Situated Research's Blog

What do we mean when talking about the “chrome” in a user interface design? An attendee asked this question during a recent course on Visual Design for Mobile and Tablet. Whenever someone asks us a basic question, I assume that many more people want the answer as well — and thus, this article on chrome.

• Definition: Chrome is the visual design elements that give users information about or commands to operate on the screen’s content (as opposed to being part of that content). These design elements are provided by the underlying system — whether it be an operating system, a website, or an application — and surround the user’s data.
• Not coincidentally, “Chrome” is also the name of Google’s web browser, though I don’t use the term in that sense here.

I don’t know who came up with the term “chrome,” but it was likely a visual analogy with the use of metal chrome on big American cars during the 1950s: the car body (where you sit) was surrounded by shiny chrome on the bumpers, tail fins, and the like. Read more »

Many companies approach us and ask, “I want to maintain and update my own website. What CMS system do you suggest?” When reviewing content management systems (CMS) with clients, we go over the pros and cons of the most popular systems, and evaluate their background and website capabilities to ensure that the correct CMS system is selected for your company. Sometimes a CMS system is not the solution for a company, and an affordable monthly maintenance program is more appropriate.

Following, we discuss the pros and cons of three major CMS systems: Drupal, Joomla, and WordPress. Read more »

From 2005 to 2010, Cyber Monday sales (the Monday after Thanksgiving) have more than doubled, as illustrated above. A recent article from the Wall Street Journal showed an increase of 22% in sales on Cyber Monday in 2011, compared with the 2010 holiday season.

According to research firm Score, Inc., the 2011 holiday season saw a 15% increase in web sales over 2010, for a total of $35.5 billion in online sales (while overall holiday spending was up just 3.8% from 2010).

The holiday season is not just about selling products to your customers. It also involves keeping those that come for the first time, and keeping them there. As said by Jakob Nielsen, “It’s an old lesson: It’s much easier to close additional sales with existing customers than to acquire new customers. People who’ve proven willing to give you money will often give you more. This is true for all sales channels, but it’s particularly crucial for e-commerce because the first order proves your credibility if you effectively handle follow-up and delivery.” Read more »

One way to manage interaction design complexity is to have commands serve double duty. There are two ways of doing this, with different usability implications:

• Generic commands use the same command in different contexts to achieve conceptually the same outcome, even though details of the specific effects might differ.
• Overloaded commands use variants of the same command to achieve different outcomes — sometimes depending on the context and other times depending on where the command appears on the screen.

I discussed generic commands in depth in an earlier article. The most famous generic command these days is the pinch-zoom gesture, which works in most touchscreen user interfaces. In fact, the command is so pervasive that users expect it to work universally — and are sorely disappointed when they encounter an application that doesn’t support it. Read more »

Last week, we talked about the importance of doing a year-end business review. This week, we will present the importance of doing a website review. Read more »

How has business been this year? Are you aware of how the various sectors of your organization did this year, and would you like for them to do better next year? If so, then it is time to perform a year-end business review. Read more »

Last week, I made a slide for the new User Experience (UX) Basic Training course with the recommended number of test users for different types of studies. I like teaching foundational courses because they afford me just this kind of opportunity — to distill 25 years of usability process research into a single table. Patterns crystallize when complex topics are condensed to the essence. Read more »

My recent column Mobile Content: If in Doubt, Leave It Out advised site owners to eliminate secondary material when writing for mobile users. Many tweets, blog postings, and other comments on the article all expanded on this theme: Yes, do cut the fluff from mobile content, but also cut secondary content when writing for desktop websites.

In one way, I can only agree. Since 1997, conciseness has been a key guideline when writing for the web. People don’t read a lot on the web and leave in a few seconds if a site doesn’t communicate its value clearly. These findings lead to more detailed guidelines, such as emphasizing the first 2 words of nanocontent (e.g., headlines and search engine links).

So yes, cut the blah-blah from your desktop site. Read more »

I joined YouTube in 2005, back when it was cool and you could actually find interesting content. At the time, I was most interested in indie-acoustic guitar covers and performances of aspiring artists.

Now YouTube is clearly aimed at and for professionals and it’s dominated by major brands and labels. This is problematic for the average person or professional starting to build a fresh audience and competing with people who manage their channels full-time and have a staffs seems imposing to say the least. Read more »

Excessive HTTP Requests: Saturated Fat for the Mobile Web

Butter makes it better. Anyone who has enjoyed a nice French meal knows what we mean. Nevertheless, if you have a weak ticker and your arteries cannot handle it, fat can be a killer.

HTTP requests are the butter of the Web. They enrich the desktop experience with unperceivable impact; but on the mobile Web, the added latency can bring your site to its knees. The impact is devastating when you’re dealing with inherently slower processor speeds and are dependent on a wireless mobile network. Read more »

As online marketers become more aggressive with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaigns, there can become a point at which businesses begin to over-optimize. When focusing purely on SEO, many companies lose sight of the end goal, which is to provide information to users.

Even when you are following all of the more recognized SEO rules, when is optimization overdone and how can you prevent this from happening on your website? Are there Tsunami warning indicators to get out of the game before Google’s next Panda or Farmer update? And how do you find the ideal balance for your site, not overdoing SEO but also not leaving organic search traffic to your competitors? Read more »

Summary: Users often leave Web pages in 10–20 seconds, but pages with a clear value proposition can hold people’s attention for much longer because visit-durations follow a negative Weibull distribution.

How long will users stay on a Web page before leaving? It’s a perennial question, yet the answer has always been the same:

• Not very long.

The average page visit lasts a little less than a minute.

As users rush through Web pages, they have time to read only a quarter of the text on the pages they actually visit (let alone all those they don’t). So, unless your writing is extraordinarily clear and focused, little of what you say on your website will get through to customers. Read more »

When it comes to on-site search engine optimization, few elements are more important than the title tag.

For those unfamiliar with the term “title tag,” it describes the text that appears in the top line of a user’s Web browser. It is also used by search engines as the actual title of a search listing.

If you run an SEO campaign, then you should be very interested in how title tags are currently used — and how they can be improved — on your site. If you run an SEO campaign and are a savvy SEO, you’ll also notice how competitors use title tags on their Web properties. Read more »

Companies engaging in B2B marketing and sales are starting to recognize that the way people buy has changed dramatically over the years, with the continued development of Internet search and the emergence of B2B social media. What many of these companies haven’t yet realized, however, is that they may need to respond by changing the way they sell.

The maxim that “people buy from people” remains true, but how the selling is done needs to change rapidly. Continuous face-to-face selling can become very expensive where the buying cycle has changed dramatically from how it has been in the past. Unnecessary travel to prospects who are not ready to buy will have a huge impact on your sales effectiveness. Read more »

Few Web professionals should be surprised by the 2011 forecast in SEMPO’s recently released State of Search Marketing Report. If the words “social” and “mobile” are at the top of your business plan, pay close attention to the following.

If they are not, drop what you’re doing and pay even closer attention. Read more »