Creating websites visually—without coding—is a reality today. Tools have advanced significantly. The concerns over code quality are, at least, diminishing. You can now work with WordPress themes and plugins that will let you "drag and drop" elements of the layout. Building and customizing design … [Read more...] about The Inherent Issue with Visual Website Builders
On a frequent basis, we all try to complete a task online and get horribly frustrated. Forms are unintuitive, important pages are hidden, instructions are wrong—sites can be plain unhelpful. When you have to force yourself through a task that's valuable, but you have an unnecessarily difficult … [Read more...] about Help Websites Improve with This “Bad Experience” Email
There's an element of balance and thoughtfulness that has to be baked into your support and communication strategy. Otherwise, you can create a situation in which "helping" a customer can actually hurt them and you both. Decision Hacking You know that trick we had as kids, where we could ask both … [Read more...] about Training the Customer Wrong
We've entered a new era of data-informed decision-making. The capabilities of data storage continue to grow as the cost of storing data goes down. And you don't have to be harnessing "Big Data" to perform market research, competitive analysis, or user testing. The research we need to drive business … [Read more...] about Playing Telephone with Research
Each layer of knowledge may be a business opportunity, but that isn't the only layer to consider. When an idea lacks connectivity to its ideal context, the decision to trade money for time (or vice-versa) is null. You not only lack discoverability, but you've made it difficult to use the idea when … [Read more...] about Making the Connection
I've played guitar for over a decade now. Whether in a band doing original material or in a jazz band reading sheet music, memorization was obviously a key component. During my time majoring in classical guitar, that memorization 'muscle' got lots of exercise. Your most important final exam in … [Read more...] about When Familiarity Gives You False Confidence: Research
Inside the community of web designers, debunking the myth of "the fold" has been a consistent labor of love for years now (it's losing ground to the carousel/slider antipattern). Most folks understand that the concept of "the fold" comes from print, and that there are different screen sizes, and … [Read more...] about “The Fold” in Web Design, Explained Simply
In "content marketing", the definition of these two words with the same suffix can help your project succeed. In fact, simply having a definition for them helps. It sounds simple, but it's not easy to commit to—especially in a team environment. What is the intent of this project? What is the … [Read more...] about Intent for Content
