manage to experience

On Posterous

Compared to Twitter, posting to a blog is cumbersome. But my experience with Posterous, an email posting-based blog platform, demonstrates that blogging – and simultaneously posting to other social networks – can be quite easy.

Web analytics + user experience

I'm in the early stages of working with a new client to improve the user experience of his company's Web site, and in turn, increase site traffic conversions.

This presentation captures some of the substance of our conversations – understanding what is happening on the site in its current state, why users responses to the site, and using that knowledge to improve the user experience and boost business.

There are a few too many slides, but it's a relatively quick scan:

Marrying Web Analytics and User Experience

View more presentations from Louis Rosenfeld.

A preview of Wolfram Alpha -- a "fact search engine"

Danny Sullivan talks with the man behind the Wolfram Alpha search engine, and reports back.

We're primed to greet the announcement of any new, major search engine as a potential Google-killer, but that's not an appropriate description for Wolfram Alpha. Rather, it's a "computational knowledge engine," or a service that aggregates public data, uses human editors to validate the information, and presents it in response to targeted searches or requests for calculations.

Per Sullivan, it's not going to replace Google, but it promises to be a powerful complement to it.

The future of user interfaces

What's the next dominant UI metaphor?

"Every geek I know shares, to some degree, the notion that the 'desktop' metaphor for computers is outdated. What nobody seems to have a solid opinion on is what would take its place."

What follows is a brief history of the evolution of user interfaces, consideration of "artificially natural" hierarchical file systems, and a look at the significant challenges of migrating to the next UI metaphor.

You want find any answers here, but then this is the kind of problem that can make whoever solves it very rich.

Older users drive Facebook traffic growth

MarketingVOX notes Facebook traffic grew 149% in February, with the help of older visitors. This mirrors what I'm seeing on Facebook -- parents and grandparents who join in order to stay connected with younger generations. I would be very curious to know the role that new parents (and their postings of baby pictures) play in driving these visits.

“Holy crap, clearly, this is the freaking future of entertainment”

Read Merlin Mann, then come back and see what he's writing about.

Your real investment in social media

"Getting into Social Media is hard work, and you’ll have to be willing to put the effort in."

True, unless you aren't concerned about the results.

A word on keyword research

Lately, I'm devoting a lot of time to an upcoming site launch. And thawing my fingers after a few days up north.

Search is a topic that's coming up a lot in discussions with clients. And this post from JD Lasica nicely explains why keyword research matters, and provides a list of tools for that research.

Moving beyond the browser

Interactive designers have become conditioned to thinking about the browser as the way of delivering interactive experiences. It's going to take a while to make a clean break from that way of thinking. We're no longer tethered to a desktop or wired connection, and online experiences are delivered by an array of devices and interfaces that surround us in different contexts and environments.

Ambient technology is here, as this article in Chief Marketer succinctly explains, and it's going to define how we design interactive experiences.

Clinging to the past

Friction between a company's sales channels can be a healthy thing. But too often it's something to be feared, because the mere possibility of upsetting traditional dying retail channels gives timid executives night sweats.

By way of my interest in bicycles, I came across this cogent, forceful opinion from one successful retailer. His take: It's time for industry titans to lose their irrational fear of the online sales channel, and realize that it just might give those dying retail outlets the boost they need.