The Myth of the Genius Designer

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for May 29 is now online at:
  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/genius-designers.html
		
Summary:
Having a good designer doesn't eliminate the need for a systematic
usability process. Risk reduction and quality improvement both require
user testing and other usability methods.
		
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Usability Week 2007 conference

  > 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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INTRANET DESIGN ANNUAL – CALL FOR ENTRIES

Think you have a good intranet? Enter it for the annual award competition
to identify the year's 10 best intranets.

Deadline: July 9

Info on what we need and where to send it:
  > http://www.nngroup.com/reports/intranet/2008

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FINANCIAL SECTOR INTRANETS

We have always had disproportionally many winners of the Intranet Design
Annuals from the financial sector. I now know why: The Economist published
a study of different sectors' investment in their internal computer
systems. Financial services lead with 8% of revenues, whereas health care,
for example, only spends 4%.

A new report compiles case studies of the winners from the financial
sector over the years:

  > http://www.nngroup.com/reports/intranet/financial

(Do not get this report if you already have the past design annuals.)

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ZIPF'S LAW AND BRAND PREFERENCES

A new study has found that Zipf's Law explains the percentage of people
who prefer each of the brands in a product category.
(Zipf's Law says that the second-most popular is half as popular as #1,
and in general, #N is 1/Nth of #1.)

We have known for 10 years that the website popularity (in terms of
traffic or links) follows a Zipf distribution. This new finding raises the
question whether the Web data is a consequence of the brand distribution,
or whether both findings are derived from some underlying phenomenon. More
research clearly needed.

Summary of new research, New York Times:
  > http://tinyurl.com/2wpcgb

Zipf's Law:
  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/zipf.html

1997 analysis of Website popularity:
  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9704b.html

2006 data:
  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/traffic_logs.html

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USABILITY GROWS IN EASTERN EUROPE

At our conference in London earlier this month it was amazing to see how
many people had come from Eastern Europe. Sure, there were more people
from the U.K. (since we was there) and Western Europe. And we started
seeing representation from Poland and Russia a few years ago. But this
year we had delegates from all of these countries:

Azerbadijan, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Slovakia,
Slovenia, and Ukrane.

In total, people from 31 countries came to London. When I add the
countries represented at our event in Hong Kong and our events in the
U.S., we have about 50 countries represented at this year's conference.
Great to see the world-wide growth of usability confirmed this strongly.

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AUCTIONS LOWER VALUE OF ONLINE ADS

There's a growing trend toward matching advertisers and
sites automatically through an exchange or auction.
Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google all have these.

Sadly, such exchanges further lower the value of online ads.
Eyetracking shows that users look more at ads that are integrated
with the site where they appear. For best results, you have to
design your ad for the spot where it will show. But you won't
know that spot if you use an exchange, so all you can run is a
generic ad, which won't get nearly as many fixations.

The Wall St. Journal has an article about the exchanges, quoting one
site that got some clicks and sales through them and another that
says that they can get the ROI they need. Of course, as long as you
bid low enough for the auction, you can retain your ROI. Just make
sure to measure sales separately for exchange-placed ads, so that you
can track how much worse they perform for you. 

  > http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118040318502016746.html

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STUDENT VOLUNTEERS NEEDED

We need students to help staff our conference in San Francisco in June
(see above).

To apply, send a short resume plus the name and email address of your main
professor to [email protected]