Search Engines Of The Future

Posted by jeb on June 30th, 2009

Search engines are just not as good as they should be. I’m constantly amazed by how often they don’t even come close to getting me the information I need.

Bing/Microsoft were right to target this problem, “search overload”, in their new ads but really Bing is just a weak version of Google, no better than MSN Live search was. A search for “Indianapolis Web Company” pulls up www.indyfruit.com as one of the top results. Really!

So search isn’t what it should be. 30% of all searches lead to the user trying a different search. There is a lot of room for improvement.

I see search engines of the future being more like Wolfram Alpha. Touted as a “computational knowledge engine” Wolfram creates pages dynamically around search queries. Now don’t expect to type in “Indianapolis Movie Times” and get results. Try something like “Iran” and you will see a page auto-magically generate before your eyes. There will be links to expand certain areas or to link to other sites but mostly what you see is pulled in and dynamically generated when you hit submit. It doesn’t have the depth you want in a full search engine but when it works it gives you what you need to know and presents it in a very intuitive, user friendly way.

The current search engine results page lists links to 10 websites with text previews of each one. That hasn’t really changed much in 10 years. It doesn’t pull and organize that information in a meaningful way, that’s up to you. The search engines of the future will be pulling content from all over the web (see semantic web) allowing a free flow of content. This means that we may one day access and interface with content pulled from multiple websites without visiting the websites themselves.

The concept of a “website” may start to dissolve into “webcontent” that is pushed and pulled all over the web by search engines, social media, software/webware and portals we have yet to dream up.

I have no doubt that current and future websites have to be built to allow their content to flow freely in order to capitalize on the traffic third party content agregators will bring. Measuring this traffic may prove challenging if the agregator isn’t linking back to the source.

We are already seeing this happen with services like Twitter being platform agnostic. Many active Twitter users don’t go to Twitter.com to interact with the site. They use software, either web or desktop based, to interface with the service. Twitter, much like email, is a service more than a “website”. Facebook is moving this way and others are not far behind. Look at Google Local and see how companies are getting business from their listings whether or not they even have a website. Google Local feeds Google Maps feeds mobile phones and Google Voice, etc.

In looking at the current “kings” of search- Google, Yahoo and MSN- they all seem to be doing the same old thing. Sure the algorthim may be better but the information, relevant or not, is still presented much the same. I was disappointed to see Bing play it safe and not really take a big next step more in line with what Wolfram Alpha is doing.

The search engine that can combine Google’s depth and algorthim with Wolfram’s presentation may win the day. I worry that Google is becoming to conservative to take that risk.

Posted in Everything Else | No Comments »

Obsessing Over Website Usability- 3 Great Web Tools

Posted by jeb on June 1st, 2009

I have become obsessed. All I can think about is usability. I’m not sure if it’s a blessing or a curse but it occupies my mind constantly. All day I dream about….usability.

This has been sparked by a few recent developments. Some conversations with colleagues (shout out to Jon from Tuitive Group again) sparked my interest but some new tools have really changed the way I look at websites.

I am coming to see usability as the other side of the Internet Marketing coin. Getting people to your site with good search engine marketing/optimization (SEM/SEO) is a good start. Getting them to make convert is the other half of the battle. How do you know what problems they are encountering? What are they looking for that they can’t find? Why are they bouncing back to Google? This is where usability comes in.

In my search to be better equipped to provide this service for our clients I have found 3 valuable web-based usability tools.

The first is GetClicky.com.

I’ve been using this service for a while and it has steadily stolen ground from the ol’ Analytics standby Google Analytics. Get Clicky has some real advantages to Google and I won’t go into all of them here. The main thing I like about Get Clicky is that it forces me to see visitors as real people. The Visitor and Spy views are really good at creating a narrative. Where Google Analytics is strong on numbers, Get Clicky is strong on story. You feel like you are getting a snap shot of who the person is more so than other services. Here’s a screenshot of the Spy view for the Small Box site. The Spy view is a real-time feed that shows activity as it happens on the site.

Cost: $100 a year for a premium account (recommended)

Bottom line: Get Clicky forces me to see visitors as people and to see their visits as a narrative.

The second is FeedbackArmy.com

With this service I can get 10 real human beings to answer up to 6 questions about a website for only $10. I have already used this service with a number of clients and my Small Box website. Albeit some of the responses come from outside the US and you have to be a little suspicious of that feedback since I think usability and design is somewhat related to culture. I usually ask, as one of the 6 questions, what country they are coming from to help filter the responses and give more weight to the ones from the US since most of my clients are targeting the US market. Still the outside-US responses are often helpful. I would like to have the option to not publicly display the results but I would hope that option is in the works.

Cost: $10 for 10 responses. $20 for 23. $40 for 50.

Bottom line: FeedbackArmy.com gets you real human feedback for a fraction of the cost of doing “real” user tests.

Related: Check out 10 responses for SmallBoxWeb.com

The Third, and most interesting one, is UserFly.com

UserFly does screen captures of your visitors. You embed some code on your site and it captures real users using your site. Where their mouse goes, what they click on, how long they stay on each page, etc. A little creepy I know but useful, very useful. You can tell when someone is looking for something that they can’t find. Shortly after installing the software on our SmallBoxWeb.com site we noticed that people were clicking on our “Team” images in hopes of getting the contact form but getting, instead, the profile page for that person. So we made a change, now the image of the team member opens the contact form, and started seeing a nice little uptick in contacts from the site.

Cost: $25 for 1000 captures

Bottom line: UserFly.com is quickly becoming an indispensible tool for understanding how users really use a website.

userfly.com from Chris Estreich on Vimeo.

What are your favorite usability tools?

Posted in design, usability, web design | 1 Comment »

I Hate My Website

Posted by jeb on May 26th, 2009

Ok, I don’t really hate my website but I’m more than ready for a new one.

The current SmallBoxWeb.com is only a little over a year old but I feel that we have already outgrown it.

I don’t want to beat it up. It has done a great job of growing our company. It’s got a nice clean look, easy to update (thanks to our CMS) and has lots of useful information on our services and work. But it’s got problems.

Some people find the site confusing. The big blue box in the middle of the site can cause usability issues. We have too many services and too many portfolio items. The whole thing needs to be streamlined and re-thunk.

I didn’t come to this conclusion overnight. It started a few months ago. What triggered it was a closer look at how people are actually using the website. In a way we had built it for ourselves, not really considering how others might use the site. Sure, we thought we were building it with normal people in mind but really we built the site without any real user input.

Lately my eyes have been opened to importance of usability tests. I must give credit to Jonathan Arnold at Tuitive Group for having a hand in this awakening. His company does elegant and highly functional web design based on user testing.

I now have a couple new mantras. “Stop assuming, start knowing” and “Tweak and repeat”.

Stop assuming you know what people are doing, what they expect what issues they run into, etc. Start using the metrics that the web provides along with user testing to know what people are doing, what they are looking for, etc.

Once you get something going in the right direction don’t stop there. Continually fine tune and tweak. Never stop tweaking your site based on real metrics and user feedback.

So, we are in the middle of planning for our new one. To prepare we are doing user tests on the current site. I feel strongly that a web design company has to be prepared to re-build their site at least every 2 years. Do you have any feedback for us as we work on the new site? Be brutal, be honest, tell us what you really think.

I am planning another post that addresses usability more head on including some links to services we use to do user testing. Stay tuned!

Posted in usability, user intent, web design | 1 Comment »

Sweating The Small Stuff

Posted by jeb on May 18th, 2009

Lately I have been shown time and again how important small, seemingly meaningless changes can have a dramatic impact on a website.

I was on a panel recently discussing e-commerce with several local experts on the topic- Brandon Corbin from Sigma Micro, Jon Arnold from Tuitive Group, Kyle Lacy from Brandswag and Jeremy Dearringer from Slingshot SEO. To be honest I was probably the least knowledgeable of the group on this particular subject so it was a learning experience for me as much as the audience.

One of the most striking take-aways for me was how important small changes to a website can have such dramatic ROI. For instance, increasing the size of the search bar, having multiple value propositions throughout the site (Free Shipping! etc), modest design changes to a product page, using “cart” not “basket”, etc. All these items have been proven by multiple studies to result in a serious impact on sales. Sometimes the difference was millions of dollars per month depending on the site!

I just came across this blog via Twitter, thanks to @donschindler, and it reinforced my growing awareness. It’s also a book that you can buy on Amazon, etc.

Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive

Let me boil down what I’m taking away from all this:

Don’t assume. That’s the starting point. Stop working from assumptions that have no basis in facts. Stop thinking about how much work you put into your website to get where you are now. Be willing and open to completely re-thinking your project or website. Chances are you won’t have to scrap everything but come into the review process with an open mind.
User tests. Find out what people are really doing, what walls they are hitting and why they aren’t filling out the form, making the purchase, etc. Determine where the issues are before you start trying to fix them. This requires user surveys/tests, watching analytics closely, reviewing what the competition is doing, etc.
Herd mentality. We, meaning humans, are still very much interested in being part of the herd. For instance use “Other users also liked these items” instead of “We recommend these other items”. The first sounds like the cool thing to do the second sounds like a sales pitch.
Fewer choices, more answers. People think they want choices but they don’t. They want answers. Focus on answering questions that you know your users have based on testing and analytics. Anticipate what the user wants and they will be more likely to convert.
Tweak and repeat. Once you find something that works, tweak it, improve on it and then repeat that methodology to other weak areas.

Posted in design, seo, usability, user intent, web design | No Comments »

What Branding is and Isn’t

Posted by pj on May 14th, 2009

One of the things Small Box has always prided itself on is our web design services, however one of my goals is to take it to the next level. Done well, design:

reinforces brand identity
integrates online and offline content visually
creates a usable and informative display
attracts the right audience to your business

All that is to say that a high level design execution is important to the brand of your business. But the process of branding is about much more than your logo and tagline. For many small businesses they only get a chance to focus on this smallest part of their visual identity because of budget constraints.

But Small Box is looking for clients who want to do a complete integration of their online and offline identity with a true brand exploration process. If your website has outclassed your print materials, we want to talk to you. If your catalog or brochure is first rate but your website is not, we can fix your problem.

And if your online and offline marketing materials are not matching up to your competition, not reaching your target audience, or not promoting your products and services the way they need to - well let’s just say we can do it all.

Let the powerful minds of Small Box put our high level designs to work for you, to build your business identity as a leader among your audiences.

Why would you settle for anything less?

Posted in branding, design, marketing | No Comments »