Do Government Agencies and Non-Profits Get ROI From Usability?

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for February 12 is now online at:
  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/government-nonprofit.html
		
Summary:
Although the gains don't fall into traditional profit columns, there are
clear arguments for improving usability of non-commercial websites and
intranets. In one example, a state agency could get an ROI of 22,000% by
fixing a basic usability problem.
	
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Usability Week 2007 conference

  > Hong Kong, March 5-9
  > Washington, DC, April 22-27
  > London, May 6-11
  > San Francisco, June 18-23

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

10 specialized full-day tutorials:
  > Fundamental Guidelines for Web Usability
  > Application Usability (2 days)
  > Intranet Usability (2 days)
  > B2B Sites
  > Websites That Sell
  > Presenting Company Information on Corporate Websites
  > E-Mail Newsletter Usability
  > Writing for the Web

  > http://www.nngroup.com/events

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Bad Usability Calendar

A calendar designed to look like a subway map? Good or bad usability? Bad.
As shown on the "bad usability calendar" produced by a Norwegian usability
company as a promotional stunt. Every month is horrible - but in different
ways that each illustrate a classic usability guideline.

Download, print, and hang on your office wall to prompt conversations with
visitors who don't believe in usability. If they like these layouts, then
there's no hope to cure their UI.

  > http://www.iallenkelhet.no/bad-usability-calendar-2007-is-here
	
(Violating yet another usability guideline, the file is formatted to print
on European-sized paper, and there doesn't seem to be a version designed
for American paper sizes. It's easy enough to scale the printout, even
though it doesn't look quite as good.)

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Design Advice for Real Estate Sites

Two New York Times articles about the experience of real estate agents in
making effective websites read like a summary of my findings from testing
e-commerce sites: good photos help sales more than almost anything, and
clear product info is much better than videos of blabbering agents.

"Making Every Pixel Count"
  > http://tinyurl.com/387nxv
In this article, I particularly recommend viewing the before-after photos
taken by amateurs vs. professional photographers. It's clear what house
you'd rather spend you weekend seeing.

"Forget Gimmicks: Buyers Want Numbers"
  > http://tinyurl.com/2qw6jj

Every industry has this feeling that "we are special" and that the general
lessons of Web usability can't possibly apply to them. Of course, there
are special issues for real estate sites (say, how to present a floor
plan), but a lot of the usability issues are going to be very similar to
those of other sites.

At least in the case of real estate agents, they seem to finally have
discovered (some of) the usability guidelines through their own
experimentation. But it's sad that they lost hundreds of millions because
of bad sites during a decade when the guidelines for what works on the Web
have been easily available.

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Heds Nixed

Nice story on how newspapers are finally rewriting their headlines for
online use:

  > http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-6155739.html

14 famous headlines (e.g., "Sticks nix hick pix") that don't work on the
Web:

  > http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-6155618.html

It's only nine years since I published the guidelines for headlines and
other microcontent. Better late than never.

  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/980906.html

More detailed guidelines on which words to pick:

  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/search-keywords.html

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Super Bowl Commercials: Good Video, Bad Web Presence

The Super Bowl is not just the main sporting event of the year in the
United States, it's also the biggest advertising event. Search Engine
Watch has two nice stories on how the advertisers utilized the Web as
follow-up for their $2.5M spots. Mainly poorly:

  > http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/070205-093332
  > http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3624892

My favorite was Blockbuster (video rentals). The only commercial I
actually rewound on my DVR to watch again was "Mouse" in which a rabbit
uses a poor (real) mouse as a computer mouse in the attempt to get onto
blockbuster.com (squeezing it, dragging it, etc.). Animal rights fans may
deplore the maltreatment of an innocent rodent, but it was all done by
computer animation.

  > http://www.ifilm.com/video/2819648

According to TiVo statistics, this was only the 7th most replayed ad. But
after 24 years using mice and even more years reading papers about
pointing devices, I enjoy making fun of computer mice. It's certainly a
sign of the times that we now have instant data on actual user behavior as
a way to judge the impact of commercials. But remember that replay data
only shows whether ads were entertaining, not whether they successfully
sold the advertised product.

Two days after the Super Bowl, a Google search for "Blockbuster mouse"
(without the quotes) didn't find *any* entries for Blockbuster's website
in the first-page organic listings. Blockbuster is as clueless as the
companies criticized in the Search Engine Watch articles I linked above.
Well, *almost* as clueless, because they do have a sponsored link. Of
course, with better SEO, they could have gotten those clicks for free.
Worst of all, when I click their "Blockbuster mouse" ad, I don't get the
Blockbuster mouse. I get their generic homepage, violating the top rule of
search advertising: don't link your ad to your homepage; use a deep link
to the thing your customer was searching for.

Blockbuster also had the only ad that made me want to buy the product: a
hard-hitting comparison with Netflix that claimed that the two services
are the same, except that you can get your movies faster with Blockbuster
because you can also go to the store in addition to using the mail.

I suspect that Netflix has a better online user experience and would be
the better choice since I would rarely go to the store. Still,
Blockbuster's ad emphasized a true benefit of their offer in terms that
were easy to understand and remember. The challenge is now up to Nexflix
marketing to find ways of making usability into a product feature and
explain to prospects why their site is better in simple terms that normal
people can understand.

I couldn't find Blockbuster's TV commercials on its own site, which is why
I linked to IFilm above. Having your current commercials and an archive of
old ones is one of the better uses of video for corporate websites.
Blockbuster failed this simple test.