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Assist your end-users first: technical writing, copywriting, HTML Help, usability, and multimedia - by Epic Trends
Connect with your customers-and fuel your sales-through user assistance: technical writing, multimedia, web content, copywriting, usability, user interfaces, demos, tutorials, html help, and online Help.
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Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Top 5 annoyances
1. Not having in-site search
2. No sitemap
3. No internal page navigation/skip to content/back to top links
4. Pop-ups
5. Inability to change font zie/colour contrast
Top 5 most useful features
1. Having in-site search
2. Having a sitemap
3. Clear, well labelled links
4. Having internal page navigation
5. Ability to personalize page view/font size
http://www.out-law.com/default.aspx?page=6314
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
I spent some time today reading a great report about Google Adwords at marketingexperiments.com. This web site has a wealth of relevant information for Internet copy writers and marketers. They do targeted, relevant studies about what really works.
http://www.marketingexperiments.com/see/1114#1b
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
http://blog.ziffdavis.com/gallagher/archive/2005/08/19/25709.aspx
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
How can you entice your web site visitors to create an account and sign in? Check out one person's quick analysis of how some of the big companies on the web do it.
A myriad of ways to make users sign-in
Thursday, November 17, 2005
The following site could be a powerful tool to show others how to use your product, market your product, or learn about competitor products.
" Drive traffic to your site! Dedicated to offering the largest selection of tutorials and techniques, Tutorial Finder offers enterprising writers, site owners and webmasters an opportunity to present their content to the largest possible audience. Actively supported by the marketing power and extensive content resources of DMO, one of the largest online publishers of news, features, tutorials and reviews for digital content creators and the digitally savvy consumers, this tutorial and techniques portal offers a vast, single resource destination for readers. You can be part of this easily searchable, user friendly and continually expanding internet destination."
Tutorial Finder
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Words of wisdom from Andy Hagans.
High accessbility design
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Do I really need to say more about this? Read it!
Great UI cuts McAfee's support calls by 90%
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Web design has a dramatic impact on conversion rates. Read the details.
Design choices can cripple a web site
Thursday, November 17, 2005
The following quote can galvanize you to read on.
"Around 90% of online users have problems completing Internet transactions, according to a survey conducted by Harris Interactive.
About 90 percent of online users have problems completing Internet business transactions, according to a survey released Monday by TeaLeaf Technology."
Online shopping is not working for many users
Thursday, November 17, 2005
I have always preferred Flash for developing product demos and tutorials. I don't advocate it for general web development. Flash is good for specific purposes that other technologies cannot handle as well. The following quick read covers some of the basic limitations and advantages of Flash.
Flash: Is it good for anything?
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Thursday, November 03, 2005
90% of All Usability Testing is Useless
What?! Read the article. :)
http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000328.php
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
The big day will be here tomorrow-but with no Hallmark greeting cards to buy and send in sight.
Click the following link for more celebration:
World Usability Day
The world of usability experts can sound academic and esoteric. For real-world stories about usability, check out the stories section:
Stories make it real
Of particular interest is the online survey on web sites and color.
"Human Factors International, Inc. invites you to assist with the gathering of data from users world-wide. We wish to demonstrate an aspect of the science of usability in a fun way for people not familiar with our field.
The purpose of the data is to determine the degree to which cultural groups vary in their assignments of colors to common Web functions; like News, Health, Government, Electronics, Beauty and Banking."
36-Hour Survey on Web Site Color and Culture
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
This Alert Box from Jakob Nielsen covers an issue near and dear to my heart: poor copy in email.
Incompetent Email Marketing = Lost Future Opportunities
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
This article from MarketingSherpa has many interesting tidbits.
I have extracted some of the most interesting facts:
1. " . . . speaker Gord Hotchkiss of Enquiro featured plenty of colorful eyetracking 'heatmaps' showing how human eyes view Google results.
Initially there were no surprises -- most people's eyes spend most time on the so-called 'Golden Triangle' in the upper left corner of results. Hardly anyone looks at the PPC ads at the right. (Yes, there's data on how this changes a bit depending on where in the sales cycle the user is.)"
2. The article predicts a boom in podcasts.
What's Really Working in Demand Generation Campaigns
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
This is a little late, but zombie copy is always intriguing---even after Halloween! Get the All Hallow's Eve perspective on scary web copy from alistapart.com.
Zombie copy
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Well, I was hit by a car while helping park cars for a high school function. The hit-and-run vehicle broke two bones in my foot and banged up my knee. Fortunately, no one else was hurt.
I'm back in blogging mode again though. I am also quickly on the mend. I feel very, very lucky that the accident was not much worse.
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