebook is like an entryway to my home. We are social media neighbors, and I expect some manners. Do you take a crap and smear it all over your neighbor’s home when you want to make a point or emphasize an idea? Please don’t come over to my Facebook wall and fling poop.
• None of this is real. I don’t post pictures of myself in my glasses & retainers. You will never see anything more than what I want you to see. I assume the same about you. Let’s show some maturity and exercise our critical thinking skills. Accept that Facebook is just a snapshot of life and move on.
• Facebook isn’t a space for deep and meaningful conversation. It’s the least conversational site, actually. When I post something on my wall, I don’t want to hear from naysayers & Debbie Downers. I want to hear from like-minded people who are fun & interesting. I don’t mind witty banter and light discussion, but I am looking to keep things lighthearted. If I wanted to have an important conversation with you about serious issues, I would call you. At the very least, I would tweet about it.
• Facebook isn’t Meet the Press. You are not a genius political thinker, either. You won’t change my mind about Obama, abortion, religion, women’s rights, feminism, or any other issue. I won’t change your mind, either. When did you stop assuming that I am an intelligent & educated human being? Don’t you respect me? Isn’t that why we’re friends in the first place? I am open to some new ideas, and I respect your opinion, but Facebook is not the place. Period. I know you missed your calling as a political advisor. Please go advise someone else.

I love social tools and value the online connections in my life. I like seeing pictures of your children. I want to hear about your pets and your job. This is important to me and makes my life better.

Very simply, I hope that aggressive users of Facebook will mature, slow down, and chill the heck out.

Very cool.

What you can use Messenger Connect for

Messenger Connect enables three core scenarios for websites and app developers:

• Identity – makes it easy for users to sign in and sign up to your web site using their Windows Live ID
• Social distribution – lets users share the things they do on your website with their friends. Activities appear in Messenger, Hotmail, and across Windows Live properties, and other places Messenger social is displayed (including Windows Phone 7 and the very popular Windows Live Messenger iPhone app)
• Realtime shared experiences – lets users share an experience in real time with their friends

What’s new in Messenger Connect

Many of the components that have evolved into Messenger Connect have been around for several years (Messenger Web Toolkit, Live ID Web Authentication, Delegated Authentication, and the Windows Live Contacts API), but this is the first time we’ve delivered a suite of standards-based, self-service APIs as a package. To understand how Messenger Connect works, from authorization, to the different interfaces and controls, to the emerging standards/specifications we use (OAuth WRAP, Portable Contacts, ActivityStrea.ms, and OData), check out this post.

Very cool. Read on.

We believe that you should be able to choose to take your Windows Live data with you when you travel the web. Messenger Connect allows you to do that by providing a way to sign in to third party web and client applications using your Windows Live ID. Messenger Connect allows you to bring your Windows Live profile and contacts with you; easily share with your friends and enable Windows Live Messenger-based chat within third party applications; and access your photos, calendar, and more.

In order to enable third party applications to ‘connect’ and interact with Windows Live accounts, we needed to design to help to ensure that customers’ data is protected and accessed in a manner consistent with customers’ expectations and desires, as well as enable great partner experiences.

Owning your data. Interesting concept.

Senior Visual Designer

Key Responsibilities:

• Producing innovative yet intuitive design solutions that address complex product, business, marketing and user needs.
• Rapidly developing user flows, wireframes, superior visual mock-ups, final design assets and documenting functional visual specs.
• Work with design, business development, and engineering to define and design products.
• Working closely with the Product Management, engineering and QA teams and support UI implementation efforts.
• Proactively works to understand customer needs and offers consultancy even when not asked.
• Acts as a source of expertise to others and contributes to discussion in own area.
• Accepts responsibility for and demonstrates support for delegated decisions.
• Communicates weekly or bi-weekly with remote team during off-business hours (can be early morning or later evening at times)

Experience:

A strong candidate for this role will match many of these criteria:

• 6+ years of designing consumer focused web and/or client application UI.
• Must demonstrate outstanding design talent, creativity and sense for clean visual and interaction design.
• Have an understanding of user-centered design process.
• Proven ability to work independently as well as in cross-functional groups.
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced environment
• Expert-level proficiency in Adobe CS4 Suite (specifically Fireworks and Photoshop)
• Experience with other applications desired: Omnigraffle, HTML/CSS
• BFA or BA degree in design related studies

Please respond with a resumé and a link to an online portfolio or examples of work.

Interaction Designer

Must have skills:

• Demonstrated portfolio of interaction design deliverables, including wireframes, flows, site maps, specs, etc.
• Understanding of usability and user centered design principles
• Strong understanding of web concepts (HTML, CSS, XML, etc.)
• Experience working with engineering teams, particularly in an agile environment
• Good written and verbal communication skills
• Understanding of, and desire to work in, a startup environment
• Mac platform experience
• Omnigraffle, Photoshop, Fireworks

It would be useful if you had:

• Visual design skills and portfolio (particularly web applications)
• Ability to code clean HTML and CSS

1. Both require removing rotten frames (if you find any)
2. Both might require hiring a professional
3. Both seem to go on forever
4. Both require the right tools to get the job done
5. Both involve uncovering disturbing things from the past
6. Both should follow industry standards
7. Both require preliminary planning to be successful
8. Both have fantastic online resources
9. Both have designs that at one point were in style but now I can’t stand
10. Both involve meeting objectives or you could really land in hot water

Great recruiters are as interested as finding work for you as you are.

Punk Rock HR is one of my favorite blogs of all time because of her common sense. Her comments are classic and I absolutely agree with.

The original post is here. Enjoy.

I love it when someone sends me an email and asks, “Do you know this recruiter? Is he a good guy?”

Believe it or not, I don’t know every HR professional or recruiter. I just know a few — but most of them are good people. (Sure, some of them are chumps but there are scam artists and losers in every industry. Look at sales.)

You need to use your brain — and your smarts — to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Here are some thoughts.

• Do the work and make sure the recruiter is credible. Don’t be shy. Ask probing questions before you allow a recruiter to represent you. You can ask for a biography. Request references. Connect with him on LinkedIn. Look him up on Twitter and Facebook. Make sure this guy hasn’t burned bridges or created any sort of ruckus.
• My favorite recruiters are those who have established relationships with VPs, hiring managers, and Human Resources professionals. That’s a tall order, actually. For starters, you can ask the recruiter to talk about his networking strategies. You’ll want to hear how he stays current in the industry
• I ask for an overview of my industry. I’m not looking for an economic treatise; however, I am curious if the recruiter can speak intelligently about my career field without using a ton of jargon.
• Ask the recruiter to describe his last couple of placements. This is about data, yo. I like to know the positions filled and how long it took him to find the ideal candidates. Recruiters won’t talk about specific clients or placement fees, but they will talk about general metrics if you ask. It’s not tacky to ask.
• You will never have to pay to get a job.  I hate to add this bullet, but there are a few sketchy ‘operators’ out there. Credible recruiting agencies don’t ask for money.

Finally, I think it’s important to know where a recruiter is submitting your resume before the resume is sent. You can ask for this specific information — it’s not rude.

Remember, a relationship with a recruiter is like any other business arrangement. Do your research, ask thoughtful questions, and operate with integrity. Don’t forget that a recruiter is risking his reputation on you, too.

I’ve been checking in at Apple every day for the last year and I’m still not the mayor? I hate Foursquare.

It’s a parody account. Really.

Great feature — wish I could use it.

Use a Catchy Headline

Potential customers only take a few seconds to scan the email subject line. If your headline is not interesting enough or if it comes across as a sales pitch that oversells or promises more than can be delivered, there is a chance that the recipient will not click on the email, let alone read it.  If your reader has opted-in, the headline should hint at the value your offer provides or offer a solution to address the prospect’s needs.

You want to use a catchy headline, but remember that there is the risk of getting caught in a spam filter and getting your message blocked.

To avoid this risk, try to refrain from using words and phrases like: free, #1, 100% satisfied, call, click, congratulations, get it now, no obligation, offer, save up to, special promotion, or urgent in the subject line.

Offer Prospective Customers A Solution

It is important to emphasize benefits over features. Remember to use active voice over passive voice when describing your benefits. Your customer is always thinking, “How does this benefit me?” Make sure to research your target audience’s pain points and address what their needs are. Using five to six bullet points to highlight your solution is useful and makes the offer easier to read.

Remember to be specific about your solution’s benefits (within your industry, whether it’s entertainment, health, technology, finance, etc.), and don’t generalize. Since you are an expert in your field, speak to customers using language and words that they understand. If you are using technical jargon, remember to explain any acronyms, just in case potential clients do not have the same frame of reference that you do.

An alternate approach is to consider any obstacles that clients may have. For example, if you’ve decided that price may be an issue, you may want to consider that and address any concerns.

Use A Clear Call to Action

The call to action is the most critical part of your marketing email — a single command that tells customers how to proceed.

Depending on where prospects are in the sales cycle, remember to tell customers what YOU want them to do. It may be to sign up for a newsletter or webinar (Sign up to receive a newsletter), request a product tour (Request a demo), or buy a product (Add to cart). In addition, create a sense of urgency if possible, for example, Offer ends this Friday! Also, call to actions must not be complicated. Do not give multiple options. This will just confuse the customer.

A marketer can measure results based on the response to a call to action. If the response to your promotion is low, it may be time to revise your email’s offer or tweak your subject line to get a better response rate.

Keep it Short and Simple

Keep the email short and simple. Avoid adding multiple links to other pages within your website, since this will distract from the main offer and call to action.

A reminder about the obvious:

• Avoid typos
• Double-check that links to graphics and images are working properly
• Provide an html link, in case images are disabled
• Provide a link that allows prospects to opt-out or unsubscribe
• Provide a privacy policy

Leverage Your Signature Block

The signature block is an underutilized area that is easily overlooked, yet a place that can provide added value. You can provide an additional link to your website for branding, including reminders of upcoming promotions and events, or a link to your twitter account. As mentioned, use links in the signature block sparingly.

A small boilerplate about the company can also be used beneath the signature block to give additional contact information, for example, company name (for branding), address, phone number, fax number, email, hours of operation, and website.

Following these 5 easy tips will make your promotional messages easier to read, tell customers how to proceed, and give them information so that they can reach you and your products or services.

• The answers are well thought out
• The answers are written in plain English instead of usability speak
• People are encouraged to ask questions
• There isn’t too much content

http://www.twitter.com/usabilitycounts

A developer I work with owns one in Seattle called the Waterwheel Lounge, and one of my favorites is the local beer bar that I’m the (occasional) Foursquare mayor of, The Church Key. They have an almost ‘Cheers’ like feel to them because the locals show up.

Social networks are like neighborhood bars — people want to feel welcome, like they are part of the neighborhood. This was true during the BBS days (When I was part of Morrison Hotel and Chatline, yo), and it’s true now.

This is how to make your social media site or campaign as successful as a neighborhood bar.

Show them the personality of the place, but give them what they want

Every bar has a personality.

Some are sports bars (or sports lounges in Vancouver), some are singles bars, some are dance clubs, and some are neighborhood bars. Bar customers have certain expectations. For instance, when I visit the Church Key, I’m expecting conversation. When I visit Grant and Green, I’m expecting really loud music from bands like the Missionary Position.

The Waterwheel Lounge is famous in Seattle for their Karaoke nights. Not my cup of tea (The next bad rendition of “Ring of Fire” I hear might be that singer’s last), but their Karaoke nights are huge.

The same goes for websites that want to have a social networking component: users have certain expectations of what they are going to find there. For example, why would there be a StumbleUpon or Delicious share link on a general content website in the hope that three users click on it? Does a LinkedIn share button belong on ESPN.com?

The feel of the site should reflect that. All sites need to build trust with their users, and the first thing sites can do is design a user experience that reflects the attitude of the site. Screen real estate is precious, but making sure that the real estate is appropriate to the users is important. If users are screaming for features, give them to them.

There is nothing more satisfied than an engaged user.

Make sure you know their name

The first day I walked into the Church Key, the bartender Ben asked for my name.

The second day I walked in there, he called me by my first name, and has done so ever since. Since I was new to the neighborhood (and I don’t know too many people in San Francisco), I thought this was coolest thing in the world. To this day, I still don’t know the price of what I pay for, and I always overtip.

There are several other bars in the neighborhood, but none of them are like the Church Key: a comfortable sweater that isn’t new, but it feels like your best friend.

Websites are like neighborhood bars; visitors want to feel like they belong. Sites like Facebook, Daily Kos and The Huffington Post have such huge readerships. They are their own social networks that call you by your first name when you visit.

The connect features of the major social sites make it easy for users to sign in (they can use their social media accounts to authenticate), and more importantly they establish reputation for the user to other users. Everyone sees friendly faces, and some sites like Yelp! allow users to establish creative personas that contribute to the editorial direction of user generated content.

Remember what they drink and give them more of it

Whenever I walk into the Church Key, I look at the huge beer list of exotic beers, glaze over, and ask Benjamin to get me a beer. I describe a taste (I want something that’s a porter yet sweet), and he gets a beer that hits close to what I ask for, if not exactly what I order.

Three or four times I didn’t even ask for a beer, and found a 90-minute IPA (one of my favorites) sitting at my barstool when I walked in.

Great websites provide context of where users have been, and give them clues where they are going. If a user has read 58 sports stories about the San Francisco Giants, there’s a pretty good chance that the user either is a) a San Francisco Giants fan, or b) has Tim Linceum on his fantasy baseball team.

In either case, the website should present more stories about the San Francisco Giants. How many sites do that? (I know, not enough of them. I’ve done the research.)

Make sure the customers share stories

This is harder than it sounds.

A lot of bars have poorly designed interaction areas — either it’s too loud, or too crowded, or just too uncomfortable. Those are the bars that come and go. Great bars offer a range of places to sit: a bar to sit with the locals, dark corners for late night dates where neither of you want to be seen, places to stand and talk and drink with friends.

Both the Church Key and the Waterwheel Lounge have places where you can find random people to talk to, and places to hide in corners with your friends. But in both situations, they make it easy for story telling and good times.

Great social websites with a social component also make it easy to share stories. Content will be written in a way that’s not only engaging, but encourages conversation. The Huffington Post is a great example — you might not agree with the content, but you can engage in discussion and find a community of your peers (or not so peers).

Don’t forget the 42” plasma television or the pool table in the corner

Bar visitors are fickle. Website visitors, even more so.

They like their places like a comfortable old sweater, but if it gets a bit too worn, they want something new.

No matter how many bars are out there, the great ones give visitors something new every once in a while. The Waterwheel does this by offering great contests every once in a while, and installed this awesome patio deck that I’m going to make a special trip up to Seattle to see. The Church Key rotates their beer list, so what they have one month will change the next month.

Great social websites mix it up every once in a while. They try some new things, like Facebook’s Open Graph. They bring in new writers, different content, more video. They also take away features that aren’t working (like the 85 social networking badges you might see) when it’s obvious users are not using them.

Don’t take yourself too seriously and make it feel like a family

Great bars are genuine.

Great bars resonate.

Great bars speak to their customers.

Great bars are real.

For both bars, I’ve had very real conversations with the owners. They didn’t wear flair, they didn’t put on a fake smile — they have real conversations with the customers, bullshitting with them about the weather, or the local sports team, or even running bingo or trivia nights that get customers free drinks. They ask how you’ve been, and involve you in the going’s on at the bar.

They care about the customers, and speak in a voice that’s very real.

They make you feel like you’re part of the family.

Great social media brands do that, through great copy and even better social promotions.

For example, Jet Blue has a wonderful promotion that talked about treating dad to a getaway. Foursquare isn’t too serious, and they make it social where visitors can find other visitors at a location. Great social media sites use comfortable, friendly conversations that feel real.

They talk about what they’ve done right, and what they have done wrong. They speak to you as a person and not like a person impressed by flair. They want to make you part of the family, treat you with respect, and remind you that they like you.

When done right, gradual engagement communicates the core essence of a service with a few lightweight interactions. If you can make people successful along the way—even better. Will Wright, the creator of the Sims & Spore, has a belief that games should allow people to succeed within the first five seconds. That’s a great philosophy to bring to gradual engagement. In fact, I think if you can use lightweight actions to allow people to accomplish something relevant to the core of your product within their first one or two interactions with your service, that’s gradual engagement at its finest.

…

Through their user research, Twitter found that while celebrities (and their tweets) were a big reason people came to Twitter, they did not keep them there. Instead, what kept users on Twitter was the things they were passionate about – hobbies, conversations with subject-matter experts, and friends. This was the core essence of the service that a gradual engagement approach needed to deliver.

Listen up. I know the shit you’ve been saying behind my back. You think I’m stupid. You think I’m immature. You think I’m a malformed, pathetic excuse for a font. Well think again, because I’m Comic Sans, and I’m the best thing to happen to typography since Johannes Gutenberg.

Let’s face it, the days of hordes of web professionals walking in with black turtlenecks talking about how we are creating “immersible experiences” that don’t relate to a return on investment are over.

Many user experience consultants, however, are still focusing on shiny presentations with pretty wireframes without the knowledge to back up their reasoning. They drive up in the fast cars and present fast wireframes in slick presentation folders. They wave their hands around, doing their best impression of Steve Jobs.

There’s only one Steve Jobs, and even his opinion on products changes as he sees them evolve. Software and web projects should do the same over time. Companies are expecting well-reasoned solutions that will translate to their bottom line,  improve their brand and will evolve over time.

The Bottom Line:
Great looking wireframes are just that, if there’s no depth.

I would almost say never trust a user experience consultant that delivers perfect wireframes. During the process of many projects, wireframes are used as communication tools and should never match the finished product. The real judge of a user experience consultant is the final result: how did the client benefit. If the consultant can’t answer this, shiny is useless.

2. The consultant user experience process starts with wireframes.

The ad is posted, the user experience consultant is hired, and there is no discovery process. Within one day, there’s a set of wireframes that describes a home page, inside pages, and a few other random pages that are a loose collection of detail and sketches. While it’s enough to get the developers started, it becomes clear that the initial wireframes assume a target that does not exist.

It’s like designing a house without asking the key questions like how many rooms the house is going to have, how many stories to design for, or even where the house is going to built.

Or – would you build a car without knowing who you’re building a car for?

The Bottom Line:
Establish the business and user goals.

It doesn’t have to be a very exhaustive process (and shouldn’t be in some agile environments), but there should be a target with which to start. One project I worked on, we had a single set of two personas, and from the very outset, it helped the developers identify with the target users. We may have been wrong to begin with, but any project is a journey, not a destination.

3. When asked why something is designed a certain way, many answers are “because.”

The wireframes are being developed, handed over to the developers and turned into something real. Yet, nothing makes sense. After a few sprints, it becomes evident that design decisions made do not make sense; yet when the user experience consultant is asked about why they made those decisions or designed the functionality in a certain way, there is very little critical thought or data to back them up.

A lot of poor design decisions by user experience professionals begin with the usual: “Well, we’ve always done it this way” or “The last project I did was designed this way.” While using patterns from previous project or two is a good place to start…

The Bottom Line:
“Because” isn’t good enough.

There should be design patterns, established processes used from other sites or at the very least, guerilla usability studies behind the wireframes that are given to the developers. Design patterns I have used in previous projects are based on established best practices, success of previous projects, or based on real data. Even then, “because of this” may change due to user testing and initial results.

4. Their resume has a list of brands, but they don’t know where the offices are.

One of the oldest tricks in the book: web and graphic designers altering a single graphic or one line of text in the site and claiming credit for the project. It could be even how they presented a single idea to a client, and the resulting claim was how they personally changed the way that company did business. Think of those wonderful Windows 7 commercials in a professional environment.

More examples:
One user experience consultant I know of has never even been to some of the companies she has on her resume, or worked with them whatsoever. Another designer I know took credit for a project where he was one of nine designers.

The Bottom Line:
Ask them to explain what was accomplished for the client.

Whatever documents the user experience consultant has in his portfolio, he should be able to explain in detail what he did, what methodology he followed, and what the result was. The user experience consultant might not have all the pieces, but even if the site was changed he could ascertain why it was changed.

Most large projects should have teams of professionals on them, and I’ve personally been up front about this on projects I’ve worked on. Other professionals should do the same when explaining their background.

5. They can’t explain the user experience process, other than calling out Cooper or Garrett.

There are a lot of user experience books out there, and many of them make fine reading on cross country flights (I read a Cooper book on a flight I was on recently, and a Tog book before that). However, they are a starting point.

Some user experience consultants follow a certain school or process, bringing up the “this person said this” or “this person said that” approach of reasoning, as if that person is the sole reason why users act a certain way.  Blanket statements like “this technology is bad” don’t take into account the context of the application.

The reality is that each project is different and the author isn’t the one on the project. User experience professionals have the challenge of adapting to the environment they were working and should act accordingly.

The Bottom Line:
The reason to know the rules is to know when the break them.

The best document I’ve used with my clients is a modified Gantt chart that shows not only the user experience process but a complete software development lifecycle as a whole. When I sit down with the client, I talk about elements of the process as an example, and then highlight process steps that may not apply.

6. They make the process more complicated than it needs to be.

A friend of mine ran into this when working in her organization. A fellow member of the team said there was this certain tagging process to follow, directly copied from a blog post off a prominent user experience site. The issue: the tagging process would have dramatically lengthened doing work within their environment, requiring much more work to perform the same amount of tasks.

It’s dangerous enough to copy posts from blog entries when there’s no context, but even worse when the post advocates a process that is ill-suited to the group at hand. Most of those processes are designed to be used in academic or enterprise environments, which obviously doesn’t work well for a team of ten.

Before using any method or process, there has to be a careful look at what you’re asking for before you jump into it.

The Bottom Line:
Do just enough user experience gathering to keep the process going.

I’ve done the full-on user experience process, but on one project I worked on, the wireframes consisted of sketches performed on print outs for A/B testing. The tools of user experience are communication tools to an end goal, and nothing else. If the user experience expert does not agree with that, then it’s really time to look for a new one.

If you’re like many companies, you might think outsourcing social marketing is your best bet.

But more than ever companies are working to keep social media in-house because it requires such an intimate knowledge of the brand and because of the personal nature of social media interactions in general. Customers want to talk to you, not an “outsourced” spammy twitter account. And when you leave them with no choice, they happily take their discussion to your nearest competitor.

…

Instead of hiring or tasking the best person for the job, whether that’s managing the Twitter account or actively engaging in forum discussions, many companies put their least experienced, least qualified people on an overwhelming number of social media initiatives. Usually this person is in marketing and may be tasked to cover topics or areas of social media they have little or no experience in. But this isn’t the most efficient and certainly not the most effective method for achieving social media success.

High shipping costs – 44%

Not ready to purchase – 41%

Price checking – 27%

Price too high – 25%

Wanted to save products for later – 24%

Of course, providing clear delivery charges on product pages and elsewhere so that customers don’t have to add items to the cart to find out total costs would be one improvement, and it also makes sense for retailers to make it as easy as possible for customers to resume their sessions on subsequent visits.

How true. How true.

The very way that we present content on the web is being reshaped by tablets and ye olde linear newsprint that they seek to mimic.  Just look at how Safari’s new Reader feature “removes annoying ads and other visual distractions” (ie. all the things the web’s good at, the very things publishers have placed on their page deliberately), paring articles down to their intrinsic text core. It’s like printing off the web as a PDF.

Read on…

Laptop vs. Desktop:

• Screen sizes of 1280 by 800, 1440 by 900, and 1366 by 768 are indications the end user is most likely using a laptop.
• The 1200 by 800 is very popular among MacBooks, and the Sony laptop I’m on right now is 1366 by 768.

And something you probably haven’t thought of: laptops have outsold desktops for years.

For some sites, the majority of users may be using a laptop.

Forget screen resolutions for laying out the page, think about the indications of device type. Over 34 percent of my blog’s audience is the middle of target laptop screen resolutions. A few other sites I work with have percentages that fall in the 40 to 45 percent range. These percentages alone may be a more important number than browser audience. Seriously, who cares about the box model and CSS issues, when the user can’t figure out how to use the scroll bar?

The Bottom Line
Figure out who your audience is. A website that is aimed at developers (a desktop audience) should be designed differently than a website aimed at sales people (a laptop audience). Consider who they are, and what their environment is. For example consumers are now mostly laptop users and expert users at work use desktops, you want to design for whichever of these two fits your audience.

A lot of laptops are on old technology.

A friend of mine has this laptop that’s four years old.

That might not seem that long, but…

(pause)

(pause)

(pause)

It takes ten minutes to boot-up.

Watching that laptop trying to crank through a Flash movie or a website that’s shipping 800k down the pipe for the homepage is a painful experience. There are millions of laptops and underpowered netbooks out there in the real world, many of them held by consumers that don’t want to migrate their files to a new computer, even if they can afford it.

So they stick with their old, trusty laptop until it dies.

Some of the web analysis reports I’ve seen have shown that 75 percent of the user base is still using Windows XP, which was discontinued two years ago.

That alone shows two points:

• There are a lot of people unwilling to upgrade.
• There are a lot of people on slow computers.

The Bottom Line
Bells and whistles might not be a good thing, when considering your audience. A website that works on a web designer’s souped up MacBook Pro might not be working on an end user’s laptop with 1GB of RAM.

Using a laptop means a different user experience.

That doesn’t mean that they are always using the laptop screen, but what it does mean is they are definately using the laptop as a web surfing device. This dramatically changes their user experience. Instead of sitting up in their chair, they are looking down at their laptop, typing and using a trackpad.

I had a long conversation with a game developer about the iPad, how people use it as a window because they are looking down. Laptops are much the same way. They have to be judged within their environment, whether it is a Starbucks, an airport, or a cubicle when the user is on the run.

Home users might be watching a television show or chatting with friends on Skype, but whatever they are doing, they could be performing multiple actions in an environment that’s not sitting at a desk. Four to seven different application windows may be open, and the browser window will not be expanded.

The margin of 700 pixels becomes 600 pixels. That email you are sending for marketing purposes might only be 300 pixels wide by 600 pixels high.

Another consideration: many popup windows and dialog boxes are designed to be 700 pixels high, which are unusable on netbooks that are 1024 pixels wide by 600 pixels high.

The Bottom Line
Designing for the top left corner of a page is more important than ever before. We might have to rethink always having that branding logo there.

Certain actions are difficult on a laptop.

Get on a laptop. Then try using it without a mouse.

Certain actions are assumed to work, like using the arrow keys to scroll through a web page. This is because browser designers have built their applications to work this way. But, there are other actions that are difficult at best and impossible at worst, most of them require holding a button on a mouse — re-size a window, scroll through an editing text area, and perform a multi-select action. These actions require two hands: using the trackpad to scroll while pressing the left trackpad button. Some laptops are missing things. A lot of laptops don’t have page up, page down keys, so the users have to use two keys to scroll down.

In fact, a study performed in 2002 found that not only was scrolling 23 percent faster using a mouse versus a trackpad, the error rate for hitting the target was three times higher with the trackpad.

Trackpads change user behavior. Many laptop users, like myself, are experts at hotkeys — so much so that when I’m using a laptop, I use the keyboard more than the mouse. Actions, such as tabbing through a web form, have to work well or it’s useless. Like most gestural interfaces, if you are depending on mouseovers to indicate status, laptop users are going to be missing out on a lot of feedback, because they are trying to perform an action as quickly as possible.

The Bottom Line
Ironically, many of the same concepts around Section 508 compliance also work well for designing for laptop users. Design it so it’s closer to a keyboard-driven application versus mouse-driven application.

Consider Fitts’ law when designing for interactions.

The size of the target, when using a trackpad, makes navigation on certain sites and, more importantly, performing precise actions, hard. To drag-and-drop in a precise manner is impossible using a trackpad. Try navigating Photoshop using one. I guarantee you’ll be be tearing your hair out in five minutes.

Scroll twice, and hit a target the size of a postage stamp to sign in for personalization — that’s the challenge on CNN.com.

Targets have to be sizable, and dragging the pointer long distances is worse using a trackpad than a mouse. For example, when using a trackpad to go from one end of my screen to another, I have to scroll two separate times from the top left to bottom right corner of my screen. The same works for any direction on the screen for my laptop.

The Bottom Line
Consider distance to take an action and what that action is (for example, a social sign in, which drives a lot of traffic), when designing the page.

Collaboration is key to the UX process, but it becomes increasingly difficult across locations. Working remotely with engineers, product managers and other UX’ers is challenging. Learn how members of the Google UX team work with other offices and team members domestically and internationally to create the best user experiences possible.

“People love to talk about JetBlue because the experience is so unexpected. Most airline travel has a particular pattern: small seats, bad entertainment, and little (if any) food. JetBlue breaks this pattern. Leather seats, your own entertainment system with dozens of channels, and at least some choice of food. People can’t stop talking about the experience because they have to express their surprise especially given the “value” price. They are so used to airline travel being poor, late, or uncomfortable these days that cases where a company seems to care and provide good service seems noteworthy. Satisfaction itself is unexpected.”

Other companies should be listening.

From The Onion. Totally silly.

From Say Everything:

Starting a blog continues to require no one else’s permission. No App Store approval process sits athwart your path. And anyone with a Web browser can read your work. App Store offerings can tap into some capabilities of Apple’s device hardware that a browser can’t. But today any decent browser taps us into a teeming multitude of other people’s minds. This choice isn’t even a close call.

Read on…

Sure….very, very silly.

The most remarkable result of the experiment emerged when Small repeated the tests six days later. In the interim, the novices had agreed to spend an hour a day online, searching the Internet. The new scans revealed that their brain activity had changed dramatically; it now resembled that of the veteran surfers. “Five hours on the Internet and the naive subjects had already rewired their brains,” Small wrote. He later repeated all the tests with 18 more volunteers and got the same results.

…

There’s nothing wrong with absorbing information quickly and in bits and pieces. We’ve always skimmed newspapers more than we’ve read them, and we routinely run our eyes over books and magazines to get the gist of a piece of writing and decide whether it warrants more thorough reading. The ability to scan and browse is as important as the ability to read deeply and think attentively. The problem is that skimming is becoming our dominant mode of thought. Once a means to an end, a way to identify information for further study, it’s becoming an end in itself—our preferred method of both learning and analysis. Dazzled by the Net’s treasures, we are blind to the damage we may be doing to our intellectual lives and even our culture.

We are becoming more scattered, shallower people.

I had to have one.

Sure, it’s over priced (well, not compared to the Kindle).

Sure, it looks like a toy.

But I’m telling you, Apple and the developers that are building applications for this device are going to change the world in a way that we can’t even dream of. I can’t even dream of all the possibilities, and I do software design for a living.

Here are my thoughts.

What the iPad is great at

Surfing the Web

Flash aside, if you want something to read web pages, the iPad is wonderful. Pages load fast, clean, and re-size to the direction you reading. The display is crisp and clear and totally makes users rethink the limitations of resolution. As much as Adobe likes to tell everyone how much content is Flash-based, I didn’t miss Flash at all.

A lot of sites now have HTML5 videos (YouTube, for one), and once site owners see how many of their users are using iPads to access their content, Flash will become less and less the only game in town.

Watching videos and listening to music

The iPod is a great portable device, but if you spend a lot of time on planes, buses or any other mode of transport where you can access the Web, this is a wonderful time waster. Netflix and MLB.tv play at such a high quality, you forget that you’re watching it over WiFi.

I bought it pretty much for time spent on airplanes. In about one week, I’m going to find a new home for my netbook, because my iPad is replacing it.

Frankly, this is the device I would have bought first before the iPod, because it’s the perfect home entertainment device. Some enterprising young engineer, or company, is going to figure out how to make this the hub of your home entertainment system, and that person will make obscene amounts of money.

Reading anything in “print.”

The NYTimes application is similar to the application they built for Silverlight with Microsoft a few years ago. Depending on the direction you’re reading the article, the page repaginates in the new direction. “Print” publishers should look at this as a completely new channel that’s not only going to extend the life of their content, but allow them to do interesting new things with that content, like include multimedia — something they would have never thought of with a strictly paper product.

I’ll make this prediction: this is the device print publishing companies so desperately needed for a subscription/advertising model, and yet they’re going to miss the opportunity because they’re more focused on losing classified ad share to Craigslist.

What it’s not so great at

Actual work

Sure, it’s a great device to take to meetings and conferences. You can take notes without a lot of effort, and the battery life fits in perfectly with an all-day conference. But it definitely lacks many things, like a mouse. The inability to make precise movements, needed for applications like Omnigraffle and Adobe Photoshop, make this a poor device for repetitive tasks required by most jobs. However, this is a great second device to take if you have a primary device like a laptop. Leave the computer at home, and show the broad strokes at meetings.

Think shiny demos, not boring presentations. For some sales professionals, this will replace the projector.

Replying to emails or any other action that requires a lot of typing

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Many iPhone users that were frequent texters developed carpal tunnel symptoms using Blackberry’s and other smart phones, mainly because the phones were keyboard-driven devices. Once the users moved over to the iPhone, the limited feedback of the “keyboard” forced users to be more economical with their typing because it took much longer. Their symptoms disappeared. The same should happen with the iPad; users will adapt and type less because the device wasn’t designed for that.

How the iPad is going to change the Web

A lot of interactions that work best with a mouse and/or keyboard are pointless in a gestural environment

Mouseovers?

Gone.

Interfaces that require a lot of typing.

Gone.

Interfaces that utilize drag and drop (think Microsoft Surface) become wonderful ways of navigating sites using the iPad, much more so than point and click methods. How many sites really use drag and drop geared toward mouses? Many applications will have to be re-thought in a way that’s going to be a harder transition than moving from command line to point and click.

Cutting out all necessary steps to sign in and personalize content will be important

A lot of websites still have long registration processes that require several steps and lots of keystrokes to maximize site content. Services like Facebook Connect, Messenger Connect, Twitter login or another other social way of registration without full registration will be very important in significant user adoption by iPad users.

If I were running a social site (Hey, MySpace, you listening?), I would figure out a way of designing an interface optimized for the iPad. That includes drag and drop, gestural interfaces that allow users to be creative in a space that’s totally different than the web. Sure, it’s a lot of work, but this is the Wild Wild West! The first website to do this is going to make a huge splash.

Saving content locally will become necessary for iPad users

I’m not the lucky few that owns an iPad that has 3G (read: Ambrose Little), and I couldn’t stomach the thought of yet another Internet service on my already expensive AT&T bill. Applications that download and cache content is something myself and millions of iPad users will be very interested in.

Applications that store a lot of content locally so users can read offline will be all the rage as the iTunes store carries more and more applications. Follow the lead of the NYTimes, for instance.

We all know that knowledge workers work best by getting into “flow”, also known as being “in the zone”, where they are fully concentrated on their work and fully tuned out of their environment. They lose track of time and produce great stuff through absolute concentration…trouble is that it’s so easy to get knocked out of the zone. Noise, phone calls, going out for lunch, having to drive 5 minutes to Starbucks for coffee, and interruptions by coworkers — especially interruptions by coworkers — all knock you out of the zone. If you take a 1 minute interruption by a coworker asking you a question, and this knocks out your concentration enough that it takes you half an hour to get productive again, your overall productivity is in serious trouble.

Joel Spolsky

Old settings

New Settings

Over the weekend we had a chance to highlight Graphic.ly – a company that opted to release early (and imperfectly) in exchange for valuable user feedback. As companies look to their peers and audiences to help define product features, there’s a greater need for scalable testing platforms. Here’s a summary of 8 useful services that will help put you on the path to product greatness.

Read on…

I met one of the social characters at one of these events, which I thought was the coolest thing. Nevertheless, the mass market was indifferent, and still doesn’t get the whole CNN call for tweets. Whatever. Nobody cares, right?

I like posting on Facebook as much as the next social media geek. I think last Monday, I talked about my new haircut. But, I recognize that posting about what I’m going to eat on Twitter doesn’t make me some kind of expert. It just means I use it. I don’t charge an arm and a leg for my advice, and I’m still amazed at the impact of Social Media on sites even though some of my friends consider me ahead of the curve. Myself and a few of my friends have been lucky to work in some Social Media environments (MySpace, for example), and even we don’t consider ourselves experts.

Social Media and even User Experience experts shouldn’t be able to call themselves that if they’ve been on one or two panels and read a book. They should have some successes and failures behind them and grown to tell the story. The truly great experts not only know how to leverage their personal brand, but point out the obvious while doing it, for free. Here are some ways to tell if your Social Media Expert is full of crap:

Your Social Media Expert spends more time blogging than working.

Self promotion can be high art on the web. Tila Tequila? Dane Cook? I mean, who really laughs at Dane Cook’s jokes? My friends talk about all the Ringo Starrs out there. You know them; they were with one company as someone inconsequential. The company made it big and found a way to parlay it into selling several books and evangelizing ideas. They are their own personal brand.

That said, there’s a really bad sign if your Social Media Expert spends more time blogging than working. Think about this: one post of this length takes about an hour of write. It’s like the cook with the great cookies; the last thing they are going to do is tell everyone the recipe, right?

If they are spending all their time writing blog posts about how much they know about Social Media, they aren’t helping your company do Social Media.

Your Social Media Expert thinks social media started with Facebook and Twitter.

The reality is that the core foundation of social media has been around since two people talked around the campfire about inventing the wheel. It’s just moved to a different medium, and that medium as we know it, the Internet, started on October 29, 1969. A lot of us older people — you know, the one’s that had jobs before an email address — remember bulletin board systems.

Technically, my first social media message that I sent to a friend of mine on Usenet was in 1987. Seriously, that’s longer ago than the age some of the experts I’ve seen. The message took four days to get there. The distance traveled was from Irvine, California to Claremont, California.

Real Social Media Experts understand conversations, and how those conversations interact on whatever medium they are on. That could mean a letter to the editor sent via a mail carrier in the 1950′s or a page established on Facebook in 2009. It’s the conversation that’s important.

Your Social Media Expert thinks that Twitter is the start of your brand.

One of the great aspects of Social Media is that, if you do it right, your customers have the conversation for you, promote your business and make you lots of money all for the cost of good service. One of the biggest mistakes we all make is where brand starts.

What is brand? Is your your name and the experiences tied to your name. It’s not a twitter post or a blog entry or the color you have or the logo you are designing. It’s the name of your company, and how every representative of your company is associated with it.

If a stupid Twitter post goes out about how Memphis sucks or 15,000 people complain on Facebook that your company uses slave labor, that hurts your brand. Social Media conversations shouldn’t be measured in just metrics but also in quality of the conversation, because that relates back to your brand. The linked article is a good example, because it talks about the success of Comcast. Ask any of their customers.

Your Social Media Expert always has a clown in the pocket.

This a famous phrase I’m going to attribute to a friend of mine. Whenever a company was going down the drain, especially during the late 1990′s, there was always a skunk-works project that was shown off in front of the venture capitalists. This was to distract them from the fact that the company was burning $15 million a month, they were surrounded by $1,000 Herman Miller Aeron chairs, the core product still hadn’t launched, and the CEO was doing coke.

Look, online video! We can put that on our Geocities pages!

Real consultants offer some kind of road-map, including what the deliverables are, what they are going to do and what should be the result, hopefully. It doesn’t always have to succeed, and sometimes you can’t always measure it. Even the biggest agencies have a hard time generating good numbers around social media. At the end of the day, if sales go up, it’s a good campaign.

It’s about the strategy, kids. Plan. Plan. Plan, again. It’s not rocket science, and it doesn’t take a 25-year-old to tell you otherwise.

Your Social Media Expert speaks in 140 character sentences.

If the only way they promote themselves is through Twitter, fire them.

Yesterday.

Why?

Twitter is the Apple of the Internet without the cool products. Their market reach is under two percent, which is interesting because MySpace is still in the 30′s and Facebook is way, way over that in the 50′s. I look at it as the “mom test.” If my mom has heard about it, it’s gone mainstream. We had dinner a few weeks ago, and the conversation started something like, “They wanted me to get on Facebook, but I don’t see time for it. I wish they would have called me up.” Twitter never entered the conversation.

The truth is that Twitter has some great uses, including being the new RSS feed and a great way to watch conversations around specific topics or events.

Your Social Media Expert recommends Delicious and Stumble Upon for an audience of seniors.

It’s all about the audience, right? If your consultant doesn’t know who to talk to, then how can they have a conversation. That’s what blow my mind about some of the people that recommend Twitter for everyone. The first question asked should be, “Where can I have a conversation with this audience?” For example, Email is still relevant. About 46 percent of all embedded links are still through email, yet the Social Media Expert wants you to use hashtags.

Figure out where your audience is, and talk to it. For some, it’s Foursquare. For others, it’s Facebook. For other people, it’s Etsy.

For every audience  there’s a proper venue, and your Social Media Expert should know where to look.

What to do? What to do?

If you really need a Social Media Expert that is one, email me, even if the “expert” doesn’t call himself one.

So funny. So funny.

Very cool.

While he did claim that Flash would drain the battery of an iPad from 10 hours to 1.5 hours, here’s an interesting stat:

Battery life on newer MacBook Pros has been as shrinking by over an hour with Flash active, although the faster processors and added memory help absorb some of the performance concerns.

Outside of playing video, run of the mill HTML with Javascript libraries is more than enough for most websites. If you have a technology that’s draining systems that much, is it really worth supporting?

Flash is buggy and a memory hog and consequently a poor user experience.

This seems to be the biggest complaint. Microsoft tries to make Flash play well with Windows even though they have their own product, Silverlight. Most online video requires a Flash player, so they have to support it. The bottom line: operating system developers are maintaining changes for a plug in because the developer isn’t doing their job or someone else other than the author is supporting technology needs.

It’s a hard job making it work with all of the browsers and platforms but in all honesty, Adobe decided to pick that battle when they bought Macromedia. I have a MacBook Pro and a Sony loaded with tons of RAM, and I’ve still experienced browser freezes on Mac OS X, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 across Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Chrome. For it to not work and crash on so many systems, that’s just sloppy development and an embarrassment to Adobe.

I recently tried to do some remote usability testing using DimDim, a free service. They have a Flash-based conferencing product that allows you to do screen sharing. Although not a trivial task from a programming point of view, but Adobe supports it. After 30 minutes, we could not get it to work, so now I’m using GoToMeeting.

Honestly, it was a buggy issue. Every time the browser tried to launch, it crashed. That said, the number one rule of User Experience should be: “If it crashes, the user has a poor experience.” Adobe, with their wonderful graphics applications, should understand it. I have no idea how many quality assurance people are on Flash, but they need more.

Flash confuses users.

During the DimDim installation, there’s a security dialog that is run-of-the-mill for us Internet-types but most users freak out and want to go home. The person I was testing kept canceling at that point. Just recently, I was talking to a video publisher who said that at that point, 50 percent of the users that attempt to share video cancel the action at the security dialog.

I’ve been seeing confusing error messages on several sites, Mashable being one of them, about “security issues” regarding Flash. I selected the “Settings” button on the dialog and was redirected to the Adobe site. I found this dialog confusing, and I consider myself a Web Expert. Can you imagine most of the people on the Web trying to figure this out?

Outside of online video and some Flex apps, Flash isn’t needed.

It is very easy to encode video with Flash, but outside of online video and a few Flex apps like TweetDeck, I personally have no use for Flash. HTML with jQuery achieves most, if not all, of the user interface needs I need to do elegant UX work.

The Virgin America decision to not use Flash on their site is a great example. They have a clean, easy-to-use site and a user base that is highly connected to mobile and, more importantly, the iPhone. To book a flight, does someone really need a full video with spinning cursors and animating tabs to pick the best time to fly from LAX to JFK?

No.

It becomes a simple business decision for a company like Virgin America. There are 70 million iPhone users. They represent over 60 percent of the mobile web traffic. Apple won’t support Flash — guess what? No Flash for Virgin America. If I were a Product Manager on a site that had a highly mobile component and made a decision to ignore those 70 million or so iPhone users (most of whom seriously make good money and like to spend it on toys like the iPhone), I should be fired.

The upside — Flash is on the way out.

HTML 5 apparently has support for video without Flash. YouTube is running a beta now if you use Chrome, Firefox and the Chrome plug-in on Internet Explorer). If you take away some of the ads and do most of the normal animations using jQuery, what do you really need Flash for?

The study found that 30.8 percent of smartphone users accessed social networking sites via their mobile browser in January 2010, up 8.3 points from 22.5 percent one year ago. Access to Facebook via mobile browser grew 112 percent in the past year, while Twitter experienced a 347-percent jump.

“Social networking remains one of the most popular and fastest-growing behaviors on both the PC-based Internet and the mobile Web,” said Mark Donovan, comScore senior vice president of mobile. “Social media is a natural sweet spot for mobile since mobile devices are at the center of how people communicate with their circle of friends, whether by phone, text, email, or, increasingly, accessing social networking sites via a mobile browser.”

All channels, all devices, baby.

• 30% of smartphone users accessed social networks via mobile browsers — this was up from 22.5% in 2009.
• Total social networking access via mobile browsers on all mobile phones rose to 11.1% — this was up from 6.5% in 2009. Most of this growth was in the uptick in smartphone usage.

How does MySpace survive if their mobile-centric audience uses their mobile site less?

The joke was, “so how do you increase conversion?”

“Red Buttons.”

I’m sure Red Buttons the comedian didn’t know he was going to be the punchline for a user experience jokes. “I’m here on Tuesdays, tip your waitress, next up They Might Be Giants…”

But…

That’s not always the case, as stated in this great tool that’s been around for a year, Which Test Won.

Which Test Won is a great little site that does what we all want: publish the results of A/B tests for ideas of better site conversion.

In the red button/grey button test, Verizon tried two versions of a home page, one with red buttons everywhere, and one with a single red button. The main call to action was a gray button.

Can you guess which one won? Go to the site to see.

On top of everything else happening in the social space (Google Buzz, everyone leaving MySpace, Facebook changes), this happens: Facebook Patents The Newsfeed. You can read the full copy of the patent here.

Now before we all have a “What the hell moment,” here are a few things to remember:

Some patents are virtually unenforceable.

Various companies have patented the shopping cart, the GIF image, the one-click purchase and the affiliate program. The one-click purchase made Jeff Bezos look like a fool for a while, especially after they went after Barnes and Noble.

If you haven’t noticed, none of the above are really enforced except for the GIF image patent, which there’s “sometimes” a $5,000 licensing fee. Unisys at one point threatened to go after every website that had a GIF image somewhere on the site.

That was popular.

A few patents, like the one-click purchase and the affiliate program, have given rise to protests and eventual defeat of a lot of the claims Amazon had over the business process. Most of those patents are violated every second of the day because they are ubiquitous and so mainstream there’s no way to enforce them.

Some patents are more for defense against large competitors.

While it doesn’t make sense for Facebook to sue everyone, I’m sure they’re thinking about what they can bring up against Google, MySpace and a few other large properties with a newsfeed.

Other places are probably thinking about how to re-architect their solutions now to avoid any patent infringement. That said, if you’re running a site that isn’t one of the top 1,000, I don’t think Facebook is going to be sending a lawyer your way anytime soon.

Some patents are for getting money out of people and for increasing market value.

One of the few points people forget about Google is that the concept of AdWords wasn’t invented by them. It was patented by GoTo.com. I’ll admit that Google does it much better than GoTo/Overture ever did, but it was enough of a threat that Google eventually settled with Yahoo!, who had purchased Overture.

The lawsuit against Google related to its AdWords service. In February 2002, Google introduced a service called AdWords Select that allowed marketers to bid for higher placement in marked sections – a tactic that had some similarities to Overture’s search-listing auctions.

Following Yahoo!’s acquisition of Overture, the lawsuit was settled with Google agreeing to issue 2.7 million shares of common stock to Yahoo! in exchange for a perpetual license.

That patent was probably one of the reasons why Yahoo purchased Overture. There are holding companies whose purpose is to hold patents. However, they are selective about who they sue because lawyers are expensive. It’s an ROI equation, and there’s no point going after someone without money, right?

GigaOM says:

Friendster, which was recently bought by a Malaysian company, made much of the fact that had obtained five U.S. social networking patents, at times using the patents to scare off the competition, at least in the press.

Scary.

Some patents are declared invalid.

The U.S. Patent Office grants a lot of patents. It doesn’t necessarily mean they will stand up in court. Gibson Guitars has been on a rampage, suing anyone that produces music simulation software like Guitar Hero. Read more here.

They have yet to win.

What would happen if Facebook went after MySpace in court, and the patent was declared invalid?

What if a single social network invented before Facebook had the same implementation, and Facebook was in violation of the intellectual property of that website? Would that company win $500 million like when Microsoft was sued over the browser plug-in?

GigaOM points out:

The patent is particularly valuable because news-feed style communication has become pervasive since it was launched on Facebook. However, it’s not clear that there aren’t precedents for the technology; for instance, the social network Multiply.com had a similar interface for keeping track of friends’ actions before Facebook launched its own.

Mutliply.com suing Facebook? That would be fun.

What next?

As big as a deal as this may seem, it isn’t until they do something with it. For now, it’s just another asset they have in the universe of Social Media.

I would have never thought of this.

No. Way.

This is such an inexact science, because anyone can figure out your email address. We receive so much spam and other garbage through email accounts (is a shopping site really my friend?) and there are conversations you want private. Those connections are now public by default, as Gizmodo points out:

• A girl you slept with in college sends you a message on Gchat, to tell you she has five beautiful children now, and she doesn’t ever think about you, ever. Ok!
• You exchange some messages and a couple of emails to be polite. You defuse the situation. You don’t mention it to your current girlfriend, because that would be weird.
• Coincidentally, you enable Google Buzz, which adds both your current girlfriend and this lady who you politely deflected.
• Your girlfriend checks out your Google profile, sees your friends list and asks you who that lady is.
• You clumsily try to explain, “Oh, it just adds people you talk to automatically,” which only makes things worse.
• Fight!
• You break up, which was probably a good thing anyway, because your relationship sounded really unhealthy. But you get the point, right?

The situation is so bad, some sites, like Lifehacker, are showing ways to turn off the contact list. Think about it, do you want every telemarketer to be your friend? Facebook has one important filter: you can deny friend requests.

It’s never, ever a good idea to create a social graph the way Google did. That’s why most of the IM clients do the double opt-in approach. The follower model is killing Twitter.

Google Buzz reinforces the power law online, which means you’ll get to see 100 photos of Jason Calacanis’s dog or promoting how he pays more than some services, but less than About.com for content

The people you want to talk to automatically become long-tail, yet the people who are endlessly self promoting always bubble to the top because they have 11,000 followers. Someone’s always going to make a comment.

Social Customer points out Buzz does two things that will simply make it unusable.

1. It shows threaded conversations and strongly highlights the initiator of those conversations and makes the comments subservient to the initial post.
2. It takes posts that have “new” comments and immediately bumps those posts to the topmost position of the viewing window.

This interface will greatly reinforce the existing power law relationships online and have the effect of greatly reducing the serendipity and interest in things like the current Twitter and Facebook interfaces.

Not that many people use Gmail and most who do are the digerati.

From twittercism:

This is also the first time I’ve noticed how few of my friends actually use Gmail. I love Gmail and recommend it to everybody, but people are often quite set in their ways and prefer to stay with Hotmail or Yahoo, irrespective of the lack of features. Looking at my address book, I’m guessing probably less than 20% of my friends have a Gmail address or even a Google account, for that matter.

Yeah, it’s mad, but it also means Buzz is already limiting my network.

Social networking is an all or nothing game; and if you only have 20 percent of your friends, do you really think the other 50 percent or so are going to create a Gmail account to see Google Buzz?

I think not.

What’s the take away? Not ready for primetime.

I agree with twittercism:

My gut feeling? Unless they make some major changes and improvements to Buzz soon, and that includes addressing those privacy issues, it’s never going to be a threat to Twitter or Facebook. It’s just another aggregator, and a bad one at that.

Everyone sees Facebook as the center of their social graph. They also see Google as the place that wants your information, which is why people won’t trust them with their social graph.

What do you think?

IBM in Costa Mesa, CA has an opening for a paid user experience intern. We are looking for students to start early in 2010 and to work for at least six months. We do not offer summer internships.

IBM interns join multidisciplinary product development teams to design, prototype, and evaluate graphical user interfaces for IBM’s industry-leading database, business intelligence, and content management products. Interns collaborate with user experience colleagues in Silicon Valley and around the world.

Applicants should have some combination of the following skills, experience, and personal characteristics:

Technical and Professional Skills

• Ability to learn new technologies quickly
• Familiar with graphical user interfaces and style guidelines
• Knowledge of User Centered Design methodologies
• User interface design experience
• Prototyping experience
• Usability evaluation experience
• Strong interest in Human Computer Interaction (HCI)

Software Experience

• Software applications for Windows, UNIX or LINUX
• User Interface prototyping tools (Visio, Axure, Visual Basic, Photoshop, etc.)
• HTML, XML or Javascript
• BASIC, C++, Java or other programming languages

Essential Characteristics

• Adaptable and dependable
• Highly motivated and a self-starter
• A good communicator
• Works well in teams
• An innovative attitude

Education

Internship candidates must be enrolled in a degree program – Preferred candidates will be pursuing a graduate degree with an emphasis on human-computer interaction (HCI). To be competitive, candidates should have HCI coursework and user interface design experience (class projects OK).

Send a resume and cover letter listing HF/HCI courses, programming/prototyping experience, and user interface design experience to:

Brian Salzman
Email: jsalzma@us.ibm.com

Earlier today, Apple announced the tablet computer the world has been waiting for. And it isn’t quite a tablet or a computer. It’s more of an entertainment device – a “third category” as Steve Jobs put it – and one I don’t really think the world needs.

I’ve never been really excited about the idea of a tablet, so I was biased from the start. A keyboard is pretty essential to me for anything, I type very fast and have no patience for anything that slows me down. That said, I was still curious to see what Apple was going to do beyond making a really big iPod Touch. I mean, this is Steve Jobs, I expect to see a paradigm shift, a massive step forward, a change in the way we do things. That’s where I’m disappointed.

The iPad is a big, expensive ($499 for the cheapest version without 3G), iPod touch.

The positive – there are going to be people who will love this thing (other than the usual Apple fan boys/girls). It’s gorgeous, and if beautiful design is your thing, you’re going to love using this. It’s a nice entertainment device, a decent size to watch television on, iPod, and a good ebook reader. If someone doesn’t have access to a television or other computer, this could fill that gap. Maybe someone with roommates or college students. Business folks will also love whipping this out in a meeting to do a presentation. Assuming, of course, that they don’t mind presenting in Keynote. It’s also going to open up an entirely new world of computer gaming as people innovate with the touch screen interface. Someone who travels a lot would like this as well (battery life is reportedly around 10 hours) – so long as they don’t mind using the screen to type, or carrying another laptop/netbook.

There definitely IS a use for this. I simply don’t think that now is the time for it. It won’t replace a computer – you can’t run Word or PowerPoint on it, you can’t even do something as simple as keep AIM open while surfing the web – and it isn’t a phone either. No camera, no GPS, no keyboard, no Flash. How many programs are you running on the machine you’re reading this post on? You couldn’t do that, it’s clearly not intended for work. This would have to be complimentary, an entertainment-focused device in addition to a computer and phone and a television…and that’s where it loses me. The costs don’t work out.

I’m not the average user, I know that. I have an iPhone, iPod, Netbook, Kindle, and Macbook Pro, and they all have different uses for me. I rarely watch videos online, that’s what the Roku and TiVo are for, and I like being able to curl up in bed with a kindle without having to worry about touching the screen or it rotating. I have absolutely no use for the iPad, it doesn’t offer me anything at all beyond what I already have.

Then there’s a name. Immediately after the presentation was over, the word iTampon was trending on Twitter. The name iPad was not. The jokes are never going to end (in fact, they started years ago), and it gives me crazy giggles to think that there’s an iPeriod app for the iPad.

The bottom line is – there is nothing revolutionary about this. It’s pretty, it’s cool, I’ll absolutely drool over it when I see it, but that’s about it. If any other company had announced this, I would have shrugged. But it’s Apple – I expect innovation, and there’s very little.

Oh well. But hey, it’s first gen. I’ll wait until next year for the brain implant.

Congrats, this is the 500th post on Usability Counts.

This was based on a year of site traffic data through Google Analytics.

Removing the tag cloud

This is a conversation that I’ve had a few places.

I feel tag clouds are useless pieces of Web 2.0. Most executives think they make great demos. Users could care less.

Now I have the data behind the argument.

The highest tag from a page view perspective was requirements gathering, at 160 pages (39th highest request). After that it was usability (at 76). Silly Saturdays clocked in at 122.

Almost no traffic.

Tag cloud — gone.

Promoting content higher

A few posts, specifically Seven Reasons Why Agile And Scrum Works For Web User Experience which got thousands of views, I promoted to a new area for Top Posts. I’ll rotate posts through that region, but going through the data a few posts got a significant amount of traffic.

If users want to read certain content, they can have it!

Removing links

The links on the right generated almost no traffic, so I removed a lot of them. I do think it’s good to have some resources for users, but they’re more often than not clicking on them within the body of an article, not in a sidebar.

Links, gone!

How appropriate.

Let’s face it: freelancing is pretty great. No more dealing with annoying coworkers or shoveling your car out of a snow drift to get to work. What could be better than being your own boss? Well, at times, not being your own boss! As with every job, there are pros and cons that make up your daily list of responsibilities and obligations. Here is a list of the most common problems freelancers face and how to deal with them.

Read on…

Church of the Customer predicts that this is the year Social Media really starts becoming part of Corporate America. Boring isn’t necessarily bad, because it means it’s profitable.

My prediction for 2010: social gets integrated into business functions. That means: social media policies, aligning social media strategies and tactics with overall business objectives and revenue goals, and realigning functional teams. Yeah, not as exciting as another viral video but those are as reliable as a Vegas roulette table. Social media process is hard work, so it’s time for social media to get boring! For process geeks like me, that’s pretty exciting.

The position:

• As their Director of Interaction Design you will be integral in reshaping their strategy to focus on the future of consumer needs in the automotive marketplace and aligning their brand and products to capitalize on the strength of their current position.
• Product Focused: They are now implementing a product driven culture with strong leads in key decision-making roles.
• Customer Focused: User centered design methodologies are a key part of their product development process and investing in a comprehensive look at user needs is a central focus.
• Technology focused: They are a scrum/agile shop that utilizes the latest in Microsoft technologies.
• Investing in the Future: They are making substantial financial investments in the development of brand strategy, product strategy and product development. This role will be key to that process!

This role with have dynamic ability to influence change:

• This right candidate will play a heavy role in the future strategy of my client as well as be a key part of bringing these changes to fruition.
• Opportunities to be able to make this level of contribution at a company with this level of brand recognition are rare – this is a great challenge with tremendous resume building potential.

If you have 8-10 years of UX experience, the experience and ability to lead/manage a team of highly skilled IA’s and sell UX concepts through the organization, we should talk.

If you have previously applied for this position and would like to be considered again, reach out. If we spoke but the salary was too low, reach out, that too had changed! If you heard the buzz and side stepped the position based in old information, it’s a new year, a new role and a new process!

You might recognize this position — they are making some changes to it, and it includes better pay and a better interview process.

Send your resume to me at jobs@usabilitycounts.com. I’ll send it along.

From 25 User Experience Videos That Are Worth Your Time:

In this half-hour session held at the IA Summit 2008, Leah Buley of Adaptive Path shows what it means to be a UX team of one by telling her own story and recounting a real-life example. Leah explains the concept of generative design, which is the process of creating and sketching a lot of different ideas and then refining them. The slides are amazing because Leah drew them by hand.

If you need some ammunition, NetSuccess has a great article about the benefits of CMSes.

A content management system can be very helpful and save time especially when you have a website with many web pages and content that needs to be updated constantly. When trying to decide whether to add a content management system, or CMS, to your website you should consider the benefits that a CMS can offer.

Read on…

But should they?

That’s a hard question to answer, especially with the ever changing landscape of the industry.

The answer: it really depends on where you live and what you are looking to do. Many employers are looking for jack of all trades, while others are looking for specialists. Some are willing to give up deep skill sets in one area versus knowledge in all areas, or are looking for people of unique skill sets to build teams around.

A UX Designer in San Francisco is going to have a much different working experience than one in Columbus, Ohio because they will be much different companies.

I’m lucky to have worked in both generalist and specialist environments, and to be honest, I like getting my hands dirty sometimes. That includes building prototypes, doing my own guerrilla usability testing, and even throwing in some design to make it high fidelity. Other user experience designers like to focus on specific areas, like user research. It just depends.

If you know something about code, you’re less likely to design something that can’t be built.

The plus — there’s nothing worse than designing a solution that you think makes it really easy for the user, and then the programmers come back to you and say, “Well, that’s nice, but it’s going to take two months and we have only a month.” It’s like designing a car: if you design an engine that’s too big for the frame, the engine design has to be reworked.

The minus — that said, if you get too heads down in the code, you are going to be less effective as a user experience designer. Or, worse, you could limit your imagination and design a solution that would be more effective if you knew less about what was under the hood.

Specialists get paid more, but have fewer opportunities.

The plus — Everyone loves a big paycheck, and specialists are always going to have deeper knowledge of a particular topic. If you’re good, being a specialist means that you’re sought after. I have a lot of experience in e-commerce systems, for example, and somehow manage to improve those user experiences that lead to improved revenue. That’s a skill worth having that will make you valuable just about anytime of the day.

The minus — If they think you are too much of a specialist, it becomes really hard to get a job (“I didn’t know you could do that”), and in a bad economy, the last thing you want to do is fence yourself in. Those that were working in the field during the early 2000′s remember the day when being a project manager or a psuedo-programmer was a good thing. There’s nothing worse than being “just” a user researcher when they are looking for an Interaction Designer with research experience.

Sometimes it’s just about setting expectations.

Pros — Even if you don’t call yourself a specialist, putting a wider net out there for jobs is better because there may be a position that requires several different skills (Knowledge of JQuery, CSS, XHTML and some light design on top of doing the usual User Experience tasks like wireframes). This could translate into where you build functioning prototypes that the developers can use to build the finished product, but during the interview process. That said, I just recently started learning SketchFlow, a wonderful product that’s part of the Microsoft Expression Suite. There’s no way I could have picked it up as fast as I did without some knowledge of other prototyping tools like Flash, Axure and Visio.

Cons — Some skills required for the roles are so divergent that what they are looking for is a unicorn i.e. that one person that knows all of the above, plus ActionScript 3.0, plus .NET. The people that know all of those technologies either are a) getting paid much more than just being a User Experience Designers, b) do all of them poorly or c) are full of shit. You can only be good at so much.

The real answer? Look at the market and act accordingly.

Do what you have to do, and where you want to drive your career to, to succeed. Talk to other designers in the area to get an idea what they are doing. And remember, it’s a changing landscape — that requires some flexibility.

Then try out ClickTale, a new analytics tool that I test drove a month ago.

ClickTale gives you a good idea of what your users are doing so you can correct site issues fast. It records complete sessions, allows you to throttle usage so you don’t record every session, and gives you those nifty heat maps that wow and amaze executives.

The price is about right — $99 a month gets you started — but the only complaint I have is that their freemium levels don’t give you enough of a taste of what the tool can do (really, I need a better idea if the heat maps are worth it.

Position Description

Certona Corporation is looking for an experienced UI Designer to create the next generation of analytics and merchandising tools for Certona’s ResonanceR personalization platform. The successful candidate will have experience with the full software development lifecycle, starting with gathering requirements from internal and external customers, graphical design, GUI development, and testing. Understanding of software usability, SaaS applications, e-commerce, enterprise dashboards, business intelligence, predictive analytics, and e-mail automation is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Work with Product Management to ensure understanding of business requirement and use cases
• Establish design patterns working with common interface components
• to promote consistency and reuse across applications
• May need to assist in the development of UML diagrams and wireframes
• May need to provide UI prototypes for usability evaluations
• Develop presentation layer for web-based applications in XHTML/CSS/JS/.Net
• Ensure that presentation layer code is semantically correct, liquid, well-formed, and valid
• Ensure that the presentation layer architecture supports localization and internationalization Create UI specification for Development and QA

Qualifications

• BS in Human-Computer Interaction, Cognitive Science or related field
• Five years UI design and UCD experience with web-based applications
• Expertise with XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript is mandatory
• Familiar with semantic, liquid layout design is a must
• Familiar with localization and internationalization standards for web-based applications
• Familiar with chart and other data presentation controls for the web
• Proven communication skills and ability to excel in a team-oriented environment
• Self-motivated and attentive to detail

Please send your resume and cover letter to careers@certona.com.

I love the overuse of the word “fuck”.

Qualifications

• 2-3 years project management experience in the Internet field, preferably in the entertainment industry
• Experience and knowledge of web site technology, design and production
• Ability to use online traffic tracking tools to report and help interpret data for editorial decision making.
• Ability to use online publishing and content management systems for programming and reviewing web pages.
• Must be able to multi-task in a fast-paced environment
• Must be proactive and able to prioritize projects based on business and promotional goals
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Ability to work closely with other producers artists, content developers, engineers, QA testers, and webmasters on day-to-day production; established people skills
• Ability to create and maintain accurate schedules

Skills Required

• 2 to 4 years experience in website production required; working with children‚s or branded content preferred
• A college degree or equivalent work experience with website, digital or entertainment production and development
• Superior organizational skills
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Understanding of Brand development very helpful, understanding of (and passion for) the brand extremely helpful
• Self starter with high level of initiative
• Ability to manage multiple projects, set priorities and meet deadlines
• Proficiency with managing external developers and contractors
• Familiarity with project management tools, e.g. Microsoft Project and Visio
• Established presentation skills and familiarity with Microsoft PowerPoint
• Ability to analyze and provide solutions to complex technical problems

Email your resume to jobs@usabilitycounts.com.

From Adaptive Path. Good presentation, yo.

Untangling brand and customer experience, in 10 minutes or less from Brandon Schauer on Vimeo.