Link round-up (3/21/07)

• 10 High-Profit Redesign Priorities
• The Seven Tips for Agency Survival
• Top Bloggers on Communities
• Five Principles to Design By
• Eyetracking points the way to effective news article design
• Innov8 (or Die): What Banks Can Learn from Geek Squad
• The Future of Online Publishing
• Twelve Tips for Conducting Effective Surveys
• Think Outside ‘the’ Web Site for Post-Click Marketing
• Research Is a Method, Not a Methodology

• 10 High-Profit Redesign Priorities
  

  “Several usability findings lead directly to higher sales and increased customer loyalty. These design tactics should be your first priority when updating your website.”

• The Seven Tips for Agency Survival
  

  “Agencies need to make sure that everyone in the agency’s employ truly update their knowledge on the new media, creative and business landscape. If your people aren’t tinkering with alternative media, branded storytelling, retail and the techniques that really matter, encourage them, force them and if they can’t do it, replace them.”

• Top Bloggers on Communities
  

  “Here is a list of bloggers that focus on community development, management and engagement”

• Five Principles to Design By
  

  “Unlike Art, Design is always contextual. It matters when a design was created because of the context of its use: what problem is it supposed to solve? And for whom? At what point in time? This is why design is so related to technology, because technology changes so quickly, so must our designs. A design that worked ten years ago might not even be worth considering today. History is littered with wonderful designs that are no longer necessary.”

• Eyetracking points the way to effective news article design
  

  “On home pages and story level pages, eye patterns indicated that text that isn’t precise and images that aren’t information-bearing don’t get looks, amounting to wasted space. […] According to Coyne users treat pages with superfluous images like obstacle courses: The images create barriers to content. Moreover, Nielsen and Coyne concluded that images appearing unneeded, at least peripherally, will be erroneously tuned out.”

• Innov8 (or Die): What Banks Can Learn from Geek Squad
  

  “That’s the riddle. We tend to give up too easily and just throw our hands up, saying, “Well, we can’t innovate,” and then complain. But that’s a form of competition because that kind of attitude prevents you from beating your competitors.”

• The Future of Online Publishing
  

  “Media brands matter less than they used to; tools and applications are the new editorial bundles; and agencies must also lead with technology, or die. […] The surest way to succeed, he suggested, is to offer an application that enables consumers to do your marketing for you. […] Greenberg challenged agencies to change immediately to accommodate a new chain of influence that starts with technology and ends with content that has been crafted and delivered to the consumer’s specifications: Technology > Consumer > Advertiser > Agency > Content. […] His grim reminder: “At the end of the life cycle, there is no life,” was coupled with his advice to choose your future and plan for how you will get there.”

• Twelve Tips for Conducting Effective Surveys
  

  “Give your customers a good reason to answer your survey. Offer them a discount or give them a gift certificate. You’re asking them to do you a favor, so show your appreciation. Make sure the incentive is somewhat relevant to the customer’s interests. You wouldn’t give away an extreme-sports vacation to someone who would rather watch them on TV.”

• Think Outside ‘the’ Web Site for Post-Click Marketing
  

  “A Web marketing path starts with a landing page, but instead of trying to cram an entire pitch and offer into one screen, a good path will use that first page to gently segment the respondent. It gives them 2-3 choices of what to click next—a branch in the path—to identify what’s most relevant to them. The second page of the path then delivers on that promise, providing a deeper and more targeted presentation.”

• Research Is a Method, Not a Methodology
  

  “…I want to shift assumptions about research: Namely, stop thinking of it as a necessary approach to design and start thinking of it as just a helpful tool. Saying that research is required for every project would be like saying that all projects need wireframes or content analyses, which just isn’t the case. Yes, research is good for many types of projects (as outlined above), but it isn’t always a necessity.”

~ by chrismoritz on March 21, 2007.