David Herrold

Google opens Website Optimizer

Posted by Dave | Filed under Business, Design, Development, Google, Marketing, Usability, Web design

Google released their Website Optimizer platform last week for general use. It has only been available to sites using Google AdWords in the past, but now can be used by anyone to enhance site performance. This is great news for web analytic junkies, usability testers, developers and designers alike.

In a nutshell, Google’s Website Optimizer allows you to test multiple versions of content (ie. marketing messages, logos, icons, copy, etc) in a live environment to determine which combination of content yields the best results.

Based upon what you are testing, this “result” could mean higher click-throughs, increased product sales, increased product downloads, increased ad revenue, higher traffic to internal pages, etc.

This eliminates the guesswork of testing ad placement, site designs, product purchase flows, etc. You can simply release multiple versions of your content and look at the analytics to determine which one is yielding the best results.

There are certainly other tools to do the same job; but not many are free or this simple. We could certainly do the same thing at the Chronicle, however we would have to use several systems to make it happen. This simplicity of using one system appeals to me.

Here are some links to get you started with Google’s Website Optimizer:

Google Website Optimizer
Google Website Optimizer blog
Website Optimizer press release

(via Web Worker Daily)

Tags: analytics, Google, Marketing, Usability, website optimizer

SXSW 2008

Posted by Dave | Filed under Design, Marketing, Technology, Usability, Web design

I’m officially registered along with Steve and Lina at the Chronicle.  I’m looking forward to meeting some great people and exchanging some great ideas at the conference.

Drop me a line if you plan on attending.  I think it’ll be a blast.

Tags: conference, interactive, SXSW, Technology, Usability, Web design

Quicksilver reference videos

Posted by Dave | Filed under Apple, Productivity, Software

The Apple Blog has a great collection of Quicksilver reference videos that can help you get the most out of the application. Unfortunately, I still use it mainly as an application launcher (when I use it). I haven’t taken the time to really memorize all the key commands to do all of the wonderful things Quicksilver can do.

Speaking of application launchers, if you happen to be a Windows user, I think Launchy is probably one of the better launchers available.

I think as a rule, application launchers are much more useful for Windows than Mac.  I think the Apple Dock makes launching programs much faster on a Mac than the Start Menu on a PC.  There just seems to be more mousing necessary to use the Start Menu.

I suppose you could create a bunch of short cuts (or aliases) for your desktop on a PC if you used certain programs frequently.  But regardless, you don’t need to do that with an application launcher.

For some reason, I still find myself using the Apple Dock more than Quicksilver to launch programs.  It’s hard to beat one-click for speed.  I find myself using Quicksilver most frequently when I need to launch applications that are not in my dock.  I have around 25 apps in my dock and use about 20 of them each week.  I could probably remove 3-4 of them, but I would find myself needing to use a launcher more often if I did that.

And like I said earlier, it’s hard to beat one click for speed.

Regardless of my launcher hang-ups, Quicksilver is still a great application.

Link (via the weblist)

Tags: Apple, application launchers, launchy, quicksilver, Usability, windows

Pagination tips

Posted by Dave | Filed under Usability, Web design

How do you handle multiple pages of search results on your site? Smashing Magazine has seven tips for presenting your users with easy-to-use page numbering (as well as a few bad examples).

1. Provide large clickable areas
2. Don’t use underlines
3. Identify the current page
4. Space out page links
5. Provide Previous and Next links
6. Use First and Last links (where applicable)
7. Put First and Last links on the outside

It seems like Google is a good example of how to do it correctly.

Tags: Design, paging, search results, Usability