My talk was about creating websites with great user experience. While “user experience” doesn’t sound sexy (many people don’t even know what it means), it’s a critical part of any website development. At its most basic level, it’s about having good organization and solid content. More specifically, I focus on three things:

1. Great content
2. Easy Navigation
3. A Little Mind Reading

What it all boils down to is asking yourself what your user’s main needs might be and going over the top to deliver on that. Whether it’s letting them embed your videos on their Facebook page, linking them to research that supports buying your product or making your navigation foolproof. The mind reading comes in when you anticipate something they haven’t even thought of yet that delivers even better customer service.

We had some great questions about the value of usability studies (I am an advocate) and about how to talk clients out of their bad navigation ideas . A good time was had by all. Hope to see you next time.

Andrea Zuegel

1. There is a large community of non-profits in Rochester, most of which do not have staff or money to publicize their services.
2. There is a large pool of bright-eyed, bushy-tailed arts/communications students in the area that are eager for real-world experience prior to graduation.
3. Additionally, we have this great service in the Ad Council, that helps non-profits figure out what their messaging is, and some tactical ideas of how to execute. But I always have the sinking feeling that the execution won’t happen due to lack of resources.

So, the percolating idea is that we (the marketing/advertising community) find a way to coordinate student workers for non-profits. I know this is not a new idea, but I don’t know where it fell down in the past. I realize this is not only hooking up workers with work — there will need to be some oversight by a volunteer mentor, to keep the work on strategy. Perhaps this is a rotating responsibility, or one mentor is matched up to each agency.

I’ll be checking in with the Ad Council to see what role they may play, but would love to hear from all of you as to if and how you think this may work.

But just as my grumbling was starting to bug even me, I came across a remedy that I think offers real value. The Simon School of Business recently (I think) redid their site, and their homepage caught my attention big time. What looked like another series of feature profiles is instead a series of hard facts that clearly define the Simon advantage. You still get the nice engaging people shot, but what’s behind it has a lot more tooth and relevance.

Today’s audience is more discerning than ever. Tell me what I need to know, and tell me why I should care. Once I’m engaged, the story telling can take me further, but I think we need to do a better job of making our case up front.

I watched my neighbors across the way: Cobblestone School was trying to entice kids over by handing out little pipe-cleaner animals; a breast cancer survivor group was handing out calendars. I wouldn’t call any of this terribly engaging. How about the Finger Lakes Burn Unit (no disrespect, but really?). I put this question out there, because I believe that event marketing is really important. People at events usually have money, they’re in a location for a period of time, therefore somewhat captive, and it’s a great time for face-to-face communication, which is rare. Thoughts?

Mega drop-downs fly out from shortcuts sidebar

The new Yahoo! homepage sports a “favorites” bar along the left hand side. Icon/links for key areas of interest like sports, finance, facebook, eBay and a dozen or so other topics are included. Here’s the mega part: when you hover over any of the icons, a mega drop-down pops out, with a few key piece of info — stuff you’re most likely to want to see (or at least that’s what the designers are banking on). For example, a quick hover gives you the state of the Dow, Nasdaq and S&P. Place your mouse over eBay, and you’ll see the most-watched items, and a search box. Facebook gives you direct access to your login. True to its original intent, Yahoo! has once again made itself a reason to be your portal.

This is also a brilliant move for advertising, as each of the mega drop-downs has room for an ad… which of course, is targeted to the area of interest. Nice job of combining user benefits with money-making options for the site.

— Andrea Zuegel

I just finished reading the latest blog post from Wegmans Organic Farm. Courtney the intern had a fabulous trip to a local Virginia farm and had loads of great facts and pictures about their yummy produce. By the end of the post I could almost taste those tomatoes, and thankfully, she ended with a link to a recipe for tomato salad. Great next step.

Another example: a theater review article in City Newspaper gives ticket information at the close, along with a link to the theater website, so you can buy tickets.

And of course, the obvious, if you tell me about a product, also link me to where I can buy it. Cnet does an especially nice job of this even though they’re not the ones making the sale (phone example).

That said, next steps don’t always make sense. Latest example – epicurious and their new wine widget. Here’s the idea: they pair several wines with each recipe, and give you links to buy it (for shipping). Here’s where it falls down: if you’re like me, you look up a recipe the day you want to make it. By the time you order wine and it’s delivered, the meal is long gone. What would be really cool, is if they linked you to your local wine shop for the sale, instead. Nice business arrangement there, too.

My point is that no matter what message you’re trying to convey to your website visitor, you can always win points by anticipating their next move, and making it easy. It’s good usability, and good business.

1. Glee. This new Fox tv show aired its pilot last month, and it was so popular that the producers have been pressed to come up with more content for fans. Apparently the feature song (Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’) was so popular on iTunes, that they’ve had to add additional music choices. The website is chock full of character interviews, actor bios and a photo gallery. Extras include Glee chewing gum (seriously), iTunes downloads and of course, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter fan clubs. Fans can be interacting with the stuff and feel that they stay connected until the show is back on in the fall.

2. New Moon. The highly anticipated follow up to the Twilight movie doesn’t hit theaters until November, but producers know that the fans don’t have that kind of patience. Posters for the new movie (with buffed up versions of hearthrobs Edward and Jacob) released online several weeks ago, and the producers brilliantly timed the trailer release with the MTV movie awards, where it got tons of hype. These two gifts to the fans were very well received. I’m curious what else they’ll give us between now and November.

So, on a personal level it’s great. But on a professional level it’s especially worth taking note. First, and most obvious, we’re talking about free content. No matter what your business, there’s some kind of credentialed content out there that adds variety and depth to your site if you can include it. For example, one of my clients, Embria Health Sciences, manufactures an immune health ingredient. They have plenty of good content on the site to explain why the product is effective, but do we believe it? A couple of months ago, they decided to embed a blog that is devoted to issues around immune health (and happens condone their product). Free product endorsement AND supporting content.

Sharing content is also a great way to increase site traffic. If a few avid readers post your content on their own sites to share with friends, you’ve now gained free doorways back to your site. And by the way, all of this linking does great things for organic search rankings.

Check out the video tour of this service on Add This site:
Add This Tour

National Acrobats of China

My friend Rachel DeGuzman, marketing director at Nazareth College Arts Center, is using Facebook the way organizations should. She not only posts interesting and relevant information (to share with her well-cultivated friends list), she makes it actionable. So, because Rachel posted the acrobats performance it was now “in my face,” where I not only noticed it but could take the follow next steps:

1. Link to a page where I could buy tickets
2. Export the event to my calendar
3. Share the event with other friends

Rachel also kept this post interesting by adding reviews as they appeared in local media. There are plenty of additional next steps you can give your friends for your events: RSVP, share with more friends, comment/vote, etc. This is a truly interactive way to engage.

I’ve used Facebook events for both personal and professional events. The key is to post with purpose: notify your friends about the event, but make sure you give them those next steps to seal the deal.

— Andrea Zuegel