Growing a Business Website: Fix the Basics First

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for March 20 is now online at:
  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/design_priorities.html
	
Summary:
Offering clear content, simple navigation, and answers to
customer questions have the biggest impact on business value.
Advanced technology matters much less.

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Usability Week 2006 conference

  > New York, March 26-31
  > London, May 21-26
  > San Francisco, June 19-24
  > Sydney, July 16-21

In-depth training:
  > 3-day Intensive Camp: Usability in Practice
  > 3-day Immersion: Tog on Interaction Design

Specialized tutorials:
  > Eyetracking Web Usability
  > Fundamental Guidelines for Web Usability
  > B2B Websites
  > Presenting Company Information on Corporate Websites
  > Wish Lists and Gift-Giving in E-Commerce
  > Writing for the Web (two days)
  > E-Mail Newsletter Usability
  > Intranet Usability (two days)

More info and full program:
  > http://www.nngroup.com/events

Deadline for saving $200 on NYC registration: THIS FRIDAY, March 24

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Last week, The Economist ran a story about how companies are scouring
online discussions and other postings to find out what customers are
saying about them outsides the biased halls of focus group rooms.

Three weaknesses of this method, due to participation inequality:

(a) 90% of users are lurkers, not posters, so you are only hearing from a
small vocal minority

(b) The posters follow a Zipf distribution for posting frequency, so
unless you are careful, your conclusions will furthermore be biased by the
heated postings of the super-vocal micro-minority (micrority?).

(c) Because all these biases are self-selected, the posters are likely to
be people with a special axe to grind or people who are otherwise not
representative of the silent majority.

  > http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.cfm?story_id=5571524
    (subscription required)

Of course, I have said many times that you shouldn't *listen* to your
customers in the first place. You have to *observe* them.

  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010805.html