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From the monthly archives:

February 2007

Should the Subscribe Button be Above the Fold?

February 25, 2007

Ever since I began surfing on the web (it’s been well over a decade now), I’ve considered search essential. More so, on sites with a large amount of content, I find myself searching within the site for ease of locating results, especially because even before I understood what SEO was, I knew that not every page was being necessarily crawled by the search engines. Consequently, I put a lot more faith in the on-site search rather than the results spit out by search engines.

I’ve found myself time and time again searching for a term in the email subscription textbox, only to realize after I performed the search that I actually searched within the “subscribe” textbox, which is above the fold. The “search” textbox is on the site, but it’s below the fold (which takes searching for, sometimes!)

I don’t know about others, but while I understand the desire to stick the subscribe button where it’s easily found, I don’t think it does much for usability. And usability should come first. It makes me feel that the web designer forgot to keep the user in mind because the goal is an immediate conversion rather than satisfying the user’s needs.

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Check Me Out in March 12′s PEOPLE Magazine

February 23, 2007

PEOPLE MagazineAs you may or may not know, I read PEOPLE magazine, mostly for the focus on real people rather than the celebrity gossip. I read an article two weeks ago about Dina Babbitt, a survivor of the Holocaust, who was forced to draw pictures of gypsies in the concentration camps. Because she had a talent, her life was spared.

The drawings were discovered in Auschwitz, which I personally visited in 1998. She wants them back. I think that claiming those drawings would be a disservice to the community and to the people who want to learn about the history of the survivors. I wrote in to the editor with my thoughts, and this is what I received today in my email:

Dear Tamar Weinberg,

We are happy to inform you that your letter (or portion theeof) [sic] has been chosen for publication and will appear in the 3/12 /07 issue of PEOPLE.

Thank you for writing and for your continued interest in PEOPLE.

Sincerely,

M. Hart
Letters Editor

The 3/12/07 issue of PEOPLE will be hitting newsstands next Monday (3/5). :)

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Fix Those Magnified Mistakes with a Promise

February 23, 2007

JetBlueToday, I made a pretty grave mistake that made me feel like JetBlue: working so hard for a long time to build your credibility and then thinking that one big error (and bad timing) could ruin that entire empire you’ve built makes you feel like you should hide under a rock for awhile. When I look back upon my particular incident, I see the error of my ways and know what to do from this point onward.

I could simply forget what I did, thinking that there’s nothing to fix, or I could opt in for hiding under that rock (it looks cozy over there). But I, like JetBlue, have my own goals to move forward as a stronger person in all areas. (This doesn’t mean that I’ll be posting a video to YouTube though.) My own apology is being posted here in hopes that the people affected are aware of my genuine desire to fix what I’ve broken. My own bill of rights (like JetBlue’s) is to exceed expectations and to improve in any area where I am failing. I think that JetBlue’s ever-so-public apology was received well, and this is my own.

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I Am Clueless About Your Product. Sell it to Me Correctly.

February 21, 2007

Eye OpeningOne of the biggest mistakes you can do is use terminology that goes over the heads of your prospective clients. Time and time again I am asked to review a website and I end up reading copy that makes me feel stupider than I felt before I visited the site. What the heck are you really selling? How will it benefit me? Why should I buy it?

What is the goal of your website? If it’s informational, give me the right information. If you fail to do so, I cannot learn from you. I will go somewhere else. Thank you for your time.

I have checked out numerous sites of people who are not actively seeking to change their web presence at all. In good intent, I have given the solid advice that it would be in these people’s best interest to have a website that people can understand. With this, there’s greater likelihood for conversion. Understandable content, or good copy, is critical. Further, if you’re exactly what your searcher is looking for, the right copy will rank you higher. If this is a long tail search, so be it. Even better. Without any copy, you might as well not have a web presence at all.

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Liveblogging a TV Show? Do People Really Do That? (The Answer is Yes)

February 20, 2007

LivebloggerI was searching for information on a TV show I watch when one of these interesting blog sites caught my eye. As I began reading the content, I realized that I was reliving a previous episode of the TV show that I had already seen, detail by detail.

The blogger actually wrote that he was “liveblogging” the TV show. Is this something that people do normally? I mean, I totally understand the appeal to find out what happened to the various characters in the television show (and sometimes there can be very creative ways to blog about it), but liveblogging … a … TV … show?

In a world where DVR and TiVo didn’t exist, this would make perfect sense. After all, if you missed the show, you missed the show. But such technologies do exist and it’s very easy and possible to look back and see what you might have overlooked. I can’t see appeal in a complete written recap of the entire episode, especially considering the nature of the particular show. I might be in the minority here (I usually am), but the site gets no incoming links and no traffic either. Perhaps these blog posts don’t add any value to the overall quality of the blog. I don’t know.

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