Central Perk

luni, 14 iulie 2014

SEOs Know Things about UX: Here's How to Prove it

Posted: 13 Jul 2014 05:13 PM PDT

As a human being currently using the internet, you have opinions about online user experience. The problem is, everyone's experience is going to be different based on their expectations. So although you, as a Moz blog reader and probably an internet connoisseur, may have some very good ideas about making your company's or client's site easier to use for the majority of visitors, there's a good chance that your boss or client will disagree with you.

If you're like me and aren't a user experience expert, it's going to be hard to argue with them on gut instinct alone. Rather than debate in circles, spend the time to validate your argument:

Prove there is a problem. This is a good idea even if you and your boss (or client) wholeheartedly agree that the site is less than optimal. Get feedback from visitors who aren't working on the site and see if their feedback lines up with your assumptions.
Propose a solution. Based on the feedback, propose a solution. It's best to do this visually with a page mockup.
Test that solution. See how visitors respond better to your new design than they did to the old design.

By going through these steps, you can build a strong case for implementing your recommendations.

How to prove there is a problem

The first step is to prove that there really is a user experience issue. If you're lucky and have time and money, the best way to get user experience feedback is to reach out to your customers and/or people in your target market and work with them in person. But most of us aren't so lucky. If you're confined to an SEO's budget like I usually am, you can use an online tool:

My favorite:

Qualaroo

Qualaroo is a simple yet effective way to collect feedback. You just put a small piece of JavaScript code on your site, allowing Qualaroo to load a question in the lower right hand corner of a page. You can:

Place the question on any page or group of pages

Write your own questions or use their helpful library of examples

Set a time for when the box shows up (e.g., on page load, after 15 seconds, or when the visitor moves their cursor up to the URL bar on their browser, indicating they might leave)

Example use: One of my clients runs seminars. They can host them in a number of places, but if the seminar is hosted in their primary building, they don't explicitly say where the seminar is held. I theorized that this is causing confusion for visitors and that adding the address to the seminar page would make visitors' decisions easier.

I didn't want to ask a leading question, though, so I just added a question to every seminar page, "Is there any other information you need to make a decision today?" Once I had collected a few hundred responses, I exported the feedback to an Excel file and started sorting ideas. I was right: a good proportion of people were interested in the location. The exercise also taught me that a lot of visitors wanted a sample schedule of the program.

Pros: Easy to use, fast way to get feedback, very flexible program

Cons: You only hear from people who are on your site

Price: $79/month (less if you pay for 1 - 2 years at a time)

Cheap feedback without access to the code of your site:

Feedback Army/Mechanical Turk

Feedback Army

While I recommend Qualaroo, I realize that many of you may not be able to convince your boss or client to install JavaScript and potentially distract visitors with your UX questions. If that's the case, you can use Mechanical Turk, or Feedback Army, which is a guy using Mechanical Turk for you, because mTurk's interface is pretty clunky.

Mechanical Turk allows you to submit questions to millions of online workers from across the world (about 30% are American), so you can use the same questions as you would with Qualaroo. You have to lead them to the right page to review as well, but that should be easy enough.

Pros: An inexpensive way to find and learn from testers

Cons: Mechanical Turk doesn't pay their testers a whole lot, so you'll get very quick, off the cuff responses. Plus, they won't be from your target audience or customer base.

Price: $40 per 10 responses

More expensive feedback without access to the code of your site:

UserTesting.com

usertesting.com

If you'd like a more robust user experience test, try out UserTesting.com. Testers are paid $35/test, so they're going to give you a much more in-depth, thoughtful review than Mechanical Turk. With a higher price tag comes a lot more information, though: you give testers a task and ask them for feedback along the way. This may be excessive if your idea was about tweaking one piece of one page, but it's great for information architecture/site navigation issues.

Pros: A still fairly inexpensive way to find and learn from testers. You can select your target market by age, gender, income, location, and experience online.

Cons: Reviewers are being paid well to test your site, here, so they want to do a thorough job, and I've heard they can be nitpicky.

Price: $49/tester (you'll need a few, at least)

Bonus: Running tests like these without access to the code of the site means that you can run tests on your competitors, too! Use either Feedback Army or UserTesting.com to learn what people like about your competitors' sites and what frustrates them. It'll tell you what you're up against, and pieces that testers praise may be worth imitating on your own site.

Quantitative feedback:

Google Analytics

Google Analytics won't give you the opinions of visitors, but sometimes actions speak louder than words. If your theory is that:

Calls to action aren't really...calling people to action
Visitors don't know how to navigate to the page they're looking for
Readers don't scroll all the way to the bottom of the page

Then you can look at:

What proportion of visitors clicked on that call to action (if there are multiple CTAs to the same location on a page, you may have to set up Event Tracking to be sure which CTA was clicked)
How visitors move through your site with the Visitor Flow report, and how many visitors clicked around before using site search with the Site Search report
How far visitors scrolled down a page, by setting up Events at certain break points

Pros: Free! And, probably already installed on your system.

Cons: You get a lot of data, but what it means can be somewhat up to interpretation. This might be a good springboard to convince a client that you need to do further testing, but it can't prove much on its own.

Price: Free!

How to propose a solution

Proving that there is a problem gets your boss or client to the table. The next step is proposing a solution and proposing it well.

The most effective way I've found to pitch a design change is to actually mock up your solution. If you have access to design tools, definitely use those. I don't, though, so I either modify the HTML with Chrome's Inspect Element feature or use a combination of the Windows Snipping Tool and Paint.

Snipping Tool & MS Paint

I know, no one gets design cred from using MS Paint. But I'm a child of the '90s, and Paint was my first introduction to design software, so it's easy for me to use. The point here isn't to use Paint necessarily, but to use whichever program you have access to and is easy to use. Don't stop yourself from creating designs just because you don't own a copy of Dreamweaver or Photoshop.

When I want to mock up a dramatically different version of a page, I use the Snipping Tool to take a picture of the webpage as it currently is, then modify the parts that I want to. The selector makes it easy to move elements around. If Paint doesn't have an option I need, I just use other Office products:

For text overlays and adding a variety of shapes, I'll often use Word, since it has a lot of text box options
For color changes and setting a transparent color, I use PowerPoint, because as far as I know it's the only Office product that has that option
For text changes, I'll modify the HTML in Chrome (see section below), then copy that over to my Paint design

Is this hack-y? Yes. Is it impressive? No. But it gets the job done. All you need at the end is a design good enough to communicate your idea. Once you get sign-off, actual designers will make sure that the details turn out right.

Rewriting the HTML

As I mentioned above, this works best if what you're doing is modifying the existing text or images. You can either download the HTML of a page, modify it, and share that, or you can use Chrome's Inspect Element to quickly modify text and take a picture of the result. It took me 15 seconds to change the text on Moz' homepage:

rewriting html in chrome

Just right click wherever you want to edit on your page while in Chrome and click "Inspect Element." If you want to make color changes or image changes, it'll be a little more complicated, but still doable.

You can do this in Firefox as well with Firefox's add-on, Firebug.

Once you've got a mock up, save it and send it on to your boss/client with your description of the changes you've made, the stats from your tests, and why your solution is solving those problems. (Just don't mention how you made that mock up.)

How to test your solution

Even if your proposed solution is a big hit and everyone wants to implement it right away, it's better to test to make sure that it's actually going to work before making a permanent change to your site. I've had a lot of clients tell me that it's too hard to test changes, but it's actually fairly easy with the right tools.

If you or a dev can build you variation pages:

Google Experiments

google experiments

Image from Marketing Engine Land, which includes more details on Google Experiments.

If you've got a developer who can build out your suggested change, Google Experiments is a free, reliable, and easy to use tool to track results. It's integrated into Google Analytics, so it uses the conversion metrics you already have set up (this may mean you'll have to set up a new goal to cover your test's desired outcome).

Pros: Free and completely integrated with Google Analytics

Cons: You have to create your own variation pages.

Price: Free!

If dev resources are limited:

Optimizely

optimizely

Optimizely does need a bit of dev work to install a JavaScript code onto your site, but once it's there, you can edit the HTML for tests with their web interface, without talking to a developer. You can edit with their editor or use actual HTML, meaning the tool doesn't require HTML skills, but still allows those able to write HTML the extra precision they can get from making changes to the code directly.

As a consultant, I love working with clients who have Optimizely installed, because I can take a test from start to finish. I prove the problem, propose a solution, set up the test, and present results, all without my point of contact having to take time out of his or her busy schedule to make any changes. And, once you have numeric results, it's easy to prove the value of your suggested change and get it into the dev queue.

Pros: Easy to use, and gives you a lot of flexibility

Cons: You have to start with the core page and then modify elements with JavaScript, so you can't make dramatic changes

Price: Based on your monthly traffic, prices start at $19/month

Make a solid argument for change

Assuming that each step supported your initial ideas, you now have more than enough data to strongly support making the change you suggested. When you make your recommendation, take the time to tell the story of what you went through—getting user feedback, coming up with a solution, and proving the solution works. Clients and bosses feel a lot more comfortable with your conclusions if they see how thoroughly you researched the issue.

Has anyone else gone through a similar process? Any tools you prefer, or tips you'd like to add? Share in the comments below!

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Seth's Blog : Lessons from the Eiffel Tower

Lessons from the Eiffel Tower

It was designed at home, on the kitchen table...
by someone who didn't get their name on it
Never been done before, not guaranteed to get built or to work
It was criticized by hundreds of leading intellectuals and cultural experts
It wasn't supposed to last very long
It's designed to be an icon, it's not an accident
People flock to it because it's famous
You can sketch a recognizable version of it on a napkin

Your turn to build one. Happy Bastille Day.

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duminică, 13 iulie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Making Sense Out of "Contradictrions That Make No Sense"

Posted: 13 Jul 2014 05:55 PM PDT

A New York Times headline by Floyd Norris reads In U.S. Data, a Baffling Contradiction.

The same article, by the same author, appears on Yahoo!Finance as In U.S. Data, a Contradiction That Makes No Sense.

The first quarter of this year was the worst for the United States economy since the depths of the Great Recession in early 2009.

During the same period, employers hired more people than in any quarter over the last six years, signaling gathering strength in the economy.

It is hard to imagine how both of those statements could be true, but they are what government statistics indicate.

While the employment numbers have been strong, the government sharply cut its estimate of first-quarter gross domestic product late last month. It had previously said the economy declined at an annual rate of 1 percent during the quarter — a small dip that could be explained by severe weather in much of the country. The new figures showed a 2.9 percent rate of decline, the worst since a 5.4 percent drop in the first three months of 2009.

What happened? Put simply, a single government survey produced highly dubious numbers. Those who conduct the survey say it was done normally and that nothing suspicious surfaced in the responses. But — particularly in the case of one vital part of the economy — that survey contradicted other available information. The result was suspiciously low revenue estimates for companies in both health services and food retailing.

The big decline in estimates of the size of the United States economy was caused primarily by a sharp reversal in the government's estimate of spending on health care services.

In May, the Bureau of Economic Analysis of the Commerce Department, which produces the G.D.P. figures, estimated that in the first quarter such spending rose at an annual rate of 9.7 percent before adjusting for inflation. That would have been the largest quarterly increase in 13 years.

There was a significant increase in Medicaid spending in the first quarter, said Benjamin R. Mandel, an economist who is chief of the federal branch of the bureau's government division. He said that increase was one reason the early estimate was so positive. He also said that increase had been expected because, thanks to the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid coverage expanded at the beginning of the year in many states.

But the revised estimate released in June said that spending on health care services fell at an annual rate of 0.9 percent. Instead of the largest increase in more than a decade, it was the first decline in nearly half a century, since the third quarter of 1965. That one change accounted for most of the decline in the estimate for overall first-quarter G.D.P.

Questions on Obamacare

In regards to the peculiarities of Obamacare I have a couple of questions:

Isn't a decline in health care spending a good thing?
Wasn't that the goal of Obamacare in the first place?

That said, I am not about to attribute such positive results (ironically portrayed by Norris as a bad thing) as directly attributable to Obamacare.

I stated this in advance of Obamacare passage: "Health care costs are on an unsustainable upward trend, and although Obamacare provides no incentive for lower costs, I expect lower costs anyway".

So here they are, and I am hardly shocked.

Questions on Employment

I am on far more comfortable ground in regards to employment. Norris simply did not dive into the details.

Yep, the last job report showed a gain of 288,000.

Had Norris bothered to look into the details, he would have discovered some interesting facts as I discussed in my monthly jobs report.

Voluntary part-time employment rose by a whopping 840,000 and involuntary part-time employment rose by 275,000.
Compared to a total gain of employment of 407,000, the gain in total part-time employment was 1,115,000. I confirmed with the BLS that one cannot directly subtract those numbers because of seasonal reporting.
However, one can compare seasonally-adjusted full-time employment this month to seasonally-adjusted full-time employment last month. Doing so shows a decline in full-time employment of 523,000!

The "strength in hiring" that Norris referred to was actually a decline in full-time employment of 523,000 - a number I confirmed with the BLS.

Is there a "contradiction that makes no sense" or is there sloppy reporting by people who do not dive into the facts?

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Seth's Blog : Literacy (and unguided reading)

Literacy (and unguided reading)

Two hundred years ago, the government of Sweden changed everything: They required all their citizens to be literate. It transformed every element of the culture and economy of Sweden, an effect that's felt to this day.

Television, of course, is a great replacement for the hard work of learning to read and write, but, if you think about it, so are autocratic governments and dogmas that eliminate choice. Unguided reading is a real threat, because unguided reading leads to uncomfortable questions.

Teach someone to read and you guarantee that they will be able to learn forever. Teach an entire culture to read and connections and innovations go through the roof.

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sâmbătă, 12 iulie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Will Guerrilla Warfare Linger Long After Ukraine Takes Donetsk?

Posted: 12 Jul 2014 10:22 AM PDT

Pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine hope for support from Putin, but no such support is on the horizon. It may be weeks or longer , but one by one, the Ukrainian army is taking back rebel-controlled areas.

Next up, Donetsk: A rebel city encircled by Ukraine's army.

A week has passed since the turning point of the Ukrainian army's triumph in Slavyansk, 110km north, the rebels' main stronghold in eastern Ukraine, but from which the militants fled last Saturday. Many headed to Donetsk, vowing to make a final stand.

Slavyansk fell after weeks-long siege and relentless shelling, with electricity and water turned off – for which each side blamed the other. But analysts and Donetsk residents warn similar tactics would risk too many casualties in a city nearly 10 times the size. Ukrainian officials have pledged not to bomb Donetsk, though many residents are not reassured.

"It has been a considerable achievement this week of the Ukrainian armed forces in eastern Ukraine, but the heaviest work is still to come," says Jonathan Eyal, international director at the Royal United Services Institute, a military think tank. "Securing the large cities is a far more difficult task. The Ukrainian forces will have much less to rely on in terms of sympathetic infrastructure. The police, for example, are locally recruited, and more pro-Russian."

The rebels, meanwhile, seem to be pinning hopes on help arriving from Russia, which still has a big military presence less than 100km away at the border.

As the fighting rages, Ukraine reported 23 of its servicemen killed on Friday, including 19 in a missile attack near the border. A day earlier Kiev said it had killed more than 50 rebels in airstrikes near Donetsk.

In the broader Donbass, Ukraine's industrial heartland of which Donetsk is the centre, hundreds have died. US agribusiness giant Cargill closed a $50m sunflower seed processing factory after it was occupied by armed militants.

Armed rebels – some locals, others from Russia – occasionally roam Donetsk on foot, or roll by in tanks and trucks.

To exit the city, cars must pass through armed separatist checkpoints. "Be careful, the Fascists are a few kilometres down," a rebel guarding the road south said, referring to Ukraine's approaching military – widely portrayed by Russian television since the ousting of Ukraine's president Viktor Yanukovich – as ultranationalists.

Down the road, the commander of a Ukrainian military squad asks: "What's it like up there? Are there many of them? Are they locals or fighters from Russia?"

Ukrainian officials say they aim to blockade Donetsk, forcing separatists to surrender or retreat. A military spokesperson talked of a "surprise" for the separatists, But it was unclear if that meant incursions into the city, which could involve bloody urban warfare – giving Russia a pretext for an invasion to protect the region's large Russian-speaking population.

Separatists appeared to be entrenching themselves for potential guerrilla warfare. Kiev accuses them of using Donetsk as a human shield.

"We are preparing our defences," Igor Strelkov, the separatists' military commander, told a Thursday press conference in the city's government administration building, now surrounded by separatists with Kalashnikovs and shoulder-fired rocket launchers. It was his first public appearance since fleeing from Slavyansk with his men.

What Now?

The Ukrainian army is about to retake Donetsk. They can take it quicker by brute force, or it may take weeks or months to starve it out.

In spite of pledges to not bomb Donetsk, the government has not shown the least bit of patience or willingness to negotiate. They offered a ceasefire - but only if the rebels laid down their arms. Ceasefire on those terms means surrender, and the rebels refuse.

One way or another, sooner or later, Ukraine will retake Donetsk. Then what? Scars and resentment will linger for years, even in the best of cases. And if Ukraine backs down on promises to give regions more autonomy, prolonged guerrilla warfare is a possibility.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

The President Is Listening

Saturday, July 12, 2014

The President Is Listening

President Obama was on the road again this week, breaking out of the D.C. bubble to meet with everyday Americans in Colorado and Texas -- many of whom had written to tell him what's going on in their lives.

There's an underlying theme to these trips: The President's listening.

He's listening to the teacher of 26 years who wrote him about the importance of early childhood education -- and he's fighting for the college student whose parents lost their jobs after the Great Recession.

The President is traveling across the country and letting folks know that he hears them, and that he's going to keep fighting for them so that this country can keep making progress.

See some of the highlights from the President's trip to Colorado and Texas.

The President heads to Denver.

President Obama landed in Denver on Tuesday and made his first stop at Wazee Supper Club, where he ate pizza with five Coloradans who wrote him.

President Barack Obama has a pizza dinner with local residents who had written him letters, in Denver, Colorado, July 8, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Later that evening, the President strolled through downtown Denver, shaking hands and chatting with people on the street.

The following day, the President spoke on the economy.

On a beautiful Wednesday afternoon in Denver's Cheesman Park, President Obama delivered remarks on the economy, the progress that his Administration has made, and how Republican obstructionism is making it more difficult for Americans to achieve their full potential.

President Barack Obama makes remarks on the economy at Cheesman Park in Denver, Colorado, July 9, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

The President closed his remarks by reminding people that despite the cynicism and obstructionism, he's going to continue to spend every day fighting to restore the American Dream for everybody.

"Every day I receive these thousands of acts of hope from you. I'm listening. It's why I ran for office. It's why I'm fighting for you. I will keep treating your cares and concerns as my own."

And then, he was off to Austin.

The President capped off his three-day tour in Austin, where he grabbed coffee with a letter writer and delivered another speech on the progress this country is making.

In the morning, the President met with Kinsey Button, a student at the University of Texas at Austin. She wrote the President talking about her family's struggles, after both of her parents lost their jobs.

President Barack Obama talks with Kinsey Button at the Magnolia Cafe in Austin, Texas, July 10, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Kinsey then introduced the President at his speech on the economy later in the day. During the President's remarks, he let Republicans in Congress know that he's fighting for middle-class families and wondered when they were going to do the same.

We're going to keep doing this -- because we've still got work to do.

The President is going to continue to travel around the country to meet with working Americans, talking about what their "day in the life" looks like, and highlighting the actions that he's taken this year to benefit them.

Find out more about the President's actions this year to keep moving our country forward.

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Expanding Opportunity -- It's Time for Congressional Republicans to Do Their Part

Featured

Expanding Opportunity -- It's Time for Congressional Republicans to Do Their Part

In this week's address, the President recapped his visits with folks who have written him letters about their own American stories -- their successes and struggles. While congressional Republicans are blocking meaningful measures that would strengthen the middle class, the President continues looking for ways to grow the economy and expand opportunity for more hardworking Americans.

The President again urged Congress to join him, as they were elected to do, in working on behalf of everyday Americans -- including those the President spent time with this week -- by investing in our infrastructure to support American jobs, and ensuring that the Highway Trust Fund does not expire.

Click here to watch this week's Weekly Address.

luni, 14 iulie 2014

SEOs Know Things about UX: Here's How to Prove it

SEOs Know Things about UX: Here's How to Prove it