Fancy Formatting, Fancy Words = Ignored

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for September 4 is now online at:
  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/fancy-formatting.html
		
Summary:
One site did most things right, but still had a miserable 14% success rate
for its most important task. The reason?
Users ignored a key area because it resembled a promotion.
			
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User Experience 2007 conference

  > Barcelona, November 4-9
  > Las Vegas, December 2-7

31 full-day tutorials
2 keynotes: e-commerce, the state of usability

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

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CASE STUDIES WANTED: MEASURABLE IMPACT OF DESIGN CHANGES

I am collecting examples of metrics that quantify the impact of design
changes. If you have data you are willing to share, please email John
Berger at [email protected]

Any type of user interface is of interest: websites, intranets,
applications, mobile devices, etc. Also, the design changes may refer to a
complete redesign of the total UI or it could just be a single feature,
screen, or design element that was changed.

Measures of interest include anything that measures how usage changed.
That often means an improvement, but data that documents negative results
are just as interesting.

Example metrics:
  * conversion rate 
  * total e-commerce sales in dollars and/or units 
  * size of average "sales basket" for e-commerce 
  * training time needed to learn a feature or system 
  * sign-up rate for newsletters or other desired action
  * lead-generation
  * time on task and other productivity measures 
  * subjective satisfaction scores 
  * average page views and/or duration of visit per user
  * returning visitor traffic
  * frequency of return visits 
  * number of times a feature was used 
  * percentage of users who bail out at a certain step 
  * number of calls to help desks or tech support 
  * learning or comprehension scores 
  * other usage or impact metrics,
    including new ones you have invented yourself 

For whatever metrics you have collected, please send both the "BEFORE" and
the "AFTER" number as well as a short description of the kind of system
you were measuring and the type of change made to the design. If you can
send us before/after screenshots, so much the better (whether or not you
will allow us to publish the screens), but we are also interested in data
where you cannot send screens.

We can keep your contribution TOTALLY ANONYMOUS and purely report your
numbers as statistics that don't include any indication of what company or
design they refer to. Of course, we will give you full credit if you are
willing to be named. Also, if you send us screenshots, please indicate
whether we should treat the screens as confidential info or whether you
will allow us to publish the images. (Feel free to "sanitize" screenshots
by erasing confidential info.)

All contributors will get a free copy of the report with the full set of
metrics.

If you can help in this project to document the range of measurable
effects from user interface redesigns, please contact John Berger
([email protected]). John can also answer any questions you may have
about this project.

Deadline: THIS FRIDAY September 7

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KEEP OLD PRODUCTS ALIVE

One of the most important strategic imperatives for websites is to
cultivate loyal users who can help liberate the site from being overly
dependent on search engines.

One component of this strategy is to keep old products available so that
people can easily reorder anything they like. If you force people to get
something new, they may start looking around to check out other
alternatives.

And, of course, keep that old product at the same URL. URLs should live
forever, so that people can dig up an old confirmation emails and click on
it to get the page to order more of the same. See:

  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/980614.html (linkrot)
  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20031208.html (email)

Kudos to New Balance for making its shoe designers conform to templates
for the fit of their shoes. This way, if you know that an old shoe fits
you well, you can safely order a new pair even if it potentially uses new
materials and a different color scheme.

I have been a happy user of New Balance exercise shoes for several
thousand miles on the treadmill - enough to go through many pairs, which I
steadily replenish from shoes.com.
(Disclosure: the site is a consulting client, but the shoes aren't: I just
buy this brand because I like the fit and because I can order new exercise
shoes without having to try them on.)

New York Times on annoying customers by discontinuing products:

  > http://tinyurl.com/23fvng