Fictional character creation is a useful tool in creating an intriguing narrative that captures attention, especially since the character can be easily adapted to fit different digital spaces, such as Video, Microblogging, and Image sharing sites. Media diversity  is also useful in building and unifying online communities that access with media in separate channels.

Creating a consistent brand all through many all social sites one of the best ways to maximize the value of a character or brand campaign.

Ryan Summers and I created a presentation on how to track users across various social media sites using mostly free tools. It was given at Web Analytics Wednesday in Portland, Oregon.

History

A few weeks before the MITX awards ceremony, ISITE Design created a short video called “El Consultador” as an introduction to other agencies.

The El Consultador campaign generated diverse social data. This created issues with tracking data from multiple social media sites across problems with social media is that these is no singular way to gather and rank all of the data over time. Tools like Radian6 and Trucast are in use by larger agencies and businesses, but there exist an increasing amount of free tools for data visualization and engagement reporting that are available online.

This Powerpoint was made for an audible presentation. I collaborated with Ryan Summers of ISITE design on it and presented it at Web Analytics Wednesday. I will attempt to explain the results/processes in a textual manner here.

Profiles Created for the El Consultador Campaign

We used analytic data from Flickr, Youtube, Vimeo and Twitter to determine the most successful aspects of the campaign.

On Vimeo:
http://vimeo.com/2309025

On YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz6jt_aSFg0

On Flickr:
http://flickr.com/photos/elconsultador/
(Workers at ISITE design superimposed the Consultador face onto a variety of characters in pop culture).

On Twitter:
http://twitter.com/elconsultador

——

Key Performance Indicators

We determined a number of Key Performance Indicators of the social media campaign.

-Direct awareness of ISITE design agency
-3rd part mentions
-Social media followers (number of Twitter followers, comments on YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr).
-Direct communication

YouTube Reports

We used YouTube reports to track the engagement with the video campaign.

Data tracked included:

-Age Demograpics
-Gender Demograpics
-Discovery Sources
-Timeline Trends

The campaign was viewed predominately by 26-45 year old males and mostly during and around the date of the MITX awards. This is the demographic it was aimed at.

Vimeo Stats

Vimeo is a high-quality Video sharing site with a limited but very engaged traffic demographic. We used Vimeo data to find more about who engaged with the campaign and compared it to YouTube data.

Flickr Reports

Flickr has a reporting tool for image views over time for every image. The data can be accessed with a premium Flickr account. We used this data to determine the most viewed (strongest/most impactful) pictures associated with El Consutador on the El Consultador account, and which images should be associated with the campaign on other sites (if future campaigns needed to be implemented).

Google Analytics

We used data from Google Analytics for the page on which El Consultador existed on the ISISTE Webpage. Data was tracked from the “El Consultator” and “MITX” keywords. New visitors and direct traffic were also analyzed.

Social Nodes

The campaign was picked up by three prominent bloggers, including Chris Brogan, Davaid Armano (VP of Experience Design with Critical Mass), and C.C. Chapman (Prominent figure in the community of podcasting, new media, cofounder of the Advanced Guard, a marketing company which focuses on utilizing social media and other emerging technologies).

Blogs linking to the campaigns were not found via inlink searches in Yahoo! Site Explorer, but with an intelligence feed created in Yahoo! Pipes (see below)

Tracking Overall Data

Custom intelligence feeds are useful for checking overall propagation of data. Yahoo! Pipes provides a free custom way to aggregate data across Google blog search, Google news, Technorati, Flickr, and Twitter.

———

Data Visualization and Tracking for Twitter

I presented an extended set of tools and data visualization methods for Twitter. Links for all of them are here:

Reports/Demographic Research:
Summize
http://tweetstats.com/

TweetVolume
http://tweetvolume.com/

Twitter Mobile (vs. Twitter in browser)
http://m.twitter.com/home

Neoformix Twitter Stream Graphs
http://www.neoformix.com/Projects/TwitterStreamGraphs/view.php (I provided a live demo of this).

Twitter Stream Graphs are a simple way to rsearch keyword volume associated with a brand or campaign. Neoformix also tracks keywords over time, meaning that one can see when a certain keyword became popular.
——–

Future Suggestions:
More Flickr photos could be linked to all of the other accounts, such as Flickr, Youtube, and Vimeo. Linking together social media campaigns in a more robust fashion will affect CTR’s by making the campaign spreadable across various demographic profiles and types of social media users.

——-

Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist who studies new media and the relationship between humans and computers. She enjoys data visualization (click for more info on conference tracking), search engine optimization (ask), and how marketing works in the online ecosystem.

She graduated from Lewis & Clark College in May 2008 with a degree in Sociology/Anthropology and wrote her thesis on cell phones and the effect of technology on cultural constructions of space and privacy.

You can follow her on Twitter @caseorganic, or drop her an E-mail at caseorganic[at]gmai[dot]com. She’s spoken at various conferences including MIT’s Futures of Entertainment 3, Inverge: The Interactive Convergence Conferece, Ignite Portland, and Ignite Boulder.

She also blogs at Nerdabout.com and http://www.blog.makerlab.org, a Portland new media incubator. She founded CyborgCamp, an unconference on the future of humans and technology. She is also involved with building and studying electronics with DorkbotPDX.

I was talking with Julian Chadwick of PDXPipeline this Monday about the tools he uses for search engine optimization. We recorded a podcast that will be posted Monday night on Hazelnut Tech Talk. However I wanted to pass on some of the information he gave me regarding the SEO plugins he uses for Firefox. I’d like to review the SEO Quake, as it has been very useful to me.

Basic Information

There are a few baseline pieces of baseline information that any SEO beginner. One of these is Page Rank, or Google’s consideration of what a given page is worth. Page rank varies from site to site, and there are a number of factors that contribute to pagerank. One of them is the amount of websites linking to a given website. This is called ‘inlinks’. One can find out this information by going to Google and entering the string “link:http://www.yoursite.com”.

The amount of links from a site to you website show up differently in Yahoo! Search vs. Google search vs. MSN. Obtaining this data takes a while without a good tool to help you find it. There are additional metrics one can find about a site, such as the page rank, sitemap, alexa rank, and whether the site has been indexed in search engines or not. Site indexing is different from checking inlinks.

If the pages of your site are not indexed by search engines, it is difficult for searchers to find them. Making sure your website has a sitemap and submitting it to Google Webmaster tools is an essential baseline step in the SEO process. You can generate an .xml sitemap for free by using the free tool provided at XML-Sitemaps.com.

SEO Quake for Firefox

SEO Quake is a plugin that adds another layer of information on top of your brower’s basic information. Instead of having to search for inlinks, the inlinks are displayed right on top of the site for you. You can also choose what information you want displayed about the site. There are plenty of options (accessible from preferences) that allow you to view any information you want about the page you’re on. There are Yahoo! inlinks, links to domain, Alexa rank, Page Rank, inlinks from MSN, compete rank, sitemap, and the robots.txt file, just to name a few.

Using SEO Quake rocks. It’s super-customizable and generates a ton of rich information without the need to click. Plus, you can click on the information and download into a spreadsheet or text document for later use or data analysis. Highly recommended.

Download

This is a link to the download site for SEO Quake. Again, it is only available for Firefox browsers, so if you aren’t using Firefox (which you most undoubtedly should), then you’ll be missing out.

Resources

Thanks to Julian Chadwick for mentioning this plugin. You can check out Julian’s site at PDXPipeline or follow him on Twitter @pdxpipeline.

For more information on SEO, Julian and I both recommend SEOMoz.org, a Seattle-based company providing an extremely comprehensive database of resources and tools for beginner, intermediate, and advanced SEO specialists. Try the free Trifecta tool on your site for starters.

——–

Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist from Portland, Oregon. You can follow her online @caseorganic.

A Colaboratory Visit

Today, Bram Pitoyo and I visited CoatesKokes to see what the Portland Colaboratory members were up to. The two Colaboratory teams were hard at work on their final PR and Marketing pitch for Sameunderneath. We watched them interview some CoatesKokes employees about what the Sameunderneath brand stood for. After about an hour of this, James Rice made a visit and let the team in on some strategic presentation advice.

James’ advice came at the right time — both teams have only seven days left before their final presentation to Sameunderneath. With only a week left in the program, he aimed to give them strategic advice on creating engaging and successful Marketing/PR plans.

James Rice is the Digital Brand Strategy Director at Ascentium, an agency specializing in interactive media. He has an intense track record. During his 15 years of agency experience, he’s only lost 5 clients. Compare this to baseball, golf, or the Olympics.

———————————————————–

James Rice Begins

James Rice: One of the things that most people forget, especially at your age, is that the concept of a team is very important. Never lose sight of that.

Collaborate

photo credit: Capra Royale

One thing we pride ourselves on is that everyone feels like they can work together to execute to that client’s expectations.

For instance (he pointed to Colab member Christine Vo, who was sitting to his left) if Christine and I were presenting to a client, a sort of conversation could go on between the two of us. It wouldn’t be like divisional, like assigning one person slides 3 and 5, or dividing up the work.

If you have the appropriate discussions in front of customers, that will speak volumes for people wanting to hire you.

———————————————————–

On the Errors of Big Agencies

There are some errors that most BDA (Big Dumb Agencies) make in presenting to potential clients. One of them is that they are used to pitching the team. CoatesKokes doesn’t do this.

It’s not about the people, or the history of whatever. Introduce your like this: “This is Joe, and he’s the account planner, and Sarah is the copywriter”. That way, the client sees what the agency is going to do, not what its people did in the past.

In case the agencies are listening, the idea of a BDA is not mine. George Parker coined the term on his blog AdScam.
He lived in Boise Idaho, and is a kind of blogger pundit. I highly suggest reading his work, as well as Marktd.com.

That all said — act as a team.

———————————————————–

Clients, Challenging Brands, and Organization

photo credit: gcoldironjr2003

1. Clients want to hire people who are enthusiastic about the business — who have taken the time to learn — who work together to challenge each other. At the same time, never be afraid to challenge the brand’s assumptions.

2. Be very organized in your thoughts — you have to be able to tell the story. Always pretend there’s a director over your shoulder, or that you’re presenting to your own camera.

Those are the two big tenants of presenting well.

———————————————————–

Passion, Slides, and Owning the Room

photo credit: jurvetson
Clients want to see that you’re passionate about the presentation.

But don’t put everything on the slides. If I see slides with more bullets on them, I’ll probably scream.

OWN the room when you step in. What’s on the glass or projected, will fill the gap.

What is most important is that you’re standing there with your team, and you’re passionate about what you say.

———————————————————–

Words Inspire Images

photo credit: Georgieporge

I was in my car the other day, and Posion’s Every Rose has its Thorn came on the radio. I listened for a moment and then switched over to CD. That Niel Young’s Cowgirl on the Sand. That was much better for some reason.

What made it better? It’s the same when it comes to presentations.

What we want to do in presentations is to get someone to think uniquely, or to present something that shows we’re unique. The phrase “Cowgirl on the Sand” shows something to our mind. It really conjures up an image. It is also unique, while the phrase “Every Rose has its Thorn” is overgrown; cliche.

Always try to come up with polarizing and intriguing things, and be very vocal; personable.

(At this point, James Rice began to wave his hands around a bunch).

Also use a bunch of hand motions.

(He pointed to the whiteboard behind him).

———————————————————–

This whiteboard is your best friend.

photo credit: Ben30

Once we went on a pitch and won HP as a client against a big competitor. We presented without laptops and Powerpoints and just brought in a whiteboard. That way, we could actually involve the clients in our presentation. They could watch it develop instead of sit there on the screen — this unmodified, ungrowing series of static images.

That’s one of the things I’d like to see in every presentation room. A whiteboard on which you could project a presentation on the lower part of it.

———————————————————–

Owning the Room During Electronic Malfunction

photo credit: Qfamily

Sometimes you come in, and there’s stuff that sometimes doesn’t work. White boards solve that. When possible, always have a backup. You shouldn’t need a Powerpoint to pitch an idea. It should be there in your head, and the head of your team.

———————————————————–

The COLAB Sameunderneath Presentation

James Rice: Lets talk about the Colaboratory presentation to Sameunderneath. How much time do you have?

Colab Member: 30 minutes for the pitch, and 15 for questions and answers.

Another Colab Member: No, it was just 30 minutes.

At this point, the team realized that there was a discrepancy of time-knowledge amongst them.

James Rice:
This brings up a good point. There should be that one point person who is in change of the entire thing. There always should be a pitch leader who is collecting all of the ideas. Everyone will take care of parts and pieces, but there needs to be part of a collector.

———————————————————–

On the Presentation of Self

photo credit: Steve & Jemma Copley

Never spend time on welcomes. I’m probably the only team that doesn’t do biographies. With Linkedin, Facebook, ect. out there, and there’s a good chance they know it is you.

As soon as you state, “I did this”, your design work becomes about your past.
If I could bestow any philosophy — it’s all about what you did — it’s about what you’re doing.

———————————————————–

On Thanking the Client

photo credit: carakatze

Don’t thank them like, “we’re happy to be here”

I’ve seen it done where people are so soft, like “I really appreciate the time”

Clients want actionable people that are ready to hit the ground, who are ready to kick some ass.

Say: “On the left there’s Chris Stein.

If you introduce her, it begins to be like a team.

———————————————————–

The Whiteboard

photo credit: mlinksva

On the screen, you can’t do the kinds of things you can do on the white board.

(He goes to the board behind him)

I just did this in a pitch the other day. I called it this area on the board, and made it the impact zone.

Instead of having an agenda — there are other certain things you can do, like you can take little sticky things and put down the thoughts on each other, and then start to arrange them into logical clusters.

—-
So then there’s these points of impact, and you can put them on the very first slide. For instance it can say the six things we’re gonig to do for you.
For samenunderneath you’re impact zone is going to be brand, exposure, orginality…ect.

What else do you want to do?

Do you want to create a new customer? Attract a new customer?

———————————————————–

Innovate in the Marketplace

photo credit: Lauras512

If you just put one or two words here and tell a story around them.

If I were pitching for Sameunderneath I’d probably be like “we’re here today because you’ve had a large impact to a very unique set of customers in what you’ve done for the last nine years…” We’ve looked at what kind of impact you’ve had in the marketplace.

If we were look at your brand expansion and how we can bring about greater exposure through your “market expansion plan” (adding sometimes its fun to put in phrases htat sound big)
today we’rll talk about how you can re-imagine your plan.

Lets look at brand experience, social retail. It is these thigns that will increase your exposure in the lines of your market plan.

Sameunderneath will take on this exposure and expand on it.

When I talk about a markting plan I have certain fears.

ROI would be on there.
(But I hate the word ROI — I’d prefer rather to use measurement…or culpability).

I’d have a statement and the impact points of ‘experience, authority, understanding.’

When I talk about experience a story is already starting to unfold.

Powerpoint presentations makes us be explicit.

I try to rip those bullets out and say them, not show them.

A slide can say “new ideas have the power to break boundaries set by others’ assumptions.”

———————————————————–

Branding a Presentation

photo credit: PinkMoose

You can also turn the presentation…not to your brand but to their brand.

Build the presentation like you work for them and put their brand on the bottom of the slides.

We do a lot of quite a few pitches that we do at Ascentium, and the strategy used depends on the type of pitch. If it is a type of social media strategy, then that comes on our deck (our brand and feel).

———————————————————–

Building from Scratch

photo credit: Richard Jones

We put all our presentation material on the network drive and it’s a mess.

Even though the presentation material is there, every time I build it from scratch.

———————————————————–

Finding Inspiration

photo credit: alicepopkorn

I have a delicious tag called inspiration…or “fucking rad”.

They’re where I go when I need inspiration.

Another thing I go to is Flickr.

If I’m stuck while making a presentation, I get what I want to say, and then create those keywords. And I build a slide desk with just thoe images.

And I begin to fill in those gaps “what do I want to say”.

Sometimes I put those ideas on notecards.

Question: What advice would you give to someone not as comfortable with presentng to a group?

James Rice: There are some amazing creatives that don’t want to pitch. They want to contribute to ideas.

I don’t pracice creating or programming anymore.

In the big picture, I’d probably, over time, find out where I’m there on it.
I have to ask the question of whether I want to pitch, or do I want to contribute a lot of really great ideas that are on the pitch?

In the case of Friday…get over it!

You’re gonna have great ideas…

You’re too young to be nervous.

———————————————————–

Images

photo credit: gutter

If your image is about expansion, find images of storefronts on Flickr that exist in other locations. Map the Sameunderneath logo onto them and see what happens. How does Sameunderneath fit in other ecosystems?

How could Sameunderneath fit into other cultures and other audiences.

As we looked at your plan of expansion…then do a map.

———————————————————–

The Awesomeness of Circles

photo credit: kyz

People love circles by the way

And if you draw circles and shit…

(He shows the group a slide filled with various objects).

Then clients will love it. They have the capability to show growth and change.

If you can draw what you’re trying to say people are going to love it. You’ll be so successful.

———————————————————–

Macrovisualizing

photo credit: audreyjm529

(Points to the board — where many ideas are listed).Man…this could be a slide of 26 bullets.

James RiceDon’t increase the number of slides to decrease the nubmer of bullets.

What I’d do is macrovisualize what I’m trying to visualize.

(Points to the jars of M&M’s on the table… (see, M&M’s are not triangular or square. They’re circular).

———————————————————–

A Sample Introduction

photo credit: eyeliam

James Rice began by drawing a vertical line on down the white board. One one side of it, he drew Sameunderneath.

James Rice: Here’s Sameunderneath .. it’s made a great impact on 18-24 year olds.

Then James started circling the logo, adding concentric rings around it that were larger and larger as they progressed. He led them to cross over to the right side of the vertical line.

James Rice: And here’s where we need to take it. This is why circles are powerful — they show the progression of time.

Where we need to take it is the 30-40 year olds…and increase the core audience. Then, as time progresses, the 30-40 year olds need to be come the main audience.

Try to draw you what you’re going to say.

———————————————————–

Learning from Failure

photo credit: zentolos

Instead of saying here’s what succeeded, I’d like to tell you about something that failed.

It’s fun to give you advice based on a thing that didn’t work .. because it is easier to see know what went wrong.

I’ll tell you what went wrong this time.

We hadn’t met the client before, and we were up, literally, for 61 hours.
Thus, we had no context, and with only three days to prepare, it was pretty much impossible.

We should’ve been more prepared for it; I should’ve told them no.

But we all realized we liked the three day thing.
Because when you have three weeks, you smash all of your ideas against the wall. You force yourself over them too much, until they become less of what they were before.

Like my writing professor in college said — write it. And then you’rll rewrite it and rewrite it and rewrite it. But just write it.

———————————————————–

On Taking Breaks

photo credit: dennis and aimee jonez

Don’t stay continuously working on something. You need to give your brain a break.

More importantly, focus it completely for a while, and then step back.

(He examined the presentation on his laptop).

I also used the colors and blue…maybe that was the problem.
I also didn’t use rounded corners — against my best intentions.

I’ll give you a secret — brand voice is what happens when you come in with
Your goal of the presentation is to distill it down into memorabale, topical, organized pitches.

You should have over 15 slides, ideally. And talk to your slides — they’re meant to work for you. They’re also touchpoints.

———————————————————–

On Pitching

photo credit: akeg

“When will you be pitching?” He asked the Colab Members. “Will you be practicing?”

It was stated that team Lattice would be practicing at Studio Bard on Wednesday.

James Rice: Does everyone have soem Sameundernath clothing?

I might do that if I were pichng htem as a client. It’s more gimmicky — but it shows that you’re all invested in the brand.

———————————————————–

Ten Things You Can Really Remember

photo credit: seanmcgrath

Look over your documents and come up with 10 great things that you really remember.

Make sure those ten things are what is remembered when you walk out of that room.

———————————————————–

Create a Visual Analysis

photo credit: playerx

Come up with your own type of visual analysis.

Everything dyou do should be expressed visually.

(James went again to the whiteboard and drew circles).

James Rice: Here’s our biggest MINDSHARE competitor.

Here are some very unique ways for you to expand your customers…and increase their mindshare.

———————————————————–

The Impact Zone

photo credit: Ana Filipa Machado

Identify the expertise in the creative ideas… identify zones within your plan where you now have it down cold.

Know it more than what it takes to get into that plan. Consider:

• Brand
• Exposure
• Originality
• Innovation
• Expansion
• ROI

———————————————————–

Conclusions

It was great to hear what James Rice had to say about the creative industry. As an Anthropologist, it was an interesting injection into a world of competing teams, creative ideas, and intense work methods. I look forward to seeing the future ideas that come out of the mind of James Rice and the Colaboratory members.

———————————————————–

Resources

photo credit: markhillary

Check out the blog of James Rice
And you can follow his Delicious Links.
Or you can follow James Rice on Twitter.

———————————————————–

Thanks for Reading Hazelnut Tech Talk!

If you liked this article, you may want to follow my updates on Twitter, or subcribe to this site’s feed.

Twitter. Like any Web 2.0 app, it can be used productively, or it can suck the time out of your existence. (If you’ve never heard of Twitter before, check out the brilliant Commoncraft Video Twitter in Plain English).

If used wisely, Twitter can help you network like a jolt of amphetamines, keep you up to date on local news, traffic jams and construction work, and provide data on all the bars your friends are at. You can use it to get business advice, new clients, and joy and happiness.

Or, you can get lost in followers, following others, endless updates about tooth brushing and new hair colors without really getting much out of the whole experience.

For best results, follow Twitter Etiquette.

Provide Relevant, Descriptive Links to Awesome Resources:

If you think the information is really useful, then provide a description of that information and a shortened link to that information. Else, you’re wasting the time-value of your followers and your own credibility.

Don’t Overmarket:

If you write 10 new blog posts a day, don’t post them all on Twitter. Don’t even say that your blog has a new post when you link to it. Just provide a useful description of what the post pertains to. If people want to click on it, they will.If they don’t, craft better posts. Posting objectively will allow you to rank your posts based on content, not coersion.

Use Short URL’s:

Tinyurl, Snurl, and is.gd are all quick and easy url snippers.

• is.gd is my favorite, because it provides the shortest url-length.

• Tinyurl has a Firefox plugin that can be downloaded here, although it is not yet available for Firefox 3. The plugin allows you to right click to shorten the url, and it saves the url to the clipboard.

Real-Life Networking:

Tie your online experience into your real life. One head is good, but thirty are better. Using Twitter to network is all about shared resources and experiences. If you have a service to provide, provide it. You’ll undoubetly be rewarded for your generosity.

Twitterers are known to be extremely friendly and social both online and off. It is just a matter of finding where they meet up, and then hanging out and having a good time. Use the Twitter in junction with local event calendars like Yahoo’s Upcoming Calendar to find events in your area. Attend the events, make friends, and  exchange Twitter ID’s, resources, and business cards. Following them on Twitter will allow you to learn about new events, parties, and bar meetups.

Patience:

Sometimes you lose followers. Sometimes you gain them. Sometimes people that follow 3,000 people but who are followed by nobody ask to follow you. Sometimes you don’t feel like Tweeting for a few days, and sometimes you make 40 updates in a day. The key to it all to have fun and enjoy. Tweet happily, and the whole Twitter world will benefit. Else, you might feel lonely on the powerline.

Want to come to Tweet-ups and other Portland networking events? Feel free to follow me on Twitter.

The lead users of a product are those who use it the most. They are also the first to ‘break’ the product, or find limitations in it. Increasingly, they’re more likely to blog about those weaknesses or limitations, and even fix some of them.

It has never been easier to be near those who will adopt your product. Using some simple techniques borrowed from Anthropology, you can find out exactly what your consumer needs, and how to implement it. All you need to do is find the earliest adopters and lead users of a product in your niche and observe what they are saying about the product. Once you’ve developed a product from their advice, you’ll find a lot of other consumers adopting that product as well.

Why does this happen? The needs of lead users are the future needs of mass consumers in a given niche.

The key is to follow the advice of the most voracious adopters first. Bring your product to a shared work location like Portland’s Cubespace, where dozens of supporters will be poised and ready to give constructive feedback and advice. Ask this group of people what they find themselves frustrated with. What current limitations do they face in technology? Follow them around for a day, and, with their permission write down what they do. What is efficient? What is not? What products do they keep coming back to again and again?

Then, pick a problem and engineer a solution. Market that solution, and test it with the lead users. If it fails, it’s probably not going to move to the next stage of early adopters and routine users. Who were the lead users of Twitter? Why did they find Twitter to be useful? Did it help them communicate during their travels to tech conferences around the world?

Product development is about asking a lot of questions, and engaging yourself with your consumer’s needs. You can’t just get a group of geniuses together in a conference room and tell them “lets develop a product!”  I’ve done that countless times, and it is really fun, but creating a product seperately from the consumer’s input is generally a hit-or-miss process that often ends up in tears.

Embed yourself in your target market. Invest your time researching the consumer’s needs. This product is for them, not you. The more you make it for them, the more they will like you. Product development is engineering success by engagement and inference.

Websites generally annoy me. I tend to keep them out of the way by using RSS readers and other objects that strip important data while leaving messy interfaces behind. The fields of Usability, User Interaction, Experience and Interface Design and Information Architecture host a bunch of battlebots out to eviscerate design travesties wherever possible.

The only problem is that many clients have a fog of war when it comes to understanding website design beyond the fact that a site “must be pretty”, or “must have flash”. Some do not understand that users are coming to the site and have only seconds to vote. A poorly designed site will have most people voting with the Back, Stumble, or Ctrl+W commands.

Enter Luke Wroblewski of Functioning Form. He’s an internationally recognized Web thought leader who has designed or contributed to software used by more than 600 million people. He is currently Senior Director of Product Ideation & Design at Yahoo! Inc. where he leads the design of Yahoo.com and other popular products including My Yahoo! and Yahoo! Buzz.

Luke Wroblewski says:

In today’s social, distributed, search-driven Web, customers are finding their way to Web content through an increasing number of distinct experiences. Yet when people arrive at most Web pages, the experience they get isn’t optimized for this context. Instead, the vast majority of content pages online remain more concerned with their own context than the context of their users: where did a user arrive from and where are they likely to go next? These pages remain designed as if they were primarily accessed from a Web site’s home page or a carefully thought-out selection from the site’s information architecture.”

“To address these issues and more, this talk outlines a set of best practices for Web content page design that focuses on appropriate presentations of content, context, and calls to action. Specifically: how can content be optimized to meet user expectations as they arrive from a diverse number of access points; what is the minimum amount of context required to frame content appropriately; how can the most relevant calls to action be presented to maximize user engagement? Applying these considerations enables information architects to deliver content experiences that take full advantage of emerging opportunities online and the existing assets within their Web sites.”

Resources

Download the Audio of Luke’s IA Summit 2008 Talk (Thanks to Boxes and Arrows for hosting).

Download the Slides of Luke’s IA Summit 2008 Talk

More about Luke Wroblewski:

Luke is the author of two popular Web design books: Web Form Design (2008) and Site-Seeing: A Visual Approach to Web Usability (2002). He also publishes Functioning Form, a leading online publication for interaction designers. Luke is consistently a top-rated speaker at conferences and companies around the world, and is a co-founder and former Board member of the Interaction Design Association (IxDA).

Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist who lives in Portland, Oregon. You can contact her by E-mail or @caseorganic on Twitter.