April 2012
2 posts
5 tags
UX Roles - who does what in User Experience
The term User Experience is causing a lot of confusion due to the fact that UX roles and responsibilities are fairly unclear and undefined by most people.
Not knowing what something is, but knowing you have to do it - leads to a lot of bad decisions being made by companies and a lot of horse-shit sold by opportunistic service providers - all in the name of User Experience.
In this article we try...
6 tags
What is Website Usability
Website Usability?
Wikipedia says:
“Web usability is an approach to make web sites easy to use for an end-user, without the requirement that any specialized training be undertaken.”
Practical Usability In working with a new design or in re-designing an existing website, always keep in mind that all your users will always spend more of their time on ‘other’ websites....
September 2011
3 posts
2 tags
Designing a winning landing page
These notes outline the procedure we follow in designing landing pages. Adhering to the principals of card sorting the aim is to establish the importance of the various elements on the landing page.
For the sake of argument; if you could only have one element on your landing page - what would it be?
How would you add a second, a third or even an eighth element to a landing page?
Below is our...
1 tag
“‘If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have asked for a...”
– Quote attributed to Henry Ford
1 tag
HiPPOs don't make good Conversion Rate Optimisers
a) Hippo, from the ancient Greek for “river horse, is a large, mostly herbivorous mammal in sub-Saharan Africa.
b) HiPPO, “Highest Paid Person in Organisation” too often is the person calling the shot. Also goes by Highest Paid Person’s Opinion.
HiPPO’s effect on Website Usability/Conversion explained:
HiPPO’s rule the world when it comes to creating customer experiences....
July 2011
3 posts
4 tags
Tips for optimising the speed of your website
The loading time of your website is crucial. If your site is slow, Search Engines will punish you and visitors will abandon your page quicker than you can say “I should have done that”.
Image optimisation Use the right dimensions (don’t scale anything), optimise your images for web and look at using Sprites (more further down).
CSS optimisation Getting rid of any unnecessary...
2 tags
Landing Page Design
Landing pages are commonly defined as the pages on your website where your visitors ‘land’ after having clicked on a link, be it an advert or an information page or similar. These are important pages, as the visitors are arriving for a particular purpose (to buy, book, sign up or inquire about something).
When a visitor on your website performs the action you want them to (For...
4 tags
Usability DIY Part 5: Test, Test, Test
Test everything and then test again.
Imagine for a second that you could increase conversion by 1% by just changing one element on your website. Consider changing your headline, the button color, button text, your lead image, adding trust symbols, form fields, testimonials etc.
With just 1% conversion increase, the time you invest in the changes is really worthwhile.
Now imagine you changed 10...
June 2011
7 posts
2 tags
Usability DIY Part 4: Unique Selling Point
Reiterate your unique selling points: What makes you the company of choice within your field?
People need to feel they are getting something of value - a real bargain, a top-quality product. Tell your visitors what makes you and your products unique - and give them reasons why they should never go anywhere else, ever.
Here are some examples: “All our products come with a 5-year...
2 tags
Usability DIY Part 3: Keep It Fresh
When was the last time you changed content on your website? There are two very strong arguments as to why you should be changing the content on your website from time to time:
You will see an increase in pageviews/interaction from your visitors.
Search engines will rate you higher (changing content is always preferred to stale content).
So what can you do? The list is only limited by your...
Usability DIY Part 2: Business Objectives
Think about what your business objectives are and how you introduce your company when people ask you about it. Then look at your website and see if it conveys the same message.
Firstly, look at your company image. When you pick up to answer the company phone; is your tone of voice jovial or quite formal? Maybe you are a ‘serious’ company needing to convey authority and trust;...
3 tags
Usability DIY Part 1: Task-based Testing
To set up a task based test, find 1 user (or more) who is new to your site and assign them a task. Observe how they complete that task.
Let the chosen task be related to your most popular product/service. After your introduction and test outline, leave the talking to the candidate. Encourage them to think out loud. If you think of any questions during the test, it is better just to write them...
3 tags
The UX wheel (revisited)
Particularly useful for those interested in UX: - The UX-wheel model identifies the design process, subjectively considering each associated common deliverable.
To read the model, start from the center of the circle.
The pdf will short the full circle.
1). The first circle represents ‘VALUE’, the purpose of any user experience interaction. Within ‘value’ there are two...
2 tags
Vienna brothels and nude girls
Sometimes new ideas for your website come where you least expect them. A while ago we noticed that one of our websites was suddenly attracting visitors on the keyword ‘vienna brothel’.
Although the site in question was a travel website that did cover Vienna, ‘brothel’ wasn’t a topic we had touched on. What we realised was that the keyword had come from a user...
4 tags
Benefits of Webmaster Tools
We are lucky enough to be meeting with ‘webmasters’ and website owners pretty much on a daily basis and we are surprised to find that most people are not using Google Webmaster Tools (or similar products from Bing and Yahoo for that matter).
They are all FREE services - and the benefits are massive.
In a single swoop you will be able to see the following:
the top search queries...
May 2011
1 post
3 tags
Siteta launching knowMe.co.za - Affordable Web...
knowMe is offering affordable and professional websites to help new South African companies get online. Currently, we are providing two web design packages; one basic (priced @ R1,600) and one CMS (priced @ R4,200) - both including co.za domain and SA hosting for the first year. Understanding that expertise is a desirable commodity, Siteta, with our skills in usability and conversion, has teamed...
March 2011
1 post
1 tag
Why usability?
The increasing focus on web presence means that the competition for customers online is hotting up. So in essence; if your home page is not communicating the benefits of why the users should be there they will go elsewhere.
If the information you are presenting does not answer the users’ questions/concerns they will go elsewhere. If the user gets lost or confused whilst navigating ,they...