Very true Usman and that is why it is always been asked to keep design simple as much as possible. Most of us try to load heaps of data to make things more visible in a single page but that is wrong.
I wonder how many businesses conduct tests, percentage-wise. When I ask IT execs this question, many say their company didn't do it before they came on board, leading me to believe that it's a large number that don't invest in this technology and time. When I interviewed Michael Hart of Bonobos about testing, he said it added about a week to the process and that was for a major redesign. Think about the time you'd lose if the site kept crashing or users couldn't find the shopping cart, couldn't complete their order, the credit card information wasn't secure, or some other nightmare scenario. In addition to losing time, you could -- far worse -- lose customers forever. And when Bonobos' site crashed on Cyber Monday 2011, ask the former CTO (not Hart) whether testing might have been worthwhile! I'm sure he'd say, "Yes!" Hart implemented testing. The result: Cyber Monday 2012 had zero downtime.
Very interesting! I always wondered how websites did that, but it now appears not to be secret! However, with that being said I do agree with Alison on the simple fact that websites do that way too often. If it ain't broke, why fix it then?
I agree that simple is good, but don't forget to focus on testing! Testing is fantastic, and with intelligent use of analytics and event tracking one can really ensure users have a great web experience while generating the most conversions possible.
One problem I've found is the tendency by some companies to almost weekly change their Websites. Now, that might be a slight exaggeration--but it's not much of one. That's something commonsense, not any amount of testing, can restrain.
It's not whether the site should be more complex or more simple or whatever, but that you should be testing it with *your* users to see what works for *them*.
I had the opportunity to interview Greg Linden, who was involved in some major sites such as Amazon, and he swears by A/B testing -- and not just that, but giving everyone in the company the opportunity to set up quick and dirty A/B tests and doing them all the time.
I first ran A/B tests on a fairly high traffic (60 million unique a year) website in the last century and it was hard and it was expensive in terms of development hours.
It has certainly changes in the last 15 years. Today I am using Optimizely and I continue to be amazed by the ease of use. Omniture has some expensive and hard to implement tools that pale by comparison to Optimizely.
Today you truly have affordable, easy to use and powerful A/B testing options - there is no excuse not to run A/B tests!
The interface should be designed to allow users to do the routine tasks from the home screen while advanced functions should be available on the next screens.
Giving users the options of personalizing (in terms of menu's and options) is great. It will help them manifolds. Though I think that only the option of changing colors and layout would not help that much.
But often it is not complex design, but too simple design.
Again, look at the best used portal websites...the ones that host millions of users per day. Craigs List. Yahoo. Google News. Facebook. Twitter. They are both clean, clear, and yet intricate and chock full of clickable links, database sorting.
What is it they don't have? A huge block image that fills the screen! Or else, a few paultry links that a user soon grows tired of!
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These days, 3D printers seem to be everywhere. You can build your own, go to one of the TechShops around the country, and maybe even find a pop-up store like the one that came to midtown Manhattan in December and offered dozens of objects for sale, along with the opportunity to watch several printers in action creating them.
Entrepreneurs recently flocked to Kansas City for an experimental implementation of Google gigabit fiber. The Kansas City Startup Village (KCSV) is using that fiber, and Techstars co-founder Brad Feld is getting into the act by buying a home where entrepreneurs can live and work.
Last week, NBC shuttered the hyperlocal news portal EveryBlock.com, and laid off its few full-time staffers. The decision was a poor one, and a blow for civic activists all over. It's a shame, given how many examples of great civic science there are.
Has this happened to you? I was staying at a hotel where the WiFi creates one flat network, and, of course, there are numerous people who don't know the first thing about basic security practice. Why do I know this? Because I could see several of them who had file sharing turned on for their PCs. They were listed by name in my Mac's Finder (John Jones Computer, Sally Jenkins Computer, and so on), and it was a bit scary.
Over the holiday break, my wife and I had two memorable experiences when we went to Morton's and the Olive Garden for dinner. These chain restaurants sit at different ends of the market, and we had very different experiences -- but not in the way you might expect.
A recent release of the popular TweetDeck app for Twitter power-users gives new life to software that had previously taken a wrong turn. Here's a quick walk-through of the new TweetDeck, to show you why it should be at the top of your Twitter toolkit.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
Companies need to take advantage of new technologies to simplify interfaces, improve capabilities, and enhance back-office processes. But they can't upgrade their Websites too often.
A survey by JD Powers found that customer interest in product features is lessening as phones evolve. Rather than features, price is driving purchases, and that change could have a dramatic impact on how IT departments secure these devices.
Companies used to be confident they'd know exactly what a cellular OS would look like out of the box. Today, that confidence should be fading. Reiter discusses how a cellphone OS's looks could be deceiving, and why businesses need to understand it.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
Subsidized handsets, rather than locked handsets, should be the focus of regulators. We're not getting good deals, not fostering innovation, and weakening our power as buyers.
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