Archive for December, 2007

During 2007, my firm received hundreds of inquiries for services. The vast majority, perhaps 80% were in the “just make me a website like this one” camp. Many were carrying a previous designers’ handiwork with them in complete wonderment of how such a large investment could fail to produce results. As an design-by-testing developer, this pattern was highly discouraging.

The confusion among businesses about what is required to develop a web business is widespread.

“We just want to find someone to put up a site like our competitors’ ” was a very common request that, to me, is a horrible way to approach the problem. I think it is often a panic reaction to the competitor’s first-mover advantage or to a drop in ones site performance. It is too easy to assume that a snazzy site is also meeting the needs of the customers and reaching full potential. Intuition has its place, but you could be very, very wrong. Even experts get this wrong much of the time. I have evaluated the analytics data from some hot-shot designs and found exit rates over 80% and time-on-site under one minute for most visitors.

Unless you intimately know the market, which most web designers do not, designing “from the hip” is an irresponsible way to spend clients’ money. Every web developer worth their salt should be doing rudimentary testing of a business’ feasibility before heading down a given design path if one could even begin to achieve high conversion rates.

You can, to some extent, predict customers’ movements if you observe through testing and extrapolate the results into the larger design. Observation requires a laboratory, even if it takes the form of analytics on a screen. Lightweight page development with good experimental design can serve that role. While the sample sizes are often too small to achieve “true” statistical validity, even pseudo experiments with repeatable results can help you get into the right quadrant.

Why is it that small to medium businesses have not embraced the value of experimentation in web design and marketing? What has caused companies to embrace the myth of the superstar web designer or the fire and forget web marketing program?

Testing the idea’s potential before spending huge amounts of effort on web development or SEO is critically important, yet rarely done. I received at least 20 requests in 2007 for people wanting to do gift basket websites and at least 20 wanting to sell personalized products (as resellers of the same corporate gifts catalog!) None of these entrepreneurs had even considered the landscape in which they wanted to be painted was full of others doing exactly the same thing and the over-crowded search results pages served as direct evidence.

I am giving much thought to how we might do a better job packaging this story for future clients. I encouarge your ideas in the comments.

Related: conversion rates for some online retailers.

A black and white photo essay I did during my holiday visit to Guanajuato and outings into Rural Central Mexico. What a mind-clearing place this is. I hope you enjoy the photos. (want to see full size? click here)

Up from 30th, nice to see.

An interesting study comes from CCSU

Drawing from a variety of available data resources, the America’s Most Literate Cities study ranks the 69 largest cities (population 250,000 and above) in the United States. This study focuses on six key indicators of literacy: newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment, and Internet resources.

Here are the first 30…

City	Overall Rank 2007	06 Rank	05 Rank
Minneapolis, MN	1	2	2
Seattle, WA	2	1	1
St. Paul, MN	3	5	9.5
Denver, CO	4	8	6
Washington, DC	5	3.5	3
St. Louis, MO	6	12	15
San Francisco, CA	7	9	5
Atlanta, GA	8	3.5	4
Pittsburgh, PA	9	6	8
Boston, MA	10	11	7
Cincinnati, OH	11	7	9.5
Portland, OR	12	10	11
Cleveland, OH	13	14	18
Raleigh, NC	14	13	13
Kansas City, MO	15	17	14
Tulsa, OK	16	19.5	24.5
Lexington-Fayette, KY	17	30	27.5
Honolulu CDP, HI	18	22	35
Nashville-Davidson, TN	19	18	17
Tampa, FL	20	21	24.5
Columbus, OH	21	15	12
Miami, FL	22	23	27.5
Austin, TX	23	16	16
Virginia Beach, VA	24	27	41
Sacramento, CA	25	28	22
Charlotte, NC	26	19.5	20
Baltimore, MD	27	24	21
New York City, NY	28	42	32.5
Indianapolis, IN	29	29	23
Colorado Springs, CO	30	33.5	19

While walking through an area above Guanajuato Mexico today I came across the sign you see at the right. It caught my eye as the sign said “Casa el purgatoria - conosca algo diferente” (House of Torture - something different) and the sign showed a poor chap having himself dunked for some unknown insurrection.  It appeared to be a form of waterboarding - the controversial form of torture now at issue in the US and probably for the next presidential election. Given international (UN) conventions on this, I’m hoping at least one candidate takes a stand on the issue.

20 Pesos later and I’m walking amidst all forms of implements you see below.

While chatting this up, I learned the only way acceptable in the 17th-18th century to convict someone was to have at least 2 witnesses or to get a confession. And so, people became very creative in extracting such confessions for all manner of crimes both serious and minor.   Some of those methods are pictured below

I found the sewing machine pedal-powered wrist-breaker to be the oddest of them all.

click to zoom

click to zoom

100%. That’s how many of my comments have been censored by local Lexington TV Stations, dropping any credibility for a real attempt to build a community online.

I wonder….If you have something “thoughtful” to say, perhaps not jibing with the bible-beltish, hyper-conservative viewpoints, would it ever be published? From what I can tell, the only thing that makes it in are “God bless our troops” or short, brain-dead “hollerin’”

All of my comments were SFW. I’m not a trouble maker, well, not really, nor am I a minion ready to “cute” my way on the screen.

“We have to keep our comments family-friendly” — oh really?

So that is why you post Santa with a M-16. Yee haa.

“Tis the season” …for brain-dead vacation autoresponders.

Is it worth it?

Do you really need to reply to everyone while on vacation?

Chances are you don’t and the risks outweigh the benefits. In this blogger’s opinion. Some autoresponders can be set up in a smart way - such as sending the reply “only once.” But based on my experience, this is the exception. Most just flip them on and bolt, leaving everyone else to clean up the mess. If you were the one everyone depended on to protect the nuclear arsenal today, I could understand, but c’mon.

If you’re thinking of posting one today…think about this:

• Don’t autoreply to spammers: Your reply says a lot about your email set up. It can be used to increase the value of your email address to Spammers, and feeds the SPAM economy.
• Don’t start loops: his still happens, even in 2007. Some email programs are ridiculously stupid, and will auto-reply to auto-replies. Please make sure yours doesn’t. It just saturates the internet with crap, and makes IT managers have to answer the phone when they should be relaxing with family.
• Don’t reply to mailing lists: If you’re on a listserve, you could be sending your autoreply to lots of grumbling people who have no clue who you are .. you become the “wierdo with the autoreply.”
• If it’s broken, or sends tons of replies, it makes you look like a dweeb: Any autoresponder screwup makes you look like a dweeb. Wouldn’t it be better not to send them at all?
• It makes work for everyone else: Many of us get over 200 emails per day. We have to go through it. And we previously had you marked as an allowed sender. So you’re breaking trust, at least on the email side.
• Telling people about your tropical plans is snobbish.  It’s “nice” you’re going to the Bahamas or to Fiji.  But please keep it to yourself on your autoreply.  Otherwise I might just send an anonymous email to the border patrol about some alleged exploits you’re off to take part in on that little tropical island hop*.
• Thieves use autoreplies? Urban Legend? It’s probably unlikely. Keeping your departure and return time ambiguous is a good idea for lots of reasons… LOL. Making note that others may be in the office, but they won’t be checking your email won’t hurt anything. I can find out exactly who you are, where you work, and what brand of toothbrush you use in today’s world, but the chances of thieves using this is probably lower than some warnings make it out to be.
• Voice mail is very different than email and vacation messages are fine there, IMO. If I call you, and I need you, and I wait to HEAR your message, then I asked for it. Details about your absence might help those who REALLY want to reach you, so that’s the place for the info about your fancy trip.

*  C’mon.  I’m kidding.

I think I need to spring for a faster wireless network or I’ll definitely be dead before these files get copied.

1. Amazon Prime - This returned probably 500%+ ROI. Worth every dime.
2. EndPCNoise Workstation - the sweetest Windows XP machine I’ve owned. Spooky quiet.
3. Fujitsu ScanSnap - This was the year I went digital on just about everything. This was the reason.
4. Simulscribe - My voice mails, transcribed, and emailed to me. (I don’t know why people don’t just use email, but this takes care of that.) I got rid of my PBX, which was good, but total overkill and I got behind on voice mails to the point of embarrassment. Now I am staying on top of it.
5. Jajah- Simplified calling, mainly because you can add phone calls to your Windows Start menu - that saves me time! Jajah went downhill fast after I wrote this.  It is now unusable - cutting calls mid-call, a frustrating and unreliable website, etc.  Just horrible and a bit sad
6. A special separate monitor to run Quickbooks on, with the weekly timesheet on at all times.
7. Moondog Digital - encoded my entire CD collection for great office tunes.

Products that weren’t right for me:

• Blackberry 8300 - The 8800 would have been so much better. I’m going to get a 3G IPhone next year.
• Dell Precision 360 - Actually bought in Nov 2005, this noisy, finicky machine will hit the heap as soon as I can replace it. Dell put me through three on-site calls with a talentless hardware technician who screwed up 2/3 of what he did. No more Dells for me!

Holiday stress, money problems, and more causes child abuse to rise during this time of year. During this time it’s more important than ever to keep a watchful eye on the kids who are part of these situations.

This list, from a release posted at St. Louis University should be read by every parent.

1. Use common sense to determine how many “extras” really need to be done during the holidays. Don’t attend every holiday party, do lots of extra cooking, baking and decorating, mail cards and spend days shopping for perfect presents if the demands of caring for a child already are leaving you feeling stressed.
2. Stick within a budget and spend what you can afford on gifts. Pass on buying your child the extra-expensive gift he is requesting in favor of something else he wants that is within your means.
3. Try to get out, even if the weather is cold and gloomy. A change of scenery can prevent you from feeling so boxed in.
4. Know your personal limitations. Some people can’t handle the incessant crying of a colicky newborn but are fine dealing with a pre-schooler’s non-stop questions.
5. Talk to your spouse about the potential for child abuse. Make the topic a legitimate part of your communications. Don’t be afraid to ask for a break from caring for the children, and conversely, be willing to take over childcare responsibilities if your partner needs some time away.
6. Recognize when you’re about to lose your cool and do something about it. Make sure your child is in a safe place and leave the room. Counting to 10 is another way to cool off.

USA National Child Abuse Hotline
1-800-4-A-CHILD
(1-800-422-4453)
TDD: 1-800-2-A-CHILD

National Numbers and Weblinks by State is here

To report suspected child abuse or neglect in Kentucky call 800-752-6200.

I thought about how ridiculous this product was. It was a good idea to get all the charge-ables together in a single place. It was not a good idea to do it all on paper and never test the feasibility. But it clearly doesn’t work in the real world. The solution? Shall we redesign it so it really works? Nahhhh…Let’s SELL IT ANYWAY!